I was surprised to hear fireworks going off in multiple locations during totality yesterday. Was that an Ohio thing, or did people shoot off fireworks in other places too?

Back at our Airbnb. We had very little traffic and even though we had high clouds, the eclipse was amazing. I was so glad to be there with my three children (although dh had to work and couldn’t come). We rarely get to do anything with most of us together, and this eclipse was perfect with them. I had one sister in Illinois and one in Vermont. It was fun to text them throughout the eclipse and share it with them. We ended up watching in a cemetery with practically no people around. It was perfect.

There doesn’t seem to be much out of town traffic where we’re staying, even though we’re within totality in NE Ohio. I’m going to fill up on gas this afternoon, just in case. Still waiting to decide if we’ll drive north or west tomorrow. Northeast doesn’t look promising.

Thanks for the link. I wasn't sure how long totality would last where we're staying, but our Airbnb will have two minutes of totality so we can either stay there or drive a bit if we want a longer time (or if the weather forecast looks better elsewhere). We're driving to Ohio on Saturday and back home on Tuesday. Hoping to miss at least some of the awful traffic that way, and we have lots of routes back home that we can take.

I’ve done a few research trips to neighboring states this year, which may or may not count as travel to some people, although it’s the kind of travel I like best. We have an overseas move this year so that will suck up all my traveling energy. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to spend a couple of days in Amsterdam on our way to Africa, but there might not be time before school starts.

Hand sanitizer, house and building keys, face mask, cards (credit, library, metro, etc.), phone. That’s it, and has been for nearly 15 years. As soon as I didn’t have really little kids, I was done carrying much stuff. I use everything regularly or it would get removed. I have a small over the shoulder bag to carry them. I couldn’t fit much more in there.

Thank you! Hoping one of these works because our current trap isn’t.

Any recommendations of a brand that works? We're trying to rehome a mouse in our building. If you've had luck using any certain type of humane trap, I'd love to hear about it.

I found the boards in August of 2003 and have been here every day since then.

Prairiewindmomma’s experience doesn’t sound unusual to me. I often hear women thank men for the opportunity to speak (men will say this too, but by definition, women are never in a position to assign speakers in our main church service, so it comes across differently to me). Even though I always wear pants to church, the vast majority of women do not and I still get comments about my slacks. Women missionaries and wives of general church leaders are still not allowed to wear slacks to church. Women talk about their love for their husbands and children all the time. Many stories about women connect them to husbands and children. I just sat through a women’s meeting where love of husbands and children came up often. “Primary voice,” which is not about tone but rather style of presentation, is a real thing. The videos above show the difference. But it is also true that women are punished everywhere for using their natural voices. I don’t think that women should have to learn to speak in certain ways simply to get men to take them seriously. We should use our natural voices to speak and others should take us seriously, but we should also not adopt certain tones of voice in order to come across as subservient or sweet or nice.

nm

I have a Bosch mixer that I use regularly for bread (I mix four loaves of 100% whole wheat bread at a time, so it's a lot of dough). In 11 years, I've had it move around one time. I wonder if there's something off kilter with yours? Because mine would be happy on a shelf (which I didn't even know existed before this thread).

If I could choose anywhere in the world, then Tashkent, Istanbul, and Jerusalem are my top three cities. If I had to limit my choices to the US, I might go with something near the coast in Maine or Oregon or Alaska. I'd live in lots of places for a year or two, like Asheville, NC, or Worcester, Massachusetts.

Thank you for posting about this.

We have two and dh and ds have been using them to commute to school and work for the last 18 months. We're definitely fans. I used ds's for about a month when his elbow was broken and liked it too, although I'm more of a walker. They mostly use bike trails, although ds has to bike along regular roads without a bike lane for a bit. They'll both be sad when we move and biking to work and school isn't an option anymore. I can't think of any tips beyond obvious things like get a really good bike lock and regular bike safety stuff.