My husband was following the saga of the house across the street every day. I knew when the sold price hit the public records because I heard him laughing hysterically at the computer.

I live in a "hot market" where every house elicits a bidding war. Both our current house and our rental house are given the highest value by Zillow and the lowest by Realtor. Current house has a 33,000 spread, rental house has a 64,000 spread. For context, our rental house is in a "bad part of town." The house across the street from it, a 770 sq ft 2/1 was listed for 299,000 this past spring, and sold for 380,000.

I have some of the Binax tests on hand. They are easy and quick.

We have bought our last two vehicles from a little local used car lot whose owner prices based on Kelley Blue Book. He doesn’t haggle and we have been very happy dealing with him. The cars have been great too. 😄

We like the drive-thru flu shot clinics. I think we usually do October. The only downside is that sometimes student nurses give the shots. Lol. Last year I think it took 30 seconds from breaking the skin until the end of the needle was in the muscle.

I didn't attend this particular wedding, but my mom was appalled by the amount of time the minister talked about the virginal condition of a family member and new husband. Even joking about how awkward the wedding night would be. I hope that's unusual, but I haven't been to many weddings recently.

My state is over 70%, my county health department is at 47%, but somewhere around 1/4 of my county are inhabitants of the local military base which keeps its own records. About 5% of the county (per the health department) has had a positive covid test, and I am sure that many more have antibodies. The local university is predicting a huge spike in cases in late summer/fall. 😞

I know that some find Eric Feigl-Ding to be alarmist, but I find his latest twitter thread alarming.

Another western WA gal here. The two things I’ve received comments about are the aforementioned bag/bagel pronunciation, and “swallowed” Ts in the middle of words like mitten. I don’t swallow my Ts to the extent of my friend from Chicago though—she had a heck of a time explaining to her Swedish exchange hosts that she was majoring in Latin. “La’in” was completely indecipherable to them. Lol

I might call it a cupola.

We used Wee Folk Art's State Studies unit for my two younger kids this year. It's gentle and crafty and still in rough draft form. lol Stack the States was also a hit here, and my daughter and I love the Trekking the National Parks board game.

We're fine with outdoor activities unmasked. We haven't done a lot of indoor activities, but when we start up with coop and activities in the fall they will be masked and I'm okay with that.

Huh, I haven't seen this in my homeschool group, and I kind of feel the opposite way. Maybe I'm not a fun mom with the littles. lol. It's been fascinating to see my young teen's academic interests develop and I find it much more interesting to talk with him about his paper about say, the Iranian Revolution, than to talk to my 8 y/o about her polar bear report. Do you live in an area where there is peer pressure from churches or families to homeschool? I can see that being a factor. Mom isn't really into it, but feels pressured. Teaching little kids is easy, but then she doesn't have an intrinsic reason to keep homeschooling into the later grades, and the peer pressure among moms of older kids is less than among moms of littles? I don't know, I just like to brainstorm I guess. 🙂

Anyone who can rock purple hair can rock one of these.

Here's a link to the seven principles that UU congregations follow https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles?gclid=Cj0KCQjwzYGGBhCTARIsAHdMTQzL1wMyn2s4g998jo4djoX3GpRIhat8FZSypcbWza3G7Gn1PjoK7NMaAr2NEALw_wcB and the six sources of inspiration for the tradition https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/sources In my congregation the seven principles are front and center in teaching and decision making.