I do not let my dog off leash. He probably would not run away, but there is a highway close by. The dog is not neglected. Dh takes him out when I ask, or the kids do, or whatever. We have a dog line in the yard I could put him on if I were home alone and couldn't walk him, but he doesn't like to be outside alone.

I live on a very rural street. The lot next door belongs to my mil but no one lives there - it is basically a one acre forest. Along the street there are drainage ditches. Across the street there is an abandoned house. I do not clean up after my dog and there is no one who cares. If I lived in a real neighborhood I would clean up. I ask because dh acts as if it is a total imposition if the dog wants to go out more than twice per day, whereas I take him out first thing in the morning, around lunch, perhaps mid-afternoon, after dinner, and before I go to bed. That's fine when I'm physically up to doing it. However, when I'm not, and the dog comes and looks mournfully at me and won't leave me alone until he goes out, and then I go ask dh to take him out, and dh says, "I took him out this morning!" And that was five hours ago...you see where the problem is. So I wondered if maybe I was out of line and too softhearted.

I don't mean exercise, I mean short potty walks. Am I the only one who prefers that my dog not pee and poop in my yard?

How many times per day do you take the dog for a walk? An adult, house trained dog?

R1 told dh this ONLY when informed of our possible decision. Otherwise we probably would never have heard about it. There was a definite cooling off between R1and R2 which I've never really understood. It has reached the level where there's virtually no interaction between the two; however, I frequently communicate with both, which makes it tough. Actually, the more I think about it, this is very much like something that happened last summer between R1 and another relative. And again, we were "warned" or advised that R3 had issues, again, something that this person would never do. I hadn't seen that parallel until right now. Hmm.

Nope, it's totally private.

I need advice. Last night my dh told me that Relative #1 told him something about Relative #2. I think it's insane. I find it extremely hard to believe that R2 would EVER do anything like what was said. I've never seen anything that would support this claim. Ever. In my entire life. It goes against everything I know about R2. I can think of reasons why R1 would say these things though, and in answering the Professor's question from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I would say that R2 is the more believable and trustworthy. Dh has asked me not to tell R2 what R1 said. My children are not in danger in any way, just to reassure you. I would like to get to the bottom of this incredible claim, but I don't know how. I suppose I should let it alone, and there's probably no way to know the truth, but the claim is such that, were it true, could affect major decisions of ours, and if its not true, I would not believe anything R1 tells me about anyone else ever again. Iow, it's a big deal to me, but probably not so much to dh. What should I do?

Housing is expensive in Chapel Hill.

Our son started with a full ride, until our wonderful state decided mid-year to end a low-income grant that was $2000 per semester. That was the first loan my son took. Subsidized loans don't really help when you have no money. The college my son transferred to made up the difference with parent PLUS loans, despite our EFC of 0. Because of the economy, my son was not able to find a job except tutoring on campus, which provided pocket change for a very small pocket. This seems to be a very sensitive topic so I suppose I'll stop. I never said merit scholarships should not be given out, but I do have a problem with giving one to a child of a millionaire, who likely had all the advantages in order to deserve that merit aid, when poor students cannot afford to go and likely did not have those advantages.

I edited my post and added more. I think Ravin was making the point that some people with higher incomes need financial help to pay for college, IMO that makes it need based not merit based. Of course I understand the concept of merit aid.

But if they need it, then isn't it need-based aid? Lol Perhaps colleges need to rework their formulas. However, as a parent with an income that is nowhere near that piddly $100K, and which until recently was much lower, I find articles like this deeply disturbing. I've now navigated the college system as a low income parent with a highly qualified student and it wasn't pretty. I don't even know if my current high school dc will have the opportunity to go. I'm seriously hoping there is reform in the next ten years before my younger dc are college age. I am very pessimistic.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100916980?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=100916980%7CLook%20who%27s%20paying%20more%20fo

Where did you get the mailboxes?

I would prioritize relaxing. As in, you relaxing. Nothing I didn't get to last summer before my dc started school made any difference. I stressed for nothing.

Show me how to keep favorites! I just keep tabs open.

Yep. With a cat in a basket and a dead plant.

yeah, i get that. I just didn't like or appreciate it. I don't watch a movie to be randomly reminded of the tragic events of 9/11.

Spanish movies that are not full of sex and gore: Under the Same Moon (some in English) El Norte (some violence, some characters curse a lot, one pinup girl on the wall) La Historia Oficial (some bad language in 2 scenes) Cautiva

And that's the problem. You need a teacher who knows the language. If anyone could have taught a language to her dc that she didn't know, it would have been me. I am a German and Spanish teacher. I always wanted to learn Swedish. Dd wanted to learn Swedish. We tried homeschooling it. We made essentially no progress over several years until I found a class for us to take. Now we have a private tutor. Sorry to be a downer.

I'm interested too, since I'm considering IU for grad school. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this situation, catwoman! Praying for you all!

Thinking now that perhaps he could fly to the airport closest to the reunion (still 2 hours away) on that Saturday. I could drive there from my mom's and pick him up, and then we could drive to the reunion location and stay in the hotel Saturday night. Then we could drive the 7 hours home after the reunion, and he could call out sick on Monday to recover. He doesn't get to see his mom that way, but we have been talking about him flying up there for a long weekend sometime this fall. Hmm.

I can go to see family without him, but I'm not going to go to his family reunion without him. That would be odd. I hadn't thought of Amtrak. I'll have to look at that. I don't want to drive through the night...too old for that. I'm fine with arriving late though.

He could call out sick a day or two.

I've been thinking about this for a couple weeks and have not come up with a good workable plan. Dh's family is having a family reunion that we would like to go to. It's in a location 7 hours from where we live. I want to take the kids to see my family and dh's mom (who is not going to the reunion) in a location that is 8 hours from here, but 3 hours from the reunion site. I thought we were all going to go see family together (the kids, dh and me) and then either go to the reunion and return to where my family lives and then drive home a day or two later, or go to the reunion and then continue home. Then dh told me he could not take off a week like I thought. I still want to go see my family. If I don't go before the school year starts, I probably won't go until next summer. However I already was there for a week this summer, but I was really counting on going back. I would not attend the reunion without dh. I have only a 9 day window to go to see our family because of other commitments. The reunion is towards the end of this window. Dh is still in physical therapy from a car accident he had last year and is regularly in pain, and I doubt he could sit in the car for 7 hours to go to the reunion from our house both directions in a short period of time. I've considered all sorts of variations, looked at plane tickets, considered not doing one or both, etc. Dh is sick of thinking about it (even though I've probably spent more time thinking about it). The reunion itself would be $150 for us to take our whole family. If we stay in a hotel overnight somewhere, that's at least another $150 but we'd probably need 2 rooms. Then there's gas, etc. Part of me says that if it's this complicated, we should just forget about it, but we want to go. I'm not sure I gave all the relevant info, but does anyone have suggestions? I'm just so tired of thinking about this!

Decide if big or small would fit the student better, then look based on that.