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ThatHomeschoolDad

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Posts posted by ThatHomeschoolDad

  1. I did letuce one year and it was easy and very good....right up until it bolted and became unedible. I've read about shading lettuce and/or doing plantings weeks apart to get a continual crop. I might try shade, but the schedule sounds like more work than I'd like to do.

     

    Parsley was easy this year, and mint grew like a weed. I've tried pumpkin and zuke, but always get leaf mold, even after spraying. Kinda tired of tomato, which I've done forever (it's a law in NJ).

     

    Forgot to mention...that black landscape fabric works well, but is fussy to put down. Grass clippings keep the weeds down almost as well.

  2. They call it "social engineering." A hacker calls someone (normally in a big company, but not always) and says "Hi, this is Fred down in IT. We need to do an update/reset/scan/etc. of everyone's pc, so we just need to confirm your password/login/etc." Of course, it sounds legit, because who knows all the guys in IT? Meanwhile "Fred" is really calling from Uzbekistan and just gained access to the company network using your login. Calling someone at home seems to stretch the logic of the scam, but if it works only 1% of the time, it must be worth it, like my Nigerian uncle who kept emailing for a while.

  3. I'm sorry to hear that you have cancer, too. If you've talked about it before, I missed it. :grouphug:

     

    For the OP: This post reminded me that my cancer center has support groups for kids who have a family member with cancer.  Your hospital might offer that, too.

     

     

     

    Thanks.

     

    And yes, good call on support groups.  We went to a Wellness Community group that was split with parents/kids each having their own social worker-led sub group.  It was awesome until they changed staff, so we're taking a break, but you can and should do that -- try something, and if it doesn't fit, try something else

     

    Wellness and Gilda's Club are now under one umbrella org - Cancer Support Community - but still operate as separate entities, so if you Google, say, Gilda's Club Seattle, it'll have its own site.  I highly recommend them!

  4. It's been in flux for a while, and it still is.

     

    Way back when -- the grandparents and their three daughter's families all gathered at one house.  Large affairs.

    Not so back when -- through death and divorce and kids growing up, it was down to grandparents, three sisters and some of their semi-grown kids, all at one house.  Still large affairs.

    Now -- one grandparent (she's 100), one sister (one died last year, another lives far away), DW, DD13 and me, and then a decade-plus gap to my local cousins who all just had their first and second kids within the last two years.  The "kids" all watch football and drink too much beer, while the rest of us hold court around the dining table.  We work to help DD not be too terribly bored.

     

    Two cousins teach ps, and another teaches college, and illness rips through those families with amazing frequency and speed (DW also teaches ps, but I dunno, washes her hands more?).  This Christmas, we hunkered down at home when two cousins got the same gastrointestinal nasties at once on the 24th.

     

    I've learned to embrace flexibility.

  5. Well she said it's not so bad that it would ruin their marriage. I'd think being gay would ruin a marriage. So would body in a dumpster. If it is something like he went to a strip club, I wouldn't care.

    True. Then again, there are marriages of convenience....maybe not for the murder thing. No, even including that, but I live in Jersey.

  6. First, I'm sorry you joined the club. Mine is Stage IV ocular melanoma.

     

    Second, thank you, Thank You for taking the approach you are. I've met patients who hide info from their kids and wonder why it always backfires.

     

    I don't have a specific title in mind, but I strongly recommend asking the child life specialist at yout cancer center. If one is not on staff, ask for an oncology social worker who can steer you to the right resources, like a local Gilda's Club, etc. Resourrces for kids are plentiful, but you may have to dig a bit.

     

    DD13 was 8 when I was firsg diagnosed, and has been seeing oug CLS steadily for the three years I've been Stage IV. It has been THE best thing! Really. Ask here, or PM me if you want more details. Parents' approach to children and cancer is one of my pet issues, because so many do it wrong. It sounds like you're starting out right.

     

    Keep rowing.

  7. DD12 was born when DW and I were 35, and about a year after a miscarriage. DW and I both have younger sisters, and while her sib relationship was strong, and remains pretty good, mine was horrid and remains non-existent. Her sister has 3 boys, tightly spaced, now in high school & college. I distinctly remember driving home from some event there and saying "let's be done," although I'm not sure what the details were now except that 2 of 3 of hers are on the spectrum, and that was before her divorce but in the thick of what led to it, so....interesting environment. So maybe it was fear. Maybe it's personality, maybe it's just how out family trio works and meshes so well. Maybe it's two first-born parents being control freaks. It probably has a little to do with thinking more than one kid would not be financially doable, and we have zero family support. Whatever. I love parenting one child. My 2 cents from the other side.

  8. "Twas the Night Before Christmas" has "Happy Christmas" in it. Was that written in the US or Britain? I wonder about carols, too--whether some are more popular in the US that use "merry" and if that's the reason. (Of course, it could be the other way around, that we use "merry" and so our carol writers did the same!)

     

    Clement Clarke Moore wrote it in 1822.

     

    From poetryfroundation.org:  Clement Clarke Moore was born in New York City, the son of the Reverend Benjamin Moore and Charity Clarke Moore. An only child, Clement was capably tutored at home by his father until he entered Columbia College; according to his biographer. Samuel White Patterson, he graduated in 1798 "at the head of his class, as his father had, thirty years earlier." In 1801 he earned his M.A. degree from Columbia: he was awarded an LL.D. in 1829. A very religious man, he gave a large portion of the land that he had inherited, part of his Chelsea estate and now called Chelsea Square, to the General Theological Seminary, where he was a professor of oriental and Greek literature from 1823 until he retired in 1850. At his retirement he purchased a house in Newport, Rhode Island, where he died on 10 July 1863.

     

    So, A.) Homeschooled!  and B.)  Kinda lends cred to the temperance idea for merry vs happy.

  9. LOL.  No really, ROTFLMAO.

     

    Our house was built in 1925, then sold in 1957 to a young family, and the husband promptly dropped dead.   Nothing was done to it over the subsequent decades.  Here's the list I can think of:

     

    Replace all wiring and plumping

    Replace 25 of 27 windows (already did two)

    Strip lead paint from exterior (did one side 7 years ago, before HSing -- you can still see the line where the color changes)

    Rip interior walls down to studs, as early drywall prototype sheets are buckling.  Might as well insulate then, too.

    New kitchen, expand into back porch and butler's pantry

    Half bath on main floor

    Finish basement

    I re-framed the garage roof 7 years ago, but never stripped the siding, but now I'd like a bigger garage, so???

    Repave driveway

    New furnace?  Maybe not if I insulate

    Refinish all the original chestnut trim, which, while not painted, is full of holes and gouges

     

    That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure there's more.  Can I just arrange for those TV guys to come and send us to Disney while they do it in a weekend?

     

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