To the bolded, we're already there. I've gotten all the shots shortly after they were available, and the last one was pretty much exactly a year ago, and from what I've heard there's no plan to have them available any more frequently going forward. Even though Covid mutates faster than flu and does not appear to be as seasonal, and coverage for each shot wanes quite a bit after 6 Mos. I kinda wish they had the option for biannual shots for older or immunocompromised people. And maybe used that fancy mRNA tech that we were told was so great partly because it can be produced in just 6wks to match a new strain, instead of it seeming to take longer to appear seasonally than the flu shot that takes like half a year to adapt. I just had the latest booster. That's #6 now.

He's holding a scythe which kinda overlaps with the pitchfork Satan is holding.

It's a problem living in a HCOL area like the northeast - the schools and FAFSA absolutely do NOT take regional COL into account, so earning a even very modest income here will take you out of the running for a lot of need-based aid, and if you're just plain old middle class they act like you're rich and please give us ALL your money. 😡

Which state? Each New England state is different in what the state schools are like. I'm in MA and there's great CC -> public Uni agreements, especially if you're intentional about which courses you take and what will transfer to which programs/majors. I know less about the other states. New England states do not have the generous automatic scholarships a lot of southern/Midwestern states seem to.

My guess is mostly the latter plus also Covid dinging the immune system seems to make people more susceptible to all sorts of new infections, including TB.

They need one math credit? Does it need to be pre-calc? Could she switch to consumer math or stats or something that will just check the box? Might be easier than taking the GED. Lots of kids graduate high school without precalc. My own brother graduated high school without Algebra 1. He's now an AP Bio teacher, has a master's degree. He did do one trimester of cooking school, hated that, and then started back at community college and remediated and went forward from there. But if someone had withheld his high school diploma based on his lackluster math acumen in high school, none of that may have been possible. Some kids just need longer to mature.

Well, the tested vaxes don't include the newest one (XBB monovalent) but they did test against previous XBB infection and it still had very high evasiveness. 😬

I would also think of that as more of a book study. I still wouldn't want randos reading aloud to me. Rather read the chapter ahead and discuss. Were these fiction books, or some kind of meatier tome that there was enough to chew on for a chapter? Can't imagine doing this for regular ladies' book club books!

This. I can't even stand many professional audiobook narrators, and in my experience many everyday people stink at out-loud reading delivery, have a flat affect, can't pronounce words, skip words or mangle sentences. I did sign one of my kids up for a read-aloud book club for middle/high schoolers - but the instructor did all the reading aloud; I do think there was time for discussion at the end. Can't remember. In that case I was trying to encourage a kid who wasn't keen on reading literature. A is the normal book club format. You read ahead, then discuss. Then you get the C people who come, that's also pretty much par for the course. But B for grown-ups? Well, I wouldn't sign up. Does everyone have to wait to read the next chapter till everyone gets together again? Or is just some random part of the text read aloud? And many bad narrators are almost guaranteed if you're rotating. I don't get it. If everyone other than narrator is sitting in silence working on crafts, I'd prefer an audiobook or music. But honestly if it's a crafting group, I'd prefer to chit-chat with the other humans in the room. That whole idea is bizarre to me. I have also heard of a book club with format D - a silent reading book club where everyone brings their own book and reads it in silence. There is usually chat, whether about books/reading or general before and after. That's just to give yourself dedicated time to concentrate on reading, where you're not distracted, and also for companionship/chatting before/after. I've seen "reading sprints" videos on YouTube which are pretty much the same thing, but I don't get that idea as much, as there's no before/after conversation, but it seems like some people like the idea of reading alongside others, as it helps with concentration (kind of like going to the library to read/get work done away from distractions). But B??? Never heard of such a thing and I truly don't get what the point would be.

I could only see it after someone said the beak looked like a goat ear, so imagine it's looking over its shoulder at us.

Also the 'mouth' and 'nose' are just colored plumage - there doesn't appear to be any physical structure (skin, mucous glands). There also doesn't seem to be bony structure to support shoulder/neck. So I think bird (actually took me forever to find goat - till you said the beak was an ear - I may never have found it! 😅)

WHAT DOES OG MEAN? OG, short for “original gangster” or “original gangsta,” is a slang term for someone who’s incredibly exceptional, authentic, or “old-school.” OG was originally used in gang culture, but it is now used as a general term to praise someone who is an expert at something. And the reference:

Worcester is pronounced Wooster, with the short oo from 'book' or 'hood' , NOT 'ooo' like 'food'. Live very close to Worcester my whole life. And the Brits pronounce it pretty much the same, the biggest difference being the 'r' at the end.

This is so individual. Our local CC is not that far off in cost from yours. But the public Uni in the same city's tuition is almost twice that. It's also easier here to get CC credits cheaper, esp. if you're a non-traditional student. My kids did DE, which was 50% off per-credit at the CC (so 1/4 of the public Uni per credit). My state just passed free tuition at CC for anyone over 25 that doesn't already have a degree. One of my kids wants to go to get an NP degree and it's a no-brainer to take the missing pre-reqs for half the price per credit at CC. I've become a big CC fan, have to say. But as I said, I know the situation varies widely from place to place.

Never mess with strep. Even mild untreated cases of strep can lead to long term bad outcomes, including PANDAS and rheumatic fever, which causes lifelong heart damage that is not reversible. A friend of mine got strep at 18, didn't realize it wasn't just a sore throat and ended up with rheumatic fever, had to spend *a year* in bed, had to move her bed to the first floor because no stairs, and could only get up to go to the bathroom. A previously healthy, 18yo girl. She has lifelong heart complications from that. We had a year where we kept getting strep over and over (it's not like viruses where there's usually a time you're immune - you can easily get reinfected right away), and we had everyone tested and turned out dh had it and was completely asymptomatic but kept sharing. So after that if one person in the family had it, we tested everyone - strep cultures are easy and quick (but the rapid tests almost always gave us false negatives, make sure they do two swabs and do the longer one as well). Unlike Covid, there's an easy cure - take the antibiotics. Covid also seems to have dinged the immune system of many so that the bad outcomes from strep are more, not less, likely right now. Scarlet fever (a shorter-term but more severe systemic version of strep) has been on the rise was well.

Speaking of sound clips being worth a thousand words... this is how I pronounce the 'alk' words

Like boar, bore, roar, snore. Hm, I guess when it's 'r-controlled' like in those it is a bit different than in, say, coat, but having a hard time articulating what's different. I think it's closer to long o than any other vowel sound with a name... of course, I think we also say our r's differently than in Australia, so since that seems to be affecting the vowel... Here ya go... a sound clip is worth a thousand words... 😂

Long o. Homophone with oar.

See, short o here sounds like aw, not like the ah in father. Caught/cot also = exactly the same. And have the same sound as awning/audio. But not like water, which has the a from father. Fall/tall though rhyme with Paul, so also aw, not ah. It's definitely regional, not right/wrong.

Yep. For me, wok and walk, as well as tock and talk, stock and stalk are homonyms. But I live in an area with the Dawn/Don conflation, so short o and aw are the same sound to me. Lora/Laura = same thing, Lara different. I've heard others say Lora as one thing, but Laura/Lara are more similar (with a sound like the a in father)

Back in the mists of time, my college required two semester-long PE classes as part of GenEds. I took ballroom dance and figure skating. Two of my kids attended the same university - that requirement is no longer there.

Heck, two of my kids are older than Google. 😱

Because it's much more comfortable not to have them drooping, listing to one side, or otherwise generally flopping about. I do not care about anyone else watching me bounce or hiding my nipples. I don't care about anyone's comfort (or discomfort) other than my own. I generally wear an unlined bra that is not a sports bra (I find those very uncomfortable - I am completely confused by many people finding them less objectionable than regular bras - they squish me and I have to perform uncomfortable contortions to get them on or off), so if I jump or jog they still bounce and people might be able to tell if it's cold (unlined bras used to be the norm - when did we get uptight about the existence of nipples? I missed the memo). But it's contained bouncing that doesn't cause me discomfort. I do not find they type of bra I wear (underwire) uncomfortable in the least. As I said, I'm much more comfortable with it on. I even wear a cami with a shelf bra to bed. Again, just less flop.

I remember Kimba! And I also recently stumbled across the controversy with Disney. 🤔

Yeah, I actually had something exactly like that - a 3rd grade reader. It was indeed a mix of all those things. I thought I still did and was going to offer to mail it to you, but seems it got donated to the Saturday School library. But even so, the reason it got donated is that I never used it. Although I did have access to zillions of other German books so yeah, it might've been decent if I'd been looking for something all-in-one. Now I'm bummed I gave it away! I went and looked on German Amazon, and can't find anything like that anymore. Continental Books sells lots of materials including graded readers but you have to get one book at a time. I always like using fairy tales or other books that they already know the story of to get going with reading - it helps a lot with vocabulary acquisition from context. Are both your boys wanting to do this, or just one? What are their goals? I think Duolingo isn't that useful for most young learners (the number of kids whose parents told me they'd done 'a year of Duolingo' and retained nothing... ), but your boys, who are serious language learners and already have experience with more than one foreign language, might find it a decent jumpstart as an intro to the sounds and basic grammar. As a multilingual adult, I've found it very useful for that. I'm working with an adult who used it to start and am working with her on polishing her accent and getting conversational. But it got her through the basics so we didn't have to start completely from scratch.