I've been asked to write a recommendation for a high schooler who is applying for a scholarship to a study program. The form says, "We are especially concerned about the applicant's financial need, motivation, ability to organize, ability to work independently and academic ability." Okay, so this kid took one class from me - a writing class. She did very very well, so I can address MOST of the scholarship committee's 'concerns' but I have no clue about this kid's 'financial need' - I don't know the family well at all. They have socio-demographics similar to mine - live in my area, dress modestly like my kids do, mother drives a minivan like ours ... blah blah blah. The first question on the form says, "DESCRIBE THE APPLICANT'S FINANCIAL NEED" to which I have so far written, "With regrets, I am unable to speak to Susie's financial need." BUT - what do you think? I don't want to imply ANYthing. I don't want somebody to think I'm being cage-y - I just don't have a clue and no reason to go hunting to find out stuff that isn't my business just for the purpose of filling out this form.. Would you say it DIFFERENTLY? and if so, how?? Thanks. The rest of the form was easily completed - and perhaps the studetn is sending the same form to somebody ELSE who can speak to this issue - so please comment/edit on my RED words above. Thanks.

Tammy & DAd - somehow your comments make so much sense to me - the host is responsible - of course. Thanks for the encouragement.

Yes, obviously this would be good - I guess I 'm just nonplussed about his cold demeanor last night and the missed opportunity to apology last night - now, it's harder. Sigh. Would you "casually mention it" in front of other parents (who may/may not have also been invited or may/may not have attended)? If I wait until the conversation will be totally private it could be weeks. Ugh. I'm stressing unnecessarily over this - there are other underlying issues that I'm not going to go into, but I do want to be gracious about this. Blah. Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

Okay - here's the deal: Months ago, the dad of my kid's sport-mate invited us to a bbq at their home, with "details to follow." I put it on my calendar but as the day got closer no mention was made of any details. I had expected to see the man at the sports club many times (that had been the pattern) but with gas prices I recently joined a carpool to get my kid to the venue so my personal appearances at the club were sharply curtailed the week prior to the event. In the end our paths didn't cross, the day of the event came & went, and since we didn't have their address nor phone, we had no way of knowing where to go (I looked in the hard copy and online white pages but their name is common and I only had a vague idea of their location.) Last night was the "day after the scheduled event." I thought I would apologize for missing the group bbq but when he came he was pretty cold and he left while I was engaged with the club owner in unrelated business. Should I canvas other parents to discover if the event even happened? Should I ask the man directly? Should I push my kid to ask his friend about it? Nobody (no other kid-players and no other parents) said ANYthing about the event to me at all - they never had - I sensed that not EVERYone at club was originally invited and people didn't want to bring it up and offend those who hadn't been included ---- but WE HAD BEEN... and yet... Sigh: Hive mind: what do I do now??

When I was about 20 years old I went to see Carlin live (at the Roxy or the Whisky-a-go or some other Wilshire Blvd club) with my date, my friend and a guy we were trying to fix up my friend WITH. We went to the first show at 9pm and laughed so hard we decided to stay for the 2nd show that didn't start until 11pm - so we were home WELL AFTER my friend's curfew. She was 19 but still living at home with "her dad's rules." We were all worried about getting her home well after 2am - and doubly worried that it would reflect even worse on the guy-friend we'd set her up with (the two of them had hit it off well that night.) When we got her home and the lights were STILL ON (2am??) she insisted we all go WITH her inside - her dad - a big guy with a strong protective attitude toward his first-born - was spitting mad that we'd kept her out so late. Immediately we started telling Mr. Dad all about the Carlin show - retelling the funniest bits and laughing (hard!) all over again. I remember that night my face actually hurt from being forced into the pertpetual wide-mouth grin for literally HOURS (we watched Carlin from 9pm to 1am.) Anyway, in the end we calmed Mr. Dad's anger, the "guy-friend" bonded with his future father-in-law and all was well. I'll never forget that night. Carlin was a comic genius - he could take a lame line such as, "what do you imagine that a dog does on vacation ... he can't lay around ... that's his JOOOOBBBBBB!!!" and make me laugh remembering his delivery ... 30+ years later. Rest in peace.

I have been encouraged by this thread - thanks to Pam for starting it and thanks to the rest of you for posting. I guess I've always been a cryer - I can remember crying at the drop of a hat when I was a kid ... but now it's worse. Stories/literature: Black Beauty at age 10, the bike race chapter of Moveable Feast at age 17, The end of Winnie the Pooh at age 39, the birthday party fiasco in Cannery Row last week. Patriotic stuff: The sight of red/white/blue bunting when I was about 6 to a Field trip to the grave of George Washington with my kids when I was about 40. Heroic stuff: My uncles personal memoirs about rescuing the survivors at the Santo Tomas concentration camp in Manila, WWII. Anything by Peggy Noonan. - her 911 pieces I cannot even read aloud at all. Teaching in VBS (to make it worse, they had me dressed up like an old testament woman, very embarassing. Parents called me the next day to inquire if I was okay. The pastor even. Sigh.) Slide shows of landscape photos - from the DisneyLand surround show of America (at age 10) to shots taken on DD's trip abroad and shown last Saturday ... in a group of folks wondering if I was taken ill or what. Singing patriotic songs: US National Anthem at Tivoli Gardens age 15 right up to singing "God Bless America" with a bunch of retirees at a concert in the park last night - so apparently I've always been a cryer - but it's worse now. It's embarassing and annoying but never has been debilitating.

If it is a connecting flight on the SAME airline - well, it sounds crazy but you may be able to pull it off. BWI has 3 concourses (long hallways with gates to airplanes) for domestic flights: A, B, and C (D is for int'l I think) Anyway, most airlines are assigned to ONE concourse, and fit folks can easily run the length of an entire concourse in a couple of minutes. IF you could deplane the first leg WITH the GATE info KNOWN, you could disembark, find the gate numbers clearly marked along that hallway, then haul buns to the the one you need - I want to say it would be POSSIBLE, but risky. Everytime I have flown out of BWI they START boarding 20-30 minutes before the stated departure - so it does sound risky.

Okay, well I typed out the lesson in how to sort in WordPerfect, but the editor (software) on this board strips out the tab settings and so you can't make heads or tails of my instructions. If you like, I can email you an attachment of my WordPerfect file where I describe this in detail - that would retain the tab settings so you could SEE what I mean. Or I can save it as a PDF if you have Adobe - but there my techno-savvy ends and I cannot post it directly here without losing critical spacing (from the tabs). Anyway, WordPerfect gives you the ability to sort a line of text by the first word in the line, or by SUBSEQUENT words in the line, assuming you are separating out the spacing in the lines by using the TAB KEY in WordPerfect. This feature works beautifully for sorting book lists by author, title, and date read - assuming you put "Author" on the left margin, then TAB OVER to "Title" and TAB AGAIN to "Date Read." Trust me - but if you need the exact instructions please email me (don't private message me here - I likely will miss that.) My email is dolly_myers @ comcast . net (remove the spaces.)

If you make your list in a standard word processor you can easily sort it into whatever way you decide upon (or print it in various versions - use them all). If you have WordPerfect, make your list with single tabs between columns where the column headings are author, title, date read. (you will have to create a tab setting so there are not interim tabs in between, you need to set just the tabs that will separate the columns.) Then use SORT by LINE where each column is considered a separate FIELD and each line is considered a single record. If you have Word, I don't know how to do it exactly, but it can be done - summer is a good time to learn such skills ;) BUT - while we had our "lists" ready - NObody (none of the colleges dd applied/accepted to) asked to see them.

I go to a pretty large church and each year we put on a very popular big old honkin' VBS. We do pre registration. We completely fill up the maximum capacity for each classroom on campus and we coordinate scores of volunteers in addition to the hundreds of kids who preregister and come. Even with pre-registration we would absolutely enroll walk-ins IF there was ROOM. But, yes, we HAVE turned away kids. Yes, it breaks our heart to do so, but the Fire Marshall has some level of authority. I'm not saying the church that turned your kids away was up against fire codes, but we have been, I know that CAN happen .... having said that ... WHAT WAS UP with your FRIEND??? ANY adult working in our VBS would have KNOWN, I mean, we've turned away strangers to us from the community, but we would have NEVER had a WORKER bring kids un-registered. I'm sorry your littles were disappointed.

I have only ever used the American Poetry TLP book - but it was VERY meaty. Throrough, clear, comprehensive. Very good. This is a high school level TLP - I have no clue about the middle grade versions.

When DS was 7 he wanted a pocket knife. I wasn't sure so I said, "no." Within a few months Grandma gifted DS with a key-chain knife with a very small "safe looking" blade. Within 24 hours we were in the ER getting stitches to a finger that wrangled with the knife and lost. We banned pocket knives for the foreseeable future. Fast forward to scout camp, age 13. Part of the required supplies were a pocket knife - which we bought - a new one, with a more substantial blade - they had "knife safety day" at camp, and DS knew to listen carefully. HOWEVER, THAT NIGHT, he once again wrangled with the knife (this time, trying to use it to open (wait for it ) ... a SlimJim Sausage ... and once again ended up in the ER. Of course this time I was hundreds of miles away, hearing the news from the angel of a camp nurse who drove him to the nearest ER (an hour from camp) and stayed up most of the night with him while they put in 4 stitches. Sigh. We don't do pocket knives here. And stop already with the SlimJim jokes. :tongue_smilie::lol:

Okay, so I take two teens with me into the nail salon and announce "Mani-pedis all around" and they tell us to pick out our colors and have a seat in the pedicure lounge chair. So far, so good. The guest teen (other one was my DD) got a guy who proceeded to ATTEMPT to give her a pedicure while making several phone calls in a row, and answering several more incoming calls .... WITH ONE HAND. After several stupid minutes engaged this way, I said to MY pedicurist, very loudly, "Excuse me, do you think he is going to try to do her entire pedicure while talking on the phone???" Then there was much back and forth convo in Vietnamese... and he put the phone away. SHEESH. :tongue_smilie: I gave the tip to the woman who did me and told her to divide it however she felt was appropriate. I hope they clipped the phone talking guy. :confused: PS - Forgot to say that talking and peeing is the ultimate in bad form. Just totally wrong in the privacy of your own home. And shameful in a public washroom with witnesses. Ugh . Ugh. Ugh.

Y'all reminded me of many more LOL . One that hasn't come up yet, but is used often around here, "Houston, we have a problem ..." followed by some crisis, but usually tongue in cheek. From Apollo 11 I think (and also from "history" apparently LOL) Also, the kids quote something from that stupid cartoon movie about an alien creature landing in Hawaii? I can't remember the title of the movie - but the quote is somethign about bricks and knives ... "in a pillowcase" - well, it's funny and ya had to be there. I guess.

And I heartily concur. Very good at reassuring believers who are going thru tough times.

:iagree::001_smile:

Blah - having a brain cramp and can't remember the "phrase" (in the copyright law) that allows you to use the book cover picture in this way ... but it's the same one that allows people to quote material from the book ...anybody know - anyway, pretty sure you will be breaking no laws if you do this.

I've had my eye on this program for years. For various reasons it wasn't a good fit for my DD but I think it will be great for my DS ... just wondering if any of you have experience here that he (I? We?) could benefit from. http://www.congressionalaward.org

Badges? BADGES? ... We don't need no stinking badges. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Was from sitting pregnant on the sand at Myrtle Beach for 3 hours using nothing but two year old cream sunscreen that came out looking like I should have shaken it (separated, watery parts and creamy parts). I used it anyway (if you dig a hole in the sand the size of your pg tummy you can lay flat for the first time in months) but when the burn appreared on the ride home to Maryland I discovered it wasn't worth it. Ouch. So, yes, we now buy fresh every year.

I'm thinking LULU.com (self publishing company) would be a nice way to share her finished project with family (once it's posted to the website any body can purchase the book.) Or a website similar to the cooking section of The Pioneer Woman (Ree's blog). Both ventures (either) would cause her to ALSO master something in addition to the cooking (web design or desktop publishing)

I hope you got yours clean, but my fridge is the impetus for our entire kitchen re-do. We have all our plans and are awaiting the home-eq loan (should be TODAYYYYYY) to get started. As part of the entire kitchen re-do we will empty and discard my GE fridge, purchased new in 1980. NOT A TYPO - my fridge is older than some of YOU. It has busted shelves, busted drawers, cruddy everything, and I am NEVER EVER go to clean THAT fridge EVER again. Harumph. So there.

So if none of the aforementioned titles float her boat - consider something by Willa Cather. My Antonia was one of DD's favorite-est (yep, it's a :lol:word ) books.

She had a pt job with the local chain bookstore, and was hoping to work TONS over the summer, but alas, all the college kids returned and THEY will get hours, too, so less (LESS?!) for DD. Enter a pregnant friend (adult) with two little guys at home who desperately needs nanny/gopher help and has a budget to make it worth DD's while! Whoohooo. It's going to work out BEAUTIFULLY for both of them, and I realize now what a double blessing that is! The friend's baby comes right about same time DD is off to college. SCHWEEEEET! :lol:

Yesterday we had a string of violent thunderstorms move thru. They ripped up trees and spread debris all over the area, and driving the local roads the hour after was tricky for dodging all the downed limbs, etc. When I finally got to DS's fencing (sport) center, many other families were also arriving with their kids and the topic quickly turned to "how 'bout those roads." It was at this point that I had this conversation: Woman: A man was parked on the side of the road, then a nearby tree was struck by lightning and fell on his car. Killing him. Me: Oh! That's horrible! Woman: Yeah, but what an idiot - what did he expect parking next to a tree in a thunderstorm?? :confused: What ever happened to respect for the dead? What ever happened to reverance for life? What ever happened to grace? Okay, forget those: What ever happened to common sense? If I'd been caught driving in that truly torrential downpour, I would just have likely pulled off to the side to wait out the storm - I certainly wouldn't consider anybody who did something so prudent to be an "idiot." I certainly wouldn't fault someone for choosing a roadside that was adjacent to TREES. TREEs are very prevalent in this part of the country. Blah. She made me mad. I wanted to slap her. Instead I just said my most noncommittal "Huh!" and walked away. Afterwards I wished I'd been bold enough to challenge her on her cavalier and demeaning attitude.