This is such a heartbreaking situation! I am sorry for everyone involved.

Personally I found that my close people to talk to, did not have the knowledge or context to be good people for me to talk to. I was much better off to talk to people where we had that similarity, for that topic. I think it’s great if somebody has that, but if not, it’s worth saying “that’s okay I will check out the support group.” I think it can just be too outside of people’s experiences a lot of the time. Especially if I would be very hurt or offended by some ignorant comments. Now I am a lot less likely to be hurt or offended, because “I” am in a different place and things don’t bother me now that would have bothered me, or I can respond in a way that I think works for me.

Something really helpful to me was changing thinking things like “it’s my fault this happened” when something happened that was NOT my fault. It could be a learning experience, it could be a data point. Sometimes things happen and they are not particularly anyone’s faults. I think there are a lot of times to look for ways to improve things and make changes, but without seeing it as “it’s my fault, I made it happen.” It’s not realistic to think everything can be predicted and prevented. That is an impossible goal. “When you know better you do better” I think is a realistic goal, though!

I sometimes go to a NAMI support group, and I recently took the NAMI family to family class. I am currently reading the book Codependent No More. For myself, when my son with autism was young, it really helped to accept I could not know the future, but also no one know the future. It also helped a lot to focus on what I could control (my actions) and then separating that from my son’s actions. I 100% think I can be “being a good parent” with my own actions, even if my child is currently struggling or is still in a process of learning to handle things. Something that is brought up to me at NAMI, is that I can be putting pressure on my loved one if I am — it’s hard to explain, but basically if they know I am worried or disapproving, it is putting stress and pressure on them. It can be better if I believe they are capable. I took the NAMI class for adults, there is a different class for people with children. I do think there are things that I would answer that I’m doing, that are appropriate for an adult or older teen, and would be different for a child. With a child, I could feel more like, if I’m doing the recommended things, then I’m doing a good job, and it’s okay if things aren’t currently in a great place because I’m playing a long game with long-term results. I also personally have seen parents get sucked into “I have to do everything I can,” but I think there has to be balance and it’s easy to do too much. I think doing “a good amount,” saying “it’s good enough,” and accepting its impossible to know the “best” thing to do, but possible to find something “good,” are realistic goals. I think too, if your daughter was diagnosed about a year ago, and it is looking like it’s going to be a long-term situation, then one year in its realistic to still really be adjusting to that and also figuring out what will work or not.

My sister just got a job, and she thinks the main reason she got it is that she already lives in the area, but somebody moving in wouldn’t be able to find housing for the salary offered. But for my sister, it’s a good salary and she’s lucky she got the job. She lives in a small town in Oregon.

This might be a strange thing to say, but being hit by a train is considered a way to commit suicide here, where there is plausible deniability that the person was committing suicide. It’s like a “single vehicle crash” type of committing suicide. So I definitely do NOT think any specific person has committed suicide. But it’s also definitely a way that people commit suicide. This is not a close relative to me, but I have a relative who worked on a train, and the train hit someone they were sure committed suicide. It takes the train so long to stop, and it’s horrible. This relative had a very good-paying, good-benefits job for him, and he left over this. He had to get a totally different job.

But who’s in charge? What if nobody takes it on? If you are busy professionals, do you also have the ability to act as your own general contractor and oversee the project in a timely way? I am seriously just being skeptical for the sake of being skeptical, but these are things I “might” think. I can “understand” having a timeline to move into a house, and I can understand having a timeline to get a house ready to rent. I totally get those two things. It’s predictable to me. I would be thrown for a loop! But in a good way 🙂.

Also saying “we bought it for the view!” gives me “project house” vibes. When the general contractor and a bunch or trucks are there — I would think “thank goodness.” Then it would be really sweet to buy a house for the view!

Honestly hearing “me and my friends went in on it together” does not give me vibes of “and there’s plenty of money to throw into the renovation.” Edit: I mean, I get it! But if I didn’t know I would wonder.

If it is changing hands, though, I wouldn’t want the “new” hands to be people who might let it sit again. Somebody moving in will have more motivation to make it livable. I know OP said she plans to spend 4x the purchase price on renovation. But how would I know that? It’s not an investment, either, in the sense of looking to speedily get it in shape for rental or Air B and B income. I don’t know what I would think if the new owners were saying “Air b and b,” that is outside of my experience. I do have experience with houses spending years in states of mid-construction, and depending on what work is not done, it gets old. Especially if — the house and locations are ones where “somebody” would fix the house up. If it’s overpriced for what was paid plus the price of renovation, it would just make me speculate more about “they are overly optimistic, or they don’t care how long it takes.” If the house has been winding its way towards a tax sale for x years, people may have been really looking forward to the next owner “doing” something with it.

Since I have a different concern than everybody else…. My concern would be that it will be a “project house” where people do work or pay to have work done in sporadic bursts, with long periods of time where no work is being done and the house is in a strange state of mid-construction. I would want the owner to look like somebody to have plenty of money to take care of the house all at once, and some timeliness, not just the lowest priority they get to when they have time and money, but it’s no drain on them either and they can pay the monthly expenses without thinking about it. Edit: if a lawn service is hired and the street view is good, I would not care.

Well then I think it’s even more important they can call to be picked up if they aren’t comfortable! I think that is so valuable for kids.

I come to a stop at every crossing that has a sign saying “come to a stop, no signal.” I do not come to a stop at crossings that have a signal. School buses here do come to a stop at all crossings. Edit: I only see the signs saying to stop in areas with extremely little traffic. I wouldn’t stop either if I thought someone would run into me.

We have what sounds broadly similar with a house on my street. They bought the house for the wife’s mother, and she has passed away, and now they are keeping it for guests. I have had thoughts of thinking they neglected the flower bed. But they have hired a service! Yay! I think it would be better for our street to have someone live there full-time, but I am happy because they aren’t letting the house get run-down. My Mom has a neighbor who has bought a house, but still is living in their old house. The house has been in disrepair for 2 years. It’s a nice house and the new couple is nice, but they are not getting the work done on the house very quickly at all. So honestly my thoughts are along the lines of, I hope you aren’t going to let the house get run-down or lose track of the flower beds, just from not seeing it very often. If it’s a house that needs a lot of work, I would wonder if it was going to be a slow project and take 10 years to get the house renovated. If what is visible to the street looks good, that would be great to me! I would not like it if that took forever to get done, or there was no lawn service and needed to be one, or things like that. For my Mom’e neighbor, are they out of money or what? They used to come to check on things every weekend or at least twice a month. Now nobody has seen them and nobody has seen any evidence of work trucks or anything. The fence is down and there are stacks of lumber visible in the back yard. The front door is boarded up in a way that would look fine if it hadn’t been that way for at least 6 months. It is neat, it’s not trashy, but it’s just not having any work done on it. Edit: we lived for 3 years as year-round residents of a place that had summer residents and second-home owners. Every one liked them. They were rich or they were spending money on vacation. They kept the town going and provided jobs. They also seemed like generally nice people. It wasn’t a party destination or anything like that. I never heard a complaint.

Here is my response now: I personally think a lot of these posts are over-reactions. But if I was in this situation as the person who drank a glass of wine with dinner — I would not say that! I would apologize. I would promise never to do it again. If I noticed I was not welcome to drive kids again, I would never say a word about it. Number one, I think it is totally acceptable to see things in this way. Number two, it’s really weird to send a message to a child “you were wrong to be concerned about drunk driving.” I think if somebody responds in other ways it risks undermining the other adults plus undermining the child. I also think that if I was asked to take a side, I would just 100% come down on the side of, a child was uncomfortable and a grandparent on the phone thought it was right to pick up the child. It doesn’t matter why. Edit: if I was in the orbit of this, I am pretty sure I would lose a lot of respect for the adult who drank the wine, not because they drank the wine, but because they are not handling the situation in a mature way. It just seems off.

With no other information or context, I would think this was a huge overreaction. However taking “one glass of wine” out of the picture, and changing it to, a grandchild is uncomfortable out with adults and calls to be picked up, and another adult thinks it warrants being picked up — and I am in favor of it. There are a million reasons or contexts a child could feel uncomfortable and want to be picked up, and for another adult to think it’s the right thing to do. For the other adult to make a big deal starting with “all I did was….” I think is not great. This adult has better ways to handle this situation I think, this one doesn’t give a great impression. Edit: I think it seems like more information could make it come across differently… if the other adult has a history of undermining other people, that would be different, too. But just overall — I would assume there’s more going on in some way. Especially because sometimes a person will try to “define the terms” of what happened in a way that there is no way to disagree, how could someone disagree with drinking one glass of wine? And while I agree with that, personally, I would just think, what if there were other things going on but somehow it’s become about one glass of wine, because that person is setting it up that way. I don’t think it’s on a child to explain perfectly why they are uncomfortable, or another adult to explain why they believed this child could be uncomfortable with this adult.

For the cake, we did go to a bakery and pick the cake and icing, and we decided to get a sheet cake, but we were really happy with the cake and my husband and I fed each other cake 😉 The bakery had nice options for a sheet cake. They had options for people to get a small bride-and-groom cake and then give the guests a sheet cake, and we got that kind of sheet cake.

I had a courthouse wedding and we had a party later with a wedding cake. We did not repeat the vows. I did not want to repeat the vows, our party was informal, and I wore regular/nice clothes, I did not dress up. The truth is they can do it however they want! We considered doing flowers and table settings, but decided not to, it was something we did consider, though. We got platters of food from a Chinese restaraunt, I think we ordered that ahead and then picked it up. It was just what we liked at the time and thought everyone would like it. Edit: I wore a beautiful dress to the courthouse, and we did have pictures made with me wearing my beautiful dress and my husband wearing a suit. But we didn’t wear that to the party. I also had a bouquet for the courthouse wedding and then I had some flowers from the bouquet in our pictures. (I really like this dress, but it is not a really fancy dress. But very pretty and flattering, and I like it in the pictures.)

I would go if you really want to go back there. I think the housing issue is a huge issue. I think it sounds like two issues are: spending more time with your Dad, and having a job with regular business hours. I am not sure this is the solution to that problem. I would say to look for other ways to see your Dad more, and also ways to change your hours. Maybe you could visit more and quit offering lessons two nights a week, without all the upheaval. Can you tell I am a risk-averse person? I am. If it is more you really want this job, then I also think “go for it.” I don’t think it’s the best/only way to solve these issues though, and I think it can be better to start small. I think it would also be worth looking at other job options in your local area. It sounds really disruptive, to be honest. It is disruptive to some current commitments you have. I think that is okay, but — they sound like commitments that are positives for you. As far as the application seeming aimed at a college student — I doubt that’s purposeful. It’s probably just some template they used or something.

I sleep with a real, live puppy dog 😉

My son has close friends who vape. My daughter does not, but she says she sees a lot of other kids vaping. I do see people vaping, in parking lots and sitting in cars in parking lots. It does depend on the store.

It makes it hard for me to get a sense from “online with no context,” I can think of reasons I don’t happen to know people in various circumstances, or it could be my location. I do know a man in his 40s who is divorced and has become very bitter towards women. It’s really sad.

I can kind-if see how that would happen. It gives me a new perspective on anonymous sperm donation…. I just hadn’t thought of it quite that way before.

I didn’t read it, but within the past week there’s been an article in the New York Times with a headline about “it’s a polyamorous group of 20 people!” The Washington Post has had a headline about a “throuple” of 3 people having/raising a baby together. I know zero of anything like this in real life. I’m sure it’s true! It seems so sensational. I don’t really have a reason, personally, to take the tradwife article more seriously than the throuple article. It could be out there a lot more than I realize, or not!

I have seen this tradwife thing also as an online trend, but I have only seen it as an online trend. There are a lot of New York Times and Washington Post articles that I have never seen “in the wild.” I have also never seen several things that are apparently being put on Fox News, that I have never seen, that people will comment to me about as far as my age of kids and it being a problem, and it’s not present. You know what I do see that I also read about as a problem? Vaping!!!!!!!! There is so much vaping!!!!!!