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skimomma

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Everything posted by skimomma

  1. Many years ago, dh picked up a pumpkin from a patch in anticipation of Halloween. He placed it on the back seat of *my* car then forgot about it for a few days. It turns out the pumpkin was rotten and had a small hole in the bottom. It was quite hot out and the pumpkin leaked rotten pumpkin juice into the seat. The smell was horrendous. We tried everything but it still reeked. I even contemplated taking the back seat out of the car entirely. Winter soon arrived and the cold temps kept the smell at bay but come spring, it returned. It looks a few years but eventually it faded to almost-normal. I did get sort-of used to it. That said, I think the enzyme cleaner is going to be the best bet at this point. Good luck and keep us posted!
  2. It's funny....I just asked my college-age dd if she regretted spending 6 years studying Latin from grades 3-9. She took it all the way through AP Latin. She did not learn any other language because she was homeschooled all the way through and I am not fluent (or even familiar) with any foreign language. I chose to start with Latin due to that fact....it was something I was able to teach. I had intended for her to move on to a modern language via DE or an outside provider after completing AP Latin, but her other interests demanded more time than I anticipated and that space was filled with other pursuits. Dd was SUPER bitter to learn that her college does not accept AP Latin for credit or even for transfer had she taken it at another institution. But after that bitterness wore off, she is still happy she did it. She is an engineering major but her extremely strong grammar and writing skills, which I credit largely to the deep study of Latin, has helped her land some pretty rare opportunities. The first was her first college job of being a writing center coach, which is super rare for STEM majors at her school. Fast forward to her current job as an intern at a research center. Again, her reputation as an excellent writer was what prompted the center director to seek her out. She does plenty of hands-on research tasks but is also heavily relied upon to write and edit content for proposals and papers. She also cites the intense study skills she had to develop to be successful in the last two years of Latin that she still draws on now.
  3. I have been to Windigo before but never by plane. I have done a two cross-island hikes in the past in addition to an east-end loop and two canoe trips over a span of 25 years. I have the map pretty much memorized:) One thing that will be different is this is the first time I will be on the island during peak season. All other trips were in fall, one of which the last week of October where we got three inches of snow on the first night! We are hoping that the people we are meeting up with can get a site right on the creek as they will get there hours before we do.
  4. We don't get into Windigo until 5:30, so we are going to stay one night there. We have other friends on a two-week hike that we will meet up with there, bringing their resupply box. Then on to Siskiwit to spend two nights. If we do end up stopping at Island Mine, it would only be one night at Siskiwit. Then one night at Feldtman Ridge before the final hike back to Windigo.
  5. Plenty of berries can be found on the mainland, rather than going all the way to an island. If I were looking for a good haul, I would just drive on county roads until you find a big patch. I prefer to just eat as I go!
  6. Thanks! We leave in two weeks and it appears our route will be the opposite direction than yours. We don't plan to stop at Island Mine for the night but we are leaving it as an option in case we discover that anyone in our group cannot handle the higher mileage (we have someone recovering from a broken ankle....). So we will for sure ask a ranger before leaving Windigo in case we need to bring extra water. I hope the bugs were OK for you. We will be there during peak thimbleberry season with no bears to compete with so we should be getting plenty of fruit. Great moose photos! Two years ago, I was very entertained for hours by a family of beavers at Moskey Basin. Such a treat! And also, ankle girl nearly walked right into a mama moose! No time for a photo as we crept our way backwards to avoid getting stomped.
  7. I am late to the party, but way to go! And I have a question..... Did Island Mine have water in the creek? I need to know how many bottles to pack.
  8. My 19yo dd just bought a private party used car with a loan from our CU at 6%. That is much higher than it would have been a couple of years ago but I was shocked that she got a rate that low without a co-signer. Especially since it was an older used car. We did not really know the process as we have always bought our cars (used) with cash. It was super easy. She applied online, was approved, decided on which car, signed on the loan, and they issued her a check written out to the seller. When she (we....as I was helping her) contacted the CU, we straight up said we had no idea what we were doing and they talked us through each step. And no prepayment penalty at all. All that to say that I would for sure give your CU a call to at least check the rates.
  9. Ugh. I hear you. I work solely to provide benefits for my family. Dh is a small business owner with a part-time job in addition, neither of which includes insurance. I would prefer to be working for our small business but we need the benefits. The estimates to buy our own insurance are nearly half our income. As far as we can tell, we will have to do this until medicare age....which is a long time from now.
  10. In case anyone else is interested, we have stayed there and it is a great deal!
  11. This is a real problem. We do not live in an area that has the threat of insurance companies pulling out all-together but we had a situation in which our insurance company got out of the auto-insurance business so we wanted to switch companies to one that we could get our multi-policy advantages. So, we called our agent and got the ball rolling. After a few days the agent called us back and basically whispered into the phone that our roof would not pass muster with ANY insurance company and we needed to keep the insurance we had until we could replace the roof (three-layer total rip off). The roof was indeed old but was not leaking or missing any shingles. We could NOT find a contractor! It took three years to get it replaced (while paying inflated insurance rates because we had to use two different companies for auto and home). Almost all calls went un-returned. The handful of contractors that did come out for a quote largely never actually provided one. They basically ghosted after the visit. And the ones that did were outrageously expensive. The only reason we have a new roof is that we had a friend of a friend cash in several favors to get a contractor that they were personal friends with to do the job. And at half the cost of the lowest quote we had gotten previously. Our agent says this is a huge and growing problem in our area. People with much newer and better roofs than ours was have been turned away. He said anything over 15 years is an issue, even if the roof has a 50-year warranty.
  12. I understand that to mean that there are other ramifications (other than just respiratory) but am wondering if the effects cause cumulative or long-term effects. I realize that might not even be known.
  13. We have someone in our group that broke her ankle 5 weeks ago. She was just cleared to bear weight on it while wearing a walking cast. We are all concerned that she will have trouble carrying a heavy pack for 10+ miles each day. We have 6 weeks until our trip. Fingers crossed!
  14. It sounds like we are doing similar routes:) I have not done much hiking on that end of the island so it will be a new experience for me.
  15. I would not worry about food inside a hard-sided RV. We have a pop-up and store food inside. We do cook outside and if we have a cooler with us, we do put that in the car at night. We have had two "significant" bear incidents. Once when we forgot to put the cooler in the car and it was broken into overnight. The ruckus woke us up and dh ran after the bear because it took a bag of fresh-picked green beans that we were looking forward to eating the next day! The beans were not recovered. And the cooler has some badass looking tooth marks in it. The other time was pulling into a tent camping site late at night and not realizing we pitched our tent on top of the previous camper's food mess. We were awaken at 2am by a bear trying to get whatever goodies were under our tent.....while we were in it! Luckily, we had pulled the box of pots and pans into the tent that night, which was not our usual practice, so we had things we could clang together to scare the bear away. We spent the rest of that night sleeping in the car!
  16. We are in an area with no sensors so we don't have a number. The regions surrounding us that do have sensors are in the red and purple zones. It is very hazy and smells like smoke. It has been this way for days. I am a runner and have been struggling with deciding what to do. I cannot just not run all summer. I have reduced my distances and have skipped a few days but am getting very antsy. I have had no ill effects from the runs I have done. Are there long-term ramifications I should be aware of? There is also really no escaping the air. No one here has AC and it is too hot to keep all the windows closed 24/7.
  17. Yep. Island Mine campground. I do not have reliable intel on the current status but with the drought conditions in the area, I'd bet there is a good chance there is no water in that creek. We are still hoping to bypass completely but we shall see......
  18. Any route Google takes you by car to the Palmer House will be as safe as driving anywhere in a car will be. I highly recommend using public transit once you arrive. Getting around and parking in the city can be a real PITA. The public transit is a great deal if you get a 3-day pass.
  19. We were in a similar situation except Covid made the decision for us. Dd took the ACT cold after already having been accepted to the school she is now attending. Due to Covid ACT cancellations, she was not able to take the ACT before applying so was forced to apply under the temporary "test-optional" option that the university had in place at that time. But she (as a homeschooler) was not eligible for any merit aid unless she had a test score of some sort (ACT or SAT). So, I kept registering her for the tests and they kept getting cancelled. Because we did not know if she would ever be able to take either test, she (against the advice of many on this forum) did no prep. I was not interested in wasting time prepping for two tests when there was no guarantee that she would be able to take either or when. Up until the minute she arrived at the test location, we did not know that she would be able to take it as the tests had been cancelled on the day of more than once before that. There were still a few more months for her to retake with prep if we were not happy with the results. Luckily, she got the score needed for the highest possible merit aid and she was done! I am quite sure she could have improved her score significantly with prep but there was no point. As stressful as the constant test limbo was, I am at least very glad we did not spend any time on prep. In your case, I would not bother if it will make no difference in aid or acceptance.
  20. Tell that to the one million mosquitoes I donated blood to last summer in northern Finland.......
  21. Adding to this..... The winter solstice is especially a welcome time where I live. Our winters are very long, cold, and dark. By that date many people come to and leave work/school in the dark. So knowing that each day will be a little bit longer is a relief and something worth celebrating. I think that is something my region shares with the countries that tend to celebrate.
  22. Our best friends are Estonian and we generally celebrate both with them annually.....once actually in Estonia. They are considered very important milestones in their extended family. The winter solstice is a bigger deal to them than Christmas. I never knew much about the solctices before but what's not to love about another excuse to celebrate?
  23. To whom? Who is being disrespected? I have a lot of complicated feelings about funerals and I am in the soup with some pre-planning decisions for people other than myself. I aim to do what I can to honor their wishes within the available logistics (money, location, etc.....). But, I personally absolutely do not want a service or funeral of any kind when I pass. Nor do I want to be buried or any of the things that go along with that. I realize that your opinion is that dead people don't care so it is really just about what the living want. And I guess you are technically correct. But I also know that *most* of the people who would be expected to attend my funeral, should I die tomorrow, hate going to them and find no value in the experience. I would be mortified to know that someone overruled my wishes, thereby forcing many of my polite friends and family to attend. I would probably haunt the responsible parties. I find it far more disrespectful to disregard the wishes of the deceased. I find the whole discussion a bit baffling. Do people really need a dedicated event to honor and remember people who have passed?
  24. I am perfectly fine with living with it if it won't hurt the tree. The tree is huge and would literally flatten my house were it to die and fall. Or be very expensive to have removed should it die. The tree is at least 100 years old (evidence from historical photos), likely much older. The house is 130 years old. And the driveway? Don't know, but well before we moved in 20+ years ago. We have several trees over our driveway and things falling from them is not a concern. That is just reality. I just wanted to know why the squirrel was doing it and if I should be concerned....for the squirrel and/or the tree.
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