Dd had a great time at her homeschool prom. She met up with a friend she met at my classes and she really enjoyed it. She stayed the whole time (we had a room at the venue so she could have left if she felt overwhelmed), came back exhausted but happy. I'm so glad. She has really bad social anxiety but really wanted to give it a try. The friend is a wonderful girl but was also meeting up other friends at prom so you never know how that goes (easy for someone to be left out). The beds were hard as rocks so none of us slept well. We're grabbing breakfast, going to an aquarium that's here, and then heading home.

We had a bald eagle in our backyard. It was hanging out for over an hour, evidently sharing some tasty treat with the neighborhood turkey vultures. Our usual cardinals, sparrows, etc don't seem like they minded him being around. You can see him in the background of the cardinal picture.

Baby Shark. I don't know why I know this.

It sounds to me like your bigger issue is kids showing up sick. I would add to the policy that if your kid shows up and is showing any signs of illness - "including x, y, or z" - you will cancel the lesson immediately and a makeup will not be offered. Maybe start off with something about it being very important to not send kids to their lesson sick. Maybe offer a zoom lesson if they are unsure or the kid isn't too sick, but that when in doubt, they should stay home. If lessons are cancelled at least x hours prior to the lesson, a makeup class can be scheduled.

Dd has homeschool prom this weekend. This is big for her because she has social anxiety but she's wants to try new things. 4H camp ended up going very badly so I'm really hoping she gets a win with this. She has friends from class that she will be meeting up with there, and we got a room for the night in the hotel the prom is being held since it's about 2 hours away and goes until 10pm. This way she can also take a break in the room if she needs it or just come up if she's had enough. Before asking to go, she had made sure we could pick her up if she wanted to leave. It's down the shore so dh may set up a fishing trip Saturday or Sunday and dd and I can go to the boardwalk or a local aquarium, if the weather cooperates.

Morning. I'm having a nice relaxing morning for a change. Monday I left myself a mess so had to go in to work early to clean it up. Tuesdays are always crazy because dh has to drop me off so ds can have the car for school. But today I can relax. I've started doing yoga in the morning again. I've also been eating very carefully after having stomach cramps and pains for a couple weeks. Ranging from mild but annoying to extremely painful. Evidently I have to accept that there are certain things I just can't eat anymore. On the bright side, I've lost another 5 pounds, which means I'm down 15 pounds from where I started late last year. Hopefully I can keep it up. ETA: A booya! I didn't think it was even close to the booya so I didn't think to check.

I've been busy all week. No classes except Tuesday but I've been pulling everything off shelves, deep cleaning behind, spraying for ants and putting down traps. I basically had to undo things that hadn't moved in months (some was newish). I finished the majority of our organized supplies on shelves in the main classroom and in our storage closet, scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom and hallway. Today I finish cleaning the main classroom (the "classroom" side rather than the storage side), straighten up my room, and if time, the junior room. Hopefully this will take care of the ants.

Definitely a thing around here but NJ drivers aren't exactly known for their patience. Not quite as bad as NYC drivers but we're in that metro area so there is a resemblance. If I truly wasn't paying attention and someone honks, I'll go. But if I was about to go and someone honks, I'll stop again to make sure there isn't something I need to be aware of, like someone running the red light. I generally will stop, look in my rear view, look around, and then go.

That is super cool. Youngest dd LOVES LOVES LOVES touch tanks. It's like her happy place. I run a homeschool science center and it would be neat to do a miniature science museum at the science center (I don't have anything as cool as a touch tank, just classes, a turtle, a scorpion, and cockroaches).

I could not eat that. I love seafood but not when its still wriggling. Interesting idea. My son (18) is diagnosed ASD and is very definitely sensory avoidant. Picky eater partially due to super tasting, very sensitive to certain sounds (particular fan-like sounds), bright lights, will not touch things that are gooey, sticky or messy without gloves on. Washes his hands very frequently. He always had a few foods he would eat that were better nutritionally - pasta sauce made with veggies and pureed very smooth, peanut butter, chicken taquitos. When younger, we also had him drink Pediasure. As he's gotten older, he's been willing to try more things. I think partially because he's a bit of a hypochondriac and wants to eat what he needs to be healthy. But he's always been very healthy and good growth. My younger daughter (16) on the other hand is very definitely sensory seeking. She's diagnosed ADHD and anxiety, but of course there's a lot of overlap with ASD. She's the one who jumps in every puddle she sees (still), stims by jumping and running back and forth in her room (hitting the walls) or rocking back and forth, and eats just about everything. She loves seafood, and very spicy food.

This weekend all my children and I are going to the Punk Rock Flea Market in Trenton. It's a huge event that sells all kinds of cool stuff. We're driving down this afternoon once oldest dd gets off work, checking into our hotel then grabbing dinner. Tomorrow we shop then drive home.

All the churches I've ever belonged to are in denominations with a large hierarchy, with church level, state/council level, and national level reporting possibilities.

Morning, Happy Saturday. I'm off next week except for - makeup classes on Tuesday, running to the county courthouse to drop off paperwork another day, meeting with a possible new employee another day, pulling out all the shelves in the classroom to clean behind because we have an ant problem, for as many days as it takes, and maybe cleaning up my storage room a little bit (again, it's a mess again).

The aftershock felt a lot less and was quicker. I was at work and could have easily blamed it on the nearby train line.

Strangely, my dog wasn't phased either and he's usually anxious about everything. Doesn't seem to have been any aftershocks.

I thought the same thing but I am actually doing laundry. I'm not far from the epicenter, about 30 miles. Everything was rattling and shaking but nothing broke. I checked on the kids and found dd under her desk. Ds slept right through it.

We just had an earthquake. I'm in NJ, not a particularly earthquake prone area. Preliminary is it was a 5.5. A few things rattled but nothing broke. I was doing laundry and at first thought the washer just got super unbalanced because it was noisy.

I agree with those calling for an unschooling or scaled back approach for now. Even public middle school teachers will refer to those years as a holding pattern where you just try to keep them alive. Do some math, let him watch videos or read books, do some field trips, work on relationships, and call it done.

That's crazy that there would be absolutely no childcare options. Are you somewhere where three (or four, I guess you don't say how many is "surrounding") counties is a really small, spread-out population? Pretty much every elementary school in my state offers some form of afterschool care - either at the school, another school in the district, or the local Y or a private center with the school bussing between locations if needed. Most also offer before school care, and there are also private centers that have afterschool care that will either bus or walk the kids over after school (usually these are near private schools). I am in a pretty large county (about 500,000 people) near even larger ones. Sounds like you could make a ton of money offering afterschool care.

I have been told that pantyhose aren't a thing anymore. Young people never wear them, but may wear leg "makeup" or self-tanner to make legs look less pasty white. If something is desired, evidently tights are considered more trendy than pantyhose. Fashion is weird but I'm not lamenting the falling out of pantyhose.

Happy Easter! We're having turkey. I don't know what else because dh does all the cooking. We're heading over to dd's house around noon, dinner around 6. No egg hunt or dyeing, no baskets. We're boring now that there are no young kids.

What movie?

I remember those stickers! I'm 54 but definitely remember having them in Elementary school. Very cool.

My main beef is if you need a large band size in a bra, they assume you also need a larger cup size. It's very very hard to find a 42 A, or even a sports bra that has enough band to not feel constricting but not too much cup. I did find underwear I like. They are from Amazon Pokarla all cotton, full coverage, high waisted https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0862FHBKB/ref=dp_iou_view_item?ie=UTF8&psc=1. I don't like boy shorts. I want to like boy shorts but I wear liners or pads quite a bit and they don't fit well in boy shorts.