I go out, I craft, I do things… most that flaked didn’t meet me. They just inconsistently texted. This last guy commented on how he liked my crafting hobbies and loved my cookies. So he knew I had interests and a life. When I bought concert tickets to a show that’s months out he asked what section. It doesn’t matter though it’s general admission and I’ll probably go alone as usual. Just mixed signals man. But I’m not a mind reader. It might affect your feelings less if your future or current happiness wasn't tied to whether these guys are going to be your long term or forever person. You can be looking and still not have your happiness tied to this. (Which I'll admit could be harder when you are older since less people aren't coupled then.)

I also just know when DH was on the dating sites he might be working several connections at a time and I know for a fact he had been chatting with someone on there when he met me. Then she was fine, but he met someone better, isn't that what's suppose to happen while you are wading in the dating pool? So dating is always going to be sort of flaky until the couple decides they want to be more.

1000% yes! I don't know why it's so mind boggling to some people that if you treated people well they will be more productive. Or at least tech companies should invest in actually training their tech people to become managers if they do need them to become managers. So many get placed as managers and it's not that they are bad people or have bad intentions. They just don't know how to manage people.

After talking with her last night, this is what they're thinking to do. They will have honeymoon expenses and will need a dog kennel to fly their dog to them and hard sided cases to transport their bikes. Gifts could be sent to us, but they wouldn't see or open them for 3 years if they immediately move overseas. An older couple who was getting married once did a gift registry where essentially people were giving cash, except they made all these categories of stuff. They had all the reasonable priced items like dishes but what they wanted was a European vacation and a yacht so we contributed to those. I thought it was cute. (Yes, technically they didn't need a dime, but people like to give.) I come from a culture that views it as rude to give anything other than cash for a wedding so 🤷‍♀️. I also agree with your DD about making a registry before the invitations. It's not necessary but sure saves a lot of grief when people complain you don't have enough on your registry. I have 16 GIANT plates because I got so overwhelmed by putting things on the registry. Also don't gift givers actually want to give things people want??

Good to know about the Kingdom of Wrenly. Dragon Masters has some "scary" stuff in it (not every book but we've encountered one or two with a drak room or some bad guys). DD5 has enjoyed some of Unicorn Diaries; she isn't quite reading these by herself yet.

I just started to let DS7 pick out his own books either from the library or otherwise. Some of it is probably in the "twaddle" zone but most are somewhere in-between. DS7 really likes Dragon Masters, I look through them and give him excerpts from those to work with. I'm trying to do what Rooted in Language calls "intentional copywork". So I pick a grammar/phonics/writing structure and then highlight it in the excerpt. Actually this line of books is decent https://www.scholastic.com/site/branches.html. The writing is easy enough to make doable copywork and it's written in grammatically correct english. Topics are interesting and appropriate for K-2 (I just don't know about 3rd and beyond).

I bought Schoolnest Spelling Notebook. It's not a curriculum but it has my first grader happily spelling 10 words a week and writing sentences. My Kindergartner requested her own too. JAWM, because I'm complaining and I know she'll grow out of it. DD5 (in Kindergarten) complains to me every day about doing school. 1) She even complains on days I have no school planned, and 2) most of the things we do for school are things she decided she wanted to do 3 months ago. Also she always has the option to not do any of it, she just can't bother big brother and me while we work on his school stuff. Of course when she stops complaining and does it she's fine with it and sometimes even enjoys it.

It won't be as put together as Bookshark and you'll have to come up with stuff for your work samples, but you could work through The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History it does talk about some wars and conquering but in more of a this happened sort of way. Otherwise, it spends more time showing you what things were like back then and what important contributions to civilization the people had. My children also got Lonely Planet Kids Amazing Ancient World Atlas, this one focuses on an area of the world at a time so it might be a little more cohesive than just going through The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History I think the Usborne encyclopedia has more information but the Amazing World Atlas has bigger and real pictures of artifacts and real places. On the work sample front you could try and use the Bookshark stuff (I don't know if they have worksheets or activities). To be honest for Kindergarten I just grabbed the public school Kindergarten social studies worksheet packet and an Evan Moor geography workbook and got my work samples from those. Occasionally I would loosely tie in whatever history we were doing to something from those or just before my meeting have my children fill out one or two to meet requirements.

Some of those get more affordable if you get an annual pass and then go more often. A few we've gotten is basically 2x admission, then we get to go as many times as we want the rest of the year.

I'm reading this thread and I realize that maybe it's because (at least where I live) in most households both parents work full time jobs. So one they could drive me anywhere until after work which was at best around 4:30 or 5pm and usually my mom had some sort of errand she had to run. By the time the errand finished it was time to think about dinner. Monday thru Friday no one is going to drop me off at the ice-skating rink. Perhaps there is a large anti-children group out there or perhaps these businesses just don't get enough business because parents are working. I also knew a lot of my friends with two working parents, we weren't allowed to leave the house until our parents were back from work. I think it's different to let your kids wander the neighborhood and you are at home for them to reach you compared there is no adult at home. So then at some point we would find after school activities to do like sports, clubs, etc. Then by that time we would be tired by the time we got home from school and all the school activities. Then again not utilizing the local bowling alley leading to them going out of business. 🤷‍♀️

I totally forgot about being dragged to mom's work on school holidays. So bored there, if I were too bored I got to do bookkeeping. I learned I did not want to be an accountant.

Only child who immigrated across an ocean from extended family here definitely got bored. It's Ok to be bored. I went to public school so my parents figured I'd learn how to socialize at school, they didn't plan things for me to do or people to hangout with. Sometimes they would hangout with their friends and if I was lucky their friends had children close to my age and if not I'd be bored. It sounds like your parents put forth a lot of effort to get you super fun activities a lot and that's great. They routinely drove you 40 minutes to have fun, my parents wouldn't have done that for sure and I don't know that I would for my children.

Definitely don't allow selling. If there's a great desire for this then maybe think about doing it as a separate event. Honestly though selling events are a huge hassle to organize, feelings hurt everywhere. You've got the MLM's upset that they can't sell, the homemade crowd unhappy that commercial stuff is being sold next to their stuff, people with high-end stuff disappointed at not having any takers... All of them with valid complaints, so unless you know exactly the type of vendors you want and be really strict and clear about it (to both consumer and seller) it's best to stay away.

I had the same issue getting an appointment and yes made an appointment for a date about 60 days out. Funny thing is when we showed up to the appointment no one was there ahead of us and no one was there after we finished, even though appointments were no longer available that day. 🤷‍♀️Did take a looong time for the passports to come back (we didn't have reason to do expedited).

First thing is 5 and 6 year olds are at an age where they are just in general concerned with who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. My completely non-anxious child has questions about this all the time. This is the stage in life where they are trying to wrap their heads around are people/characters/things black and white good or evil. They will (hopefully) grow to learn that people aren't just good and evil but that their actions/behaviors can be at times good and bad. So, if you do feel you and/or your child is distraught over this then take a break from this. Many K curriculum cover things like "world culture" or just how the world works for history/social studies. It's OK if they don't know all about political intrigue, all the wars and all the ways people hurt and oppress others in Kindergarten (they have 12 years more years to learn about all of that). So if it's there's a few more topics that will be covered that's going to be bad then I would just continue using this curriculum and just skip the weeks that cover the stuff that'll be too much. Otherwise go with something else.

I took an in-person Dave Ramsey class. The recommendations were/are altered for HCOL areas. I think most of the internet addressing the Dave Ramsey stuff doesn't address the stuff after you've gotten out of the massive credit card debts. Additionally if you get to the investment stage of Dave Ramsey you should be looking to another program to further your assets.

I have the wagon the stroller is a better push than the wagon. Even if all you are pushing/pulling is stuff. DH ended up being the main user of the wagon for his sport stuff.

I'm guilty of bringing my stroller with my 4 adn 6 year old. Mostly to carry the stuff though. It was just so convenient to say "Just stick it in the stroller." All the jackets and snacks and water bottles at the zoo.

DS7 and some of his friends are into Beyblades. They are these tops that can battle each other and you can interchange parts of different tops to get it to operate differently. (Some of them are better at attacking, defense or just stay spinning.)

Whoa I definitely did not feel like half the families spanked in the 90's... My grandmother spanked my uncles and my mom (60's and 70's), but she tried to curb it by the time she had my aunts (80's), namely for my aunts she didn't use tools. My parents told her she wasn't allowed to spank me, then she was at a complete loss as to how to discipline or correct a child without spanking.

Just for DS7 https://www.amazon.com/Klutz-Paper-Flying-Dragons-Craft/dp/0545449367?th=1 DS7 finished building all of them in less than 2 days, but he had lots of fun doing it and is still using the dragons. Books. A series called Dragon Masters and Cat Kid Comics. Not literary works of art (especially Cat Kid Comics), but it's good leisure reading for the under 10 crowd. Relatable and funny for them.

I use a homeschool charter school in CA, basically it works like you've sort of outlined above. I meet with an official person (for my school this is a certified teacher). We have to do the state testing, I have to hand in samples of the work my students do and they have to see my children. In return I get money that has stipulations and even have some curriculum provided. I love my situation and the person who I work with; not a burden to me at all if anything it's a source of support for me. However I can also see how it can be burden, because it all depends on who this overseer person/entity is. A lot of my homeschool friends are in a similar situation as I am and for some of them some situations has been a burden. Basically what makes it a burden is what that overseer considers "acceptable". If it's very standardized then the students that don't fit the mold can suffer, and if it's not standardized then it's up to individual discretion which can obviously be a range.

Something like "That's a really clever idea. Can you tell me more about it?" Sometimes smart people brush off certain compliments because they don't want to be othered or be disingenuous by accepting praise for working hard when they really didn't. It might also be easier to come up with more genuine compliments by trying to praise the progress rather than just praise the process. If they struggle with perfectionism sometimes it's hard to know that someone is noticing your flaw-filled process. Plus your mind might kind of runs off at the mention of that to nit-picking the flaws and how you hope to improve it.

I believe it was last year when I got a refund from the hospital where DD5 was born because they overcharged me by over $1000. At the time when I was pregnant with DD they told me they were starting a program where they charge me ahead of time for what they predict I might owe them for the birth. There was tons of confusion in billing for her birth because what mother in her right mind would put her baby under her husband's (and the father of their child) insurance instead of her own. This baby turned 3 before this whole thing got sorted out and they went oops you don't owe us any money we owe you, and another year to figure out how to send me a check. Funny/not funny thing is really the only reason this overpayment was discovered was because they sent me to collections for this bill and I needed to clarify which bills they had already billed insurance for and which ones they hadn't and also which invoice it was exactly that they want money for.

Just commiserating that those pretty packaged gift foods are sometimes the most vile tasting (pretty inedible) foods on the planet.