I might, if it didn't smell weird. However, I agree that the cherries & crust bits would probably have a gross texture by now. I don't know. I haven't had gluten or dairy for 15 months, so even 9 day old cherry cream pie sounds totally okay to me right now. :lol:

That's how it is here. Public school doesn't change their schedule, but almost all activities and outside classes are cancelled. Teachers usually try not to give homework that day. I'm in IL. However, I grew up 3 hours south of here, and the norm was city-scheduled TOT'ing. It was always on a weekend. It was kind of annoying because the actual Halloween would come and go with little fanfare because TOT'ing had happened 4 days earlier. (I love Halloween! :hurray: ) (Edited because I do not need to say "actual" that many times in one sentence.)

UGH. We just went through this! We never use the online pay, but our mortgage check was lost in the mail. The (lending) bank called us 2 weeks in to let us know it didn't arrive. We wanted to take care of it immediately, so we tried to use their (lender) app. We couldn't use it because we didn't have a checking account with them, so we used the online bill pay option with our credit union. Done, right? No way. (1) It was a Thursday night, (2) they had scheduled online banking maintenance Friday, (3) they finally *mailed a check* to the mortgage lender Tuesday (I guess that's their process. Good grief, if mailing a check was reliable, we wouldn't be in this boat,) at which point our (checking acct bank) showed the debit but the credit didn't yet show up on the mortgage lender's site. The payment finally posted to the mortgage lender Thursday, a full week after we had initially paid it online. Thus ended our foray into online bill paying through my credit union. It's auto-withdraw or bust now!

This doesn't even have to be a curriculum, if you're not worried about serious exposure to a language. My kids started out doing 5 minutes a day on DuoLingo (language app that is set up somewhat similar to a game, in that you earn points and can challenge each other.) They both ended up liking it so much, they're now taking German as a foreign language class for school (still using Duolingo for fun/support, but we added actual an actual class too. I think they learn as much on Duolingo as they do in the classes, sometimes!) I do agree wholeheartedly with posters who have said to give him free time to explore his interests. However, definitely do not feel like you're pressuring him when you're exposing him to things he may not have known he was interested in. I don't even have to put things like "Duolingo," educational Youtube videos, or even the coding class my son wanted to take on my kids' school list, because they just do/watch them for their own enjoyment.

It depends on the child. I'd probably be fine with it if the child was fine with it. Dh & I both moved out at 17!

Is 17 yr old willing to go above the garage? Would you be able to afford utilities to use both house & garage as residences?

We are using level 2 and we have not skipped any of the assignments or modified the curriculum other than changing the pace of the program. We never finish a week (as written) within an actual week.

I'm absolutely going to be on the low side in this group, but we are doing Adler's How to Read a Book, Dorothy Sayers's translation of The Nibelungenlied, Jackson Crawford's translation of The Poetic Edda, & Tolkien's Beowulf. We'll also be reading (translations not yet determined) The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Song of Roland. Just 6 books, apparently, and I'm giving him a full credit! However, on his own, he is going through several of the books recommended by Adler in the aforementioned book. He's not doing anything in-depth with those extra books, just more of an inspectional reading to familiarize himself with them a bit. As far as modern reading goes, I have nothing to do with that. He listens to several podcasts, which I'm totally calling modern storytelling at its finest. :thumbup: (We are absolutely loving the Jackson Crawford book, so we may add his Saga of the Volsungs with the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrook as well, for fun.) ETA: Ds is in 9th.

Dh's parents passed away in their early 50's. My parents purchased long-term care for themselves after years of taking care of their own parents. We do not live close to them. I hope to be able to purchase long-term care for us as well, or at least myself, since Alzheimer's runs very strongly in both sides of my family.

Uh, no. My children will be lucky if I can pull this off long enough to graduate everyone. :laugh:

dd12: Special needs theater group, karate, volunteering at an animal shelter ds14: FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) at a local high school

Oh, man. I'm super thankful for *any* house, after being a renter for 15 years, but there are definitely things I do not care for! The kitchen is so 1980s and really tiny (under 100 sq ft.) and includes a back door through which there is always traffic. The garage is rotting apart. The basement is set up super weird, so no one really uses it. The bedrooms are tiny (we had to take the closet doors off because they took up too much room. Yeah. Tiny.) We could set up a basement bedroom, but one would have to walk through a weird utility room to access the bedroom, plus the downstairs bathroom is so small you can touch all 4 walls while sitting on the toilet. The yard... :glare: The yard is a hot mess and I don't currently have a deck, only a deck frame. All the doors are hollow, so you can hear whispers from one room to another, with doors closed. I could write pages about what's wrong with the house. But! It's affordable. It feels really good to be a "homeowner," and not have to haul laundry through snow or rain to a local laundromat. (Still have a mortgage, hence the quotes.)

I'm forever thankful for the huge, old pin oak in our backyard that shades our home in the summer when it's full of leaves. In the winter, when the leaves are gone, the sun warms the house. As much as I don't like split-levels, they're extremely energy efficient. I only have to cool the top floor since the bottom floor is halfway below ground. Our combined gas and electric bills are $80-140/month for a 2000 square foot house, and we keep it as cool or warm as we like. Temps here range from -10 to 105F.

I bet I know where you live! :lol: $101 here too. (ETA: Per vehicle, regardless of year/value. We have 2 cars, so we pay $202 total, but fortunately not all at once. No taxes or emission fees/inspections required, beyond the initial sales tax.)

This, exactly. I started it with my daughter when she was 10 or 11. We shelved it after a few days. We'll try again in a year or two.

These are wonderful! I have a lot of hair, so I can relate. Wet hair + towel is usually painfully heavy. I only have one now, but I think I'm going to buy a couple more.

My daughter started having them when she turned 12. My son (14) has not been invited to one, nor has he asked to have anyone over. Most of the boys here don't have sleepovers. ETA: He's on an FRC team, which travels to various competitions and sometimes has to stay in a hotel with other high schoolers, so I guess maybe that counts? We do not go with him.

The little boy from The Shining was a bio professor at my community college. I never took his class, but I said "hi" to him in the hallway a few times. Eddie Vedder leaned on me at a Pearl Jam show in the 1990s, and then I met the other members of the band afterwards (but not him.) I briefly met Beyonce's dad in 2000... I feel like there was a big one that I'm forgetting to mention, but I can't think of it now.

I love it!

Exactly this! I agree wholeheartedly with this and your earlier post. Something else is going on. This is NOT a financially challenged individual. This is a self-destructive individual with mental and behavioral health challenges, in need of professional help. Going from that point on: How can you help? Speaking from personal experience, you can't. My dh has put money into the hands of a family member in a similar situation time after time after time. Hotel rooms when she's homeless, food or heaters when she needs them. It never stops. This person is mentally ill and refusing treatment. Eventually he had to break ties completely as a matter of preservation. Obviously, you're not to that point yet, thank goodness. I think the best thing you can do for her is suggest that she start with Al-Anon or another similar local group. Hopefully they can help find a way to afford the counseling she needs.

I read this too, and it defines me perfectly. I've never felt comfortable in either generation. The smash-up "Xennial" generation finally is one to which I can relate: "Completely analog childhood, with a digital coming-of-age."

On nights when dh is home (usually 4x/wk) we sit together and eat mostly the same thing. Daughter and I have some dietary restrictions, so I substitute a bit. On nights when dh is at work, the kids & I mostly forage and eat whenever.

Made in the 70's, born in the 80's!

Whaaaaat? I'll stick with my $7 non-magical mascara. :lol:

I've seen friends with similar results. I really want to try the magic eyelash stuff but I'm completely over the company without ever having even tried it! I swear, the half of my FB newsfeed that isn't political is R+F sales consultant posts!