My mom heard one time from I don't know where or by whom that the subconscious doesn't have a sense of humor. She said something along the lines of, "I've heard...." several times as I was growing up and it made an impression on me. I don't know if that is accurate, but it has become part of my thinking. In this kind of situation it would lead me to think that everyone realized he was joking and perhaps even found it funny, but that over the course of the year the girl internalized the actual words of the joke. As a general rule, I don't mind insult jokes. My dad frequently playfully insults family members, often outrageously. The kids give it right back. LOL It doesn't bother me because he won't pick at something that he knows would be hurtful. And he shows them consistently that he loves them and adores spending time with them. The kids would miss it if he didn't do it. Their other grandfather would be different. He doesn't have either a sense of humor or a close relationship with the kids and comes across as mean when he teases them.

I think I am not understanding your post. Is your nephew staying with you? I would not want to host someone while dealing with shingles. But 11 is a fine age to help on the farm. I helped on the farm by then. My nephews often help my dad. Dad has a bum knee that he won't get fixed and he is definitely older than he was, but he is stronger than most men half his age. He gets time in the fresh air and sunshine every day. He walks as little as possible but is active. He lifts and carries things regularly. It keeps pre-diabetes pre. I worry about injury, but I don't know that his life would improve by retiring. And life expectancy might not either.

My dad had a fall recently, and I mentioned it might be time to give up farming. That was a hard no. Lol He is in his upper 70's now and plans to farm until he dies.

When we were first married, I worked but we were careful not to live off my salary. We put it toward the house. The reason we did it was so that it wouldn't be painful going from two salaries to one when we had kids. Could you continue at your present job for a little while longer (whatever a little seems to you, but I was thinking 1-5 years), but only live on what you would be making if you switched jobs? The extra could be put into retirement. It would allow you to see if the financial side was important to you.

If you said no football, I would do no football. Football isn't the only dangerous sport. I said no football, but my high school son is doing TKD sparring and it isn't safe. I thought his head hit the floor and bounced of Saturday but he just landed on his shoulder. Soccer isn't safe either.

My 20 year old will still call me Mommy. Sometimes perhaps when she wants to rest in the fact that she will always be my child and the comfort that brings. But also when she is feeling particularly affectionate or lighthearted. I'll refer to their father as Daddy in texts with all of my kids old enough for phones.

My Ds16 just quit his job. He is sad to be done and they will miss him, but he was just too busy. His schedule before he quit, TKD times listed include driving time: 15 DE college credits, several of which are difficult for him Monday: TKD 5:45-9:00 Tuesday: TKD 4:45-8:30 Wednesday: CFA (work) 8:00-2:00; TKD 3:45-5:45; AWANA volunteer (in. another town, so leaving at 6:00) 6:30-8:00; youth group 8:15-9:45 (but stays after for informal pick up sports so gets home at 11:00) Thursday: TKD 3:45-9:00 Saturday, when home: TKD 9:30-12:45; CFA 2:00-10:00. Sunday: church 9:00-12:30 Tournament weekends: Usually involves driving on Friday and competing/judging on Saturday then driving home. This weekend he'll be riding with another family to St. Louis (8 hour drive) and coaching team sparring on Friday evening. He'll report for black belt meeting at 7:30 Saturday morning, judge when not in a ring, and compete when his ring is called. I'll get there at some point (long story). When everyone is done competing sometime between 4:00 and 6:00 in the afternoon, we'll drive the 8 hours home. Next weekend is a repeat going to Chicago except our family will be traveling together and my husband will do most of the driving. Two days after that, Dh and Ds16 will fly to Brazil to compete with Team USA at the PanAm games. They will be gone for 8 days. Three days after they get home there is another tournament in Sioux Falls. Two weeks after that, a big tournament in Pittsburgh and two weeks after that a tournament in Kansas City. And he'll need to keep up with his college classes through all of that. TKD is a mixture of training/teaching/front desk work. The owner wants him there more often, but we couldn't make that work with college classes and work. We decided to have him give his two week notice at his other job. *He usually does choir, but it conflicted with an online class. Hopefully he can do that next semester. **He is also spending flex hours at TKD as he has time. The owner asked him to write a sparring curriculum for his schools. He basically had Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons free if there wasn't a tournament and if his college work was all finished. Now he'll have Saturday too sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. Lol He'll be more likely to get Sundays free since he will have Wednesday mornings to work on college classes.

I enjoy watching college football with my husband. I would enjoy it less if the handy lines weren't on the screen. The cheats let me follow along pretty casually.

I have three kids doing full time college right now, but one is DE. I thought we would send all of ours to college, and it ought to be easier for the younger two who would be going one at a time. Right now I'm not sure if my third will do more than an AD and I am not 100% my 4th will go at all. We are making other plans that she may get caught up in. I am not anti-college, but I do think fewer kids ought to go including maybe a couple of mine. It isn't that I think more kids ought to be plumbers. I have a high respect for trades. But the biggest shift I'd want to see is businesses not requiring a degree for so many jobs. Many times a degree just isn't necessary.

I have also been about to pay for a "lost" book when the library found it on their shelves because another patron was trying to check it out. I don't blame the library for most of the problems those. My personal deficits make me a bad patron, even though I am a generally responsible person.

I also stopped using the library due to fines. We had over 20 books out when my oldest was 4 or 5 (I had three kids by then). We were sick for several weeks and by the time I went back to the library we owed over $50. $0.25/book/day. I explained that I had renewed online at least once. The librarian said, "Sometimes it doesn't go through. You have to log out and log back in to check." Another time one of the kids helpfully "put the books away" on my shelves. I have over 5000 books, including many library discards with library labels on the spines. It took me months to remember to look for them when I had time and not just when I was leaving the house and driving by the library. I haven't paid that fine and won't. I just stopped checking books out of the library. It isn't worth the hassle.

The Bug is in 4th grade. I can hardly believe it. She is a quick worker but our life is crazy, so it is hard to find a balance. Saxon 6/5 Science in the Scientific Revolution Notgrass's Our 50 States Continue with Brilliante German 1 Latin for Children A Learn the Greek alphabet with Greek Code Cracker and Hupogrammon AAS 5, W & R 3 and 4, MCT English, Spencarian Handwriting (will not insist on if she hates it) and Marie's Words Literature - whatever I choose to assign History - 1450's to either before or after the American Revolution

Dd13 will be my fourth 8th grader. I've been avoiding planning in general, but I have a general idea of what she is doing this year. And, yes, we start in 10 days. Foerster's Alegebra I. This is her second year through Algebra, so she'll finish early. We'll probably also do 6-10 weeks of Geometry. Apologia's Physical Science Runkle's Geography Getting Started With Spanish, plus Leitner box work with high frequency words History from the mid 1400's - either just before or after the American Revolution depending on how life goes. Literature - whatever I think she'll like WWS 1 It seems like there should be more than that, but most of the rest is small stuff that I haven't fully decided on. She will also be doing choir and TKD.

Not much these days - for the teen stuff - as I am on my third teen driver. Before my oldest got her license, I was driving places 2-3 times per day. Sometimes more.

My young teen is not a dancer, but she is an athlete. She does TKD. So, she gets to do forms and spar in a white uniform. 😛 She uses a combination of resources. Most of the time at home she uses reusable pads and period panties but for class or tournaments she'll often use a small tampon with period panties as a backup. She'll also use disposable pads, especially when we travel to tournaments.

I am having a lot of trouble even planning for this year. I am...highly unmotivated. My family will be traveling 7 out of the next 10 weekends. I'll also be moving a 2nd child to college. I want to take my daughter to visit one of her cousins in about 12 weeks. At some point over the next year, probably 1st quarter of next year, my husband is going to be transferred and we will have to move to a new place with all that entails. My oldest child will be doing a college program this year, which I didn't know when I purchased close to $900 worth of curriculum for him this spring. Over the spring semester, travel will be a little less. Maybe 3 or 4 trips over three months. I just am having a hard time seeing what school will look like and how I can possibly get it done. Of course, putting off planning won't make the school year go better.

I was taught dilemna. I don't care if anyone else says it was never taught that way, because I was one who deliberately pronounced it for spelling to get it in my head: di-lem-na. And I had a really strong hold the phone moment when I first had it pointed out that it was dilemma.

We replaced 18 windows with good quality and non-standard sized windows. We did the work ourselves, and it was about $16,000. With the doors and bay window and work included, I'm thinking about $35,000.

My youngest was left in the car, thankfully in the evening and thankfully someone found her before it got desparate. She was big enough to unbuckle but didn't know how to unlock the van. It is a long story, but my husband thought she went in with the other kids. The kid who knew she was sleeping saw my husband going around to that side of the vehicle and thought he was getting her. They were late to class and so they didn't walk in together, everyone just went as they grabbed stuff. She was too little for class; she just went along because she liked hanging out. She went sometimes but not others, so no one thought anything about her not being there. We are very purposeful parents. The common refrain was, "If it could happen to Family Name, it could happen to anyone." And it could. We were lucky that she didn't die that day.

Nope. We had decided not to accept any more transfers. We've been in our current location for 10 years now. We found out last week that all people with my husband's job will have to move to a central location. We have lives here that we are pretty invested in.

We gave $20 to someone when we stopped for gas, crossing the mountains. I think he had forgotten his billfold or something. It was a young adult and there weren't really options for him in the mountains. Cell phone coverage was bad. The only business was the gas station. He filled up $20 worth and left immediately. I only hoped we had given him enough to get out of the mountains. Gas was cheaper then; it was about 7 years ago. I also gave $20 for gas locally, but learned later that it was a scam. I've seen the scam again since. Different people using the same set of locations and signs. Both $20's were given with good will, but they felt very different. While I still hand out cash sometimes, I feel like it is better to give to the local place that feeds and provides shelter for the homeless.

But they wouldn't be driving from KC to Wichita. They would be going mostly south.

Most men wouldn't but some would, which is why our societal norms should protect women's (female sex) spaces.

I do care about them and their safety. The topic doesn't come up as much (hardly ever) because when a female goes into male spaces the person actively choosing the situation is the one most at risk in the situation. When a male goes into female spaces, the person actively choosing the situation is not the one most at risk. So we talk about one more than the other.

My dad had to replace a dipstick for one of his tractors. $60.50.