Slipper
-
Posts
1,317 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by Slipper
-
-
Babysitting for children with special needs - it is difficult to find sitters for children who are non-verbal, have poor muscle tone and wear diapers, etc. This isn't very difficult and many parents are happy to tell you all you need to know. Or, advertise as someone who is happy to help tutor children with special needs. You can contact Autism Society, United Cerebral Palsy, etc and ask if they have need of special needs babysitters. I've called our Autism Society several times looking for babysitters. There were times I would kill for just two hours to grocery shop.
Taking in laundry. This works best in apartments where there are older people or busy younger ones who don't want the bother.
Runner. Run errands for those who are too busy.
Plain old summer-time tutoring for kids who need a boost before the next school year.
-
cat!
allergic :(
We do have a cat that stays at our other house. Maybe I can deal with the allergies until pest control comes in...
-
We have mice in our home and I'm just beside myself, honestly. Not too much grosses me out (and oddly, I had a pet mouse as a child), but I'm on edge.
I'm not sure whether I'm missing something structural (we live in a double-wide trailer). We have floor vents and I'm not sure if they can squeeze through those cracks? We've seen activity around the floor vents which makes me wonder (even though the cracks are really small). I just found one (alive) in my washing machine but by the time I got DH involved, he was gone. (DH thought I was making it up lol). As soon as DH left again, it ran across the floor to the cabinet where the hot water heater is kept.
It seems as though having seen one nearly a week ago, we now have a whole family (with extended relatives!). I hear them at night, we are seeing droppings, we found some carpet torn up in the girls room.
We have not found the nest yet. Are they in my floors, ceilings or drains? I don't know. Is it possible for them to live in drains, should I cover those at night? (I've done that before to keep out creepy crawlies).
I'm ready to strangle the girls because they walk away and leave food out at night (they're not afraid of mice and my dire threats of disease doesn't seem to faze them).
We have a housekeeper who comes once a week and she did nothing last week except clean out of the way places and look for mice evidence. Other than a few droppings here and there, she saw nothing. I started heavy housecleaning (nicknamed Operation Ruthless by DH since I am putting everything in our rooms up on shelves and checking along baseboards daily. Since doing all the cleaning, we seem to be seeing them more.
Our pest control company can't come until Thursday. I've ordered traps from amazon (I prefer the ones where you can't see the poor thing after it's dead) but they won't be in until Tuesday (even with rush shipping). (And please, no lectures on live traps. We have used those before, but once caught, you have to take them far enough outside your house so they don't come back and you have to do it as soon as they're caught. I ended up walking through spooky woods at 3 am to release them. If my husband is away on business, then I have to leave the kids alone and I don't like doing that.)
Any suggestions? The only evidence we've seen of anything they eat is that they found my rolos and ate the caramel out of several of them.
-
You're in my prayers. Please update when you can...
-
Thanks for the suggestion. :) If they turn out as great as I imagine, I'll do that.
We've always 'glitzed' up her PECS book (although we didn't do it this year for some reason). I'm trying to make next school year's book look like a purse. She always gets giggly and girly when she's dressed in cute clothes and the clunky black book just isn't stylish. lol
-
Thank you! I knew they had it but couldn't locate it. Thanks for the link so I have the brane name.
-
I'm trying to create something for my daughter (who is non-verbal). She communicates by putting words together. She carries a book with words velcroed into it to help her. I'd like her to be able to go places without her book so her hands are free (for example - grocery store, playground, movies). Her key words at places like that would 'bathroom' 'snack' 'drink', etc.
I'd like to make a cloth pouch (which I can do) that would fold out and she would have words velcroed on there that she could remove.
What I WANT to do is have her velcro words actually be on cloth, but I'm not interested in hand embroidering every word she will need. Is there an iron on material that I could use in my printer and then either iron onto the fabric OR (preferably) iron directly onto cloth velcro?
Any suggestions?
-
We have a traditional "long lost cousin" who ran away from home when she was 15 and over the years stops by to visit. I remember she came for Thanksgiving when I was 16 yrs old and then we didn't see her again until last year when she was in our state. The bulk of our family cut her off (when she ran away) because she was a "troubled child" and possibly into drugs. (I have other thoughts as to why she was cut off). She wasn't cut out of the will, but another sibling was left in charge of her share and refused to give it to her (and it's now gone).
My cousin (grandmother's sister's child) is now in her 50's. We suspect that she's gay (which has led to other family members being 'polite' but not wanting a relationship), she's authored a book and now works in a gym (as well as being a former holder of weightlifting titles).
When she came to visit us (my mother lives next door), she became a bit teary-eyed about being welcomed for a visit. She said that she thought her entire family had abandoned her and to find family after all this time meant a lot to her.
When she left, we exchanged a few emails but they dropped off. I found her recently on facebook and thought it odd that she hadn't friended ANY of our family. I was about to friend her but then I wondered if maybe she didn't want her private life exposed to family? I felt like she was trying to conceal a girlfriend when she visited. She would make comments and it was obvious to me that she has a girlfriend but she wasn't out with it. She acted like she was hiding it, so I don't want to tell her it's okay with me if she's gay. (I'm sure she's out in her world, just not ours). She has a job she loves, a new book she's writing, many friends. On the other hand, she seemed to really crave a connection with family.
So...should I contact her on facebook or not? I haven't emailed her in a while but my other option is to email her and ask her about facebook.
-
I think someone above mentioned dementia and I wanted to mention it again as a possibility. I know when my step-FIL first started showing signs, the first thing we saw (in hindsight) was when he started telling people that he thoughts I was going to sue them. I was hurt and cried over it. I've never been anything but kind to my in-laws and worked hard for my kids to have a relationship with all their family.
Eventually, the comment made sense when we saw his mis-perception of other things.
I think that perhaps her memory is focused sharply on the past and she may be struggling a bit with the present. This would make sense especially if she wants to quilt with your SIL's and they have been "around" longer than you. (Not sure if that's the case, just curious).
You sound like such a sweet DIL. I'm sorry you're hurt over this.
-
Those are great suggestions. :) Thanks so much!
-
I'm so sorry to hear of this. My prayers will be with this family. :(
-
Any suggestions on meals that can be pre-purchased and kept in the pantry? We live a fair distance from a grocery store and it's easier (especially in the winter) to keep extra food in an outdoor pantry rather than make frequent trips to the store.
My two favorite ones are white bean chili (northern beans, chix broth, picante sauce and chicken) and taco soup (different beans, corn, tomatoes, taco seasoning, ranch dry seasoning and hamburger meat). (Obviously the meat has to be in the freezer, but we deep freeze a lot of meat during the winter).
I'm looking for ideas so I can stock up on any fresh veggies that we grow or get that might help out (tomatoes and corn come to mind). (We'll make one trip to buy bulk goods in a larger city in October).
Thanks :)
-
We don't know yet what has been chosen, but it's rumored to be Lion King Jr. They discourage singing songs from the actual production.
Honestly, her vocal range is not great. Each year it gets better and she is joining the church choir soon which will help. I tend to steer towards songs with limited vocal range although she might surprise me if I stretch a bit further! Her part last year had only a couple of singing lines (four or five words each) and then group singing. I'll look around and see if I can find something a bit more outside her range and have her practice it as well. I'll do a bit of googling and see if I can find other songs by the same composer.
My youngest has a wider range but so far, has preferred group parts. She usually sings something Shirley Temple-ish.
The directors are the same each year so they know most of the kids and what they can do. If talents change during the year, the audition is the place to show them. Thanks for the suggestion.
-
I have a 10 (going on 11) yr old who was set to go to middle school next year as well. We had various reasons for pulling her next year and it's hard at time. I know she enjoys visiting with her friend during the daytime.
For us, we took a long look at what she liked about school and it basically boiled down to lots of teacher praise and spending time with friends.
To offset, we are signing her up for a year-round recreational soccer club where she will get constant feedback from her coach and time with friends. She also takes karate, cheer (which may have to go depending on schedules) and children's theatre. We let her sign up on facebook (which we monitor heavily).
We also knew that she was slightly jealous of our younger daughter's time during homeschool and played up the fun things she can do next year (spend the day with grandparents, go to the zoo, etc).
She's a mixture of sad and excited, which is normal I think. Good luck :)
-
Over the summer, we always work on a couple of audition songs and monologues for the girls to use when they try out for Children's Theatre in the fall. This is a small town, so it's not a huge thing. Chances are excellent that they'll be in it, but DD10 is really hoping for a larger role. Last year, in Annie, she was one of the main orphans and she was delighted.
She will be 11 when she tries out. The judges allow 2 minutes of singing and I usually modify the song length and sometimes the lyrics. They prefer that kids not sing songs "older" than they are - (for example, popular love songs on the radio sung by kids younger than 14/15).
She wants to sing "You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray. She relates to that song because she is very small and has to work extra hard for people to look past her size for parts, sports, even academics.
The parts I'm worried about are,
"....if you don't like the way I look, I just don't give a d@mn"
Should I alter this to some other wording to remove profanity?
and all the parts about women shaking it, such as...
"....a man and woman like to shake it on a Saturday night..."
or
"....a woman found out if she shook it she could shake up a man..."
Would this be appropriate? I also help plan how she dances while she sings and the shaking would probably involve arms/head rather than elsewhere. :tongue_smilie:
-
That's one of my worst fears. :( Praying.
-
Thanks for all the replies. The building we have now is close to our other house. If we rented to a stranger, we would probably want to move it (which is possible although it does affect the water/electricity that is already hooked up).
I'll look into parceling the land. Our property taxes are really cheap here. For instance, for both houses and about 10 acres or so, we pay approximately $130 in property tax a year. I'll definitely keep it in mind though and make sure to keep an eye on it.
I understand the friend issue and have explained that repeatedly to DH. Whether or not he will listen is another issue. On the bright side, he's a very up-front type of person and won't hesitate to speak his mind about things. In his group, he's the 'alpha' type personality. While I'm only half worried about that aspect, I completely agree with you.
I'll keep in mind what is said about the bartering and tax implications. I have no interest in being audited.
I wasn't sure about the college aspect since I also considered it far away. DH's thought was that since our area has such a low cost of living, it might be suitable for someone who was taking classes only part-time. For the closer college, it's do-able. The college town struggles to find housing for everyone and others already rent in our town to go there. Of course, everything looks easier on paper. :)
-
Honestly I'd back him down to the level of math that he could do (and maybe a bump down from that). I think he needs to feel successful. There's no shame in doing 5th grade level reading and 2nd grade level math.
-
Thanks! I read your other thread about your (former) tenant. So sorry!
We actually already have an accountant due to some investments that are tricky that we inherited. There is a local lawyer in town who also does family rentals. I was going to ask him to talk to me about what I need to do.
I've told DH to price out what he thinks it will cost and I'm going to try to look it over next week.
-
DH has a lot of lofty goals and ideas - some great, some not so great. One of his goals has always been to own property and rent it out to others. We currently live on a plot of about 10 acres. We have a chance to buy an additional 16 next to us (which we will probably do). We are related (or know very well) the others around us. My aunt and uncle have asked if we are interested in purchasing their land (which adjoins ours) which would be an additional 45 acres. Most of this land is woods with patches of clear land. We are in a rural area with low cost of living.
The idea came about because we bought our aunt/uncle's house and now have a vacant house a couple acres over. One of DH's friends asked if we would be interested in renting it to him in exchange for low rent and he does yardwork for us. (We currently pay over 200 a month for mowing our yard, clearing paths through the trees and trimming shrubbery, etc).
We also have an empty building, fully insulated with electricity in it that we had used for storing food. (Our new house has a guest house in back that we now use for food storage and a 'hang out' area for our 10 yo dd who "needs her own space"). DH thought that the building could be turned into an efficiency style apartment with the loft area as a bedroom on one side and storage on the other. The regular area would have a living area/kitchen and a bathrooom. To convert it, we need a septic tank, hot water heater and install a mini kitchen and bathroom. We're debating it at the moment.
Of course, that had DH thinking that with the extra land we're looking at buying, whether we could install several 'efficiency' type apartments/buildings on our land. We would look at renting to single adults and college students. (we have two major universities about 45 minutes from here and one smaller college fifteen minutes away). We have enough in our regular savings to convert the storage area and could use our savings (and rent) to work on the next one. We would not touch our retirement (and will not touch it).
I love DH, but sometimes he sees the larger picture but not the smaller (would we need more insurance, on-site handyman, permits?, etc).
What should we think about as we look at this?
-
We live in Alabama in a rural area where cost of living is low. We pay $10 an hour for three hours a week, each week.
My needs are different each week. If our kids are having a rough week due to medical reasons, sometimes the place is a disaster. In that case, I ask her to make paths through the house and thoroughly clean the kitchen and bathrooms. If the house is tidy, she sweeps/mops, vacuums, bathrooms/windows, ovens and stovetops. About twice a year, I work alongside her and we clean out cabinets, go through storage areas and delve into dark corners of the garage.
Always, always - I put something in the crockpot on the days she is here so I can extend my sense of "everything's done for the day".
-
I would imagine that the pad shifts when she's doing kicks, especially high ones. Also, when you're sweating, you feel wet "all over". Pad built in panties would be ideal and after that would be biker shorts underneath in my opinion.
-
....... but from what he has said I think that the minimum he wants is this: dishes kept up, kitchen floor swept after each meal, downstairs vacuumed daily, laundry caught up and put away, beds made, toys and stuff picked up from every surface in the house (including downstairs, kids' rooms, toy room, our room, hallway).
......... He really wants to eat dinner by 5, which helps us get the kids to bed on time. But I often have a hard time getting it done by then.
..... :banghead:!
First, I need to state that my house is somewhat messy even with a once-a-week housekeeper. My daughter (who should probably be doing something artistic or academic) is camped out on the sofa eating lucky charms and watching scooby doo. When our other girls get home from school today, DH has banned all tv and electronic gadgets until our mountain of laundry is put away.
When DH and I disagree on housework (or rather, I can't keep up), I look for a compromise we can agree with. We use paper plates for breakfast and lunch, along with plastic utensils and paper napkins. Cleaning up afterwards is easy and I throw the pans and prep stuff in the sink. (I clean that up as I'm working on dinner). I very carefully plan my menu on the week-ends and do grocery shopping alone. I look for stretchy items. I try to do something fancy and fun on Friday nights (and I'm teaching the girls to cook), but during the week it might look something like this:
Monday: crockpot roast
Tuesday: spaghetti
Wednesday: leftover crockpot roast, possibly made into sandwiches
Thursday: leftover spaghetti
Friday: honey dijon shrimp, steamed asparagus, basmati rice and salad
I always include at least one crockpot meal a week simply to keep my stress level low. On Sundays, I pre-cook breakfast items (pancakes and bacon) so that we can have a healthy breakfast via the microwave (adding scrambled eggs and fruit).
DH wasn't thrilled with paper plates, but he saw that it helped me and gave in.
My 7 yr old can sweep, so I would try to pawn that off on your oldest. If your DH is very invested in sweeping after every meal, spot sweep where the littles ate and then sweep completely after everyone is in bed (or right after dinner if your 7 yr old does it).
(Oh and my DH is a speed cleaner also and doesn't understand how I am not one, so I sympathize.)
If he wants vacuuming done daily (and even my DH doesn't go that far), seriously, invest in a roomba. Make sure your/DH bedroom is vacuumed and then shut that door and make it off limits. Send the roomba around while dinner is going.
Keep a limited amount of toys downstairs and everyone helps pick up before he gets home. I've found that if DH walks into a clean room, he's okay with a little mess elsewhere. I've also found that scented air fresheners make the place smell clean and I use them on days when I have leftovers so he smells something nice when he walks in.
Beds made up? I'd do yours/his and do the others if you have time (our kids make them up about half the time).
Laundry? Good luck. We have a mountain in our living room and another mountain left to wash.
My husband sounds a lot like yours. Basically, if he sees me making an effort, he automatically relaxes his expectations. I'm only homeschooling one this year and she's easy. Adding in babies and littles....it's a lot to ask. Build yourself in some supports and assistance, even if it's a bit costly.
All the best to you.
-
It could be an age thing, but she definitely trips more than other kids. And she has poor balance. It might be that she's clumsy and her feet have nothing to do with it. I just don't know at the moment.
Border Collie information needed please :)
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
We have a border collie who is about 2 1/2 yrs old. He's probably a border collie mix. He's super friendly, loves the kids, runs forever, happily chases squirrels, mice, rabbits, birds, butterflies and grasshoppers. He used to chew on anything not nailed down, but that's improved. He seems to 'smile' all the time. He was a stray that was dropped off on our road and when we couldn't find the owners, we kept him. (This was about 2 yrs ago).
His only 'downside' is that he seems jealous of attention given to other animals (not kids, just animals). If we pet the cat, he'll nudge between us or nudge against us until we pet him as well. He's not aggressive, but it's deliberate. He will be in the yard playing until he sees us give attention to the cat, then he runs over. It's not a bad thing, just makes me wonder if he would share well with another dog.
The shelter (high kill) in our area is almost full and a 2 yr old border collie was dropped off yesterday. They said he is scared and afraid to eat (but our dog was also that way when he wandered up) but friendly. The pictures show a dog (scared looking) curled up on a cot. The next picture shows him sitting up and 'grinning'.
Do you think the two would be compatible? I plan to go look at him today and I thought about taking our border collie there tomorrow to see if the two got along.
Space here is not an issue. We have no fences, but we have lots of acreage. I called our neighbors and told them we were thinking about getting another border collie (since ours travels and visits) and they laughed and said they would keep their shoes put up for a while.
I'd love to adopt him and DH says to go for it.
Any advice for me or suggestions?