Yes to Jews, Mormons, and Muslims. Currently practicing Jehovah’s Witnesses online only, but two former JWs in person. I live in the Upper Midwest region of the US.

This is the perfect scenario for the surprised look and tone with “what an odd thing to say.”

1990. I still have it around here somewhere . . .

Crispy Snickerdoodles?

Use a regular rolled sugar cookie recipe, but instead of rolling and cutting the dough form it into small balls. Dip the balls in sugar, or a mix of sugar and spices, and put them on your cookie sheet dipped side up. Flatten the balls with the bottom of a glass, or a meat tenderizer, or anything else that will make a cool pattern. The thinner you squish them the crispier they come out.

Quill, I had a book written by the Motley Fool guys that I remember as being pretty good for the basics. I can’t remember the title, though.

Spam reported.

This reinforces the problem that men who are managers at work have when they are less involved at home, which is that he is not her manager. They are peers on the family org chart and this is her area of responsibility. *disclaimer: if you believe in any version of patriarchal families where the husband is the superior, then nothing I say will apply to the life you’re choosing. In that case, sure, learn how to effectively communicate with your husband/manager. But if that’s not the situation, then the problem is the husband acting like it is, not the wife acting like it isn’t.

I see that you moved it to the basement. That’s what we had to do with ours — it stopped working when the garage got too cold.

I don’t think it’s (just) a German thing. In Mary Poppins the Banks Family lived at “Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane.”

Because pictures of fully clothed people not involved in sexual acts in any way is not pornography. Even if they have documents in the frame that have the title of famous porn-related lawsuits or a stack of books on the desk including one by a guy who mimics Renaissance-era painting styles with toddler/cherubs in sinister poses. It’s possible to refer to or allude to child porn, which some of these definitely do, without being child porn, which they are definitely not.

Posting work with her name and ID without her permission would be in violation of FERPA, at least the way my school interprets it. Giant no. I've always asked before using work anonymously as examples. It's not required, but it seems like basic courtesy. Most students are happy to say yes.

If she wants macarons specifically, this is the book that helped me perfect them.

Hopefully that runs both ways and a lot of stuff will now be discussed openly. If it just means the social worker snitched on you, I’m sorry. @Carol in Cal. do you know anything relevant to moving a retired California teacher to another state to be near relatives when she can no longer live alone? Is that going to mess up retirement health benefits?

“Three month high” just means the highest it’s been since sept 1. Looking at my state’s wastewater data, which is the number I track now, that is true, but it’s still lower than it was for most of the summer. The fact that it’s trending up is concerning, but it’s not (yet) a big spike.

I have several skirts from there. Discovered them when they were advertising their eclipse shirts and dresses before the last solar eclipse.

I think you're fine ignoring the request. If you're having big emotions about it you probably are "over-reacting" in the sense that it's not a surprise that this person makes requests that you won't be fulfilling and you should try to develop an iron hide toward them.

They do work very well. I usually use an electric mixer, but I’ve used the blender bottles (big cups with lids and a wire ball inside that you shake to blend) when traveling. Two cups of heavy cream and a pack of instant pudding in a blender bottle also makes a quick “mousse” dessert.

1:00. I like it better than having the big meal in the evening because we can have a relaxing rest of the day, people with longer drives don’t have to be out late, there’s turkey sandwiches for dinner, and I have time to make stock with the carcass without staying up until midnight. Then we have turkey soup with homemade egg noodles on Friday.

The ads are the equivalent of posing your kids in Victorian party clothes in front of a fireplace for your Christmas picture with a Playboy calendar on the wall behind them and a caption that says “Hey look, a pornographic picture with a child in it. Get it? HaHa!”

I doubt it. I think they’re trying to push the envelope on being edgy. Normalizing would defeat the purpose, which is to identify the brand as super-edgy. ******* After reading wildly different descriptions, I looked. The pictures themselves are not remotely as bad as I assumed from reading the thread. The kids are dressed in normal kid clothes, even on the conservative side. Their poses are not in any way sexualized. The teddy bears are wearing leather straps and chain-links. And in the pic with the most outré bear the bear was on the floor in front of some other toys not even in the kid’s line of sight. I don’t think the kids were harmed by the photo shoot. That said, the ads are clearly a dog-whistle to child sexual abuse. They’re just being very wink-wink about it rather than explicit.

I love that one.

Also we sometimes won’t sing all the verses in one week but will over successive weeks. Like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” during Advent.

We once sang all 18 verses of “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” There was a specific reason, though. We generally sing all the verses that are printed inside the stanza and sometimes the extras that are printed as just lyrics below. That means 3-6 with 4 being the most common. (UM Hymnal)

The idea that anyone "hosts" family holiday meals is so foreign to me. In my experience, both growing up and now, the adults involved get together in person or by conference call (then) or group text (now) and decide what day, whose house, and who'll bring what. The person who is providing the room and tables and chairs isn't in charge (or responsible for the outcome) any more than the person providing any other bit. I think my family might be outliers in doing it this way. And I'm sure it only works because we don't have a bunch of other underlying issues that come out through holiday angst. (And now thinking about Thanksgiving growing up I suddenly miss my cousins' other-grandma's pie. She was my dad's sister's husband's mom, so if there was a family cookbook I don't have it. Maybe I'll email my aunt and see if she has the recipe. )