Rose, I've been silently following this too. I love the idea of a care package. my prayers and thoughts go out as you seek the best way to proceed. :grouphug:

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. The current meeting seems mandatory - mainly because there's some online password I need to get (don't get me going about carrots/sticks).... but this particular meeting is just us and the college counselor. It's discussing dd's & our thoughts/hopes for college/majors. But, getting to the meeting is a bother... questionnaires to fill out! One week in advance or the meeting *must* be rescheduled (which we already had to do). ugh. Some of the questions are just silly ("Is your child intentional?" :confused1: I didn't answer it). If the college counselor had 100+ students I guess I could see some of these questions, but there's about 30 in her grad. class. I really like the idea of explaining to my dd that we decide what is mandatory for our family and what isn't.

I don't think there's much except guilt directed toward my daughter. Perhaps they'd give her a bad recommendations, but I seriously doubt it because it would reflect badly on the school (hence all these meetings). They want to be able to say to prospective parents that they've gotten X amount of kids into the school of their choice. It's all for their sales pitch. We actually didn't go to the first college planning meeting (it was a group meeting) because I complained pretty loudly, but my daughter hates that. I feel bad, I don't want her to feel guilty. She loves her school but knows I get extremely annoyed with these arbitrary rules/laws that her school puts in place.

We've had DirecTV for a good 12-15years. We love it. (of course it used to be free for us when dh's company and DirecTV were together, but alas)... anyway, Yes, minimal outtages. It's usually when a big storm is right over us and only lasts the duration of worst part of the storm (10-20min??). I don't have to call someone, it just comes back up once the storm has passed. My one piece of advice is to put the dish where you can reach it with a broom during snow storms. Snow accumulation on the dish will knock out service. At our old house we had it on the ground in the back yard- it was very convenient. New house it's up on the roof. There's was no other place for it. Last winter (our first here) was mild, so we lucked out. I'm sorry you're had such a bad time with the Dish people. I can't believe they just turned off your service without your asking... Hopefully, they won't still bill you for it!

Vent away. I feel your pain. Ours is Verizon for internet only - because their service is awful. We'd probably get rid of it for that too if our gamers didn't like internet satellite so much. We moved to land-line too and we have Directv for the tv. I think Verizon and Comcast have some of the worst reputations.

:cursing: In the big scheme of things my dd's high school is very good. But their director of college admissions is annoying in the extreme!! Dd is 5th out of 6 kids, so we've already gotten 4 kids successfully into college (two are now in Ph.D programs). Why does she insist on all the "mandatory" college prep meetings? Mandatory??? really? I understand that they'd want to offer these meetings, but to make them mandatory!!? I've already sat through one boring meeting about applying for financial aid years ago (which we can't do since dh makes too much money), I'm sure I don't need that information again. Okay, I've typed out some stuff and erased, if I say more I'll just offend someone here. Anyway, thanks for letting me vent my frustration.

We looked at a house that had the MB on the main floor and kids bedrooms upstairs. I wouldn't have considered it with younger children but our youngest was 10 at the time and that wasn't the problem. The reason we decided against it is beause I'm pretty sensitive to sounds while sleeping. With older high schoolers and college kids, they stay up later - watching tv, or just talking and goofing off. There's no way I would be able to sleep with them in the next room talking/watching tv. No way. One of the pluses is that it would have definitely been a house we could have grown old in. Since the MB (and full bath) were on the main floor, we wouldn't have to deal with the stairs issues as we age. We have friends whose parents have a set up like this. It works great for them. The upstairs is set up with 3 nice bedrooms for the adult kids and grandkids to come for extended visits, but my friend's parents mostly live on the main floor (laundry was on the main floor at their house too). Its definitely something I would consider once all the kids are grown.

Can you all suggest a few for me to look at? We currently have a Kodak printer and it's probably the worst one we've ever had.

We have a pillow top one too. We've had it 18 months and we're not happy with it anymore. It isn't awful, but yeah, those trenches are hard to get away from. It's mad tEA time interesting.

Thanks for all this information. I didn't really realize that taking him to the hospital would make me responsible financially. Oh dear. It was the National Suicide hotline we called. I looked online for something more local since we live in a major metro area, but that was all I found. Next time I'll dig deeper. I told dd last night to wake me up *no matter what* if he started texting her about it. She didn't hear from him.

I'm so sorry. Even when you're on the periphery it's still very traumatizing. :grouphug:

Like. Glad you're okay with how the thread went off topic...sometimes wrestling with these questions helps push us out of our status quo mode. May God richly bless your journey.

I wonder if the reason why the hospitals here in the US are so uber careful is because we're a libel happy nation? I don't know how it compares with Australia or the UK, but in America if something had happened to a baby who wasn't properly strapped in their first ride home, the lawyers would have found a way to take both the hospital and the carseat company to court.

yeah, I was surprised and disappointed too. My daughter was very unimpressed - which makes me sadder because kids need to know there's a place to go if they're scared for their friends, KWIM?? Sadly, this has hit our house before. One of her older sister's had a high school friend commit suicide in their junior year. It was awful. It came out of the blue (so I understand). He had never threatened it or anything. But, there were problems at home and apparently he blamed his dad in his note. It was a smallish Catholic high school, so all the kids knew each other, the family was the same size and similar ages as ours, and it was in the middle of the coldest winter in a while... Yeah, it was just terrible awful. How many ways can I say I don't want to go through this again?

I agree. I don't know why people are so worked up about this. Did anyone see the photo with the car surrounded by a sea of people? I think they would have gotten home faster if they'd used a pram and walked home.

thank you. I will pass that on to my daughter.

See, that is a great reason to move, IMHO. But, it think it would have to be balanced by the financial loss/gain too.

Could you pray please? She came to me in tears. He told her via texting and now he's trying to say it was no big deal. DD called the suicide hotline, but the were no help. She wanted advice on helping him and getting him to see someone. They wanted to take statistical information. Sigh. I told dd that I would pick him up and drive him to the hospital, but he's having none of it... saying it was nothing. :crying: My daughter has been at risk so I know to take this seriously. He doesn't have much support - lives with his grandma... his mom lives in assist. living because of a drug overdose - his dad is estranged and on drugs. It's all very sad and I've suspected for a long time that he was at risk for this. DD says he's in some kind of group therapy and she's going to try and convince him to tell the leader. Please pray he reaches out and tells the right people.

And we let them sleep on their stomach too. <gasp>.

You have to understand how reverently those of us treat the Eucharist to fully understand what we mean. What do you do with the unconsumed grape juice and crackers? Do you throw them in the rubbish or down the drain with other sewage? That is just awful to those of us who believe it is truly His body and blood. Why would we throw Jesus out with the trash??!! KWIM? Or, is it thrown back in the package to be used again next week - or used for some other purpose (snacks for the kids). Again.. .that would be very disrespectful to those of us who believe in the True Presence. KWIM? 2ndly,, yes, Jesus did use a lot of symbolism. But, who decides which is which?? Do we follow the ancient practices are follow the changes that come along later? Historically the church always believed that Jesus was speaking literally in that instance. The idea that it is ONLY a symbol is a late addition (1500s??) to the Christian tradition. As someone who was a Protestant, and believed very similarly to you but has since become EO, I decided I'd rather follow the ancient beliefs and practices of the Church rather than stepping in line with later additions/changes.

This is a great idea. We toyed with similar things with our old house (hated the house, loved the neighborhood), but didn't pursue it seriously. Now I wish I had. With all the money we spent (we bought up) I could have probably made our old house much improved (and filled in that awful pool!) for a fraction of what the move cost. But ,yeah, distance was another issue at our old house too.

Honestly, I wouldn't move if you're going to lose money. That alone is enough to keep me where I am if other things are only hassles and not real big issues (like difficult/violent neighbors or something). The other issue is the kids. Do they have friends where you are? Then I wouldn't mess with that. I need to go vote but to answer the questions: We lived in our previous house for 19yrs. It was the hardest move I've ever done. I'm still dealing with the depression and regret... but that's another story. I lived in my childhood home my whole life... moved out when I was 18 or so. We plan to live here for 5-10yrs. Sooner if our youngest is ready, but otherwise we'll wait until he's in college. We love the new house and the general area, but I really dislike the neighborhood. I miss our old neighbors too - but I know we'll never get that back.

I think what I see in your post is that there's two types of problems. One spiritual and one practical. It sounds (and I could be reading through the lines) that some practical aspects of your parish is not meeting your family's needs. Perhaps for that one you need to change parish's or perhaps allow your kids to go to Prot. youth activities. We did that with our older kid when we left a large Baptist church and went to a small liturgical Lutheran church. The kids needed friends and some place fun to meet with other Christian kids. The other part seems spiritual. You say you're not getting anything out of Mass. I would ask yourself Why? Ask yourself - is Sunday Mass all about me? If not, what is it about? Maybe a good thing to do would be to learn more about your Catholic faith. Perhaps this dissatisfaction is the Holy Spirit drawing you to a deeper experience with your Catholic faith - and you can't do that by sitting at Mass on Sunday. Perhaps there's a book that would draw you in... maybe a book by a Prot. who converted to Catholicism (you'll really see your faith tradition in a new light)... maybe a book that explains the history and spirituality of the Mass and/or the Catholic church. I don't know what would work best for you. That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with visiting a Prot. church one Sunday if you're curious. I grew up Prot. (all sorts of traditions from hymns to bands and Charismatic worship)... but I'm Eastern Orthodox now. I run into many cradle Orthodox who need to go through their own personal conversion. They grew up with the Faith but there always comes a time when they need to learn more about their tradition get to a deeper level of appreciation and spirituality.

Good grief! If her mother is "germy" then what about the nurses at the hospital?? And ... Her husband (assuming he goes out to work somewhere)??? That is very sad.

LOL!! This made me laugh. Can you imagine how time consuming it would be if we had to get our husband involved every time some guy was looking at our bOOks?? for the record it was probably her crotch (can we say that here???!!)