I don't think it is weird, but I do think it is sad that so many women feel that they have to wear makeup to be presentable. I think it is great when woman want to wear makeup on their own, but I just don't think they should feel that they have to. There are times I enjoy putting on makeup and find it fun. I haven't regularly worn makeup since early college except for a few rare occasions. I had several bouts of pink eye my second year in college and couldn't afford to keep throwing out all my eye makeup and replacing it so I gave up. DH actually prefers I don't wear makeup, but leaves it up to me. DD never wears makeup. She had to wear it starting very young for dance recitals/competitions and hated the feel of it on her face. She really doesn't like it when her speech coaches try to insist that she should wear it to competitions, and she refuses. She says she won't give in to the idea that a woman has to wear makeup to be professionally dressed.

I went and checked from my last post and of the 23 items I had posted, 2 of the items are not being sold currently, 13 are the same price, and 8 have increased in price. The most significant price changes seem to be in things like butter and bread. Also, evaporated milk has gone up which I use in my holiday baking so I only buy much this time of year. I have been better able to stick to my grocery budget in the last couple of months, but it has just been three of us at home most of the time, and I didn't lower it from when it was all five of us. I am sure it will go over this month with the holidays and with middle (hopefully) coming home for leave for two weeks. He has already started putting in requests for his favorite foods.

I started coming here I think before my youngest was homeschooling or maybe around the time he started, but I was trying to change up what I was doing and had been looking for ideas and came across this forum. I found a lot of useful information and support. Over the years I have stayed for advice on different homeschooling topics and have given advice/suggestions as I have gotten more experience. I tend to read a lot more than post, especially these days. I don't feel like I have a lot to give as far as information or advice, especially with a lot of homeschooling changing so much. Most people seemed to be doing things so differently, and I feel like my advice would be out of date and not helpful. Also, I come from a different world view that seems to be not what many people are looking for as far as curriculum. On the chat forums I haven't been posting as much lately. I don't feel like I have much to contribute really. But I do like hearing the diversity of thought and hearing about a lot of regionalisms that I would never know about without these forums.

We are doing our meal at 1:30 tomorrow. It is just what I felt worked for me planning wise and since I am cooking it, I felt I got to decide. Growing up it depending on which side of the family was hosting. Dad's side it was always later around 5 or 6. Mom's side was always earlier around noon or 1. I prefer it earlier in the day.

We have colored lights, but particular colors. For years it was blue, green, and white. Now we have red, green, and white. I think both can look nice, but I prefer to have color on my tree. The lights on the outside of our house however, can be either color or white at the push of a button, so we can change them depending on our mood.

So much depends on the family. Some families aren't very sentimental and it wouldn't be a big deal to switch them out, but for others it would be a huge deal. I am a very sentimental person, and would have felt very sad if my mom had decided to switch out my stocking suddenly one year for a different one. She made my stocking herself, along with my sibling's stockings and they all match in style. It always meant a lot to me when she would get them out every year on Christmas Eve and put them up. They still got filled each year until we moved out, at which time mom gave us our stockings to take with us. We each still have them and put them up in our own homes. I plan to do the similar with my kids. I will probably keep filling them until they have someone to take over, or they decide they don't want to do it anymore. I just find bulkier items to fill the stockings with so I am not spending a lot of money on stocking stuffers, but my kids stockings are not huge. I would stay they are about average size. None of my kids have a lot of money right now so being able to get them a couple small gift cards or some candy is a treat for them. I am sure that things will change as they get older and more established in their adult lives though.

I am not doing mine until tomorrow. I am going to be making a pumpkin pie, caramel dutch apple pie, and snickerdoodle cookies. Today I am working on casseroles: sweet potato casserole and stuffed mushroom casserole. I am also making cranberry sauce and candied pecans today.

I wish I was done. DD is easy to shop for. I am getting her the book 2 in the Harry Potter series in German. She is taking German in college and last year I got her book 1. When she took Irish in high school, I got her HP in Irish. She thinks it is really fun. I am also working on making a family cookbook for her. It is slow go right now. I was going through my grandma's recipes she gave me for a wedding gift this weekend and that brought back a lot of memories, so lots of tears. With that I will also give her an hand embroider kitchen towel. Older DS is going to be hard to shop for. He can't have a lot of things. He lives on base in a small room without much space, and is deploying sometime after the beginning of the year. I ordered him a t-shirt I think he will like, but I think mostly it will be online games he can play and gift cards. Youngest I have no idea. Going to have to figure that one out soon. Most everyone else is like mine and DH's sibs and our parents whom I made homemade vanilla for and then am either embroidering kitchen towels or doing something special for like getting my mom a puzzle that I know she will love. DH and I have decided not to do much for each other. We will do something special in the spring for our anniversary instead. Most of our gift money went to pay for tickets to fly DS home (hopefully he will get the leave) and helping DD with Jan rent until her financial aid gets disbursed for spring quarter.

I don't know that this is true any more. My son had no problems when he enlisted at all. Talking to his recruiter, the recruiter assured us that it was not something to worry about. DS just took his homeschool diploma and transcript with him to MEPS (Military Enlistment Processing Station) and it worked just fine. The only thing we did different than a public school student was that I had to sign a form that normally would be signed by the school district. I think this is a more recent change in the last few years though, and may not be all the branches.

My mom got a lot of pressure from dad's family to spend all the holidays with them, and as a result she tried to not pressure us at all. The end result was me feeling for a few years after being married like she didn't want to spend the holidays with me at all. It took a while for me to figure out it was her way of trying to be nice, and not her pushing me away. Right now none of my kids are in a place that they have kids or a significant other to spend holidays with so it hasn't been a issue. The biggest hurdle is DS being in the military. We won't see him for Thanksgiving. We might see him for Christmas. He goes where they tell him to go. I want my kids to know that as they move on to their future lives that they are always welcome here and we are always happy to find ways to meet up however/whenever works for them. I don't want them to feel pressured to meet on a certain date or place, but I would like to see them if possible to most holidays. Obviously this will be location dependent and stuff. When my kids were little I did like the time at home and cherished that, but I also really enjoyed time with extended family. I think that balance is important and working together and listening to what works for everyone involved. So far my kids really want to be together for holidays, but I am sure things will shift as they move out into the world more and we will adjust as figure it out as we go.

This is something that I feel that scouting has dropped the ball on as far as setting policy. They have avoided the issue, and it has made things difficult, but I think that the best way to handle it is to go by the general precedent set by the existing rules, especially in Venturing which has rules about romantic relationships between scouts because it has been co-ed for years and thus with a hetero norm view addressed those concerns. Romantic relationships have no place being part of the scouting experience during meeting and outings. Not that you can't have a romantic partner in the program, but the rest of the group shouldn't be able to pickup on it via obvious PDA sort of stuff. There should be no tent sharing with romantic partners whether it be boy/girl, boy/boy, girl/girl, or whatever. Even with adults, only married partners are allowed to share tents (although this is for opposite sex partners, not sure about same sex because that was never addressed). So having a "rule" of no tent sharing can be wise, but may not always work. Like at summer camps don't always have enough facilities to allow for that. In which case, you would need to just have a forthright rule that no romantic partners are allowed to tent share. The BSA really needs to start addressing some of the elephants in the room they have created with their changes they have made. Like with non-binary scouts. The policies are only set to address scouts who identify as male or female not non-binary. This came up as in issue with staffing at summer camp housing because is is separated by male/female. Also, troops are separated by male/female. Right now, they just choose which one they what to join, at least according to DS who has a non-binary friend who was on staff and is in a troop. But it does make things uncomfortable for them.

We have finally been getting our rainy weather back. A couple days ago we got 4.5 inches in one day, at least according to the weather station of one of our neighbors. We are supposed to be getting clearer and colder weather along with our first frost this week, so I will get a chance to winterize the plants. I am hoping to put mulch around my roses. They have been putting on new growth still and my sweet peas are looking green and happy with all the rain, but I am sure that the cold snap will cause things to calm down. I am hoping things will dry out enough that we can do one more mow of our lawn before winter. The grass is getting pretty tall, plus then we don't have to rake the leaves that have fallen. I picked the last of the tomatoes before the big rains came so they wouldn't split, and they are ripening inside now. They won't taste as good, but at least we can eat them.

1. How many kids did you want before you had them? Many, when we got married 4 or more. 2. How many do you have? 3 3. Are you happy with that number? I would say I am resigned. We dealt with years of infertility and feel happy to have had the children we have. I still have a bit of longing for more, but know that it isn't going to happen now. 4. Do you have any kids that are just like you? Nope. Oldest and youngest are a bit like DH. Middle has a lot of his grandfathers on both sides personalities. 5. How many siblings do you have? 2 6. What's your birth order? middle

On DD's I put Teacher/Mother, Principal/Father. On DS's I put Administrator (for DH) and Instructor (for me). I never really worried too much about what the actually work load was. We all knew that I was the one who did the planning, teaching, coordinating, etc., while DH was the one who worked hard to pay for me to be able to stay home. However, I think that you should put whatever makes you feel comfortable and happy. If that is co-administrators or superintendent and administrator, it really is up to you. Maybe you could list him as academic advisor? Maybe think about what role he felt he played and try to come up with a suitable title for it.

I didn't think any of my kids were dressing up, but DD said she is going to wear her peasant dress to classes tomorrow. She got it a few years ago at a local highlander festival. It was either that or her dress from her renaissance prom.

Can you call your vet and get after hours advice? That is what I would try. I hope things improve soon.

Thank you! That makes me feel a bit better. I hope they come out with something a bit clearer soon.

As far as I know the masking requirement in the state for medical facilities is going away when the emergency orders end on the 31st (Halloween). I am pretty unhappy about it, and would love to hear if you know different. I have a number of upcoming appointments and DS has monthly allergy shot appointments and I am not looking forward to going when others aren't masked.

I have done very little shopping. Our budget is tighter this year with helping DD through her last year of college and saving to (hopefully) get plane tickets for our middle if he can get leave to come home for Christmas. Oldest and youngest agreed that having a Christmas leaner on gifts was fine as long as they get to see their brother. It's not like we are destitute or anything, just they had gotten used to us having a bit more money for gifts than we had when they were little. I need to get working on the recipe book I am making for DD and figure out what I am getting for other people. The rule in our house is no holiday music until after DH has had his pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. We'll probably do some of our decorating for Christmas Thanksgiving weekend while DD is home, except for the tree which we get closer to Christmas since it is real. We are trying to keep our schedule open as possible because we don't know middle's schedule yet, but I did get tickets to drive-thru zoolights. I was happy to see they are still doing some sessions that are drive-thru this year, though it is more limited nights. It is in the same city where DD is going to college so we can pick her up on the way.

Here are a couple pictures from the last two years we have done it. We got these bags from Amazon to put treats in and I ordered some small black bags with sparkly teal pumpkins off Etsy for non-candy treats for kids with food allergies. I hook them on to the fishing line with paperclips when the kids come to send them down. We run purple lights parallel to the fishing line so the kids can see the treats coming down, and we put up a "fence" along the sidewalk with orange lights and fake crime scene tape to keep kids from coming to the door.

My kids are too old for dress up 😞 Well, I suppose they could because they enjoy it, if they had a party to go to, but they don't this year. DD is coming home for the weekend from college. She is calling it Halloweekend. She is sad she won't be here on the actual day to help with treats, but she has classes and work. We are going to watch some shows together and have some fun snacks. We went to get pumpkins a couple weekends ago, so the kids at home will carve them. Middle won't be here this year though, so I am sad about that. We are setting up our trick-or-treat zipline again this year for handing out treats. We run it from out second story bedroom to the sidewalk. It is a lot of fun, though some work to set up. Last year we handed out around 75 bags of treats. The main streets in our neighborhood give out in the 100s if treats. I wish I had some good pictures of the zipline. I think DH has some, so I might add them if I can get them from him.

No, not currently. I used to for years. We met in kindergarten. But we drifted apart after I had kids and she stayed kid free. The final nail in the coffin was me homeschooling, and she was a public school teacher who was opposed to homeschooling. It was not without reason. She had seen some pretty bad homeschoolers. The last time we talked was when my grandfather disappeared five years ago and I needed someone to talk to and I asked if she could meet with me. We went to dinner and it was like old times, but that was it. Nothing really since then. She has her life and I have mine. Part of me wonders if now that I am almost an emptynester if things might be able to catch back up, but I kind of doubt it. I have never been great at making friends, so it is either share things with DH or keep it to myself. My mom and sister aren't really people I feel comfortable sharing things with. I love them, but my mom tends to talk a lot so anything I tell her will probably get out at some point and my sister is just super busy with her own life and friends and we have never been close.

My cousin's daughter is getting married soon. I wasn't invited, which is not big deal since I don't really know her, but I found out that she told her dad (my cousin) that he was invited but his wife was not. My cousin divorced his first wife (daughter's mom) a few years ago because of an affair and later married the person he had an affair with. The daughter was very hurt, understandably, and doesn't want the woman he cheated on his mom with at her wedding. This is causing a major family squabble, and people are drawing lines. My cousin is refusing to go to the wedding if his wife isn't invited. My aunt and uncle (grandparents of the bride) are standing by my cousin and refusing to go either. It is a big mess and I am glad I don't have to be involved.

I don't wear mine all the time, though I should wear them more often. They don't work when I am on my computer because of the distance of my monitors. The far vision doesn't work because my monitors are too close, and the near vision doesn't work because my monitors are too far away and too far up so I would have to tilt my head at an awkward angle. I need to get a pair of glass just for at my computer I think. Then I just forget to put them back on when I am around the house until I go to do something like watch TV or look outside or read. I guess most stuff I do I don't care if my vision is a bit off around the house. I have to wear them to drive though, or to read or do needle work, but laundry or whatever it doesn't matter. I do wear them if I leave the house, but I don't do that very often.

My 17 year old (not sure you count him as a kid) got his 2 weeks ago. He got the Pfizer booster. He was tired and achy for two days, and then by the evening of the second day just suddenly felt great. He got his flu shot at the same time, but he never reacts to the flu shot, but I don't know if that had an effect or not on the overall reaction for sure.