I hope you have a great adventure and settle into your new home state easily.

I’ve had more than several friends tell me I could just do the cake (or in two cases, cheesecakes and brownies) as my gift. It wasn’t even an ask, just a ‘We want your cake so you can just do the cake instead of buying a gift’. Um, no. I did offer to provide the cake for oldest dd’s best childhood friend and she was lovely about it and brought me a thoughtful gift and gracious note after her wedding. A few years later I recluctantly did 600 brownies- like six different kinds- for her younger sister’s wedding, as she was middle dd’s childhood best friend. Never heard a word from her or her parents (we live in a small town so I see them often). If friends offer to provide services, that’s lovely. I don’t think op is the kind to expect services- not at all.

You’ve done really well so far. I’m irritated on your behalf that the venue doesn’t have adequate bathroom facilities but has requirements.

How many guests do you expect to have? I start there because doing some things yourself might not be easy with a large guest list. Or you might pare your list down to be able to afford the wedding dd wants. If you don’t have a huge guest list you might be able to buy table service and linens cheaper than renting them, especially from eBay sellers who used it for their own wedding. And then resell them after the wedding. Our dd went with inviting more people but with a simpler wedding. The reception was in the church fellowship hall and most of the food was cold, buffet style, instead of a formal sit down meal. You can limit alcohol costs by only serving for a certain length of time instead of the whole reception. The last wedding we attended served alcohol until the predetermined cost had been reached and then guests had to pay for their drinks. It really cut down on how much people drank. But like others say, it’s important to not spend more than you can afford and set clear expectations with the bride and groom. I make wedding cakes and see so much tension between parents and bride/groom over budgets- and if I see it when we discuss my cake prices I can imagine the overall financial stress of the wedding must take a lot of the fun out of it.

That stinks. Every time I’ve had to go through the random scrutiny I’ve been fortunate to get polite agents. I’ve seen it go badly though. One lady yelled at the TSA agent the whole time and that didn’t help her at all and probably not the next several people that agent searched. Extra scrutiny five flights in a row would drive me crazy. I bet by the third flight your son was looking for the Punked camera!

Dividing the full rate by the number of hours the entire camp was supposed to run gives you about $5.50 an hour. I’d double that hourly rate and pay for three hours. That seems to be fair. You didn’t ask for a session w only your kid and one other so paying his usual small group rate doesn’t seem fair.

It’s so crazy how varied TSA experiences can be. I’ve had such good TSA experiences in the past year. Kindness, patience with inexperienced travelers, efficient but not rude are what I’ve seen. I haven’t had a bad TSA experience in years but I know others have.

Exactly. I’ve been mostly doing the under the seat thing for about the past year even when I am officially ticketed to be allowed overhead bin space. But my current backpack might one day not fit the requirements on some random flight I book. Who knows, right? Some planes have large overhead bins while others have noticeably smaller ones, and the same goes for the under the seat sizes. It takes some of the fun out of traveling when rules unexpectedly change. Last fall I flew to a quilt retreat and I carried my late mother’s 75 year old vintage featherweight machine on the plane. It’s tiny. A flight attendant tried to take it from me to check because I was late boarding (this was a connecting flight and I was rushing to make the connection and ended up boarding at the same time as the passengers ticketed with ‘only one item, under the seat only”). I showed my boarding pass to indicate I was allowed to bring both my backpack and the machine. She held the line up checking into it, and chastised me for not boarding with my earlier group. The next attendant I saw- 10 feet down the aisle- kindly found a safe spot for my machine and was exceptionally kind. You just can’t tell which kind of customer service you[re going to get! I wasn’t about to let them toss that thing into the cargo hold!

I’ve never had that but you’re right- it sounds like my 70’s childhood!

It is discouraging for a mom to read the blog and then not be able to reduce her spending to match this. You have to look really hard to see that she’s using stuff she previously bought and frozen or using gift cards or something. “Hey, I fed our family of four for $0 in January!” What it really means is I stocked up like crazy during December sales, got oodles of gift cards for Christmas, and eat at my mother in laws twice a week and at church on Wednesday night. My kids eat breakfast and lunch at school but I don’t buy groceries for that so it doesn’t count. I’m with you, Jean!

Keema sounds delicious!

I’d make meat and bean burritos if there is cheese available.

I’d call the IRS for an explanation.

That is weird and not ok at all. Would the other mom have hugged the lady herself for a quarter? No. Would she have responded differently if it was a man? Probably. But it doesn’t matter. Nobody should expect a stranger to do that.

I think the company tracks time from when the statement closes, not when you receive the bill in the mail. So it might have been three weeks from statement closing to due date. I expect you will get the late fee waived this time. They want to keep you as a customer. Good luck.

Two mediums fit in the Osprey? That would be perfect for him. I only use one and a tiny one for socks and undies but he is a guy and uses two medium. Gosh those packing cubes are awesome!!

I thought there was some law passed a few years ago requiring something like 14 or 21 days between when your cycle ends until your payment is due. But I might just be remembering my credit card changing their policy. How long was it from the statement closing date until the bill was due?

Yeah there are a lot of new bags designed to fit under the seats. Bed, Bath, and Beyond has a whole display dedicated to them. This new fare class has quickly spread and these new bags are NOT the same as the regular carry on bags, as you know. Maybe that’s what’s confusing some people- bags designed to fit in the overhead carryon are not going to fit under the seat. Do you prefer the Osprey or the Hynes Eagle better? I do fine w a backpack but dh wants a bag designed for under the seat and I’m having trouble deciding what to buy for him.

I’ve seen them enforce the special fare class that allows you to only carry on one item and it must fit under the seat. The way I saw it was that they stopped and questioned people with more than one item (such as a purse and a bag) and they watched passengers with this fare (who board last) to be sure they did not use overhead bin space. I’ve never seen them measure bags for this fare class. I have seen this both at O’Hare and Atlanta this calendar year.

I have seen it on United and American in the past six months several times. That class boards last and they walked down the line and eyed everyone’s stuff. I saw them make a lady check her bag because she also had a purse. To be fair, both would not fit under the seat. I have also been on the jetway and heard them call down that the remaining passengers were only cleared for under the seat storage and watched the staff enforce it even though there was room in the overhead.

I use packing cubes and a medium one will fit a week’s worth of my clothes. That easily fits in my backpack and leaves room for my iPad and other items and fits under the seat. But I’m a light packer and it doesn’t stress me. If you don’t travel often, purchasing an under the seat bag or packing cubes might not be worth it, and you might be better off checking your bag. They will likely accept your cpap and put it in an overhead bin, but don’t put anything else in the same container with it. I’d also approach the gate staff before boarding to discuss your cpap so they know why you have two items. Your fare type will board last and the gate crew will be vigilantly monitoring anyone with more than one item unless it’s a bag with only food in it. ‘Have a great trip!

Yes, she has a history of mental illness and recently (like in the past two weeks) she has seemed to spiral on Twitter. ‘Having said that, I see some pretty great stuff and also some pretty awful stuff on Twitter every single day.

Dd is home and says it was well done. A lot of instruction on conscious vs unconscious bias, and they broke down into small groups to work through some material. They went through their new policies and what it means and doesn’t mean, and they watched a movie/video of some sort. For the poster up thread who asked, Common was part of the video presentation, though not rapping, but rather as an activist. Not trying to defend Starbucks, but dd works there part time because her ESL teaching job at our community college offers her no benefits and Starbucks does.

I see ‘no loitering’ signs in places sometimes but I have no idea whether it’s valid or not. I’m wondering more if loitering is going to be difficult to enforce in public because of this. We have an area of town where people hang out and the police always have a car there to have an officer on the scene when fights, drug deals, etc. break out. They currently use loitering laws to keep people from congregating but it’s a tough job. This is on a public street less about a mile from my house. Totally different situation than what goes on at the Starbucks that’s also a mile from my house (different direction) but I wonder if when things change for the better at SB if it will really be what we want.

Airport, Target, grocery store, Barnes and Noble Starbucks aren’t corporate, and they are open today according to the email I got from Starbucks this morning. Probably not going to be any easier for you to find a seat there if non-customers take up seats. FTR I think if someone needs a restroom a store should be willing to let theirs be used. But I understand it’s tricky because in some areas restrooms are used for sex and drugs. Starbucks was wrong to call the police but the police were wrong to mishandle the guys. So what does this mean for loitering laws?