My sister-in-law used to do that. Invite everyone to her house, instead of the mass pilgrimage to all the family (both sets of grandparents were divorced). It's become smaller now that her own kids are married and have family of their own. One year she called us to see what we were doing because it was going to be a small gathering since all her other kids were somewhere else.

That is really great you've had such a great role-model. Until recent years, my MIL was also a great role-model for being a mother-in-law. To the bolded. I keep waiting for the shoe to drop with some of my kids, esp my one married child who lives 2hrs away. But, so far, they all like to be together the few times we can make it happen.

oh, I won't have everyone together on thanksgiving this year either. That's a given when kids get married. Two of my married kids have other family obligations for Thanksgiving this year. I'm fine with sharing. But, what this thread is about it foregoing any family get together at holidays. That's a different issue than what you are talking about.

Those of you who have opted out of extended family holidays what are you plans when you are the in-laws and your kids have kids? I love having all my kids and grandkids together. Yes, there's sometimes drama (esp thanks to current political culture) but the adults mostly do their best to behave and not create drama. But, I realize from reading this thread that at some time someone is going to call it quits. 😞

No, she's flat. The mistakes were with a few of the Nativity Kontakions because, as I've found, there are small differences in songs between parishes. I think she just wasn't as familiar with the piece so she'd make mistakes. We mostly practiced music for the Eve of Nativity such as: "God is With us" Its IS a hard piece, but because she was loud it was hard for everyone to stay on pitch and follow the music when she was making clunkers. Then we can't hear the correct notes. Does that make sense? I guess my way of doing this is; if I'm new to a choir I sing softly until I'm sure I know what I'm doing. I shouldn't expect others to do it just like me 😏 As others have recommended here, now that I know what to expect I can concentrate harder to hear the correct part and not get side-tracked by her. And we are spoiled. We have a wonderful choir too with lots of talented singers. I don't think it's a matter that she can't sing a note... it's that she's past her prime. I told my husband years ago to please, please tell me when I need to stop singing in the choir. We all get to that sad moment at some point, unfortunately for women (esp. sopranos), it's usually earlier than we'd like.

That is a very good point. Thank you for sharing that. I wasn't frustrated that we were being blamed, I was just trying to explain that it was obvious our ability to sing our part was being affected. Yes, the director was being very diplomatic. Usually, when I'm next to someone who is flat I try to listen to the altos. That usually helps me a lot. When I was in choirs with pianos or accompaniment it was not a problem either. Like you said, just follow the piano. It was so much easier to keep the pitch. Orthodox sing completely acapella, so no piano to lean on. My sight-singing skills have gotten better since becoming Orthodox! 🙂

Thanks guys. I didn't mean to insinuate that I would speak to her myself or ask her to leave... no way. That is definitely not my place. But, I do appreciate the ideas that I can do to mitigate my singing being affected by hers. I wish we had choir directors like Wintermom has. All of ours are great at directing music but none of them seem to want to take the lead..esp with the hard stuff. So we do have to fend for ourselves in situations like this. @wintermom - having mics can have some wonderful benefits like that.

I get that, and that's why I don't want to be a jerk. Right now I'm feeling particularly guilty about moving away. But the choir is more than just extra music for the service in an Orthodox church. The whole service is sung (except the Bible readings and sermon). If there was a church praise band where one of the singers sang loud and off key, how would worship work in that context? Or a community choir performance where one singer stood out in a bad way. It would be gringy. We need to be careful not to be distractingly bad.

No, they're not anti-electronic. That's an interesting idea. The other soprano is also the parish admin. I'm going to ask her about the feasibility of that.

yeah, the thing is, I and the other soprano there today ARE strong singers. It was that bad. She was throwing us both off. The other soprano was pretty frustrated by the experience too. I think arriving late and standing in the back is a doable idea. We kind of all stand in our "usual" spots, but I am not married to my place close to the front, I just can't see the music when I'm 2-3 people away from the stand.

That's a good idea. I might do that. Two of our directors are fellow sopranos, but neither was at practice today. I don't know if the new soprano has been in the choir when they have directed yet. One of them has more experience, and her husband is a professional musician with the NSO. So they know about blending, group sound, etc. The other director is someone I've gone to in the past and she was no help. She's super sweet and hates to hurt anyone's feelings, if you KWIM.

Do we have other hive members who are members of choirs - church or community? What do you do when you find yourself next to someone who throws you off tune? Our parish choir has always had a "everyone is welcome" policy. We have a new parishioner who has occasionally come to sing in the choir. She's past her prime and sings flat in that loud operatic, old-lady wobbly voice. She stood next to me at practice today and I just could not keep a tune. Plus, since it was practice, she was making a lot of mistakes, which threw me and the other soprano off further. It was noticeable. Our director kept saying things like, "Sopranos you're struggling with that part. or... where did the soprano's go??..or.... let's rerun that again for the *sopranos*".. Ugh... I tried inching my way behind her... but she moved back with me.. I finally just moved to a different stand with a lone soprano. But, it was obvious and she turned to look at me. I felt awful. I don't want to be total jerk, but OTOH, I cannot sing next to her. We've had our share of flat singers, and people that make clunkers (I know I have myself!) but somehow her style of voice is throwing me off more than normal. She's very sweet and she's new to our parish. I want to be welcoming to new people, but what do I do about this??!! Going to the director is not so easy. We have a rotation of directors. Whenever this issue has come up in the past they have often deferred to someone else. Having a rotation of directors is great until you need someone to take charge.

Its a thing in Southern Maryland too. My grandma and her family were from there and would make delicious oyster stuffing.

I agree. I enjoyed revisiting but I thought it went on too long and the house changes were crazy stupid. The things people do for a stunt. And, that is how I felt about the other show. It felt like a stunt. Maybe renovation shows have jumped the shark?

I saw the first one. I was only familiar with them via the Very Brady Renovation. I thought it was weird. I didn't like the upmarketing of stuff. I mean, who needs at $7000 toilet!!??!! Just to win a "competition"

I got 90% The last ones were very hard and I was guessing on several of them. I already knew I had good visual memory. But, yeah, I also can't remember names people tell me. If I'm able to write it down I will remember but that's weird when you're meeting someone for the first time.

@Pen the one I've been looking at is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Reflectix-BP48010-ubble-Pack-Insulation/dp/B000BPAULS/ref=sr_1_5?crid=Z3BI01KF26IG&keywords=reflective+bubble+wrap+insulation&qid=1573154042&sprefix=insulation+wrap+refle%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-5 I've read having the bubbles helps with insulation. But, the smallest I can find is 10 feet. I guess I can find another use for it somewhere. I already have a round one for my hot water heater.

I need to do this with another window we have. It's in a hallway far from the living room, so I don't think about it much. But, its foggy all the time.

@Acadia - those were the ones I could find, but none of them say they help with insulation.. .only heat reflection, which isn't a problem for me. Pen mentioned something that sounded like it was for winter insulation as well. @Pen - I'd love to know what you use in the bathroom. I've been looking for something that sounds similar. Our MB is on the ground floor between houses. I don't care what it looks like from the inside and I'd like to have more privacy too! LOL . It's another cold pocket in our house. Our heat is oil baseboard heat. Of course, there's a baseboard right under the window. There's also one right next to the front door. 🤔 We have a crawl space (no basement) that has is a ventless encapsulated crawlspace. Last year dh and I spent time under there adding insulation to the perimeter.

@Pen I'm trying to picture this. Is it like the plastic shrink wrap but it's acts like a mirror to the outside? I would be interested in a one way mirror type set up.. so I can see out but others cannot see in.

I checked the seals a few weeks ago and they looked good. I think the windows are newish to the house. Probably within the last 20yrs. They are double paned and the little side windows go up and down very easily and lock well. They're the kind that flip inward for easy cleaning. They look new. No condensation between the panes, thank goodness.

I live in a 60yr old house and it's cold, drafty, and dark. I have a large picture window which is double paned. It is on the NE side of my house, so it only gets indirect sunlight. I love my window and plan to put some privacy plants further out in the yard so my neighbors can't see in as they drive by or walk their dog past my house. Here's a photo. This was taken just a moment ago at 9:20AM on a cloudy day, but I do enjoy what little light this window gives. The other side of the room is closed in, so not much light at all from the SW corner of my house (this house was definitely not built with natural sunlight in mind. But, it does make the room cold. I was thinking I would either buy thermal curtains to put up... but that's permanent because I'd need to put up curtain rods. I would open them during the day and close at night. Or I could buy the insulation shrink plastic for OUTSIDE my window (not inside because I use the sill). Any thoughts from the hive?

I really need to get something going. I've been doing *some* yoga & Pilates via youtube videos. Is there any way to try out some of her workouts before buying? Does she have samples on her website or on Youtube?

I want to address the bolded particularly. Extending the school day for this reason smacks of the school system becoming an orphanage in all but name. I'm not sure that helping kids in bad home situations by putting them in school for longer days is the way to fix that problem. I'm not saying you thought it was an okay reason either, I'm speaking to society as a whole.

I love my convection oven, but YMMV. The thing I would look at is the oven capacity. It looks like they're both the same. I've been disappointed in my griddle function on my new gas range. It takes nearly 10 mins to heat up and it's only warm in the center portion. I'm really disappointed in that function on my Samsung. I can cook faster in my cast iron pan.