I think nearly all of the colleges have changed to lots of choice. Youngest ds didn't have to have P.E. credit, the first year his college did not require it of the engineering majors. Everyday he else had to take it. But the deans were determined to make it possible to graduate in four years and with other Gen Eds and at majors that required 90 hours to complete, it was becoming nearly impossible to schedule it all, and have and elective or two in their majors. So they dropped P.E. (which was not needed because students on campus walk a two mile round trip daily to get to the engineering department where there isn't enough parking to be able to take their cars if they have them, and the road is so nasty it can't be biked in the winter - many of them snowshoe or cross country ski to class and the maintenance department provides rides for all disabled students) and their foreign language requirement. He graduated in four years and was, physically fit! LOL, this is very common though with the campuses in the Upper Peninsula. The kids who attend are already the ones that love the great outdoors, walking, hiking, climbing, etc. and choose these campuses for that lifestyle. The other two boys had to have 3 credits of P.E. DD however, got it waived, and I think that had something to do with being a paramedic and working per diem on the weekends. Since there was a physical fitness requirement in order to work the job, I think her advisor got it her out of it. Back when I was in college, EVERYBODY got saddled with it, and they would do a college version of an IEP for disabled students. I knew a girl who was parapalegic who had to meet with the t.a. every week for upper body strengthening workouts with weights and what not in order to meet the requirement. Are there any colleges left that still have the swim test requirement in order to graduate? I know that was a thing back in my parents' time.

If you ever get up to Munising, you can see some of this spectacular view by boat. They do whole scenic tours from the water. Just be sure to go online and book your tickets a couple months in advance because if you just walk up, it is pretty well guaranteed they are already sold out. There are lovely picnic areas at state and city parks, places to get in the water. The Bay Furnace National Forest Park day use area is just down the hill going west out of Munising about one mile and can be a wonderful place to have a picnic lunch. Going north east out of the roundabout, there is a National Park/National Lakeshore beach area that is super nice, and also a small NP visitor center. You can very much get away with not camping or hiking and still enjoy the wonder of the region. The AmericInn of Munising is pretty nice and cheaper than the Holiday Inn. There are also some decent mom and pop, independent motels as well, but the pool at AmericInn is great when you want to take a dip before bed. I cannot remember if they have a hot tub or not. The town has a decent supermarket, a Hardy's, a Dairy Queen and a Subway Sandwich Shop plus some nice independent eateries and good pub. We tend to always pack food since eating out is pretty expensive these days, and for me with gluten issues, these places do not have a lot of choices. The almost best scenic, but potentially not as direct, route to Munising after crossing the bridge, is US 2 east paralleling Lake Michigan (gorgeous scenery all along the way) to M77 towards Blanket Park and Seney, then turn left on 28 which will take you right into Munising. The drive to Manistique on US 2 and then north on 94 is probably the best because Manistique is gorgeous. But 94 is a bit more remote and not quite a good of a main road so I don't recommend it to newbies who aren't familiar with the U.P. If you get gas in St. Ignace on U.S., stop at the Shell station. It is less busy than B.P. and Holiday, and the bathroom is kept really clean. Then if you get decent mileage, you can make it to Munising just fine. If you need fuel though or a mother bathroom break, there is a B.P. at the corner of U.S. 2 and M77. Yes, I know. A shameless plug for my home state! 😁

I don't have pictures but I will in a few days. I have a large Arbor floral arrangement to make for a wedding on Sept. 16. After that with the hope that harvest season will be winding down and so will be done in the kitchen, I will be making to Halloween throw quilts and some autumn colored throw covers for the couch pillows as well as a table runner. I will post of pictures of each one as I get them done.

I am sorry your harvest was so bad. That is discouraging. Might I suggest that you get some good compost and a nice fertilizer, and add that this fall so it has time to grow good organisms? Doing it at the end of season might get you further than waiting until it is nice in the spring because just as soon as the top layer of soil thaws, it will begin perking in the bio world, but since it is cold, wet, and miserable, most gardeners won't be out trying to amend beds that early.

Yes, scallions and green onions are the same thing. I am so new to this, I have no idea if they will overwinter. Really clueless and should look that up. In Michigan, we get a lot of snow and some ice where I am at so I really need to see what things can over winter and which ones can't. I know they will freeze for sure since everything is in easier beds. Even with covers, there won't be enough heat to prevent that. So I think that just like radishes, they could be a cover crop and then filled under in the spring. But, that is me thinking but not really knowing. I should spend some time today with my nose buried in my gardening books.

I know! I am tired of it too. But, I just keep at it. I don't want good food going to waste, and supplementing ds and dil with a nutrient dense produce makes me content. They ate cherry tomatoes, pepper sticks, and carrots fresh with hummus the minute they got home. Picked fresh, fully vine ripened, organically raised, I know those things are like eating big multivitamins only better. Ds doesn't always eat very well know that he is in grad school, publishing articles and columns, and doing free lance editing. Knowing they were going home to eat these things filled my mamma heart with happiness. Today I am making a small batch of peach salsa, canning roughly 7 quarts of plain tomatoes, and Mark wants me to can more mild enchilada sauce. I might just blanch and freeze the last of the tomatoes I have ripe at the moment and make enchilada sauce fresh throughout the winter. I keep dried garlic bulbs around, and yes, will have to buy not fresh, shipped long distance onions. But I will have peppers and jalapenos frozen from the garden as well so the flavor profile should be very, very close. I just don't feel like canning for the entire day when it is 94 outside, high humidity, and the air conditioning is struggling to keep up.

That looks beautiful, Melissa!

Okay, that is a serious level of escalation. The next time this child might stab someone. I think at the least, the school needs to provide an adult aide full time to that child. There really needs to be a full on safety plan, and the parents of that student needs to be fully informed and on board with that plan. I am so sorry for your little boy! That just breaks my heart for him. Poor little guy. I really hope the school gets on board immediately.

My daughter in law stopped by this afternoon to raid the garden for cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, and carrots to go with her hummus. It made me so happy to have those garden fresh things for her.

I think that is fine. Keep them separated if at all possible. And then when you are better and you and Dh are ready to tackle issues, you can ask the school for help in training the boys to understand what behaviors are triggering to their classmate. This way they can learn how to tune in to things like that. It is so tough! I am sorry, Melissa. I keep hoping that you will catch a break from stress very soon.

My theory on P.E. teachers is that about 75% were school bullies themselves and then gravitated to a career where they are legally sanctioned to bully kids. They get off on the power. I only ever had one decent P.E. instructor. College. And his concern was exercise for health and stress reduction so instead of doing anything remotely sports related, he guided us I to trying different types of exercise and just general movement and personal health and fitness goals. He taught anatomy and physiology as part of the course. I took up swimming. I was able to swim. Probably a Red Cross level 3, so I knew how to swim, jump in and surface, swim easily to side, back, side, and free style. But I had never done enough to have endurance. So that is what we worked on, and he was great. Lots of encouragement from his T.A. who was a sports medicine person. It was demoralizing at first. I would get in and just be completely out of breath after making it to the end of the olympic pool, and then J.T., a student training for a triathlon, would dive in, swim half the length in one breath, surface, and start doing laps like Flipper. Sigh. Oh so embarassing. But the day I managed a full lap, he was there, and came over, congratulated me, shook my hand, and told me he was so excited that I was working so hard to personally inprove. It gave me enough confidence to not switch after four weeks when we were given the option to try something else. I kept going, and was able to do 4 consecutive laps of the pool by the end of the semester. I was the most fit I have ever been in my life and that is saying a lot because I was quite fit in middle and high school. Sadly, when I left college, I left a life of having access to lap swimming. We have never lived anywhere since then where there was open lap swim somewhere close enough and cheap enough to work with our budget, my jobs, and our family schedule.

I masked today, KN95, at Ali's and went at a time when it is never crowded. Got myself in and out very rapidly. I need to order more masks. We will be back to hunkering down. Both ds's, the bachelor's have decided to mask at work and thankfully their managers are supportive. They might lose the masks after the next booster just because in their particular jobs, the masks are a pain. Eldest boy is in grad school, and two of his three instructors are high risk and have opted to go back to allowing as many students as would like to sign in by zoom instead of come in person which had meant that they rarely have more than five other people in the room, and the rooms are large. Right now windows are open. Daughter in law has two classes and she had to go in person so she wears an N95. Everyone is on pins and needles waiting for the booster shot since my mom is getting over covid. It took a round out of her too. She wasn't particularly sick, given what really sick means with this virus, but it exhausted her. She just wants to sleep so much. I keep encouraging her to rest, hydrate, eat, rest. I will send food down again tonight. We have a wedding the 16th. I am thankful it is only 50 people from a crowd of folks who are pro-vaccine. It is outdoors at a state park so lots of fresh air, air flow. I would prefer not to be masked because we are the honorary parents of the bride whose own parents pretty much abandoned their kids to grandparents who have since passed away. There will be a lot of photos, and it sure would be nice to be carefree and merry. So I will probably mask when going indoors to the public restrooms, but go without when milling about outside. Fingers crossed. Hope for the best.

I read a Cleveland Clinic nutritionist article on it. The gist is that if is a small amount of mushroom added to cover grounds. It slightly reduces the amount of caffeine intake just because of replacing a small portion of the grounds, but all of the interesting healthy compounds of the mushrooms are basically destroyed. So it isn't a healthier choice, just a choice among flavors of coffee really. The suggestion was that if you like an umami type flavor profile for your coffee then go for it. But if you want to make a change for health. Reduce the amount of coffee you drink and then eat mushrooms that have been prepared in healthier ways like sliced on salads, roasted briefly, saute', etc.

We keep an Intex blow up 12' diameter one "30" or so deep) for cooling off. We don't want the expense - home owner's insurance will go through the roof - of having one. I sometimes do a little water aerobics type thing in it. It had a filter, and we use diatomaceous earth along with salt tablets for keeping the algae and bacteria out of it. We bought a drawstring pool cover for it, and it works well. The whole thing costs less than $200, and it is cheap to maintain from year to year. That said, they do wear out and begin leaking air after three seasons. However, we can do this every three years for a very long time before we would be out any serious money compared to having any other kind of pool. In an ideal world, I would have a lap swimming pool. But I don't see that happening. Maybe someday at our Alabama house since there is more room for one, and the insurance to cover one is better priced.

Yes. I would have this conversation first as well. Also, it is really dangerous to the deer because deer wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis is spread often at feeding/baiting sites because one sick deer in a clump of eager eaters at the same pile, can infect all of them. At times, it is very illegal in my state to feed them because the DNR does not want them constantly coming back to the same feed pile. If not fed by humans, they disperse and forage for food which is better for them. It is also better for dairy and beef farmers because the deer spread bovine tuberculosis to the herds whenever it gets epidemic in the deer population. Then those cows have to be slaughtered to stop the spread and keep it from getting to humans. So maybe OP could gently explain that in the end, feeding the deer is very bad for their health. People can be very unaware of this. Then again, there is my mother in law whom we had to come down on with both feet because we told her and told her and told her not to do it, and she did it anyway, multiple times. So we told her that if she goes kept it up, someone with cause to visit the house, like the mail lady with packages to deliver to the porch might turn her in, and she would be fined a very vastly fine. The threat of wallet raiding by the state was what put an end to her deer feeding. Sigh. Done escalate unless you really have to do so.

I suspect your houseguest may feel like she needs to contribute, but is kind of unsure of what to do so just randomly does things. I would be more inclimned to assign specific things to her such as a once a week vacuum and just or plan and cook two meals or something like that. I wouldn't worry so much about your ds. Houseguest will be gone in a while, and you will be able to get him back on track with helping.

My garden is in the winding down stage. I have a ton of carrots just now ready to pull. This was from my second sowing. I am really happy with their quality and flavor. They are Scarlett Nantes. So they are shorter, more stubby. Mark likes them, but he is such a traditionalist. "Why didn't you plant the regular, long skinny ones?" Me: "Dearie, they were going into a not very deep, narrow raised bed....the one you bought from a kit from the home improvement store. I can't adequately grow a 9-12" carrot in one of those when the bed is only "12-16" deep or whatever that one is." He felt bad about questioning my judgment, and came back to say the carrots are yummy, and he is impressed that I was able to grow so many. And guess what Mr. H. I have more of those seeds left in the packet, and so these will be used again next spring. So the carrot plan is not changing. The scallions, a long row of them in front of the carrots, seem pretty spindly. They never became very robust. I blame the carrots which grew in such a frenzy. I will give them another week, and then pull them and see what is what. Maybe with the carrots out of the bed and a little organic vegetable fertilizer, they will put on a little growth before it gets cold. I don't know a thing about growing these. So whatever happens is okay. No disappointments. The steam burns on my two fingers are healing. The fingers are sore, but not so bad that I can't use them. I can pick a mess of tomatoes today, and will be canning them. But between the half peck of farm market romas that I bought and what is easily 12 lbs of tomatoes I have from the garden, it is going to be more than 12 quarts of tomatoes. So I am just going to freeze the leftovers, and I can make something with them this winter. I am getting tired of all the canning. I sent our sons home each with the following: 5 quarts of plain tomatoes for chili, 7 pints of mild taco sauce, 5 jelly jars of peach salsa, 3 jelly jars of hot salsa, 2 jelly jars of pickled jalapenos, and a long string of red chilis to hang up to dry in their kitchens. I have some hanging in mine, and I like to look at them. They smell great, and look festive. I also have a long string for my mother in law. She likes to make pickled asparagus and puts a red chili in each jar. And I still have another 25 chilies ripening in the garden. We have to do something with a whole bunch of egg plant. I have no idea what though. And I have four bell peppers to pick plus a bunch more jalapenos. But again, I am so tired of canning that I think I will just freeze them. Apples will be coming on soon, and I will be busy with the dehydrator. I am going to try to have 4-5 quarts of apple chips for each of the kids and my son in law who loves them very much. So that isn't going to be a small job.

I love that area! I hope you had fun. Sorry about your friend having a bad time. That would be me. Something is up with my hypothalamus, and I don't regulate body temp very well so I have to be careful about not being out much in intense heat and humidity. Pictured Rocks is one of my many very favorite places in Michigan!

Would it help the school jump on the situation and provide more supervision of the other student if you said something like, "My son has already been assaulted by this student before, and now is threatened with an item that can be used as a weapon. Is this beyond the scope of what you can handle? Should I involve the police? Because if you need the help of the police in this matter, let's get that happening now before something worse occurs." Say it sweetly, in a nice passive aggressive voice like you are only trying to help them get a grip on the problem. No idea if that is the right course of action. I think it is very hard for schools, to be honest, when they specialize in dealing with an entire student body of special needs children who need intensive supervision. But still, they also need to not have anything laying around that can be a weapon, and clearly since there has already been physical assault, the other student needs a one to one aide, or some sort of direct, intensive supervision. I am really sorry, Melissa! You didn't need this right now.

I just found out about these cute things yesterday, and now I want about five of them in my yard!!! 10000000_841037244206775_5076624740465478320_n.mp4

I really like just plain coconut oil for dry skin. I use it a lot.

Our daughter kept a co sleeper crib thing attached to her side of the bed. So baby wasn't in their bed, but if she needed to, she could sleep with a hand right there on baby. She could slide him over to nurse, then tuck him back in without ever leaving the bed. She also had a Moses basket because she spends a lot of time outdoors when the weather is nice. She liked tucking him in, pulling the sun shield up, and then leaving him nearby while she worked in the garden. The Moses basket was so cute...dino themed. I loved using it with little T, and carried him all over the big yard, set him down, and then fertilizer fruit trees and pulled weeds or helped his older brothers pick blueberries. Little man was very cozy in there.

Ignore us, Melissa. We love you and are just being fussy, mother hens who want to kick ass and take names because we want you better so much faster. Think of us as your dotty Aunt Grizelda, and feel free to roll your eyes. I am holding out a great and mighty hope that you feel a lot better soon, and that the treatment plan works.

I can't get past how traumatized the other classmates must be. My heart breaks. How will they ever trust another authority figure ever again? We can't blame them if they grow up to be adults who look at the people in charge with hatred, and the middle finger for being told what to do. The consequences here go far beyond just the horror for the family of the murdered child.

It isn't so much "why do I wear a bra" but "how do I wear a bra". I wear a bra with great disdain and hatred. Therefore I avoid as much as possible. But I am also not a books girl so much as a pamphlet girl, and after nursing kids, more like a pamphlet left out into rain, saggy mess kind of a girl. I can usually get away with a good shelf camisole. But now and again, basically when I am performing at the piano and am wearing an evening gown or cocktail dress, I don a bra and then mentally cuss the crap out of it. I would describe my chest as having two, children's tube socks with a golf ball in each toe sewn to my chest wall. I would be happy to do without them.