I have a couple of silicone storage bags that I loved at first. Now I don't use them because they absorb the odor of my dishwashing detergent. The odors from the food get washed out, sure, but I can't get rid of the detergent smell unless I bake them in the oven for a bit after every few usings, which is a pain. So maybe if you just used them for oatmeal and then hand washed them they wouldn't do that, I don't know. Mine are hard to hand wash and get completely clean because of the grooves in the sealing mechanism. I prefer glass jars.

I'm so sorry. That would be very hard for me, too.

I was in graduate school and was in the process of learning that black people often experience our country differently than white people. I mean, I kind of knew that a little before but didn't really grasp how profound the differences can be. Watching some black and white professors attempt to discuss the verdict during lunch break was eye opening for me. That's what I remember most about that time - just coming to terms with how different our experiences and subsequent perspectives might be. As for him being dead, well I won't mourn.

I can't speak to CC since it's been before covid that my kids took CC classes, but my one left in a decent state university has shown me their syllabi. It's amazing to me how incomplete the info is. Like you, I used to plan my time noting when tests were, when assignments are due etc. There is little to none of that. Professors decide when things are due with little notice (sometimes 24 hours) and that notice is sent online through one of several ways to communicate. It is impossible to plan much in advance because the info just isn't there. Students might know from the syllabus that they have three exams and how much they are worth of their grade, but no idea when they will happen. Things are due at midnight on a Sat night. Who does that? I suppose having to print out your assignments and turn them in at class time was a pain, but at least you knew what to expect.

Rao's Marinara, Moondrop grapes

Big difference. It's the difference between looking like the sun going behind the clouds for a bit and nighttime. Even 1% of the sun not being covered means enough light that you wouldn't even notice. I learned this the hard way last eclipse. Editing to add you can still see part of the sun getting gobbled up which is cool.

Ds lives about 18 miles from epicenter. He said his apartment building shook but his only damage was a water glass that fell and broke. I read there was a decent aftershock about six but haven't asked if he felt that one, too.

We went on a RC cruise in Feb and the internet was fine. We didn't try meetings, but we streamed videos with no problem. It might vary from ship to ship. We were on the Explorer of the Seas which isn't one of the newer ones but still had no issues. Have a wonderful time!

Last time we flew to Italy on Delta (about five years ago) they passed out one blanket per row of three seats! The flight attendant was embarrassed but said that's all they had. Even if you are besties with your seat mates, those blankets are tiny, lol. Even places that have washing machines often don't have dryers, so taking quick drying clothes is helpful.

I think there can be a difference between being a member of a royal family and being a celebrity. One can fulfill their duties by attending things and shaking hands and doing ceremonies without being a celebrity. Being a celebrity means sharing more of your life to the public, which, honestly, is a large part of what makes you a celebrity. It means giving interviews about yourself, appearing on magazine covers, releasing information about your clothing choices, sharing interesting aspects about your life, all of which have nothing to do with your public duties. The public gets interested in you because you give them things to be interested about, and then you try very hard to control what you have created, namely public interest. I don't know enough about the state of the monarchy there to say this for sure, but maybe without celebrity the public would decide the monarchy isn't worth it, and maybe the royal family knows this. Regardless, there are members who are celebrities, and they have absolutely chosen this route. Again, doesn't mean they deserve the violations, but they have chosen to fan public interest in themselves which is a tough thing to control.

I have always done ours after the first year we were married and a CPA charged a ridiculous amount. We paid it, but I swore I'd learn how myself going forward, and I did. Some years I used Turbo Tax, but dh insisted we print out the results and mail them ourselves rather then have Turbo Tax send them because he doesn't want our tax info saved on any database but the IRS's. Now I'm just doing them with the free fillable forms on the IRS website because it's not worth buying Turbo Tax. I help our young adults with theirs too. Ours have gotten simpler since we are mostly done with college stuff, but when dh retires in a few years, I'll have a steep learning curve again. It's not my favorite thing, but I take comfort in knowing what we're saving.

Agreed. I went to a Christian boarding high school about eight hours away from home. I wanted to go so it wasn't a parental thing. Our class of just over a hundred was unusually awesome, and we got close. Every five years over half the class returns for reunions and they are always some of my favorite events. Three of my closest friends come from there. While the kids were amazing, the faculty were very much a mixed bag. Two of my friends were sexually abused by faculty, and there were reasonable rumors of others. The girls dean bullied my roommate so badly she had a breakdown and left. Faculty had pretty much complete power over us because it was insular with little parental oversight. There were faculty who loved us and were dedicated to our wellbeing, but the system as a whole allowed the predators to act easily. It's interesting to me how many of my classmates still support the school and even sent their kids. They are aware of the abuses but either don't believe them or write it off as "bad apples" rather than a systemic problem. While abuse can happen even under the noses of parents, there are conditions that make it easier, and the boarding school setup fits that.

I was raised YEC, and these books really helped me understand why science accepts that evolution happened: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (also a PBS special mentioned above) Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero I think the Prothero book gives the most overall picture, but they are all very interesting and written in an accessible manner.

I am way more cautious than I used to be about thinking I can read situations and predict how they will turn out. I've seen huge red flags that turn into reasonably happy marriages (for example) and I've seen the opposite. I can look at things and see concerns, but really I have no idea what is actually going to happen. It's helped me with my more controlling tendencies to accept that I don't have the answers, and life has taught me it's a strange journey for all of us. So yes, as I've gotten older I have way more empathy for those who look around and wonder how "x" happened, even when others cautioned about that very thing. It could have turned out differently - you never know. Which doesn't mean just throw up your hands - we can still go with the odds as we see them - but that's all they are, somewhat unpredictable odds. We make our choices based on all sorts of things, only some of which are based on facts as we see them.

Here you go: https://www.thefoamfactory.com

Sounds like you are set, but just in case, we replaced the foam in our couch seat cushions (it's a tightback so no back cushions) and it was great. Dh handled it all so I'm not sure where he ordered from, but it was online. They came in the mail perfectly sized and we just zipped them in. They were much firmer than our old cushions (not sure if he ordered them that way) and we've gotten several more years out of our sofa. The sofa is good quality and has lasted at least fifteen years now. ETA I can ask him where he ordered from if you want the info, and he might remember.

I read that book as a young teen, and yes, it certainly was, though I'd use other adjectives as well. Makes me mad to think about now. So much harmful stuff I was fed as a girl trying to figure out my place in the world.

Ohhhh, I just now got it! "Fundie" as in "fundamentalism" not "fundie" as in "trust fund"! I kept seeing the term and thinking it meant a trust fund baby, and I was trying to figure out why they would talk like that and what it had to do with the current event triggering the term. I was so confused. This makes so much more sense!

My son was a very attractive boy and he attracted attention in public. I noticed the looks and people would often comment. Obviously most of that was totally harmless, but I was aware of how pedophiles can see a child or an image of a child and get obsessive. I was angry after our son was on the news after being filmed playing on the neighborhood playground for a news segment on National Neighborhood Night Out without my permission. I also refused the several news interviews we were approached to give over the years over various little things like voting. Obviously one can't control that completely, and I knew the odds were small, but I figured it's one thing I can control - limiting the exposure he has on media when he's young. Plus we're a family of introverts anyway, so no loss not being in the public eye. We have to weigh the very small risks versus the real benefits of our kids interacting in public and living a normal life, but when it comes to being on the news, that was an easy call for me. If he had been older and made the news for something good and wanted to do it, I would have said yes (but wouldn't have liked it). Around the same time I was weighing all of this (twenty years ago), one of my friends put a picture of her very beautiful five year old daughter on her blog. The daughter was doing something completely innocent in the picture (and fully clothed) but a warped mind could see something different. Men flocked to her blog and started sharing the picture around the internet with disgusting captions. To this day I'm haunted by that. Editing to add, anyone obsessive about your kid can pretty easily find out enough info to do them harm.

I have a bleeding heart in my front yard that is a division from my 100 yo mil's plant. She got a division a very long time ago from her grandmother's farm. I have no idea how old the original plant is, but I'm honored to keep it going. Funny story. Mil asked me about fifteen years ago if I wanted a division and I, of course, said yes, but since it was peak July heat, I told her I'd dig it out and divide it when things got cooler in maybe Sept. The very next day she shows up with a division that she had dug out (yes, in her 80s). It looked terrible, as they already do that time of year, and had only a little bit of root, but she was pleased with herself. I gulped, planted it, and watered religiously but didn't have high hopes. Next spring it grew up happy as could be. They are tough plants!

My parents were decently wealthy by the time I was a teen, and this was still their philosophy. Just because you can spend the money doesn't mean you should. Both dh and I feel similarly in that I can't get pleasure out of things when I know I'm being gouged, so if I'm buying something for pleasure (like junk food) it better be reasonable or I'm not buying it. It's not about being able to afford it - it's about a pleasurable thing losing its pleasure because someone thinks I'm a captive market. Nope.

Ferns might do well, especially ostrich fern. Liriope does well almost anywhere. Red twig dogwood is a shrub that would like it there, but it is less deer resistant. Sweetspire and summersweet are also shrub options. Our voracious deer nibble those but don't destroy them, preferring the roses next to them in my yard.

It would be cheaper, but we eat pretty similarly so it would mostly just mean less of what we eat now. We have shifted mostly plant based from vegetarian and are eating less processed stuff too. I like a variety and I like to try new things so I'd still be buying weird ingredients for recipes and just continuing what we're doing now.

We have been together 32 years and our fights have been rare and mild when they happen. No yelling and we stay on topic, but the tone gets firmer, lol. I think our worst one was when we were dating and we got into an argument about racism. We are both pleasers and we tend to be over-analyzers, so while we get irritated sometimes, we tend to just shut up and wait it out. If we still think it's important after a few hours, we bring it up again, but usually we both realize whatever it was wasn't worth it and that's that. I grew up in a family that argued intellectually while dh did not, so the whole racism argument was much harder on him and he didn't offer another opinion on controversial topics for literally years. Even now he doesn't like debating things that we don't agree on. We come closest to fighting right before and during our travels. Any complicated traveling makes us both tense and lack of sleep adds to it. We still usually just revert to our usual discussions but are more irritated deep down than usual. I don't think this is necessarily better and I know plenty of happy couples who get angry and fight (but don't demean or belittle each other). It's just not our conflict style.

Sorry, yeah I was thinking I've derailed things. Back to KDrama!