Our movers come to start packing us up in two days. I lost a lot of purging time to emergency work that needed to be done. I will try to get rid of a few more boxes of stuff and a couple pieces of furniture, but there isn't much time left.

My 17 year old said working hard on the roof made him feel like a man. He doesn't have as many opportunities to do big and somewhat dangerous things as his farm cousins.

We had an emergency reroofing party last week. My sister brought her kids to help. Ages 14+ worked on the roof consistently. All but the youngest spent some time on the roof pulling nails. The youngest four worked hard picking up trash. Ages 6-11. I'll remove the picture shortly.

I wasn't trying to chastise you, just saying how I would feel about my parents helping my brother or sister. They are helping me with something big right now. They've helped my siblings with things other times. They are of retirement age, but my dad still farms. They just put some money in some kind of investment. I only know because they put all our names on it. I told them to do something fun with it. I honestly wouldn't care if they gave it to one of my siblings.

I would not begrudge my siblings help if my parents gave it, and I would help my kids get a down payment if I could. My family tends to help each other out a lot, though. All of us have benefited by my parents' generosity, and I'm not even talking about money.

There is no compensation for that.

I try to keep it evenish in fun and meeting needs, but only somewhat even in number and don't attempt to make it even in money. The boys are getting computers this year, and I'm not going to spend as much on my 9 year old who is thrilled with smaller things just for fairness sake. We have 3 semesters of college to pay for in a few weeks. I also got my older two girls over ear head phones. I got my oldest a name brand (on sale but still expensive). She is 20 and has a track record of treating things well. I don't have any reason to think my 13 year old wil be careless with hers, but she got a "training" set for now. They seem nice, not junky, and she'll be happy and content with them for now. When she's older and ready for a new set, I can upgrade her. It has only really backfired once when I misjudged how fun I thought a kid would find something. All of my kids are given a lot all year long, but they have different needs and wants at different ages and stages. None of them has reason to complain.

My parents haven't gotten mean. They are between 74-79. Maybe not elderly yet? Dh's parents are mean, but they've always had a mean streak.

If he likes Chess, he'd probably like Onitama.

So, I did a rough count. Some are boxed up and being stored at a friends house, but including expansions (that came in other boxes, not big boxes) which can be a debated topic in board game circles I am probably over 200. I would guess that around 40 of them get regular play and another 40 get pulled out often enough to justify the space they take up. I'm not in a hurry to get rid of the rest though.

I've never counted. My kids say over 100, but I don't think so. My older kids have definite preferences for games, so we I have games for Dd20 (party games, word games, light strategy) and Ds19 games (complex, deep strategy), and for Ds17, who has no taste we have several Monopolies. lol The little girls, especially Dd13, are more willing to play all the games. Maybe because they liked playing with older siblings. I will play most games - no MTG, no Monopoly. I just like spending time with my kids.

Less than a mile for many situations. Our Airbnb was technically within walking distance of our Fall Nationals tournament, but we weren't walking over a mile with 4 gear bags after dark in an unfamiliar city after a long day at the tournament. The people at a hotel 3-4 blocks away were within walking distance. If we'd been walking to the museum near the tournament venue from our Airbnb, it would have been walking distance at a little over a mile.

Text or email but text is better for reminders. I am terrible about reading things ahead of time, but it isn't because I don't want to be prepared. It is because we are so busy, which obviously isn't the responsibility of the people running the activities (bolded so no one misses that I owned up to this. lol) But if a kid has a choir concert on a Tuesday evening, but I have a tournament 8 hours away over the weekend plus regular activities and school etc. between now and then I will not start thinking about the choir concert until Monday at the earliest. My family members, the ones who still live here full time, were all home for exactly two weekends in a ten week period this fall and they had local tournaments both of those weekends. And in those weeks we had regular practices, youth get togthers, and friends over. We had a choir concert, a dance recital, and field trips. I moved two kids to college, sewed Halloween costumes, put designs (all different) on shirts for my husband's extended family, and got my house ready to list including helping with major home projects (we are in the middle of a transfer). I had two garage sales. We mostly kept up with school. I don't think we missed anything. I even brought all the snacks I was supposed to. Everyone met dress codes. But, yeah, I did text friends with kids in the same activity stuff like, "What time is the recital tonight?" The girls had a piano recital yesterday, and I had to check a message yesterday morning to know if it was a Monday or Tuesday thing. So for the somewhat irresponsible parents like me (I am not being sarcastic here), a text the day before or the morning of with just the pertinent details is great. Recital tonight at 6:30. Have kids there by 6:00 dressed and ready. address link

Colt Express has an interesting mechanism that is different from every other game I've played.

We stopped by my early childhood home to look at the outside this past summer. So many great memories of that place. I lived in a couple of junky rentals after we moved while we built a home on the farm my parents bought. We are going to try to keep it in the family. My dad has it set up so that if a family member buys it, it will be at 75% of its value. My sister just told me that she would waive her inheritance if my husband and I wanted it. I wouldn't take her up on it, but it shows how much she'd like me to move down there. I think it is more likely that one of her kids would get it. I really hope so if my husband and I don't. My brother is settled too far away.

We just bought #15. We've lived in this house 11 years. It is the longest I've been somewhere.

For me: Coffee - $0, Tea - $60/year or less For family: Coffee - $20-30/year, Tea - $60/year We mostly drink pop when we have company over or are traveling, but we travel a lot. Not lots of vactions, lots of miles driving across country including at night after long days. There are 5 of us still at home. So maybe up to $400? That looks so terrible, but it may be less. I don't track it. The road trips really up that number. Sports drinks/Ice drinks - $100-$200/year. Mostly at tournaments or traveling. We do take our water bottles, too, I promise, but when you drive up to 23 hours straight through little treats make a difference. And tournament days can last 12 hours. That is a lot on drinks. Interestingly, perhaps, my entire grocery spending is only around $10,000 for 5 full time residents and two college kids that are home sometimes.

I've told my kids I want a stanza from Longfellow's Psalm of Life. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

If each individual sock is counted, I am at almost one item of clothing for myself per week. I bought new socks and underthings recently. But it is the first new socks I've purchased in several years and my typical number of items is much lower. Maybe 5 or 6 items. My favorite pants that I wear all the time are close to a decade old. No one in my family buys clothes often.

I was going to say a lot, but Catwoman set the bar pretty high for "a lot". Gift numbers are padded with necessary things, like any sparring gear that is wearing out and clothing that needs to be replaced, particularly socks and underwear. Each kid would get their stocking and maybe 15-20 things, but only 5-10 would be what people generally think of as gifts. We will be moving right around the holidays this year, so I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff, even stuff that are more needs. Maybe we'll celebrate boxing day this year. Each kid will be able to paint/decorate their new room which will be a big part of their Christmas gifts.

Rapunzel and Galadriel

I think it was fine. It is also fine if some choose not to come. As an aside because I know you were limiting the party due to size of places to rent and not to specifically get the FOO together, but I'd love if my brother wanted to do something for my dad and invited just my sister and me (although I would want my mom along in that case) to come along. And I'd also love it if one of the kids in my Dh's FOO would organize something for just their siblings to do. We, my parents and my siblings, spent just a couple of hours alone together at my grandmother's wedding and it was a very special time. It is too hard to get together with my brother due to life circumstances, but I'm going to see if Dh would like to do something with his FOO this summer.

I don't have the words right now to address the slant you use here, so I'm just quoting to hopefully come back later.

My husband is much healthier than I am, so I expect he will outlive me, probably by a lot, barring accidents.

I hadn't read this before and would have said it is shocking how applicable it is now, years later. Except the point is that it isn't shocking. It is policy. SOP https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-insider-guide