One more post for now - Congratulations Heather to you and your dh! I read that late last night and didn't want my congrats to get lost when the new thread started.

In other news (no pun intended) I finished News of the World today. I loved it! It made me want to read a bit more about children who were captured by Native American tribes, and the trouble they had adjusting when they were returned to their biological families. I also want to read another book of hers, The Color of Lightning. There's an historical character, Britt Johnson, who makes a brief appearance in News of the World. The Color of Lightning tells his story as historical fiction. Still plugging away at: Doctor Thorne - I should finish it this week. Alexander Hamilton - I've been listening to the musical soundtrack and was inspired to pick it back up again. Norwegian Wood - I should finish this one this week too. Infidel - audio book. I like listening to an author read his or her own book, but her accent is fairly thick and I have to really pay attention. I didn't have this problem with Trevor Noah's book but maybe that's because I'm used to hearing him on The Daily Show. Once I finish at least one of the above books I plan to start my book club's current book - The Marriage of Opposites.

My culture shock was almost the opposite of yours Robin, and I got over it fairly quickly. Though I'm a Floridian through and through it wasn't always that way. I came here from New Jersey at age 13 kicking and screaming, figuratively of course. I swore that as soon as I was 18 I was moving back to Jersey. Five years later I had sand in my shoes. That's a term used to mean that you have Florida in your heart. Sand is notoriously hard to get out of your shoes once it gets in, and Florida is hard to get out of your heart once it gets in. However, when we first arrived I stuck out like a sore thumb at school. Although Florida has people from all over, and this area especially due to the space program, most of the people I eventually made friends with came from other southern states. I said yous (never yous guys - it was either you guys or yous but not yous guys) and Flah-rida. I swore I would never say y'all and now I know the difference between y'all and all y'all. :lol: In Jersey everyone we knew was either Catholic or Jewish, unless they were Black. Baptist was the Black religion. That's how insular my world was up there. The first time I met a white Baptist I was very surprised. I thought we moved to the South but we didn't. After college my first teaching job was in South Georgia and by moving north to Georgia I felt like I moved further south. Five years later (3 in Atlanta) with more culture shock, and I was ready to come home to Florida. Though I'll always have a bit of Yankee in me, I'm quick to complain about those northerners (often from NY or NJ) who can't stop telling everyone how much better things were back home. I'm a full fledged Floridian and if I have my way I'll live here for the rest of my life here. I occasionally miss some of the food, but that's all. Most of my extended family eventually moved here, so I have cousins and aunts nearby. I'll take our hot, humid nine-month summers over a northern winter any day.

Is Ask-A-Nurse still around? They were always the same way. If you called them, they usually just said go to ER or urgent care. Exactly. Moxie's point is why even bother having a doctor on call if this is all they're going to do.

We had this situation when we renovated our kitchen shortly after we moved in. My biggest complaint was not having a sink to wash dishes. I washed them in a tub in the tub. Ugh. Like you, we did have our refrigerator. We kept pantry items in Rubbermaid type bins in the spare bedroom, and I had a few bins in the dining room for the stuff I used often. I would have loved it if the Instant Pot was around back then! I'll add my voice to those who say one would be perfect. If it's not in the budget, then make use of your crock pot as much as possible. Microwaved meals even made from scratch, get old really fast. I know this from my experience. If you normally like to cook, you'll be so glad when it's done and you can actually cook real meals again. Good luck!

I agree that having an on-call doctor just tell you to go to urgent care makes the idea of on-call useless. I also agree that doctors aren't uncaring about costs to their patients. All of my doctors as well as the ones ds had over the years, have been very aware of insurance. They have their own problems with insurance as one doctor told me recently how difficult it is to prescribe medications when insurance companies are so different about how they want things coded and what they'll pay for. I've had doctors tell me they want to prescribe me such and such but it's not often covered so I should check my policy - then they said if it's not covered we'll look at (less effective) alternatives. I also had one doctor recently give me Canadian pharmacy information for a medication Cigna kept denying. It turned out to be not much cheaper from Canada, but at least she tried to offer me an alternative. Back to your OP, Moxie, I get your frustration. It doesn't help you now, but is it something you can bring up with the doctor at a future visit? Maybe ask him if there's anything you can do when you have to talk to an on-call doctor from a different practice?

I have a Samsung too, and the app would be the same for all android phones. I just went and looked and now I see the total time left. My complaint has been with Goodreads, not Overdrive or Audible. They offer page number and percent in the progress section, but I wish they also had time (hours?) for audio books. I've mentioned it to them more than once, whenever they ask for suggestions before the next update.

Yes, it annoys me. I listen on my phone and haven't found any other way to figure out time left. I don't usually update my audio books on Goodreads. I just mark when I finish.

Yes, also some basic questions do make sense. When I voted no questions asked I meant you shouldn't have to prove you're needy/hungry. There's a church food bank here that asks how many people are in your household and asks their ages. That's for distribution purposes. The single person, the elderly couple, the family with infants, school age children, teenagers, will all get different types of items in their box. Those kinds of questions make obvious sense. There's another food bank/thrift shop charity that asks degrading questions. Questions about working and drugs and alcohol and sexual partners and more. I took someone there once and though I was in the other room while she had her "interview" I could hear some of the questions being asked. She left there in tears and asked me to take her somewhere else. Even though she answered all of the questions to their satisfaction she didn't want their help. Some might say she should have swallowed her pride and taken what she could get. I supported her, and I no longer support that charity. I won't even donate my stuff to their thrift shop now that I know how they treat people in need.

You should be able to pull up the details (what that looks like will depend on your device) and see how much time is left. It will show you all the parts and chapters and tell you how much time is in each chapter - or sometimes it tells you the total time in the part. That's the only way to really know how much time is left. I usually glance at all the times left and just estimate a total. I've noticed that how the book is broken up is different depending on the book. Some books that were really audio cd's show up differently than one that was recorded as an mp3 audio book. Also the chapters don't always match. When you hear the narrator say "Chapter 5" it doesn't necessarily show you're on Chapter 5 if you look at the details.

Second Harvest Food Bank is one of the more well known and respected food banks in Central Florida. They say that 97% of donated money goes to feed people. Also, your financial donation feeds people in the area served closest to you. http://www.feedhopenow.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ways For those who prefer to donate food, they have a list of most needed items. I'm sure this varies by location, but for the most part these are the kinds of items that food banks usually want you to donate. http://www.feedhopenow.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ways_food_list

Yes, no questions asked. I've worked food banks and I've taken people to food banks. People who go to a food bank have already made the difficult decision to put aside their pride. Making them prove they need it is degrading.

My 19 yo lives at home while attending college locally. He lets me know out of courtesy where he's going and what time he expects to be home. He also texts me if things change and he's going to be later than planned.

Oh, I didn't know about that because I listened to the audio book of both Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies. I kept hearing about the pronouns (mostly he/him) driving people crazy but that didn't bother me. The lack of quotation marks probably would have bugged me if I had read it. That doesn't stop me from reading a book if I'm enjoying it, but it's distracting until I get into the story and get used to it.

We didn't have a set time for either dss or ds as it depended on the activity. Generally though, 11 on school nights and 1 a.m. on weekends or other non-school nights.

As a lefty, I've yet to find the perfect potato peeler.

No, please don't drop out or feel you're getting behind. It's not a race or competition. Challenge yourself with what works for you. Then come here and talk about what you read. Also, it's not uncommon to get behind on a particular week's thread. That's okay too. Just pop back in when the new thread starts.

If you do decide to get another card, the good thing about Overdrive is you never have to actually go to the library (after you get your card of course). Borrow from the comfort of your device, and when the loan period is up it just goes away. Some of us have learned to keep wifi turned off on our Kindles if we haven't finished a book when the loan period ends. :) I do love my library system, and my local branch in particular. They know me because during the elementary years of homeschooling we spent hours there and checked out so many books. I rarely go in anymore because I borrow so many ebooks and audio books, but when I do they act like I'm their old friend. Hope you feel better soon.

I haven't heard much about flu season but ours doesn't usually start until late this month and gets going in February. I recently read that the shot is about 60% effective this year. We've been getting the flu vaccine every year since 2003 and haven't had the flu. Before we started getting the vaccine we'd get the flu about every 2-3 years.

This one came to mind right away. It's more about unionizing than specifically women, but she's a woman fighting for safety in the textile industry. Sally Field won an Academy Award for it and it's loosely based on a real person.

I don't have a fitbit but my Samsung watch has a health app (my phone has it too but I don't always have my phone on my person). I have 7000 steps as my goal. I plan to work up to 10,000 but I find it more motivating to start small and be successful.

In my state the homeschooled student can but the Catholic school student can't. Neither can the students who are being homeschooled under an umbrella school. Umbrella schools are considered private schools and private school students can't participate in public school activities.

Eh, there's no limit on the number. LBJ pardoned over 1100, Nixon almost 1000. Obama is over those numbers but not by much.

It's very common for an outgoing president to commute federal sentences or issue a pardon. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but it's a starting point for anyone who wishes to delve further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_granted_clemency_by_the_President_of_the_United_States

Same here. I hate it when I find a Kindle or audio version but the cover doesn't match my (digital) copy.