This sounds like a scam. Are you sure it was the morgue that called? Were they trying to get you to give a credit card number over the phone? I agree that it's the estate that is responsible for paying. They certainly wouldn't be making threats about payment within days of death. No government bureaucracy works that fast, and they would send you a bill, probably registered mail definitely not a phone call, long before they would sue you.

I have an old wooden dollhouse that my grandfather made for me when I was a small kid. It's in dd's room mainly being used as shelves/to store stuff since she stopped playing with it a long time ago. My dream is to someday have space and time to fix it up as a display piece.

Dh and I don't usually exchange gifts other than things we need for the house or are mentioned ahead of time, but he surprised me with kayak racks for our car so I can transport my kayak easier, and a gift certificate for a massage. Oldest dd got me a Spotify gift card which is what I told her to get. When we were on our recent road trip I mentioned wanting to try it because I'm still downloading individual songs through iTunes and want something better/easier. My mother got me science themed socks and an Amazon gift certificate.

No real misses except my mother keeps wanting to get dh kitchen stuff since she has every gadget known to man but he doesn't see the need for all that stuff. She got him a grill tool set. He's been grilling year round for decades and definitely has all the tools he needs. Slight miss but correctable - dd got a few games for 3DS that she asked for. I mixed up one and got one she already had and didn't get two she asked for. One of them wasn't available on Amazon but I found it on Walmart so one return and two orders and she's happy. She also got a set of LED strip lights that I just grabbed while buying stocking stuffers and she loves them. She always hangs in her room with the lights out and she likes that these are a more subtle light than her big light if she wants something on. They change colors which is neat. Oldest dd got a vacuum cleaner, which is what she asked for. As a semi-joke, dh ordered the kids their own bath towels with their names on them. Ds actually LOVED that gift. Dh and I don't usually buy each other gifts but he surprised me with kayak racks for the car so I can transport my kayak easier, and a gift certificate for a massage.

I'm slowly finishing up my second cup of tea and deciding what I'm going to do today. I have work to do both paperwork at home and stuff at work. I want to go to Joanne's to see if they have clearance Christmas fabrics because I want to make some gift bags to use instead of wrapping. I should go by the pet store and get a rat for the snake we're babysitting and fish for the turtle. But I didn't sleep well and I'm tired. It feels like a good day to be lazy.

Me too. I feel like I should just eat salads for the next few days to purge my system of the massive amounts of sugar and fat I've eaten. Oldest dd has a friend who is a professional pastry chef and dd brought over a box of her Christmas cookies. Soooo yummy. I'm not even sure how many cookies I ate yesterday. We also had chipped beef gravy and biscuits for breakfast. So good but so not healthy.

I've heard 9 and 3 because of air bags. The old position of 10 and 2 will break your wrists if the air bags deploy. We recently did a defensive driving course for an insurance discount and it suggested hand-over-hand for long turns of the wheel so one hand was always firmly on the wheel, but to stay 9 and 3 if it was a smaller turn.

Happy Christmas Eve. I'm feeling very sneezy too. Can't tell for sure if it's allergies or cold. Feels slightly cold-like (feels different in my sinuses to me, I can usually tell) but could be start of a sinus infection from allergies. We had a bunch of flooding last week and it's been warm-ish, generally in the 50's every day, and I'm very allergic to molds and mildews. I've also been eating hazelnut chocolates (they are soooo good!) and I've been showing mild signs of tree nut allergies (walnuts a definite can't eat, almonds not as bad but not good to eat) so that could be contributing. We aren't doing anything holiday related until tomorrow. My mother, oldest dd are coming over for breakfast and to spend the day until an early dinner.

In NJ the law is that you drive in the right lane unless you are passing. Obviously that is not always followed but I have seen people get tickets for driving too slow in the Left lane. One of the absolute best things about driving in NJ is that the big trucks (18 wheelers) aren't allowed in the Left lane. I hate when I drive in other states and I have to worry about the big trucks suddenly cutting me off or starting to come over while I'm passing (and I don't pass slowly, when I need to pass I do it quickly).

I don't know where Indigo is but I'm in NJ and that is the normal situation on Route 80, 78, 280, 287, the Parkway, the Turnpike..... Unless you can be sure you will never have to drive on an Interstate/big highway, the driving school might be a good idea. Even when I try to avoid situations I find uncomfortable, I sometimes find myself having no choice. Once, shortly after learning to drive a manual transmission I had to move into a line of traffic going somewhere between 80 and 90 mph from a dead stop on the upside of a hill behind a person who had stalled out on the hill. (highway was a steep hill going down where everyone picked up speed then went up sharply). It was super scary but I had no choice at the time but to deal with it.

I'm in NJ and we had really bad flooding the beginning of the week. Tons of rain Monday, with flooding lasting until Wednesday/Thursday before receding. A lot of road closures and a few power outages. Now we are supposed to get heavy rain again possibly tonight but almost definitely Tuesday/Wednesday. Flooding is not super uncommon around here. We live on a river (but way above it) that floods, and the Passaic River floods frequently but it's reaching places that haven't flooded before. "50 year floods" are happening every 2-5 years.

Morning, Happy Friday! I'm now off for two weeks except for redoing my entire website; setting up and sharing Facebook and Instagram postings; designing, posting and following up on ads for an Open House and our next session; working out Summer Camp schedule then deigning, posting and following up on ads for that; figuring out if I can set up a payment terminal using one of the computers I already have; setting up a survey about next years classes then working out the schedule and posting about that; updating and sorting folders for my math workshop class; finishing up the organization of supplies that we moved over Thanksgiving break; sorting through some bins to make sure they are what they are supposed to be; finish organizing my upstairs area (should be for the last time since it will be lesser used stuff now); update Quickbooks for year end; and rearrange my classroom in a better setup for the size and age of my classes. Oh yeah and some holiday stuff too. I'm enjoying my second cup of tea now after sleeping in until after 9am. I've been storing the kids gifts in the upstairs storage at work so I'm going to head over there in a little bit to do the wrapping. Except I'd like to wait until after lunchtime at the restaurant there so I'll be able to park near the door and not have to carry stuff too far.

I actually just went away for an overnight with my 29 year old daughter and my 16 year old daughter last weekend. I do at least one weekend away with my oldest daughter each year, usually to Niantic, Ct (large used bookstore, cute shops) but we went to the Punk Rock Flea Market this time. She definitely still calls for advice, comes over to do laundry, etc so I don't feel like all that has to be done by 18. Some of the stuff on SKL's list were things I didn't need to encourage - an interstate trip she did with friends driving to Florida from NJ with friends after her senior year of high school. I don't think we gave her important documents until she moved into her own place. I didn't think they were a good thing to have in her dorm room at college. Definitely talk a lot!

I still have 3 days of classes left before I'm off but I did finish shopping last night. Not much to get when the kids are teenagers. My students were out of control yesterday. This is always a fun week. We also had torrential rains and flooding yesterday so we have a bunch of flooding today (it's usually worse a day after the rains) so I'm getting a lot of calls to see if we're open. I expect light attendance due to the flooding and the holidays combined.

I read 171 books this year (so far) but missed 35 of my categories and I doubt I'm going to get to them now. I may have been too ambitious, I started with 92 specific categories and it's harder to get to those books. ETA: a book booya

Morning, Happy Friday. My week isn't quite over, I have a workshop this afternoon. Should be pretty easy, this group of kids takes lots of initiative so I'm mainly going to be assisting with questions once the initial lesson is done. I think we're finally putting up our tree tomorrow. Our house is super small so the tree disrupts things a lot. Dh likes to wait to put it up close to Christmas. I want it down immediately after Christmas. It's a lot of work for just a couple weeks.

You all are doing way more than I am. But I find running around exhausting and refuse to do it. I took dd to a 4H Teen party Wednesday, then had the final meeting to argue about the fair Thursday. This coming week we have a leaders social and the holiday party for one of two of our clubs (meet together). Next weekend we're going to my mother's for dinner for her birthday, and this weekend my daughters and I are going to the Punk Rock Flea Market in Trenton. We're heading down tonight when older dd gets off work, spending the night at a hotel and going to the flea market in the morning. We joined the Y to start getting more exercise since dd ended up quitting tai kwan do when a bunch of stuff changed and it no longer worked for her. I tried some classes with her since her anxiety she won't go alone, but I pulled a muscle in the top of one leg and it's hurt for about a week now. It is getting better but it hurts at the weirdest times/movements. Two more weeks of class and we are off for two weeks.

I used to sleep in until noon on weekends. I can't seem to do that anymore. I generally go to bed between 10 and 11pm and wake up about 10 minutes before my alarm goes off at 7am. On days I don't need to get up for work, I'll stay in bed and doze back off for an hour or two but generally I'm out of bed by 9am. If I'm not feeling well, I may be able to push that to 10am.

My mother and MIL only ever had direct contact with each other through Facebook. They would never text or call each other directly. I haven't met the parents of any of my oldest dd's boyfriends. Not in high school and not since. I've met all her boyfriends and a sibling or two, but not the parents. I expect if she were to marry one of them, I would have some contact around wedding planning but wouldn't expect anything more than that.

Yuck, Oregon State has pretty nasty uniforms too. Head to toe bright orange. And Oregon is wearing lime green, but at least white pants. Both on the same field is extremely jarring. Blech.

We're not doing Thanksgiving dinner until Sunday so things are pretty quiet around here. I'm still working on cleaning out my storage unit. I should have it done today or tomorrow. I only have a couple more loads but they are going to different places so may have to split the load. dh is getting a nuclear stress test. His regular stress test had some concerning markers so they are checking more stuff out.

I agree. Head to toe neon green should not be a thing. Ick.

I live very close to everywhere I've lived except 3 semesters of college so I could visit any of those places easily. I never have. Before 5 years old, we lived in a few places that I have no recollection of. I know we lived with extended family at one point but I don't know if there were three or or different homes during that time. An apartment for 1/2 of kindergarten but I don't know when we moved into it. Apartment we moved into in March of my kindergarten year, we lived there until after I graduated high school. Four different dorm rooms for my 3 semesters of college. House mom and stepdad bought when they got married and moved while I was out of state at college. I lived there on breaks (only came home for Christmas and summer), and for a year after I came home. Never felt like home, maybe because they moved while I was away. House with exH and his brother, owned by ex-MIL, lived there for 6 years. House bought with exH, lived there for 6 years. Lived with mom and stepdad (different house from other house) when separated from ex for 6 months. Tiny house with dd after divorce, for 6 months. House share with another single mom, for 6 months. Apartment, for 6 months. Moved in with dh, have lived here for 19 years. My younger kids have always lived here and have no desire to move or change anything. Oldest dd mainly remembers the house I bought with her dad that he still lives in, and my current house with dh. She has her own apartment now.

I agree on the bigger pot but I basically just neglect mine. I have one that's at work where it sits in a window that gets sunlight until about 10am, in a window that's an old single pane with a sheet of plexiglass screwed to the outside. I water it when I think of it, probably only about once a month or so, by putting it in the sink and watering a ton allowing it to drain. That's it and it blooms fully every year.

Morning, Happy Monday. I'm on another break week this week because of the holiday but I'm moving out of my storage unit this week so have to move everything to my upstairs storage room. I loaded up my car yesterday and went out before tea this morning to empty it. There's a popular restaurant a couple doors up from my storage room door and parking gets really bad during the day. The only times to get close to unload are around 8/9am or after 3pm. Later today I'm going for a bone scan ordered by my gyn.