This is so encouraging! My 11ds received a similar diagnosis and he's in year 2 of Barton tutoring. It is *amazing* to see the progress and I'm thrilled to see your sons success!! So happy for you!

This has been so encouraging! It never occurred to me that I could just up and camp by myself and not drag the whole family along. Every one is old enough, I'm competent and comfortable, and it sounds heavenly. I think I'm going to do this soon!

The part few years we have given everyone Old Navy flannel christmas pj pants. It's not a whole matching set, but it does widen our choices significantly. I've got four kids and they are all out of kid sizes now, so that does help!

That's kind of hilarious 😂. Annoying, but hilarious.

Its actually quite helpful for me to hear some one else feeling anxious about this. We are in an area that is *sort of* taking things seriously, in a county that is lukewarm at best, in a state that is just so frustrating. So my community experience is varied. I have enjoyed a very low key summer and haven't worried but it's rising all around us again and I've got a 9 year old, too. I am really ready for a vaccine for these kids!

I haven't posted for a long time, either! But I second the Pevear/Volokhonsky recommendation. I tried the Kropotkin translation, but realized it was abridged. The writing is beautiful, but I didn't want to miss anything, so I switched. I finished W&P in May of 2020 and I agree that it was just the right book for the year. It felt like an actual life changing experience, honestly. Fair warning, I read it with a friend and we both felt serious ennui afterwards. It was difficult to read anything else for quite a few months. I almost want to read it again this year, but I'll let it sit a bit before I pick it back up. I'm starting my year of reading with A Court of Wings and Ruin, it's the third in a series by Sarah J. Maas. I'm not usually a fantasy reader (is this considered fantasy?) but I needed something new and fun and this series has been the perfect fit for the break. I'm hoping to read wide and new this year. I may make an arbitrary number goal, but mostly I want to step out of my box and read things that I wouldn't usually. Last year felt so cloistered and I find myself needing to shake things up.

Cameras are better now, too. So when we were seeing high thigh and booty in the 90's it was blurry and so we noticed it less. Now it's in high def and we are in no doubt that we are viewing someone's crotch :laugh:

UGH. I feel your pain (smell your pain??). We have a dog that will clear out company with her gas. What has worked so far is atrociously expensive dog food (Taste of the Wild) and Digestive Enzyme powder that we put on every cup of dog food. The kids call it Fart Powder :D. We've tried EVERYTHING over the years and this is the only combination that makes her gas better. She still audibly toots (which is so awful and so awfully funny) but it's at least just noise and not the Silent But Deadly horrors she was gracing us with before the new diet. ETA: When I say smelly, I mean it was so foul you could almost SEE it. We started to wonder if she had an actual medical problem.

I have diagnosed IBS as well, and drinking Kombucha regularly definitely helps me. It doesn't help if I drink it every now and then, only if I drink it regularly. And frankly, that is how almost everything with my stomach issues works. Everyday I take a multivitamin (Supermom), probiotic (Biokult), Borage oil, and I drink Young Living's Ningxia juice (I am entirely embarrassed to admit that, It may be voodoo or placebo but it honestly does help my stomach), and I drink Kombucha. Everything seems to work ONLY if I take it daily. If I do all of that daily and add in daily exercise and destressing measures, then I can eat *almost* anything if I only eat it rarely. I still can't eat whatever I want, whenever I want. But I can have a cup of coffee once a week and be okay.

This is my favorite reason ever for not wanting a spouse to nose around your computer :lol: .

I can't imagine being upset about this, mostly because I think it's nosey but not nefarious. I would *totally* browse through my Dh's documents if he had a briefcase. He's interesting! The things he does and says and is involved in are interesting. Maybe it's the difference between "nosey" and "snooping". When I think of nosey, I think of casual interest, like you'd read letters your grandparents wrote to each other to know them better. When I think of snooping, I think of purposefully digging around to find something unsavory. All that said, it's pretty known in our household that privacy between the two of us isn't really a thing and we like it that way.

Your word of the year could be "Chaste" :lol: JK

I think this is probably where the rub lies. To your MIL, you ARE her family. Your Dh is her son, you know? So when she is thinking family time, she is wanting the same thing you are - Christmas Day with her nuclear family. (edited for unintentional caps - lol)

Kristen & Kristy were hugely popular names growing up. In my sorority in college there were at least 10-15 of us with Kristen/Kristy/Christy/Krissy type names. I've been wondering if those will ever come back around. Those and Tiffany, Jessica, Stephanie, etc. More early 80s names.

This has been so helpful! What a great thread.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

We just quit Challenge B yesterday. DD13 and I were *miserable*. We started CC because I thought it would be helpful to not have to plan the curriculum for once, DD would get time with peers and time to discuss, and she would be challenged. What ended up happening was me modifying everything, me realizing I didn't agree with the educational philosophy that underpinned the lesson plans, DD getting frustrated every week because she was interested in the material but it moved so fast she never got to dig in and LEARN. It was all box checking. So we quit and I feel FREE. I'm sure there are people to whom this program is geared (some of my best friends are those people) but it was awful for us. In fact, after I hung up with our Tutor, DD ran around the house yelling "DOBBY IS A FREE ELF." :D

My husband has OS, he grew out of the pain (continued to play football and soccer) and now is still an avid runner. He wears a knee brace or ices if the pain flares up, but honestly that could also be aging. And he still has his knobby knees :)

In a dream world, the book would come with a credit to listen to one of your lectures. I found that being able to hear your tone and off the cuff remarks in your lectures allowed me to reread TWTM with new eyes and see the recommendations as just that, and not law. The lectures changed the way I read and viewed TWTM in an entirely positive manner.

I agreed with the FWB because that's a pretty great way to describe us. We are friends. We are best friends, forever friends, only one I ever want to hang out with friends. Also, we get to have sex, which is awesome. That's why it's "the best kind of friends with benefits", because it never stops and it gets to be awesome forever. I guess when I think of marriage, I see that not all spouses are friends. Some of them don't actually want to have each other as best friends, you know? They do what works for them. But my marriage is based on our best friendship. But it's not Roommate Friendship, it's sex and love and affection, too. So the phrase is an attempt to clarify that in our marriage our friendship is the bedrock. And also that the bed rocks. (Terribly sorry, couldn't resist.)

:iagree: Dh and I are best pals. I would rather spend time with him than do pretty much anything else, with any one else, any day of the week. However, I'm not so narrow visioned as to assume that this arrangement works for all couples. We often joke to each other that our best marriage advice is to quit navel gazing so dang much, order pizza, and go watch Wipeout and laugh for awhile. Hardly the makings of a book :laugh: . But it works for us and we are very happy after almost 14 years together.

I thought you had misspelled "leeches" and was so totally lost.

My kids LOVE the keens. We wear those suckers out and for Texas summers spent hiking around they just can't be beat. I wear a pair of old Tevas and they are the BEST. I've had them... 5 years? Still holding strong and I hike through rivers and all over rocky paths and such with them. Zulilly occasionally has sales on Keen and I try to stike then :)

Ours has fit in every state park we've been to. We did go to one in NM last year where we couldn't out up the vestibule or garage, but the tent itself fit fine.

The vestibule comes with it, and it's just an attachment to the back of the tent that has no windows or floor, just a covering. It's a great place to put bags when it's dry and where we put our little travel potty. The garage attachment is something you buy separately, and it operates like the vestibule, except on the front end of the tent and it has a flap that you can open to the entrance to the tent. That is where we put a couple camp chairs to take our shoes off and where we put a little lifetime table to set our lantern and other things on that we want accessible, but not out in the open or in the tent with us. It's a good little place to hangout when you want to be out of the tent, but under cover. You also need to buy a footprint, its a tarp that goes underneath the tent and helps keeps the bottom of the tent dry. You can technically do without it, but you will stay MUCH drier if you have one. :)