Depending on layout, aesthetically pleasing free-standing folding screens could work as a "wall" to screen this room from the other common areas. Or something along that line. Not permanent but separate. Then that becomes a "home office" apart from the common space of the house. The cheap book cases or whatever other organization equipment that DH prefers can be added. You won't need to see it or manage it, and DH has some personal space to do his thing how he needs to. --from someone who has homeschooled and run a DH-co-owned business from home for 16 years in multiple homes with multiple layouts who is currently sitting in her master bedroom at her own desk/office setup that must be carefully curated since she hates clutter but must work and have work-clutter

I see this discussion moved on from just recipe websites, but for a straightup recipe website I LOVE skinnytaste.com. Her recipes are spot on. In other words, you can do exactly what it says and the results are super yummy and perfect every time. I don't like cooking or experimenting with cooking or fancy cooking techniques etc. I've made probably 30 different recipes from her website and they turn out perfect every time. DH and DD love them too, and they are super picky and hard when it comes to calorie-restricted or low carb or vegetarian etc. The recipes are clearly defined and coded for particular diet restrictions which make it a great source no matter what type of dietary challenges you are pursuing.

We are still gathering all Christmas day. Brother was diagnosed with Flu-A two days ago. But the symptoms are the same, and I trust no one to be fully honest. He's over the worst of it (been sick about 5-6 days) so he says. His college-age daughters reported having slight cough/scratchy throat. I would love to declare no contact, but... My Dad died a week prior to Thanksgiving. Age 62, pulmonary embolism, no known health problems, sudden death. We are grieving and completely unmoored. We all work in a family business so that has been even harder because we have had to quickly carry on, etc while trying to navigate this new normal. There is no way Christmas gathering can be cancelled. There's just no way. I am praying they will have good sense to wear masks, My kids have been instructed to at least give wide berth while they are in our house. No hugs, etc. Our house is quite large so hopefully that helps even a little. I'll do my best to passive-aggressively make comments on wearing a mask and being sick, etc, etc. Not everyone is vaccinated sadly. It's Texas. It's very political in the family. My crew is vaccinated. There is no way I could get them to test. No way. Huge ruckus. This super blows.

No Fritos in my neck of the woods either. Very strange. And causing a ruckus in my house.

Both my kiddos had serious conjunctivitis with their unofficial Covid diagnosis (Jan 2020 right before they gave it a name and started paying attention). They were diagnosed with "unidentified virus". No doubt it was Covid. Eye stuff for them was pretty severe.

Yep. Me too. Every word. Every episode. Every character. It's been my loop show for years and years. Even my kids are fairly expert in it now since they have seen so much of it. They often hear me relate life to an episode. Lol!

I am the exact.same.way. LOVE formatting Word docs. Also love making Excel spreadsheets. I have spreadsheets for everything. 🙂 My kids are forced to use Google Docs for all their work in school. I desperately wish this program had the paragraph marks. I am constantly correcting extra spaces. Grrrr.

Got one two three of those, too. Fun times. I was just thinking how I was really regretting raising them to think for themselves and not blindly follow "authorities" etc etc. I don't really regret it, but in the moment I wouldn't be sorry to have some compliant, door mats. 🙂 ETA: I would only admit it here that these apples don't fall from the Mom-tree. But I will only admit that here. 🙂

My oldest could.not.wait to fly the coop and head to b&m school. She is so extremely shy, and I thought I would get her longer than I did. It was sad. It was hard for me. The fact that she loved it and it was clear that it was the right choice for her made it easier. She is NOT NOT NOT getting the kind of education there that she would have had at home in SOME respects. But she is challenged in other ways that she would not have at home, so that is good. Always trade-offs. I still miss her. 🙂 Now my youngest has followed in her footsteps and flown the coop as well. But he is an extreme extrovert. I always knew he would be headed out of the house sooner rather than later. I mourn for the missed opportunities that this creates. BUT if I'm being honest, I was not going to get to it all anyhow because...reality. Only so many hours in a day. Easy with 3 elementary kids, no so much with 3 young adults. The one thing that I insist on to keep my connection with each kid strong is carpool. I drive DD to school and 3-4 day/wk pick DS up from school so that I get that quality one-on-one time with them. It's short but sweet. And they love it too. I have read their school books with them, busted out better homeschool resources for learning something on occasion, and insist that they use what education I gave them even if their teacher doesn't (like proper grammar!). Sigh...I'm already dreading DD heading to college, and it's 2 years away. It's never enough time no matter what you do.

Highschool hours 7:20a-2:50p (middle school hours same) Wake 5:30a. Car 6:35a. Commute 11 miles takes 25 minutes to drive due to traffic. After school band: Rehearsal 3 days home by 6:45pm, GameDay home by 12am-1am, CompetitionDay usually about 12hours. So band 5 days/week, only Sunday and Monday off. Spring much the same but swap marching season for winter-guard and symphonic band. DD is varsity in both, but all 4 level bands have almost this same schedule. It is not unusual to have a 20-hour weekend day. I have no idea how these kids manage, but they do. I have a very organized and highly-academic student that manages to get the bulk of her homework done in scraps of downtime here and there. But about 2-3 days/week she has homework that can take her 1-2 hours at night. I have a Freshman fulltime homeschooler. She attends online classes and has a carefully crafted schedule. The only conflicts with the public-school schedule come from me having to juggle my time acting as a homeschool facilitator/tutor and taxi-cab/personal assistant for b&m kids. MY time is very conflicted to keep the kiddos' time running smooth. She dances 6 hours a week. We had to drop her daytime classes and go to late night classes to accommodate the schedule. 5-9:30 time frame. My middle schooler does not have much homework as of yet (1st year just started). No outside school club obligations. But he plays select baseball and TKD. We just paused TKD because otherwise, he would have had a long practice every night of the week plus games on weekends. Plus 6th grade and puberty and middle school challenges. Too much. DH has had to get much much more involved in running and helping with kid schedules. Plus we are insisting DD16 go ahead and get her license so that we can relieve some carpool pressure too for after school stuff.

I'm so sorry for y'all. Extreme weather sucks. Ida has been just awful. We are steady sending help to Louisiana right now. Even getting a little help to them is hard because of the total wipe out in areas. Pics from the northeast are jaw-dropping. It's weird how it kind of triggers a PTSD-like stress response after Harvey and all our major floods down here.

Absolutely hate that LA is getting hammered again. The Gulf Coast has just been treacherous these last few years. 😞 For those wondering, it's too late to evacuate. Too much traffic, no fuel, the logistics just do not line up. The news/weather guys have been warning last 48 hours to leave or be prepared to shelter-in-place. As Houston well knows, it's very hard to make the decisions. Just so hard. Plus Ida is coming on extremely fast. I just hate it for everyone in it's path. This could be a real whopper.

This is after the fact but in case anyone searches this topic and lands on this thread in the future... Alum paste (alum from spice rack in grocery store with a little water) makes a wonderful anti-itch/anti-welt home remedy for mosquito and fire ant bites. Me, my oldest DD, and youngest DS are SUPER allergic to bites, and in Texas the mosquitos are the size of pterodactyls and fire ants are the most evil creatures on Earth sending fiery blisters out like death rays when you least expect it. When the kids were little, we would paste them all over and wrap an ace-bandage over the entire area like a mummy. Really gave some relief. We still use Alum paste on all bites as needed. I also pour vinegar on fire ant bites first, then paste. We can rarely get away with Benadryl just because usually too busy to be drowsy, but we make liberal use of the Benadryl sprays and creams (better for mosquitoes than ants in our experience). My Granny turned me on to Alum after DD had a few bites during a visit to her Great-Granny's house. Granny said this was the norm long before Benadryl came along since Alum was a popular pickling ingredient on hand. Take that for what it's worth...just passing on what has worked for us. Disclaimer--always head to ER in extreme cases as described above!

Yikes you are right, I'm a year off. Figures.

NVM

I also wonder how much the pandemic shutdown delayed any actions from 2020 to present. 2020 was a hot mess with resources and politics. All of this would dampen any urgency in spending millions of dollars on repairs that no one really flat out said were imminent. I mean it seems like bids and repairs were started as soon as "life" resumed. That 1-bedroom $80k assessment over 15 years works out to around $400-500/mo. That's a chunk of money, especially during the pandemic. I was musing about this because I can't even get my pool repaired or cracked windows replaced from 4 months ago. I've called many contractors. Either man-power or materials are non-existent. The same goes for my business materials (transportation). It's nuts. I've got to stick some tape all over my window now because the crack is growing and I'm not sure if it will just fall out or not. And no one will just SAY that is could. So I'm left playing a game of chicken with my house and Mother Nature. None of my stuff remotely important in the grand scheme, just used to illustrate, BUT if it is like this for simple stuff, I can imagine that major million-dollar projects would be a nightmare right now.

We have had several weather reports like this in June for Houston. source: spacecityweather.com “August-like heat continues in Houston with minimal relief ahead June 15, 2021 at 7:08 am by Matt Lanza Let’s be honest. It has felt like August lately. I mean, really. For Hobby Airport, the last 3 afternoons have tied for the 5th hottest 3-day stretch of high temperatures this early in the season (trailing several 3-day periods from 1998 and 2011, both notoriously hot Houston summers). For Houston officially it’s the 12th hottest 3-day stretch so early in the season. It’s hot, it’s early, and it’s not going to get much better this week.” I’m just ready for Mother Nature to take a breath and calm down. I hope the PNW hangs in there and the heat waves pass fast. It is awful being completely unprepared and feeling helpless in a nasty weather event.

I've been sick (head/chest cold-ish, no cough but burning lungs/chest, no noticeable fever but fever-break sweats, fatigue, insane headaches), then all 3 kiddos followed suit. Vaccinated so not likely Covid. Plus it was really not acting like Covid (which we had at the beginning of epidemic). But is was clearly contagious. Didn't know there was an RSV outbreak. Would make total sense that this is what we were battling. Yuck. I hate RSV. Tends to linger in us, not bad, just takes forever to feel 100% again.

I can attest to foil in windows making a noticeable impact. This was a common tactic in west Texas (115 degree days was normal) back in the 80s. Texas can certainly empathize with PNW. STILL recovering from Uri. Plus we had the 10th wettest spring on record, and now scorching heat with highest temps on record in June. Mother Nature is finally fighting back. And she's going to win...

It gets easier. Very fast. DD LOVES her Invisalign. She's been in them 14 months and gets them off in 2 weeks. It was perfect for a pandemic shut down because they just gave us all the trays to use during lock down. There was a 4wk delay when they started seeing patients again because the orthodontist changed and wanted his own treatment plan which meant new trays for tweaks. Hang in there. These really have been super easy and convenient. Much more so than brackets and wires. I think compliance can be tricky. So if you have a kiddo that just won't stick to the instructions, then brackets are the way to go. DD was motivated, wants straight teeth in as short a time as possible and did not want brackets. So she has been super compliant. Hang in there! We did buy a cute case for the trays on Amazon instead of the generic one we were given. 🙂 ETA: There are tons of YouTube videos with suggestions. If the one I linked doesn't resonate, find more.

My normally-unflappable daughter had an absolute nervous breakdown the first 3 days with her trays and bands. YouTube to the rescue. She watched this video and followed the method (super simple) and never had a problem going forward. The key was to put the bands on the bottom first and place tray on thereby "locking" bands into place. Take a look. https://youtu.be/mRVRtoFzjI4 Another video suggested using a paper towel to grab the band to put on top. This helped with slobber (which was making it hard also) but made it more difficult to see where to attach. So she ended up just dabbing her mouth/tray/band with paper towels as needed to make things less slick and followed the above technique. I bought the tool from Amazon that helps remove the trays, but she never used it after using paper towels and the video technique. Hope this helps!

We pay for 90% of household remodel and repairs using Amex points cashed in for Home Depot ecards. A coworker turned me on to doing this when I was 28. He did this with the cash-back from his Discover card. I started this in 2002 when I was single and owned my first home. Almost 20 years later, we still do this even though the house and yard have grown quite a bit from that first house. We use Amex for everything, and I mean everything, that we possibly can that we would normally pay for with "cash" to rack up those points. We do not carry a Amex balance. It's free money in the end. My mom bought a bunch of Pottery Barn furniture that way after cashing in Amex points for PB cards over a length of time. Also, whenever we are asked what we want for Xmas, birthday, etc (although we try hard to discourage buying us anything, we have relatives that insist on a gift), we ask for Home Depot cards. They are my favorite gift to receive. Just an alternative suggestion to setting aside cash or savings.

Agreed. And I really loved my state, my people, the general Texas ethos. And now everything is discombobulated. ETA: It's like someone let the crazy, mean uncle have the microphone. Before, everyone just tolerated him in the corner lazy-boy until he got drunk and passed out.

This is exactly the case for 11yo too. Turns 12 in October. So no mask, no vaccination when school starts. Fortunately, my 13yo is homeschooled. She'll still be vaccinated ASAP though. ETA: And because he turns 12 at the start of the school year, most of his classmates will be not vaccinated or wearing masks. But the second he can get his, we will. Invisible mask.

Funny aside, I asked him the same thing. There are 2 liquor stores across the street from each other. The other one is next door to son's TKD class, which DH was waiting on him and popped in to replenish my whiskey supply. 🙂 So I asked him why he wasn't using the next-door store instead. He said he tried there first, but they were out of whiskey (our brand). Lol! So my next question was "But did you get the whiskey?" A little funny to try to calm DH down. He was very, very angry. We will NEVER use that store again. ETA: By the time he got home, he wished he hadn't bought it. But he was just stunned. Caught between my whiskey and an a$$hole. 🙂 And that wasn't $150 worth of whiskey alone. It was just the most important. If I was drinking that much whiskey, I probably wouldn't need a mask because I'd be pickled. LOL!