I didn't see this yesterday, hope you had a great birthday!

Honestly, take it off the market, get a sun lamp, relist with a better agent. I think your agent is the real problem here.

I'm sure your thoughts are real and valid. You tell the doctor what you need to. The medical effects are REAL and you should take care of yourself.

Anyone who knows me IRL would laugh like crazy to see someone call me a whiner, but docs have done it several times. Even the time I almost died after I asked about a D&C, but was told it was not needed, but later almost bled to death. Whiner. The ONLY people to call me a whiner (in so many words) in my adult life have all been doctors. No one else would be that nutty.

Um, any time your kids spend the night with someone one day a week, you have no secrets AT ALL from that person. Kids ALWAYS know what is really going on, no matter how much you think they don't. I did children's ministry for years and heard kids prayer requests. Believe me, you don't really have the secrets you think you do. Your parents know your dh has issues, and while that may be part of the problem, I agree with Cat, that you probably got used to getting pushed around because your parents sound like they are super controlling. There have been many other women on the board who had the same issues over the last 18 years and all of them had other problems with their parents also, it was never ONLY the home schooling. My dh's uncle had in-laws who did not want their only grandson to go to gifted classes and tried all the tactics you are talking about to keep dh's uncle from being labeled gifted and starting Oregon State at the age of 9. They finally did back out of their life all together because it only got worse. The grandparents thought that labeling a child with a genius IQ as a genius would ruin him. They were wrong. He has had a wonderful life, probably he is so charming and fun because the nutty grandparents didn't get to help raise him. But they really thought that the final say was theirs. They went away completely when they didn't get their way, and only then could everyone understand how dysfunctional they really were and had always been.

Yes, even for a neurotypical child you must sometimes go backward when you move. We had to with our oldest after a move because of family circumstances and she was simply under too much stress to act her age and we had to go backward in many ways. We had to move her bedtime up (she needed more sleep), we had to cut back on screen time (it caused her stress), we had to quit letting her go alone to friend's houses for a bit (she was choosing friends who were into vandalism) and she was very unhappy, but we had moved and she didn't deal with the move well.

Well, I am the one who normally falls into the camp of use it and not save it for something that may or may not happen. DH often saves silly things that probably won't ever get used but doesn't want anyone to use them either to play with or for another use.

Honestly, they are empty people, who have no love in their lives at all.

I don't think she expected to pay, she was quite horrified to hand over her credit card. Since I could see from her car (again, probably not what normally happens where she pulls this) that she was from LV, I googled her and found she is the head of a large dietary clinic there. She is used to speaking with authority and getting what she wants. I am sorry for people who work for her day in and day out who probably can't stand her. I have worked with so many important people over the years I am just not intimidated by that form of speech, which I think surprised her that a hick in the back woods had a good vocabulary and could hold her own.

My mother was a legal secretary, she worked for more than 25 years at the same law firm before retiring. My father was a self employed cattle rancher. He never worked for someone else, but, yeah, they both had very stable lives. DH got laid off twice from big companies and it was very hurtful to him both times even though it was never personal. I worked for a large hotel chain for 17 years before we started the restaurant. I would still be working for them now if we had not moved and started this business.

I am not likely to cry without real provocation. My dd's friend and our employee was in a terrible accident last May and I bawled the whole time I was waiting to see if she survived surgery. I have spent more time with her than my own oldest two children in the last three years... so yeah, I was heartbroken for the whole situation. I get emotional around Mother's Day because I have complicated feelings for my own mother and I think I cry a little then. Mostly if I have an emotional outburst I blow up, but then regret it.

I was just very gracious and acted slightly amused at her. I told her I hoped her day improved, because obviously she was having real troubles I was not the cause of. I also pointed out her complete consumption of every aspect of her meal as proof that if she was unhappy it was clearly her own fault. Her poor husband was like a deer caught in the headlights, lol. I think they normally pull this in a bigger restaurant where the actual owner/ manager can see your husband happy scarfing food and drinking multiple cups of coffee. Usually when she complains the person she is complaining to did not see her eat, lol.

One really good thing about having the restaurant is that my very sensitive youngest dd is getting really good at brushing off people like this. There really aren't many that come into our restaurant anyway, but the ones who are rude do definitely to do it for the power trip, not because anything is genuinely wrong, or they have been wronged. One of the funniest was a woman who announced at the end of her meal (after she asked for a to go box for the small portion she didn't eat) that all the food she and her husband had eaten was "absolutely disgusting". Her husband had just finished a breakfast called "The Country Benedict", a large order of hash browns, country sausage, three eggs, two biscuits covered in country gravy. It is huge, most people order it for the experience, I have seen hungry loggers who do not finish this breakfast and yet her husband cleaned the plate so well that he might was well have licked it multiple times, lol. She also didn't want to pay for her husband's coffee even though he had several refills, just because she said it was disgusting too, lol. She said she was giving the food she took to go to her dog, but I saw how carefully she put it in and knew she was going to reheat it, lol. There is a way you put food in for the dog and the way you do when you are going to reheat it. She was really mad when she didn't get my goat, or a discount, but I simply have more practice dealing with jerks. She really stomped out, but it was quite sad that she was so used to getting away with this behavior that she was shocked not to. I am sure she leaves a lot of destruction in her path. I guarantee the people who were unkind the the OP would actually be DELIGHTED to know they made her cry. They weren't just venting, they are overgrown junior highers on a power trip. Ruining someone else's day makes theirs a little better. There is no amount of shaming them that would change them. They got used to bullying as kids and can't give up the cheap high.

Wow, you have much bigger problems than chores or a vacation. I'm sorry for your stress. In answer to your OP, I would make sure the step dd's know that you will mostly be doing educational things during the trip. Even if you are not. My oldest dd NEVER would do anything educational as an adult, so she skipped every vacation we invited her on as as adult because as home schoolers we were always doing educational things and she didn't like that. No harm, no foul. When I couched our Mexico vacation as a Spanish Immersion plan she immediately didn't want to go. She would have done the mission part of it with no complaint, but she would NEVER work on her Spanish or go to museums to study Mexican art, or go to cooking seminars. So, if you want them to not want to go, I'd make sure to only highlight the educational things.

Are they not able to manage public transportation in their mid twenties????? Seriously, you can't leave them alone for three weeks is that is the level of responsibility they need others to take for them. That is extremely worrisome. I've known plenty of low IQ people who figure out public transportation very quickly. That is a new level of dysfunction I had not understood.

I am so proud of your mom for not punching this person. They deserve to be punched, and she has been nothing but gracious. "Why do you keep asking???? Are you trying to make some nutty point?"

That reminds me of the huge controversy on the old boards, at least 15 years ago, when someone suggested boiling a can of condensed milk to make caramel. Some posters said "Dear God! Boiling a can will make it explode!" I got a can of condensed milk from my pantry, saw that it actually said not to boil it right on the can, a precaution that no other can in my pantry had, and decided I wouldn't do that, lol.

Even though I don't think I will purchase an instant pot I LOVE product reviews/ info from board members!

He probably doesn't even want conversation, he wants to see his family. Whatever you do will be well received. My MIL saw her estranged brother right before his death and they were just together and it was a really special memory for her.

I am deeply sorry. It must be so upsetting. At least, for the sake of the poor girl's parents, it looks like real police will handle it and not campus police, so there is that. I've read so many crime stories where campus police permanently bungle a rape/ murder investigation that I always have an extra cringe for someone who is a victim on a campus.

But yet, the tail can' t wave the dog. You have to have your structure first. They are not going to change. If your dh could get up earlier but won't... that is how they will be too. The example is set. I have to get up much earlier than I would like because of unreliable employees, but I do. And I take out my wrath of people who make that necessary... and they change their behavior accordingly. You can do the same.

You hit the nail on the head when you spoke of structure. Some kids simply MUST have it, and you will not have peace if they don't. My oldest was very much like this. She would actually misbehave to get chores and extra structure in her life. Also, the slightest change bothers these kids. You have to be prepared for it. Obviously change will happen, but you have to know that the child WILL misbehave/ melt down, and have appropriate punishment in mind as soon as you know about the change coming. One reason we had to home school is that moving the desks around at school ruined a whole week for my oldest every time it happened. She couldn't learn anything at school and she was obnoxious at home. For a WEEK. A grade school child just is not in the position to not learn anything six weeks out of the year, but the teacher's move the desks at least six time a year so that was six completely unproductive weeks where she couldn't learn anything. Not to mention she couldn't handle out door school or other changes other kids would view as positive. So, home schooling was really the only way for her to learn anything.

I have a neighbor who is into white power that I stay fb friends with mostly because I worry about his kids (he is a single dad) and I want to make sure they view me as a friend if they ever need anything, so I am friendly with him even though I despise the idea of white power. I have accidentally "liked" things I shouldn't have and had to unlike them. I should block him, but I also want to know what he's up to.

done

I have never been able to post an avatar photo. Once my dh got a photo posted of where we live, but that was an anomaly. I'm sorry for your frustration. I know it well, lol.