When I did my best at this I had a friend's daughter help me. She was a teen so old enough to do what I told her to do but not emotionally attached to anything in the house like my own kids were. I had a trash, rehome (to other locations in the house) and donate boxes/bags/Lau dry baskets. Then I didn't take a lot of time to decide. As I picked up something I either put it away in that room, put it in the rehome laundry basket if it was something I wanted to keep but it belonged elsewhere in the house, trash or donate. As soon as a box/bag/basket was full the girl would take care of it for me and get an empty one. She then helped deep clean the area, wash windows, vacuum, etc as we went. I need to do this again. It was a huge help but a never ending battle. When I went through things like coats, etc I gather them up from all bedrooms, closets, storage areas, etc. I then picked the favorites, best fitting, etc and quickly washed and rehomed the rest before my family could notice.

have you tried other oral things like a chewie necklace made for this, gum, etc? While the hands in the pants is common in boys, you are right that it is not socially acceptable, esp. at his age. Has he been checked by a doctor for for infection, tight skin, or other physical cause. Not likely, but good to rule out. Does he have anxiety? I see this very often in the kids I work with that it is triggered by anxiety and the behaviors are comforting to them.

I finished Turtle In Paradise https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6871737-turtle-in-paradise yesterday. It is a kids book but I found it a good read even as an adult as you can see so many more layers to things than younger readers might miss. I also just needed a lighter read. I am now reading Life Among the Piutes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37796290-life-among-the-piutes which is very interesting so far. It tells of the initial contacts with the white men and how the Indians perceived the contact and the challenges that came from it. I have a special interest in Native history as my father's family was Native (Cherokee) and my MIL is full Ottawa/Chippewa. I have learned over the years about how white washed the history I learned was. There was a lot of evil on both sides and "manifold destiny" often meant killing off and abusing another group of people that were viewed as savages/less than human. I am waiting on my replacement blue tooth speaker to come in the mail tomorrow so I can go back to listening to my audio books. I find the sound on that so much better than the speakers on my Kindle Fire 8.

Now I have more books to check out :-). Love the hive for great recommendations.

When we traveled I always looked forward local parks, museums, nature trails, etc and found some huge winners for free or very low cost. Check around the area surrounding the beach house and see what is out there. Trip advisor can help with this as well as just searching the visitor website for the towns and cities. We hav done Disney twice as Make A Wish trips and while it was a great time, I doubt we would ever pay full price to go back again.

Have you thought about being a substitute teacher or teachers aide? It isn't great money but is super flexible and follows the school schedule for the kids. Right now I can work almost 5 days a week if I wanted but can also take an entire week off if I want. A few of the ladies only sub on a certain day of the week or just 2 days a week.

So many factors....engine size, fuel economy, seating, cargo space, CUPHOLDERS, back up camera, comfort, etc. I don't need high end at all. Just safe, reliable, and comfortable seating for 6+. Can anyone weigh in on the AWD vs FWD with good tires? I am not looking to do any offroading and hopefully not much plowing through snowdrifts.

Thanks. I have a lot of look at and consider. My kids are not big...ds is 5'5", dd is 5' and other dd is 4'10. Boyfriend though is 6' MIL is a tiny 4'10" I don't want to go with a suburban as while I love them, I do not love the gas mileage, etc. We have a 98 suburban that is reliable but old. A mini van might be the way to go. I am not sure if I need the AWD vs. just a good FWD with great tires. Reliability is going to be a huge factor. The stow and go seating looks really nice as we often fold down the rear seat in our current 08 Odyssey which is great for hauling stuff. I can actually fit 2 kayaks and 4 people in that thing.....but only for short distances as it can be harder to see :-)

I will look at the AWD Sienna. My other options were a Subaru (seating capacity might be an issue) or a Honda minivan. Sedans seem so difficult for older adults to get in and out of. I agree that mini van and other higher vehicles make more sense for them.

If I were to look for a new to me vehicle what would you suggest? Should be easy to get into and out of for elderly MIL. Ideally seats 6 or more adult comfortably. Decent cargo space.Comfortable ride. Good on winter roads. Good gas mileage. Very reliable. Ability to tow a small pop up trailer might be a plus but the ability to tow or put 2 kayaks on top and/or a 4 place bike rack would be a big plus. I love Subarus for how well they handle in the snow and other not so great road conditions but they only seat 5 and the one my MIL currently has doesn't have any cup holders, back seat seems not very comfortable for longer distances, etc. This is still in the maybe, thinking stages but I wondered what was out there. Might consider brand new or very low mileage used.

I think this is it. It isn't that any of it is bad per say and my kids truly are awesome and do a lot better than people with their disabilities might be expected to do, but it is just unrelenting. It is call the insurance company because one child was dropped (seems to happen to at least one kid every Jan), manage back accounts for 3 people, call hospice social worker, run errands for MIL, help dd figure out how much is on her debit card and how to order her meal at Wendy's, call health insurance company for MIL to find out plan benefits, etc. Really, none of this is hard, difficult, or particularly taxing. It is just that it is a much of the day, almost every day thing. next week is calling the tribe about tribal hospice benefits, possibly looking at care places for the future, driving MIL to a funeral, etc.....and that is just Monday. My kids do qualify for respite but it can be hard to find someone trustworthy to watch them (and someone or same person for all of the critters) as you can't just use a 20 year old college girl for a 30 year old young man. Really though, I don't have it that bad. I do try to put myself to bed and take 1/2 hour to read each night as well.........until someone needs something.

Lands End has some tank suits that come in DDD cup. I agree it is tough to find flattering things for well endowed young women.

I do some some down time each day but not where I am totally off duty. I might be down....but "on call". Disabled mother (power wheelchair full time) and mother in law (kidney transplant on on hospice for pancreatic cancer) along with a disabled brother and 3 cognitively impaired young adult kids combined with a very small immediate family makes for not a lot of help. I do try to ski 30 minutes a day several days a week. I am working on getting away for 2-3 days when 2 of my kids are at Special Olympics state games and my friend will be watching other dd and all of the critters. I might stay with a friend one night and then a hotel 1-2 nights. I will still be going to watch my 2 compete, watching their fun broom ball tournament, and still being on call by phone for everyone but I will not have to cook or clean for anyone for 2 days :-) I am working on downsizing my life and responsibilities but right now, this is just a season of great need. I honestly love helping people. I might just have to work on trying to figure out a "duty free" day once in a while. Last time I drove up to visit a good friend about 2 hours away we took a 2 hour walk and I left my phone in the car since she had hers (and any huge emergency knew to call her) and I came back to 6 missed calls and several voice mails and texts to deal with............but we did get a wonderful 6 mile walk in.

I don't know if it will help for future reservations or not, but I always try to call the day before or the morning of my arrival to double check the reservation as well as refresh their memory on my room preference.

It seems like I always have responsibilities for others even when it is my "down" time. I am sure it is a season of life but I would love even a few hours where I did not have to carry my phone, handle things for others, be responsible for other people, etc. I have 3 special needs young adult kids that need quite a bit of help as well as managing their meds, finances, doctors, and transportation. My MIL is on hospice so that is several appointments a week plus helping her plus running her errands, paying bills, handling paperwork, etc. I am also payee for my disabled brother so on call there as well as handling finances. Today I had my "grandson" (my adopted son's bio brother's 3 year old) for 4 hours. He is a great little boy but needed a lot of eyes on watching just like any little one. I do try to get out for 1/2 hour of exercise a day...walk, ski, etc but even then I need my phone on me in case my MIL has a health crisis as I am point person. I dream of a cruise or a beach get away where I would only be responsible for myself. A friend could come if they were self sufficient :-). We have done 2 trips to Clearwater/St Petersburg but both times I had my 2 girls to take care of plus their bio siblings (3 of the 4 have special needs too) so I got very brief moments of down time on the beach but still had responsibility for them. Again, this is just a season (a long one though).

Thanks for all of the ideas. I will check out the review more, esp the not so great ones and see what books I can use the "see inside" feature.

THIS. I do think that hearing it aloud is more powerful. It is also harder to quickly skip ahead like you can in a paper book.

I started that one too and abandoned it. Just didn't do it for me.

While not Coast Guard, would he be interested in Civil Air Patrol? It is the youth program of the Air Force. It provides awesome opportunities and the skills/training, etc learned there would carry over well to any military branch....as well as likely help with admissions, scholarships, etc.

These were about all I read for a long time and while I still enjoy them I find them to often not be quality reading and so many story lines are so similar. I KNOW there are great books out there and I have read so many in the past year. I would love to find a more conservative book blogger etc that would give me a great list of ideas along with any trigger warnings.

I love to read and always have a kindle book (or 2) and an audio book going. The problem with both of these is that it is even harder than with physical books to get an idea of what offensive/unwanted scenes/topics might be in the book. For various reasons I don't want a book with excessive foul language (a bit used well in the story is OK, used excessively for "shock" value is not), scenes of torture, explicit s8x scenes, etc. How do you weed out books that aren't going to fit your reading parameters before starting them? I just started an audio book that is quite interesting in the first chapter. I checked it out on Good Reads to click "currently reading" and saw comments of explicit torture scenes, assault, etc. Time to find a new book as that is now what I need in my mind right now. I did listen to and loved The Nightingale which had some very sensitive topics covered but they were very tastefully done and that is fine with me. I just don't want all of the details. I wish books had some sort of a rating system that mentions if they have excessive language, explicit scenes, violence, etc......similar to TV/movies. Not to ban them but rather to let me make more educated choices in what I want to read. Any ideas for me?

I am new to the Book a Week this year. My goal is 52 books this year, a mix of mostly kindle and audio books as I have a terrible time returning physical books to the library and audio books are great for when I am driving and/or working around the house. Last year I think I purchased one $1.99 kindle book, otherwise they have all been free kindle downloads or through Overdrive/Hoopla. The first book I finished was a Kindle download https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31184292-apauk-caller-of-buffalo. I would say 4 stars. It was interesting and a good read. I have Native heritage so find these accounts of Native life very interesting. We have also visited several of the places mentioned in the book and a buffalo jump. My second book of the year was an audio book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2153405.Still_Alice?ac=1&from_search=true Still Alice is the story of a 50 year old professor with early onset Alzheimer. I found it very real to life from my experiences working with Alzheimer patients. Another solid 4 stars.

Hopefully they will decide what is best for the baby. It could well be that the other family is not able to take on a special needs child. If you are able to adopt the baby, please try to get contact information for the adoptive family of the 1/2 sibling and make/keep contact as appropriate. My son has 7 siblings that he now has contact with but for many years, there was no contact with some of them and he missed out on that. My girls have 6 other siblings, 4 we found now as young adults, 1 deceased as a young adult, and 1 that we still haven't located. Finding their siblings has been a huge deal for them. I wish we could have done this more/sooner, etc. but it took us almost 20 years of searching to locate them. Even with 1/2 siblings there is a biological bond there and while in the cases of all 3 of my kids it was in their (and their siblings) best interest to not all be adopted together, it is a very positive thing that they have contact now.

My mom offered me some Apple turnovers a few weeks ago. I looked at them to check the date.......well, they EXPIRED in 1997. Needless to say we dumped them.

For kayaking I am assuming you are not going until at least May :-)