I was a foster parent in Washington state for ages 0-4. I did primarily respite and receiving because I liked the shorter stays. We did one long term and said never again. We are looking at licensing again as soon as we are in a more permanent living situation. There were a lot of appointments, but I didn’t have to take the kids to them. It’s the state’s responsibility to make sure they were at those appointments, so if I requested a driver they would send one to pick up and drop off at my house. I chose this option a lot because I always had at least three kids and due to the age group the appointments were always a bit overwhelming. Travel out of state needed to be approved by a judge. Respite care was an option though. If you request respite they can go stay with another foster parent while you’re away. In state travel was fine as long as it didn’t interfere with visitation.

I make mine out of whatever scraps I’ve saved. Turnip peels, mushrooms stems, and garlic skins are nice in the normal carrot/onion/celery mix.

Kombucha is $3 per 12oz bottle here, and I can make a gallon for about $1 at home. I drink roughly two gallons a month, so the cost saving there really adds up.

I knew a couple who won an amount in the mid-seven figures. They actually did a lot of good with it, donated a ton to local parks and stuff, but in less than three years it was all gone, they were struggling to afford medications, and then like two years after that the wife got arrested for shoplifting liquor. The whole thing was really sad, they were the nicest couple, but they just couldn’t get it together, even with an opportunity like that.

We do baked oatmeal for breakfast a lot. I make a whole tray and we eat on it for a week. For lunches and dinners, I make a lot of curries. I make one that is a dozen large onions, a few tomatoes and peppers, plus spices. I mix in a few cups of chickpeas and serve over rice, and that’ll be lunch for the whole family for two weeks. We also eat a lot of beans. Tonight is burrito bowls: homemade refried beans, rice, and oven roasted potatoes with veggies. Our main snacks are bananas and spoons of peanut butter haha.

My family is going to be living in an off-grid cabin in the Ozarks for six weeks next spring. I figure most of the time my kids will want to just explore, but I would like for some of the exploration to be gently guided. I’m very interested in The Private Eye and I’ll probably end up taking inspiration from there. Does anyone know of any other resources that have a similar feel? Any really great guides to plants and bugs? Anything else at all? Thanks!

Yes, you are right about why the Maui costume was considered offensive. An actual wearer of tribal tattoos, provided they understood and were acting in accordance with the cultural meanings of those tattoos would very likely be fine, especially because someone getting such a tattoo would likely go to someone who also held the meanings as important. Random Joe Tattoo giving tribal butterflies as a $49 chair special is not okay, however. I do understand what you’re saying about children just wanting to dress up as Disney characters innocently, but especially because islanders have already dealt with most of their culture being turned into campy novelties, it just isn’t something that should be done by non-islanders. As far as the costume verses actual tattoos, I agree that an actual tattoo is worse, and I think there is a level of hypocrisy there, or maybe I just haven’t seen any recent uproar about tribal tattoos since they aren’t very popular anymore. ETA: The movie was fine. It honored the culture and didn’t characterize it, and Disney used islanders as the voice actors and consulted with islanders during the writing and production.

Did you ever see the Nightmare Before Christmas? I’ve seen it used as a simple way to explain appropriation. Basically, there wasn’t anything wrong with Jack being infatuated with the beauty and whimsy of Christmas. However, instead of appreciating Christmas as a beautiful, regional celebration, he treats it like something that’s been kept from him and with his very limited understanding of the intricacies of the tradition, declares that not only will he be hosting Christmas, but it will be even better than the original Christmas! So he takes it to Halloweentown and is praised for his cleverness while giving very minimal credit to Christmastown people, and Santa Claus is denounced and imprisoned for trying to celebrate it. Things that fall under CA are objects or traditions with important meanings to a minority culture, cheapened and treated as novelties, especially if a profit is involved. Appreciating another culture’s art or dress or anything else isn’t CA, but treating a culture’s traditions as entertainment without regard for the meaning of them within that culture is CA. None of this applies to majority traditions like modern Christmas or any other national holiday. While cultural, those are what I consider “public domain” holidays. Everyone is assaulted with them from all directions when it’s their time of year. They’re celebrated almost universally with people adding or subtracting whatever they want.

I’m a long distance runner and my times definitely vary based on my cycle. Turns out progesterone levels affect glycogen stores. This is an interesting article about it: https://www.active.com/running/articles/how-to-use-your-menstrual-cycle-to-become-a-better-runner

I loved foundations. I thought it was really engaging and fun. The workbook pages are neat and colorful. I really liked everything about it (except the price), but we ended up dropping it because my daughter didn’t need the level of reinforcement it offered, so we went to something cheaper. It was very thorough. I really fell hard for the “cursive first” philosophy and we tried it, but we ended up switching to print. It was just so much easier for my daughter to write the words she saw when she was reading than it was for her to remember how to connect the letters and what they were supposed to look like.