I finished the three books I got at the library last week, and the kids knocked out a couple books each. Me: 1. Outlaw by Ted Dekker - ok but not amazing 2. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - meh 3. The Residence - entertaining 4. The Crucible - love it. OK, to be more clear, I've discovered that I love it after the fact. When I finished it I was just all sorts of annoyed with these people believing these teenagers. It still annoys me, but at the same time I figure I really did enjoy it for it to bring forth such a reaction from me lol. :D Link (13): 1. The Jungle Book 2. The Importance of Being Earnest Astro (12): 1. The Adventures of Robin Hood 2. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Pink (8.5): 1. Why Not, Lafayette? 2. Pokemon Adventures graphic novel ---- and I'm pretty sure she's finished at least one more from last week's library trip, just not sure which one. I've still got Too Small to Ignore sitting here partially read, but I haven't picked it back up to finish it yet. It's good, and I love it when I'm reading it, but for some reason I just have to be in the mood to actually do so. I'm also doing the Blossom Bookology challenge, and I've knocked out C, H, and R, with T soon to come when I finish this one. I may pick up some Murakami this week at the library. Link is getting his braces put on Tuesday, so we may head to the library tomorrow instead of our usual day (Tuesday), as I'm not sure what our day will look like by the time that's done. And tomorrow I'm hoping and praying I get in to see the chiropractor - Friday I wasn't even doing anything, just sitting with the kids during school work, and my lower back just started hurting terribly. Worse than it has in years. By Friday night I could barely walk... I spent the day yesterday resting as much as possible; today I had to do a few more things, and it is feeling better than Friday at least. But I really hope the chiro can help me out here!!! All right, now I'm off to all these open tabs on goodreads to check out these books.... :)

OMG I HATE ICED TEA!! lol. I can't stand sweet tea, unsweetened tea, any of them. Blech!! I have no interest in learning to like that stuff. :lol: I do enjoy coffee! I drink a cup in the morning, but I've only been drinking it for maybe... 5 years? Tops? Before that, I liked the smell but not the taste. Then it grew on me, slowly. I don't drink it black, but with a little sugar and a little cream. I also love hot chocolate because hot chocolate. :lol: OOH, this is such a great idea!!!

I'm so glad I'm not the only person who doesn't just love tea! :lol: Seriously, though, I'm down with continuing to drink what I currently do because it tastes awesome. :lol:

I wouldn't keep it. :lol: If there happened to be anything in there I *loved* for some reason, anything that brought me joy, then I'd keep it. But I'm also a KonMari person, so I go through every bit of my clothing every year at the least and get rid of anything that doesn't bring me joy. So I already operate on a very different scale - the first year I did it, I donated 4 full kitchen size garbage bags of clothing/shoes; the second, 2 had accumulated already again. That's just how I operate. DH's side of the closet looks much different lol, because he has a lot more clothes than me. And he thinks more about 'what if' - I never think about stuff like that. I just figure I'll cross that bridge - whatever it is - when I get there. No point thinking about it now. :)

Ah, I've never read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and I was wondering about it. I've seen the movie - thought it was wonderful (not the right word, but I hope you know what I mean) and had thought of picking the book up from the library one of these times. I'll admit I've never read Agatha Christie. Now I'm kind of curious, because so many are saying they don't get what the fuss is about. :lol: Stuff like that always makes me want to check things out. I've also never read any Little House on the Prairie - not growing up, not homeschooling... my SIL loves them, I borrowed one and started it with the kids and we. were. so. bored. :svengo: Seriously maybe made it a chapter. But now I'm also curious about the Prairie Fires book (was that what it was called? I have it pulled up on a tab in the other window somewhere lol...) Also, I forgot to quote Quill about HP/Cursed Child, but yes, I agree. Fanfic is just about right, though thankfully it stayed away from a lot of the content that fanfic seems to love :lol: ... I didn't care for any of the characters much either. Harry was ok; I think some people wanted him to grow up to be perfect, but clearly he's never been perfect and I don't see a problem with him having a hard time relating to Albus. I liked Albus and Scorpius fine; Draco was fine. But yeah, overall it was meh. Anyway, I finished The Residence today and it was pretty entertaining. I would take a break here and there because sometimes it could get a little repetitive, but this also isn't my usual genre. In the end I really liked it.

Note that this is about the tea made from leaves that you drink. :lol: I really, really want to like tea. I don't know why I do, I just do. I just see so many people who love it and I am trying to like it.... but I don't. At least not the 'real way', according to some of my IRL friends. :rolleyes: :lol: So I've tried a lot of different teas that you can buy at the store... I can handle the Throat Coat one when I have a sore throat if I have some honey in it. I'd actually go so far as to say it's pretty good. My absolute FAVORITE - which I drink every night - is Good Earth Sweet & Spicy, which is apparently 'not tea' according to some because they say it 'tastes like drinking an atomic fireball'. It's very flavorful, yes. Very cinnamon. Not as strong as all that, though. :P The thing is, with pretty much every other tea I've tried, I feel like it smells amazing but then when I go to taste it it tastes like... nothing. Like all the flavorfulness (not a word but oh well) of it goes out in the smell and then I'm just drinking hot leaf water. So are there any secrets I don't know about? Things to add to it to bring out more flavor? I know it's frivolous but that's ok - I really want to know!!! :lol:

I ended up finishing Cursed Child before bed last night. It was okay. As a huge HP fan, it obviously couldn't hold a candle to the originals. And with it being a play, my issues with the plot holes and the huge jumps in reasoning and the lack of backstory is all explainable, so it doesn't hang me up too much. It's like Harry Potter ultra lite edition. I'm glad I read it, it's a nice side story arc, but I don't ever plan on reading it again. :lol:

Does anyone know if this is possible on the iPad? I can access some of Overdrive through our local library, but unfortunately, the availability isn't great (similar to our actual library lol). I literally sit here with another window open, opening a new tab for every book I see listed. :lol: Then after I'm done reading through, I go through the tabs to see what I'm interested in and check the online card catalog at the library to see what they have. I may be slightly obsessive about it lol. Oh, well. :p Tonight, for a break from The Residence (which is very interesting), I started HP/Cursed Child. I know a lot of die hard fans don't like it, so I'm really wondering what I'll think in the end! It's a fast read, though, so I should finish it pretty quickly! ETA: I guess I never did mention that I'm trying the Blossom Bookology this month. Why I decided to try this during the month for CHRYSANTHEMUM is beyond me lol. :lol: But yeah, here I am. I got C, H, and R at the library yesterday. So much for 'taking it easy' on the challenges :rolleyes: :lol:

OP, I'm the same way. I've 'tried' a few things, but I really do think that light helps. We live where we need blinds, as well, but I notice when we are in a hotel or something with better natural light, I wake up better. Not early, still, but better. It's hard. Sometimes I feel like I'm a bum. I have some differences - I can fall asleep anytime, anywhere. Sometimes by the time 2-3 pm comes I'm exhausted and can sleep for an hour or two, easily. I don't have trouble falling asleep at night, though I sleep better the later it is. Generally I try to get to bed between 12 and 1. Naturally I can easily sleep til 11 or 12 the next day; I 'force' myself to get up at like 10:30 on a regular day. I'm really good at getting up when I need to be somewhere, I don't have any problems on those days. In general, I wake up more as the day goes on. I might hit a lull in the afternoon, but I really don't fully 'wake up' until late in the day. Lots of times I feel most awake around 8pm or so. It's hard to gauge it at home - I don't pay much attention - but when I'm out and about with friends I notice it. But yeah. That's me. Trying to change has proven really, really difficult. DH doesn't get it, he thinks if I set my mind to it it should be easy. But it just hasn't been. :/

I haven't. Actually I have only read one other book by Ted Dekker - Blink. I really liked it back when I read it, but it was years ago. I finished Outlaw today, and it was very different. I don't know if Blink was different for Ted Dekker, or if this is different, but I liked Blink better, at least from what I remember. Outlaw was just a little odd. It was a quick, easy read, though. And it hasn't made me not want to try other stuff by him. It was just unexpected, and there is a second part to it that feels a little spacey and broken from the first part (though the second part is a fraction of the size of the first, as well as a fraction of the story line), and it just goes weird to me. Anyway. That's me. :P lol I picked up The Residence (the White House one - sorry that I can't remember the full title atm!), The Crucible, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child today at the library! I started The Residence this evening and I'm already kind of hooked.

I don't buy the specific Thieves cleaner, but I make cleaner myself with Thieves. I big puffy heart love it. Even though it's not cool to say that anymore. But I do. Granted, I love YL, anyway. :D

I try to have mine down sometime in the beginning of January. It's still up now; I plan on taking it down (aka having the kids take it down with my help lol) sometime this week. :)

Oh, goodness, I tried joining in back in 2016 and didn't make it.... before that, same thing, in about 2012/13? So this year, I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself!! So this year, I've set my Goodreads goal at 25 for the year. I see people with so many more than that lol, but I'd rather start with this - which seems about like what I generally read anyway, maybe a little more - and then feel good about accomplishing it! :lol: Then if I read more, all the better. :) Mostly I'm going to just go with the flow and read whatever strikes my fancy at the time. I recently (as in yesterday) went through my goodreads list and checked to see what we have at our library... not a great outcome, but there are atleast 75 books that are on both lists, so it's definitely enough for quite some time for me. Plus I have some at home that have yet been unread, and my SIL is a voracious reader who is always willing to let me borrow books if I ask! I'm pretty sure I can handle some monthly challenges, at least I'm going to try. I'm thinking I can do Armchair Travels, as there are some Haruki Murakami books on my list that I've been thinking of for awhile. Blossom Bookology also looks like a possibility. I need to look at see what I have on my list that may work. I've also convinced the kids to at least keep track of the books they read for the year. No goals there, just for fun to see what a typical year for them looks like. :) Link (13) was like, 'But I can't remember all the books I've read this year!' and I was like.... 'It's January 1....' *cue sheepish grin and 'ooooohhhhh right'* :lol: So I'll keep what I'm reading updated, and then each week I'll update how many the kids have read, just for kicks. :) Right now I'm reading: Outlaw by Ted Dekker - an easy read from my SIL's bookshelf Too Small to Ignore by Wess Stafford - which I keep forgetting about on my nightstand Tomorrow is library day so I'll probably pick up a couple there. I'm excited to give it a go again!!!

That's really odd. I've never heard of such a thing, and I've gone to the type of church you're referring to my entire life. :001_huh: We always have just thrown the cups away, but I've never noticed anyone cracking their cups. If they did, I'd assume it was an accident....

I am sorry and I'm not trying to hijack here but I just have to know... What are Type A people? Type B people?

oh, yay! There ARE others on here who do this still!! I posted about it last week and was met with crickets lol. I'm assuming everyone was still in full pre-Christmas swing and not thinking about it yet. :D So anyway, my word for 2017 was Bloom, which was 100% perfect as always. Inevitably, the words end up just sort of clicking with me one day (though I do still put thought into it - I'm not saying I pick some random word that comes to me one day) and I just know that it's the one. Last year I sort of felt bad picking Bloom, because I thought maybe I should have gone with the more responsible sounding 'Grow'... but Grow just wasn't right, and Bloom was. And I never know exactly how the word ends up being perfect. But it just does. Bloom was perfect because again, this year has been a year of... not transformation, per se, but another phase of becoming more myself than ever. Throwing off even more things that don't suit me - whether they are traditions, or unwritten 'rules', or whatever. It's hard to explain. I'm still working on 2018. There have been a few that have gone through my mind, but none have stuck yet. ETA: I forgot to say this above when I was talking about the word always ending up being perfect - but it's not even necessarily that I realize it is at the time. Like through the whole year. In 2015 my word was Live and it wasn't until the end of the year that I could look back and see how it fit so well.

I don't really have an answer to who 'should' pay for college. I think that's something that varies for everyone. I don't think a parent should put themselves in financial danger just to pay for a child to go to college. I think they need to worry about 1. the present survival and 2. retirement. Paying for their kids' college comes after those two. Honestly, student loans are a way of life for most people. Does it suck? Yes. But in many cases, there is literally nothing else that can be done. I was a ward of the state so I had very little in student loans. DH had more because his parents just couldn't afford to help. I really think that the idea that everyone should be able to help their kid pay for college is unrealistic. I also think it's completely wrong for anyone to assume that if a parent can't afford to pay their kid's way, that the kid doesn't deserve college. More than likely, we will not be able to help pay for college for our kids. It is what it is. We are a part of the working middle class and there's just no way that's going to happen unless a completely unforeseen windfall comes our way. :lol: Link is planning on graduating high school with his associates degree and transfer credits to a larger school (at least right now that's his plan lol) - if he decides to wait and do a couple years of local college or more than that, whatever, he can live here if he wants, etc. We'll do what we can to be 'helpful' but paying for college will most likely not be plausible.

Ok I haven't read all the replies BUT ^^^ This thing is awesome! I've never seen one before! I mean, big ones to clean the gym with, yes, but not little ones. But the big ones and these little ones look very different, too. The entire time I was picturing one much more swiffer-like. Considering I've never seen one before, yep. It has mop-looking-tentacle-ish-thingys. :D

We saw it last Friday night (15th). We are HUGE Star Wars fans here. Seriously. Huge. All 5 of us + my younger BIL (whose wife doesn't like the same movies as us, so he's been tagging along with us to movies for the entire 16 years of our marriage :lol: ) always go the first Friday night it's out, but we hate 3D (and the price of it), so we go at 9:15. Yep, I'll keep my (then) 6 year old up til midnight, what of it? :lol: DH has a lot of things about it he doesn't like. Some I agree with him on, some I'm like meh... I knew as I was watching it that it felt... different. I left feeling conflicted about it, not because I disliked it per se, but just with everything in it. I agree with DH on the following point (highlight): - The whole 'their ships are lighter and faster so we can't catch them' thing is just.... silly. The idea that they are doing this slo-mo chase through space for like 3 days is just kind of weird. Could they think of nothing better than that? Also, I agree with what everyone else is saying about Laura Dern's character - no need whatsoever for her to keep her plan a secret!! The whole thing where the ship blasted through the other one was cool, though. lol Other thoughts of mine: - I didn't like Benicio's (oh dear I KNOW I misspelled that) character at all. And I don't see the point of it. I don't want to see him again. - Luke didn't bother me. I actually LOVED that Rey seemed to have no concept of the force as light or dark, because truthfully I'm a hardcore believer that the FORCE can't be either. There's no such thing as the 'dark' side of the force - it's all the dark side of people. The force is just the force, period. DH and I were both kind of hoping that was where the whole 'last jedi' thing was going, but it didn't really, at least from Luke's perspective - however, I wouldn't be surprised to see Rey continuing that in the future. - The whole thing in the 'dark side hole' was weird and pointless. - Snoke died WAY too easily. I was just like, what? I mean, them fighting together was great and all, but... what??? We've all spent the last couple years trying to figure out who he is, he clearly had a good grasp on the force, and then BAM he's dead just like that. - Luke was great. DH hates that he died at the end. I don't feel one way or another about it. - Finn and Rose storyline was kind of odd. I'm assuming (hoping) it'll come into play later, Canto Bight and stuff? But their whole part of it just seemed very contrived. I love the characters, don't get me wrong - that whole story arc just felt... lacking. - Phasma still has me like :confused: because I'm guessing she's dead now? But like she's literally not been in either movie hardly at all? But they made a really big deal out of her? Idk. Whatevs. I THINK that's it atm lol. I might be back later (aka tomorrow). :) ETA: Oh and I loved the Porgs. :lol:

Christmases are laid back around here, so tomorrow begins 'festivities', though it's nothing like what some other people have. :tongue_smilie: It's Sunday, so we'll go to church in the morning. Then we'll come home, eat lunch, and the stuff that can be premade will be made in the afternoon. Each of the kids makes something to take to eat, I know they'll do theirs or at least as much as they can. I'll do as much for mine as I can. We have soup for dinner every Christmas eve and then the kids open one present (always pjs) and we watch a movie. That's it! We're low key lol. :)

Anyone doing it? I know, I ask every year. And this year I haven't been on here much so it probably seems like I come on here JUST to ask! :lol: jk. Anyway, I've got a few words floating around in my head but I haven't settled on one yet. 2017 was Bloom. In a way it felt like a frivolous word, like if I were a serious person I would choose something more responsible, like Grow. But Bloom was just it, I knew it was. And it's so crazy how every year, the word really is the right word for the year. It's not like it's even conscious decisions that I make that make it fit. (In similar veins, 2016 was Be and 2015 was Live - both of which sound very similar but were so incredibly perfect for those two years!) Anyway, anyone? :)

A Darth Vader ugly Christmas sweater. :lol: And Slytherin pajama pants. :D ETA: I forgot, I already got one of them - a new quilt for our bed!!! DH knew I wanted it and then we saw it was on closeout and it was black friday, so we went ahead and ordered it. Oh, and both of the above would be from DH, too. We sometimes do presents for each other, sometimes not. This year I felt like stuff just jumped out at me that I thought he'd like, so I got him stuff. And I particularly wanted the three things I have listed, so I'm pretty sure that's what he got lol... he sticks to the list. :D

So my original thought is no, I have no idea why I would care. That said, our culture isn't anything like what I'm seeing described in a lot of posts. We don't ever have 'dinner parties' to speak of. We have two things: 1. Inviting someone over for dinner would maybe be one other family, usually. Unless it's going to be outside. Generally someone asks, 'Can I bring something?' and the answer is sure - grab a salad, some bread, some drinks, whatever fits. On very rare occasions - I think only when I was cooking dinner for my ILs for one of their birthdays - do we provide absolutely everything. At the same time, though, I don't necessarily expect anyone to go out and get stuff for it if it's just one other family coming over - I just offer something for them to bring that we won't have already that wouldn't be a big deal either way. 2. I guess it's what people call 'potluck'? Which I guess is pretty much what the above ends up being, too? Anyway, generally we get together with people to get together. Christmas with family is on Christmas Day and everyone brings food. I've never in my life seen holidays or any other get togethers work any differently. I'm not trying to be snarky - I'm totally serious. Both DH and my FOO have always done things this way; it just literally applies to everyone we know lol, not just family.

Does anyone have any good resources? That's the language Astro would like to start next year! TIA!

Does anyone have any good resources? That's the language Astro would like to start next year! TIA!