Jump to content

Menu

Dmmetler

Members
  • Posts

    4,758
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    18

Everything posted by Dmmetler

  1. There's also an economy of scale in homeschooling. It honestly didn't cost me much in addition to start homeschooling M and C because I already had all the materials and I was already home. I was already doing the homeschool clubs as a social and academic outlet, so that wasn't an extra charge, and piano with me and swimming at Mom's job are their extracurriculars. And it helped meet L's social needs, so my only child needed fewer extracurriculars. For a big family, I could EASILY see how homeschooling could be cheaper. If you have preschool children who need child care, plus all the PS costs (and maybe after school care), it could quickly cost a lot more than one person makes.
  2. If it's wet, some will be out on sticks, leaves, etc, moving from stream to stream, or on rocks in the stream. They tend to like flowing water more than ponding water. We once did a herping trip in drizzle, and it was wet enough they were literally climbing us! If it's dryer, they'll be under cover. Salamanders lay earlier than frogs, so you may see larval ones in moving water now, too-here they lay in January! Fully aquatic ones like mudpuppies and sirens will be in moving water. Some parts of the Eastern US, especially in mountains, have huge salamander populations-they're estimated to be the largest single animal biomass in the Great smokies-which says a lot when you think of how many salamanders it takes to add up to one black bear!
  3. Homeschooling absolutely cost more for us, because I stayed home to do it, when I had planned to return to teaching once L was in school, since it would put us, mostly, on the same schedule. That's a loss of about 45K/year (what my step on the salary ladder was at the time). By now, it would have been about 60k/yr. Even the most expensive private school in town would have been covered by my salary loss. And I suspect the school extra expenses (school clothes, school supplies, field trips, etc) was more than eaten by my buying materials to homeschool and outside classes and activities. I don't regret it in the slightest. It was the right choice for my family. But it definitely wasn't the CHEAP choice.
  4. We have two frog pools in our backyard. The spring peepers and cricket frogs are active. I haven't seen any ranids (mostly leopard and bronze frogs, here) or grey/green tree frogs yet. The greys have the same antifreeze that wood frogs do, but need a lot less of it since our winters are much milder.
  5. I plan to leave the annex out during the day through Easter Weekend. We also bought more eggs (in fun shapes) and things to fill them with. It's what my mom would have done. She was SO good at returning love even when it wasn't appreciated and of understanding that mission isn't what you say, it's what you do and show.
  6. Usually early dismissals don't count as a missed day.
  7. Opera depends a lot, to me, on how it's staged. I love the music, but some of the productions I've seen just seem determined to seem exclusive. For example, yes, Mozart is very bawdy, but some productions play it so straight that you'd never know it. I'm definitely in favor of translations to the vernacular, too. One of my favorite performances was a staging by the Va Opera of "A Little Night Music", in translation, with a framing device of a young child, dragged to the opera, who falls asleep and sees their interpretation of what is being described in his mind. So, Papageno the bird catcher looks a lot like Steve Irwin. The Queen of the night....well, obvious at some point the kid has heard the term "ladies of the night", Etc. It was funny, light, and exactly as silly and irreverent as the original called for--but it's rare for it to be done that way. I've seen the same thing with Shakespeare. It can be played super formally....or it can be played much less so, particularly the comics, but even the tragedies. And the latter is far more likely to be relatable.
  8. During the storm aftermath last year, my vwt's clinic offered to board cats who's families didn't have power, and did whatever vet care they needed. On day 1, the vet told us apologetically that they'd had to give Mamba some gabapentin because "she's so unhappy that she's making everyone else miserable". I have to wonder how badly some poor tech got scratched or bitten....
  9. So far, so good today. Based on what I'm seeing on the old cell phone I set up as a webcam, I think almost every adult for a couple of block radius has stopped by to check on the library, and the older gentleman across the street appears to have spent the entire time kids were walking to school this morning sitting in his driveway, reading his paper, petting the cats (Neo's one of his grandkittens) and keeping an eye on things. Which, I suspect accounts for the fact that even all the empty Easter eggs were carefully placed in the basket.
  10. It's not out yet-she needed more time to edit it, and since the Memphis conference isn't until July, there's no big hurry. Except that I'd kind of like to see how it comes out...
  11. I remember the math majors calling it that when I was in grad school, back in the early 1990's. IIRC, it was also written as La (Greek characters)Tau epsilon Chi, not Latex.
  12. Honestly, I'm not sure that L hasn't had a lighter load all the way through college thus far than in high school....
  13. I'm also really frustrated at a few folks who have referred to the "Thugs" moving into our area, or have messaged me about the kids on bikes "lurking around". Uh, you mean those sweet BLACK kids who come by almost daily and sit on the bench and read, and are almost apologetic when I ask them if they have books they want me to look for? The ones that always call me Ma'am? The ones who ask me if I need help with my yard work and will stop on their way to school to help me put the trash can out? THOSE KIDS???
  14. We've repurposed one of L's critter cams (motion activated trail cameras normally used for ecological studies and an old cell phone. Both will now be watching for different critters. The cell phone will send me alerts on my phone, the other dumps to an SD card, so will keep photos longer. We have an outdoor security camera on order, too. One of my neighbors is a police officer, so I'm going to at least let him know informally, and see if he thinks it's worth putting in a report. Honestly, what I was hoping would happen yesterday is that some parent would ask their kid about it, they'd confess, and they'd come apologize. I didn't want to get a kid in legal trouble, but I wanted them to know just how much this hurt someone who was just doing something nice for the neighborhood. Now, I really am tempted to pack up the whole thing, drop off the books at the local library, and find another way to memorialize my mom. And if it happens again, I just might. I'm also nervous about Sid, even though he's on the porch near the house. We do have a doorbell camera that would catch anyone messing with him, but I think if someone destroyed him, it would be about like they killed a pet, and I don't know if I could take that. I'm anxious for my neighbors who have lawn decor and flower beds and other things that could be broken or stolen, for the kids next door and down the block who leave their bikes and scooters out...for the people who have Easter decorations up. Because honestly, it seems just so mean and vindictive. I mean, they're kids books. In a little blue house shaped box covered in butterflies.
  15. And we just found this. Pushed in hard enough to push out the internal frame. There is no way this wasn't intentional.
  16. Do you have Kroger? I don't know what kind of prices they have on Ozempic, but we have two fairly expensive prescriptions in my family which insurance won't cover due to being name brand only, and Kroger has ended up being about half the cost of Walgreens or CVS, just as their regular list price.
  17. I put these in the thread about the attack on the library, but now that I'm less upset, I wanted to share them separately. The window will be replaced later today.
  18. It will be fixed later today. Two people volunteered to replace the window, several more volunteered to pay for it. Another family has offered to donate and set up a hidden camera. Many have offered to donate books as well, and a lot of folks had stories to share and talked about how much they and their kids appreciate it. The general consensus from a couple of people who looked at it was that it was a BB shot (despite all the "It's an accident" folks), and there have been people shooting BB guns recently, but we all kind of assumed it was someone teaching their kid or their kid's scout troop in the backyard (not all that uncommon) vs someone shooting maliciously or randomly. In many ways, it feels like a funeral. But the good news is, a library can be restored. I'm still really upset and hurt. Which I know is as much or more anniversary effect and grief over my mother than over a $10 piece of plexiglass.
  19. And next comment "maybe you should use plexiglass instead of glass next time" It WAS Plexiglass!!!
  20. And I am getting really annoyed at the people on the community pages who want to say "maybe someone kicked a rock up while mowing" or maybe it's from a car. Uh, no...it's on the corner of our lot, which is raised substantially over the surface of the street, and no one mows or runs a weed eater but us-and that was on the agenda for this weekend for the first time this season. Plus, there's no rock-and it takes a decent amount of force to break plexiglass.
  21. What also bothers me is the devaluing of teaching and other helping professions. I mean, the older student here is a special Ed teacher. I am sure she's using her music therapy background with her students as well, but the job that her father is dismissing as a waste of her education is...teaching kids with disabilities. I'm guessing he'd be saying the same thing if she were teaching math or science. I heard that I was too smart to teach for years, even though I loved it and was good at it, and it wasn't until I burned out in grad school that I switched gears and got a teaching license.
  22. I came out to set up Sid, add books, and hide eggs for Easter (which I'll do for the whole next week) and found...this. DH says the plexiglass won't be hard to replace, but I feel attacked...or worse, like Mom has been. This has given me such joy over the last two years, and Easter is so associated with her death that this just feels impossible to bear. Sid and I aren't giving up, though,
×
×
  • Create New...