I honestly didn’t know that the Alexa tied into the fire TVs. We own a lot of movies on Amazon and don’t mind people at work watching them on their downtime so we’ve bought some Firesticks for the stations. DH is one of the top supervisor people and thought he was doing something nice for the employees. But now I’m thinking at the very least I need to…um….take Alexa out of our bedroom….

Also, the kids think they’re being hilarious having an Alexa fight. They aren’t really chasing each other with frying pans, I promise. I’m speaking out of town this weekend and their dad is outside working on the lawn, so the little geniuses decided it was a good time to say whatever to each other without getting into trouble. It didn’t work quite the way they wanted because my coworkers sent me screenshots. Lol

Note of warning that probably won’t apply to anyone here: When your kids are using the Amazon Alexa’s to insult each other and don’t realize that the TV at work is tied into your Amazon Fire account and displays their insult announcements to your unsuspecting coworkers. 😂😂😂

I tried that and the judge just rescheduled for a time when the officer could be there. I lost anyway so it wasn’t even worth it lol.

Medical transport. The hospital or clinic social worker can set it up and get insurance approval, otherwise it does become pretty expensive with that kind of mileage. A lot of places won’t release a patient to an Uber driver; that’s something the person would need to check on. It is highly unlikely that insurance will cover an overnight hospital stay just because there’s no one to drive the person home.

Poor medical messaging is the bane of my existence. If you think someone is experiencing stroke symptoms or just not acting right; please please call 911 immediately. There are few things that really truly need quick medical assessment and intervention but a possible stroke is one. I’ll get off my soapbox. OP, I’m so sorry about your FIL. I hope that he is left with few to no deficits and they can prevent future strokes.

The FAST outcomes are for people who have witnessed strokes or have been seen normal by someone fairly recently before the symtoms start. What many people don’t realize is that depending on the type of stroke(a clot), there is only 4-6 hours from time of last seen normal(depending on the hospital and their policies; our local hospital is 3 hours, some places are experimenting with up to 24 hours) that they can administer the clot buster. So if you go to sleep at 8 pm and were normal then, but didn’t wake up till 6 am and have stroke symtoms then, you’re out of the window for the medication. It sounds like FIL was out of the time window for any medical intervention, and at that point they often just admit stroke patients for observation and further testing and often send them to short term rehab if needed. The messaging around strokes is a little misleading, because a lot of people call and think they will receive quick medical intervention, when really the patient is way out of the window for medication and there isn’t much that can be done at that point.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/child-tax-credit/ This explains some of it. The credit expanded some; you got half throughout the year and half is applied at tax time. However—that half is somewhat less than what you’re accustomed to because they didn’t expand it by twice the amount.

We opted in because this was my understanding—that it was expanded to be a larger credit and so it really wouldn’t affect much at tax time.

It’s abusive. My mom did it to us. Everyone I knew had their mouths washed out with soap. It wasn’t considered abusive, but it was.

You guys seriously make me cry. 😭. Moms are hard sometimes. And it’s a weak spot for me because I feel so guilty about that extra shift. But our budget included a decent size rental income this year that would have covered that home’s mortgage and given us a buffer; and I didn’t count on inflation and gas prices going so high. But I couldn’t let this young couple be homeless either. They’re honest, hard working people in a tough situation. So they moved in and I picked up an extra shift to cover that mortgage and I struggle with guilt, so when my mom pokes it I feel horrible.

How easy would finding an accessible home be in a new location? That might be a deal breaker: accessibility is so hard to come by. I also hate ALS. There are sometimes no great choices, just choices full of compromise and hope.

So we lived in a fixer upper for ten years. It was big, but old, and there were no closets, basement or attic. I had a dining room that we couldn’t use for anything because it was where things were stored. DH is not someone who can look and just see what needs to be done; at least not at our house. He was also raised to do it yourself and save the money, no matter how long it took. And his dad just finished their garage—40 years after promising it to my MIL. Nagging is pretty unhelpful in my situation because he just stops listening. I eventually got so sick of the house looking that way that I got rid of everything that was replaceable. Clothes. The artificial Christmas tree. The kid’s summer outdoor toys. After two years of having to continually buy new things, he finally decided that he really wasn’t going to get to building the two story master addition he had planned for all those years, and we found a smaller house with a full basement and garage. There was also a shoulder injury in there that did make it really hard for him to do the projects he had planned, and it took him a couple years to really come to terms that things were physically different now. That was really, really hard for him, and looking back I see that I missed how depressed and sad about that he was. So what would I do? Get rid of everything and when it needs to be rebought, point out that with appropriate storage you’d already have the object. And then let the pieces fall where they may. Also, I have a kitchen sink that doesn’t drain and my contractor husband is ignoring my complaints about it. So I really did put a Facebook post up asking for contractor/plumber recommendations. Of course everyone just recommended DH. 🤷‍♀️ (He’s honestly known for his great construction work, but we fall to the bottom of his list. He literally just doesn’t look at the kitchen sink and think “oh, I need to replumb that.” He just uses the other sink.) So: Solidarity, my friend. And it’s okay to put your foot down sometimes in a marriage.

My grandfather did this. His wife died suddenly and fairly young in her 50s(she was 20+ years younger than him). She had always wanted to be cremated; he always wanted to be buried. They’d discussed it at some point; though probably they assumed he’d go first and years later his grave would be opened and her cremains placed in, but it happened the other way around. He was buried and then her urn was placed on top of the casket before the ground was closed. It had nothing to do with grief; it was their wishes to be buried together but still honor her desire to be cremated. I wouldn’t assume anything of personal grief based on what people do with cremains.

Thank you guys! it hit extra hard because I do kind of feel guilty. I am working an extra 9 hour day shift right now. We are letting a young couple with a newborn stay in our old house and they are trying but just not able to pay rent until the wife goes back to work. She’s a schoolteacher in a very poor, rural school district making very little money and he works at whatever bartending/food service job he can find. They’d be homeless or couch surfing with a newborn(their apartment had black mold and they had to move out suddenly and the landlord is refusing to refund security deposits and such) so we told them to move into our home. But now gas prices and everything is sky rocketing and we’re carrying two mortgages with no rental income like we’d planned. So I picked up an extra shift, and I feel guilty and my Mom is constantly nagging me about it. thanks for listening lol. Venting helps.

It’s pretty crucial here too. We’re an hour and a half from a really good hospital and people get flown frequently. I don’t know that I’ll pursue flying right yet—the newest helicopter base is 2 hours away and those are always super competitive jobs. But I get a $1.50 an hour raise and can take critical care ground transports at my employer now, which is really needed. People on vents; multiple IV meds that paramedics don’t usually carry, chest tubes, surgical airways, intra-aortic balloon pumps and the like. We get a decent amount of those hospital to higher level of ICU care transfers and only have two other credentialed specialty care medics. So it’s pretty useful now. I also really wanted the knowledge. And I like challenges. 🙂

It is. My dad worked really hard to support a wife and large family on one income and it was a time when dads didn’t have as much to do with child raising. Unfortunately it resulted in my mom doing all the homemaking/child raising/homeschooling with rare breaks and my dad traveled for work, often leaving on Sunday night and not coming back till Friday. I grew up not really feeling like I knew my dad. DH is very involved in child raising and is home with the kids when I work and I’m home when he works. (Two weeks a month MIL does watch the kids overnight for a Tuesday and a Thursday when our schedules overlap, but that’s also an issue because my mom never had any family support.) This is really a huge deal to me and it just kind of hurt. You guys are the best. 🙂

I passed an incredibly difficult national board exam—flight paramedic. It has anywhere between a 46-55% first time pass rate, and I passed on the first time. I called my mom all excited and she immediately launched into me about how many hours I’ve been working and moms shouldn’t work that much(it’s been a theme; and I have been working a lot because all of our expenses shot way above what we’d budgeted), and basically I should be at home with my kids(who are usually with DH when I’m working and I’m home when he’s working). She’s still clinging to the vestiges of 1990s homeschool culture and annoyed, I think, because she gave up her nursing career that she loved to homeschool, and none of her daughters have done the same. It hurt, because I was riding high. Would anyone like to be my mom today and be excited for me?

Our new home is heated by oil; we have oil tanks in the basement. It was almost $1000 last month to heat our 1500 square foot home. We also now live out in the country and everyplace is a good 15 mile drive, even if it’s just for a gallon of milk. Obviously no one can predict the future, but it kills me that we moved from a house that was heated by forced air and electricity(we’re renting it out and utilities are included, and they spent around $75 last month to heat the entire 2600 square foot home) in a village where we could walk everywhere we went except work. We had wanted to move for a long time, but right now it’s just a huge drain on the budget that we wouldn’t have had if we’d stayed.

I was at disneyworld last July and wore a sundress. I always wear bike shorts or slip shorts underneath my dresses though. It was comfortable and cool.

One of my really good friends is the reader/actor for her audiobooks. It’s like my one tangential claim to fame.

None of the businesses offering this educational model are actually “schools”, as far as I am aware. Open Tent Academy is also a husband-wife team that contracts teachers; Big River Academy, Blue Tent Online, and the others I am familiar with are all owned/operated by one or two people and contract teachers. They aren’t “schools” in the normal sense. I think this is the typical business model when it comes to online homeschool classes.

Random tangent, but I had a uterine rupture while in labor for my daughter. I wanted, say, Amelia Grace, husband wanted Leah Katherine. We still hadn’t really decided. When i emerged a day later from the haze and sedation of the emergency caesarean, I realized my daughter’s name was(not her real name) Leah Katherine Amelia Grace. The hospital was pressuring DH about a name before I was really awake and husband panicked and threw all the names in there. It fits her, though, she loves her string of names and writes her name Leah K.A.G. last name and I’m fine with it now. lesson learned, though: Never trust husbands with baby naming when mom is not available. (My sister’s husband filled out their youngest’s birth certificate and thought it would be hilarious to put “Archibald” as a second middle name. That baby is now 6 and my sister still is not amused at all.)

My sister’s FB post today: Yall. Our God is a God of miracles!!! The doctors said Brittany is a 1%. EVERYONE is shocked that she made it. She is now awake, she hates the name her husband picked for the baby--Brooklyn 🤣🤣, she can take a few steps with the walker but is very easily tired. She is off the ventilator but has a trach. She has a long road to recovery and won't be home for a while. Matt is juggling being a single dad of 3 kids plus working full time. There is a meal train if anyone is local but diapers and wipes are always appreciated. Thank you all for the prayers-- I never saw this outcome and I am so so thankful ❤❤

That’s actually a fantastic school and while it’s not closer(farther away actually), our school district does bus kids there. But it doesn’t start until 6th grade. It’s on our radar for the 2023-2024 school year though. We do have one charter school that would be perfect and one of my best friends is the 5th grade teacher, but DD is #170 on the wait list so I don’t really see it happening. If my grandmother goes into a nursing home, my mom would drive DD to the former school and back. But that’s a huge IF, because grandma has to agree or my mom has to be finally willing to abandon her basically at the ER, and then they have to find someplace with an open bed. We do still own the old house in district and I haven’t technically changed my residency over, but I don’t know if DH and I can split residencies. I have tours scheduled at both the Catholic and the Baptist school with my handy list of questions you guys have helped me with.