Jump to content

Menu

Lucy the Valiant

Members
  • Posts

    2,786
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Lucy the Valiant

  1. 9 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

    We've had years with actual BLIZZARDS where we live and years that are so brown we have barely two weeks of white. Dh is so bummed he's actually going on a little trip with ds to find some snow. 🤣 

    Send him our way, with a shovel!

     

    • Haha 3
    • Sad 1
  2. 1 hour ago, Eos said:

    I'm mourning our lack of snow, and also can see a time when there will be no more maple syrup.  The trees need very specific conditions to run well, and it's rarely been that cold at night this year.

    We tap maples here every year, and the season fluctuates forward or backward on the calendar, but the spring temps are the ones that matter - best conditions are 20 at night and 40 during the day. Some years are good, and some are bad. 

    (ETA: If it's at all reassuring, it's definitely been cold enough at night this year, and the outlook for maple syrup is strong. New technology both at the tree level and also at the production level is quite promising, and the temps are fine even in El Nino years. We harvest in late Feb / early March / sometimes late March.)

    It lasts forever on your shelf, if properly bottled; it's been boiled for hours and hours, so any living impurities are well and truly gone. 😉 It's our first "garden crop" every spring.

    • Like 9
  3. "Fafsa Error Means Less Financial Aid From Families"

     

    (I'm working very hard to follow the principle that "if you can't say something nice, just say nothing at all."  #fafsaFAIL 😞 I'm) mostly irritated for some very hard-working students I'm close to who are actually significantly affected by the "small" differences in aid. 😞 WHY are we rushing to roll out a program that is obviously NOT ready for prime time? . . . Oh, wait, never mind. )

    • Sad 2
  4. On 12/31/2023 at 12:09 PM, Spryte said:

    Ours has terrible itching, skin issues, and loses his hair. The vet recommended grain free, which helped but not enough. Vet then recommended avoiding chicken and problem was solved. We did not do testing.

    Our ratty old (and dearly loved) street rescue had the same problem. 

    Our vet told us that dog food allergies are much more frequently connected to protein than to other categories (I had been feeding him bread as a treat which he ADORES, and thought I had caused the issue, but we had also switched his protein from salmon to chicken - yep, switching the protein back (and an abx round) cleared it right up for good, and he occasionally still does get his beloved bread snacks, LOL). 

    • Like 3
  5. Fitness? (weights? maybe with glow stripe tape?) Rowing machine / indoor "trainer" for bicycle / punching bag? (things that don't require light / vision)

    Hand tools / work - knife sharpening? a ukelele? a close (female) friend w/vision impairment knits. 

    Time spenders . . . raised dot Rubik's cube? (that might be mildly offensive; please ignore ANY of these that are wrong) those chain link games (separate the 2 metal pieces)? wooden puzzles / like the complicated Montessori binomial cube style?

    • Like 2
  6. (When we did this several years ago, with a child, it helped all of us to re-frame our thinking from "wish we were home" to "so glad we DO get to celebrate Christmas at all" . . . helping each other re-frame was the magic sauce that made the "ordinary" suggestions actually turn out pretty special. ❤️  Wishing the same to you and yours!)

    and my practical suggestion: make a list in order of dh's priority so if he gets tired / wants to sleep, he still got to do the items at top of list. A list can also help build anticipation. 

    battery lights for wheelchair wheels / IV poles

    and . . . there are tiny laptop-style projectors that can put a movie onto the wall . . . I don't know the right terms, etc, but maybe the hospital even has one (our Child Life had one), or a friend could source / loan one, even maybe from a church?

    • Like 11
  7. (Not sure if Tello is an option where you are, but if you own your phone outright (my current one was $200ish), unlimited text / unlimited data / unlimited minutes are $25 / month total. We've had excellent customer service with them for a few years now. )

     

    • Like 3
  8. 37 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

    My concern with Hermione is that while she's autodidactic and would do great homeschooling in the Muggle world, she'd be unable to access resources in the wizarding world because her parents aren't wizards and she'd have no way to make those contacts-as in she wouldn't even have the library or the equivalent of the World Wide Web. Now, if she could go live with the Weasleys and be homeschooled there, that might work really well-Molly is about the ultimate homeschooling mom. 

     

    This may be why your talk is aimed at PARENTS of gifted kids, and not the kids themselves. ❤️

     

  9. I sit on a conservation commission (nowhere near WV, sadly) that would LOVE to have that land for wildlife corridors. 🙂 (When we purchase land for conservation, it usually involves a much lower price than market rate, comes with "no development" covenants (sometimes; these aren't necessary at all), and is often not legally accessible except to neighboring landowners. I don't know if there's a conservation commission near this property? Or even a statewide one?

    • Like 3
  10. ^ Echoing 8's angle . . . I personally struggled with "trusting the kid" . . . because, Valid Reasons. So my advice to younger moms now is to "work WITH the kid" (yes, kid must allow this). Example: Kid wanted to skip "all English" one year and study game theory instead . . . I was fine with no "literature" because kid read real books all the time, but was concerned that this was an elaborate ploy to avoid any type of language arts / writing skills, which kid still did need. Kid independently came up with a Great Courses video series that he proposed to watch & take notes on (while learning different styles of note-taking), write summaries of the lectures to include small graphs & MLA documentation, and designed a "big fun project, Mama!" at the end. -----> Yep. He sold the idea, and it was SPLENDID. (If I had REQUIRED kid to do that level of work at that age, there would have been a rebellion.) This kind of example is helpful for parents who don't yet have the experience / confidence to "trust the child."

     

    • Like 5
  11. - eat enough Korean food before going that she'll recognize / know ahead of time some foods she enjoys 

    - ask Korean friends or acquaintances what THEY would recommend she see / learn about their country

    - know ahead of time just a brief outline of Korean history within the last century (especially as it relates to China and Japan)

    - interesting tidbit: If she knows American Sign Language, by chance, she'll be able to communicate words with Korean signers, but not the alphabet (and hence, no finger-spelling of unusual words . . . or place names)

    Editing to Add: The physical touching / petting can also happen to people with curly hair and / or blue eyes. It's usually meant as a compliment. Personal space is totally different in Korea vs. USA.

  12. On 12/6/2023 at 3:52 PM, SKL said:

    I know what it means to be anti-semitic vs. to disagree with what the Israeli government is doing.  I've openly disagreed with Israel on many important things for the majority of my life.

    That's not what I'm talking about here.  Young people who are trying to see humans as humans and policies as policies and have an opinion on those policies and how to address them - that's what I want to see.  If that were all I was seeing, this post would not exist.

    Yes. Though when leaders repeatedly and clearly refuse to admit that calling for actual genocide is bullying and harassment, it's easier to understand the students' confusion. 

    Thankfully, there ARE young people who can see past the hate. May their voices be heard.

     

     

    • Like 3
  13. This link sells the part for $48, but if you type in the Frigidaire Part #131873301 to Amazon, they sell a Lifetime compatible part (with lots of good reviews) for $12.   (There's also one for $9.95, but with only 2 reviews - too suspicious for me.)

    We are a line drying family here (95%), and after we got used to it, it truly is no biggie. (Just throwing that out there if it becomes a helpful idea in the future; we have a collapsible drying rack but also a retractable wall line.)

    Landlord should replace the part, but . . . maybe he likes $12 better than $48?

    • Like 4
  14. ^Adding to the idea of self-training to recognize time intervals, something that was helpful for one of my young men around the same age was to break down (almost to the micro level) of the long goal (ex: chemistry) and how that relates to a daily schedule (in chemistry example, if I want to finish chemistry in 9 months, I have to do 1.5 chapters a month, which "x" pages per week, which means "y" pages TODAY. Plus I have to build in a buffer day, because . . . life. And (in my young man's case) it's really hard to do focused school work on Beloved Extracurricular Day, so that means "2y" pages the day before. It sounds ridiculous to those who pick up EF skills intuitively, but was SUPER helpful for my young man for me to really hand-hold the time break-down, at least for a while. And we'd describe it like . . . "We're so happy to be able to help you with this and show you, and one way you'll know you're ready for the next step is when you're able to break down these big goals like this for yourself."  ----> forgive me if the example sounds overly literal; for years, I mistakenly conflated high intelligence + natural curiosity = smooth EF skills. That equation DID hold true for some, but NOT for all, and was a surprise to me.)

    • Like 5
  15. Where I live, a new law has been passed that all new playgrounds must have that smooth rubber-y surface over them (no wood chips, etc). It's safer (according to the experts), and also more accessible for wheels. The problem is that when older playground equipment needs to be replaced for safety, the newer surfaces are so cost-prohibitive that smaller towns are financially forced to just get rid of the playground altogether; they can afford a new swing set but not a whole new playground.

    I'm not sure what the perfect solution is, but - this is definitely a law with unintended consequences, and it's making playgrounds LESS safe (the town's insurance company is the one who decides when a fixture is officially "unsafe").  

     

    (My own kids grew up playing in our neighbor's back field . . . VERY similar to the junkyard playground, haha! Who knew it was cutting edge?!)

    • Thanks 1
    • Sad 1
  16. 24 minutes ago, Innisfree said:

    Cell phone service is not universal in the area, fwiw.

    Understood. But even off grid, a phone is a camera, downloaded maps, downloaded first aid instructions, even a "panic list" saved in photo albums (what to do if lost, music to listen to if needing to unexpectedly spend the night somewhere, etc). It's not going to get her out of every tricky situation, but it can be an extremely useful tool, even off grid.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
×
×
  • Create New...