I think I am a rule follower to a fault and afraid to make waves. I am getting better but I think the ideal is somewhere between what is quoted above and always going along to get along. I posted about my rule following dd carrying ibuprofen in the other thread. I was kind of glad to see her make that choice on her own because I would probably have been paralyzed by the rules at her age. (And in her specific case it would be unnecessary because there is really very little discipline at her school and it isn’t a risk she is going to get suspended if she is caught). My dd’s school has a lot of rules it does not enforce. For example the dress code. I don’t like seeing my dd stressing about her skirt length being a fraction of an inch too short when other girls are wearing it so short it looks like they aren’t wearing any bottoms under their sweaters at all. So, while I don’t want her thwarting rules or making trouble for herself I would like to see her not put extra constraints on herself no one else is working under. I think I did a lot of that to myself. It isn’t fair to make your own life harder following rules that no one else is and aren’t being enforced. But you have to have a sense of where the line is there.

What I am saying is that I don’t believe these requirements are actually being required. I don’t believe in anyway that all the high schoolers graduating in my state are proficient in a math beyond algebra 2. I think there is some kind of fuzzy stuff going on and they are naming courses one thing and passing kids along. Just putting the requirements on a document and on a transcript does not mean that kids are meeting them. My state is not known for robust education . So I don’t believe you would have been denied a diploma and I don’t believe kids like you are denied a diploma, nor do I think they should be. Our state requires everyone to take the ACT and those scores don’t reflect that these requirements are being met. So I’m just skeptical that these requirements being on paper means a whole lot of anything.

I was going to share the Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe. I generally think cake mixes are very strong performers but that chocolate cake is excellent and people just go crazy over it when I take it somewhere. Someone on some baking show did the boiling water in a chocolate cake trick and I was like that is my trick! Don’t tell everyone! As if it isn’t on the Hershey’s cocoa box. Top secret! 😂

Our state does require four years of math including one year beyond algebra 2. That said, I have never met someone who did not graduate because they couldn’t do the math or that was denied a diploma who attended school regularly so ??? And tons of kids get to community college and remediate these classes. So what are we doing here anyway? Just sayin. I don’t have the answers. I have never had anyone in public school so I’m not that familiar. I just have the questions.

Pancakes. I see someone else said it. I just can’t get it right. Waffles it is.

My 10th grade dd is a total goodie rule follower (and she comes by that honestly) but she carries ibuprofen on her and takes it as needed. That said, her school is lax on all the rules and if anyone saw her I’m sure they would just pretend they didn’t and she isn’t under threat of actual discipline without any warnings. So, she isn’t really in fear of getting in big trouble. But this is the only rule so far she is willing to break. She isn’t giving up her ibuprofen access. Being a girl is hard enough.

At my dd’s school the advanced classes have textbooks but the regular classes tend not to. It’s not an absolute but that is the trend. On the first day of school they go to the library to pick up textbooks and some leave empty handed and the high achievers have to make multiple trips. I’m glad my dd has books but of you know there might be other kids that would benefit from them too. The rich get richer.

I pick a color I like and then look at what colors are suggested to go with it. There are always suggestions on the card or website but you can also Google and find suggestions on blogs. I honestly could never tell. I can’t tell what is warm or cold or what color undertones anything has. No way. Even if you tell me I can’t see it. So I just let someone else tell me what coordinates. I trust the professionals whoever they are and if they are wrong I will never know the difference myself anyway. Pick what you like. I used to go with bold colors but now I go with neutrals and decorate with bold pillows and accessories. It’s less pressure and easier to change up. But you can go either way.

I think to eat in restaurants and stay in hotels you just have to decide not to think about things… and not thinking about things for an hour or a night or a week is different than making a purchase that you bring into your home. That said gross stuff happens in factories and warehouses and retail establishments so we best not think too hard about any of it. It we want things to make actual sense.

I like the idea of buying used but outside of houses and cars I just have never gotten into it. I always see thrift shops recommended whenever someone is searching for something and I just have never had luck finding things in those and the idea of looking through garage sales for that needed item just sounds so not fun to me. The times I have gotten things used I have generally been disappointed. I guess I really wanted it new but for a used price 😞 I’m cheap and I’m not picky. So it’s not that I’m a snob, really. I’m embarrassed because I feel like it doesn’t really fit my personality for me to sit here saying I don’t buy things used. But I really don’t. I buy cheap crap from Walmart and Amazon and I’m not proud. I’d feel better about myself if I could claim I scoured thrift shops for high quality items that had been abandoned and I rescued them. But no. I am instant gratification cheap junk I guess. Or high quality exactly what I want when I want it if I care enough. But I haven’t had luck with used. It’s part snob and part lazy I guess. It’s not I “wouldn’t” as a philosophical thing (besides the obvious underwear and hygiene and personal stuff) but rather just a I “don’t” I guess.

Oh man. I honestly don’t think there is a polite way. If it was me I would find myself a better team I could join and just quit those. I know you are too involved with running them to do that but that is what I would do. There should be a way to do this. What you are wanting is reasonable and makes sense. I just don’t think there is. You just are going to look like a jerk I think.

There will still be some places hiring in the spring but some have already made their hires. Definitely not too early to start looking. My ds from the OP had some time before he had to officially accept this internship so he has had more interviews and offers this month. So hiring for summer 2024 is definitely happening in some industries.

My dd is in 10th grade at a Catholic school. The teachers have a lot of freedom in grading policies so it varies widely. The teachers that don’t give a lot of extra credit/allow retakes take so much heat from the parents. I appreciate that my dd has a variety of teachers and styles to deal with so she is prepared for college. It’s nice when she gets extra credit opportunities but I so appreciate her having some honors and AP classes where the grading is more straight forward so she actually has a realistic understanding of grading. She has had some classes where she had so many 100s for attendance or participation and extra credit that she literally had zeros for missing assignments and still had grades in the high 90s. That seems silly. She had a geometry class that had so many extra credit opportunities that one day she got in the car and said “I got a 115 on my geometry test. I better go see the teacher and make sure I understand all the stuff I messed up.” It’s silly but what about the kid that got a 90 with a ton of extra credit and their parent thinks they are doing great? I’d want to know that my kid actually was missing a lot and that the 90 wasn’t really out of 100. It is really hard to know how you are really doing when everything comes back 100. My dh teaches an online cc class and it is obvious these students expect these policies. He gets challenged when he takes off any points at all. Students act like anything less than 100% is failing and get really upset. They also have an expectation of constant retakes. He teaches a lab science and his students expect to be able to get feedback on the labs and resubmit with corrections for full credit. And after quizzes he gets emails that say “I need you to reopen the quiz so I can retake it”. Not even requests just the straight up expectation that you can repeat work until the desired grade.

Maybe think of having this “big tough country” guy record the song as the part of the checkout girl so Chapman can cash in and retain control makes it the ultimate girl power song? Just kidding. I don’t care if anyone likes it or not and haven’t thought about it that much. 🙂

I think it is a song about poverty and bad relationships and how hard it is to break out of that cycle. I think it is about a hetero couple even though Chapman is gay. I don’t necessarily think of it as a girl song just because I think the content is relatable and relevant and it is a great song and a guy could hear Tracy singing it and relate to it as a child in that situation or his mom’s story. I don’t mind the Luke Combs version but I think I just like the song coming back around. I don’t know how much sense it makes if the Combs version is your first exposure to it. It doesn’t bother me because it isn’t his song he is just singing a cover of her song and for that reason the “checkout girl” line just kind of works fine.

I also prefer a green salad to any of the veggie casseroles. We do heavy charcuterie (well we don’t call it that because we are Italian and have always done it before it was cool) so I like to stick out a bowl of salad greens and a few dressings with the charcuterie and veggie trays and there you have a salad bar.

We have definitely adopted the homemade Mac and cheese as southern transplants. Homemade Mac and cheese is never wrong. And it is actually a great holiday dish for a crowd because it is easy to make a big batch to help fill up the big eaters. And we try to eat healthy most of the time so it is a treat. So mac and cheese is definitely a standard for us now. My dd makes it but I would if she didn’t!

I’m thinking of Thanksgiving…if you have been around here and have a good memory you will know I have posted rants about being overworked and under appreciated and trying to find solutions to that while still hosting and still feeding my family and not causing a family fracture over mashed potatoes. So this year I have placed and order with a catering company. Yay! It will cover the basics and take a lot of pressure off. I still plan to add lots of odds and ends that are easy and that I want to do -not that I am required to do. I think we will need the added quantity and variety. And I do like to cook and host it just is too much to do everything. so I’ve got turkey, gravy, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, a veggie, and rolls off my plate beyond reheating which I will have to coordinate. So, I have some freedom to add to the menu and it got me wondering what things families have as their own traditions that aren’t really standard fare. My family used to have a full Italian course and now still sometimes has eggplant parmigiana. In the south macaroni and cheese is a standard but I swear I never heard of that until we moved south but I shouldn’t talk because we were having lasagna and Italian sausage as a course before the turkey and mashed potatoes. What do you always have that isn’t typical Thanksgiving but is your family tradition?

It sounds weird but I went through a phase where I was eating lunch meat sandwiches (like a turkey sandwich on wheat) for breakfast. It fit into the nutritional profile of whatever diet I was trying to follow, it is easy to eat while driving if necessary, easy to pack and more temperature flexible than most breakfast sandwich type things and more protein focused than some high carb breakfast like bagels. So for me it worked as a healthy breakfast on the go that stuck with me until lunch.

I think your idea sounds great. Is there a reason you don’t want to do that? Is it that you will be missing your ds on the actual day? I do understand that. This is probably unpopular advice and it isn’t really advice- just what I would do- I will work around the schedules of the women my sons marry no matter how annoying or unfair. I won’t do anything crazy but I will be flexible and if I can’t work with it I will go about my desired plans and tell them I can’t wait to see them when they are available and tell them I hope they have a wonderful time with their family and remind them they are always welcome at my home. I know some think that is being a doormat or whatever but I’m just not going to be confrontational or demanding about these things. Not saying you are, at all, OP, just saying I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere in relationships by pressuring adults to be somewhere they don’t want to be or that puts them in a pickle or in conflict with other family. It might not be fair but it is how it will be I think. I think your original idea sounds good!

I would have to take over this job. I know that is the wrong answer because it is so unfair but that is the way things go here. I could not deal with that. I did convince my dh at once point that whoever cooks should not have to clean up and it is a nice division of labor to have the person who didn’t cook clean up and we have been doing this most of the time but when he leaves it too long I do do it because it is driving me crazy. My dh would offer to clean up but then say the pans needed to soak and that was 90% of the time a way to avoid actually washing the pan because it didn’t need to soak and he would fill it up with water and never actually wash it. I did call him out on this and point out that I thought at near 50 yo he was a little old for this kind of thing and it has actually stopped. I do clean up when dh cooks except when he puts off cooking until so late that cleanup is past my time of night that I am willing to still be doing kitchen chores. Then he does it. So we have a clean up agreement that works about 75% of the time and that is the best I will ever do with my dh as far as these things go. He is just not as trainable as I see other dhs are. You aren’t wrong but I don’t know how to make a man do things like that. I’d be doing the dishes or using more paper or cooking less or finding some other job to give him.

Never know how to size these right so we’ll see. But this is my baby Maisy.

Nah. Doesn’t sound awful! I think you are fine to let her go. You have a reason- you done want to do all that driving. That’s valid enough to tip the scales. And your compromise of driving her halfway is pretty good I think. As far as the double standard. Meh. I always was the stricter parent so I was always saying no to things the partners were allowed to do. I figure we all get to make our own parenting choices. But I hear what you are saying.

I would probably say no but I’m not sure. I don’t make hard and fast rules and reserve the right to change my mind and while I try to give my reasons and be rational sometimes it is a “just because.” I am more cautious about teen drivers than most parents. I know 17 is almost 18 (which is legally adult) but it still is not. I held fast to a lot of rules until my kids went away to college. And people would say “but they will be in college in six months” and I would say then they have freedom in six months 🤷🏼‍♀️ There is a chance I would let my dd and hate it. Or that I would just hold the line at No until 18 or graduation or something. But I don’t think you are wrong to let her. Parenting teens is hard. Sometimes we are overprotective and sometimes we say yes to things even against our better judgement. Sometimes there is no good answer and then I would just get frustrated that anyone asked me the question!

Agree! I feel like no one believes me when I say this! It’s terrible. I do admit I feel better when I exercise so I focus on that and I don’t make myself do super hard exercise or types I hate because it doesn’t matter. I do what makes me feel good.