Unfortunately, no. That was the goal when seeking a facility but we ran into three big issues. The first is that the graduated facilities were significantly more expensive with self-pay-first requirements that we would not be able to meet. Most were close to double what we are currently paying. The second is that all of the ones we toured were much less independent at the AL level. They felt more nursing home-like from the get go, which our person balked at. For instance, all showering was scheduled and supervised regardless of whether the resident needed it or not. This is not something my person needed and they were very (understandably) upset that they would be restricted to two supervised showers a week. This is also probably why they were so much more expensive. And third, the waiting lists were long. My person needed to move ASAP. The assistance they needed was not going to be manageable with home health care....specifically wandering and fire-setting risk. So we took the gamble figuring it was better to solve the problem right in front of us rather than fret too much about years down the road. Not that it has stopped me from fretting.

I am in the thick of this as I care for someone who has dementia and is currently living in AL. It is not a scam. They needed a level of care that was more then could be handled by home visits but not yet to the level of needing a nursing home. Examples of this type of care include medication administration, bathing/dressing help, meals, cleaning/laundry, and generally having eyes on someone. AL is not covered by medicare or medicaid. In our case, we are self-funding the AL. Time will tell what happens when the money runs out. It could mean my person may end up in a nursing home when they might have still been ok in AL. The thing that keeps me up at night is the shortage of medicaid beds in the local nursing facilities. So, while medicaid does cover nursing homes, there is no guarantee that a spot can be found.

Dd had to take the ALEKS test for math placement as a DE student. She scored a 67 and was placed in pre-calc. It was just fine. She got an A and went on to earn As in calc I and II.

Almost no one is masking in my area. We have no mandate now and aside from a handful of establishments that continue to require their employees to mask, I see them nowhere. We have less than 30% vaccination rate. Even when we had mandates, only about half complied. And there was a lot of bullying people who were wearing masks. My family is fully vaccinated and at first we continued to mask but after sighs, eye rolls, and dirty looks, we stopped. If these people don't care to protect themselves/others, then fine. I am done trying to be a "good example." The few vulnerable people I know are still trapped in their houses for the foreseeable future.

Well, as others have said, she still has the right to vote. She does not as she does not have the capacity to get to a polling place or high enough functioning to obtain and mail an absentee ballot. Nor does she have any idea what is happening politically. We need an ID so she can fly accompanied. But the same barriers apply. If her disability was purely physical and she DID want to vote, we would be in the same boat.

Yes, but for some reason only the middle initial is listed. Which may very well be what is on the BC. That is what we tried on the latest try. We have not heard back yet on that one.

On the ID thing.... I can 100% attest that it is NOT easy for some citizens to get photos IDs. My elderly mother, who does not have a driver's license, needs a state ID or passport to fly to visit her other daughter and grandbabies . I have been working on this for months. I have spent hours, if not days, trying to do this and am still far from it. She has dementia and long ago lost all of her important documents (birth certificate, marriage license, SS card). So, I have applied, multiple times, to get a copy of her BC, from a different state for months now. I pay $22 every time and lose the money because we are guessing on her father's middle name. They keep the money and deny on each guess. The exact names of each parent (including middle) and the city of birth (another guess) are required. We know what his middle name is, just not how to spell it as there are multiple common ways to do so. I had better luck with the marriage certificate. Also from another state. $30. This is all BEFORE I must travel an entire day to get to her to physically take her to the SOS office to apply for the ID. She has no one else to take her. More money to travel and more money for the ID. Yeah. Totally "simple" and "easy" to get an ID. She has help and we still might not be successful. She voted for years without a photo ID. She was even a poll worker. She is white and "privileged" even. No health care provider has required photo ID. They may have asked but moved on when she said she didn't have one.

Steel wool. I burn stuff in my pans a lot......

Huh. We just renewed dd's and it took 4 weeks. We just got it on Monday. I was expecting it to take much longer so was pretty surprised to see it in the mailbox. We did not pay for rush or anything.

I was so hoping there were friendly toilets that I did not know about!

I am dying to know what this means!

I'm dismayed that dd's college is not requiring vaccines. They actually don't require any which was the justification for not requiring this one. This also means they plan to continue mitigation efforts including masking, limits to classrooms and activities, closed dining halls, etc.... We shall see if that really happens. Meanwhile, dd had a physical this week and her vaccine record was already in her chart, despite not having to provide doctor info in the vaccine paperwork. This is a brand new doctor too. I did not even call to make the appointment until after the vaccine happened. I believe it came through the state vaccine database system.

I care for someone with dementia from afar and have learned that I can never trust whatever arrangement I have made with a doctor's office when it comes to appointment instructions. My situation is a little different because I usually cannot be there and hire a caregiver to handle transportation. The caregiver has always been allowed to go into the facility and office waiting room but not the actual appointment. Since this is a one-time hire, they would not be useful as an advocate anyway. So, I need need NEED for them to call me into the appointment. This is always a note in the chart and for the appointment but it seldom is carried out. My standard practice now is to note when the office opens in the morning. I call right at that point and ask them to pull the chart and verify the instructions for a call are there. Then I inform them that I will call again 15 minutes prior to the appointment so that someone on duty at that time will be informed, which I do. Even then, I only get about 50% success and find myself calling again 15 minutes after the appointment has begun, often missing something. Any question that my person is asked is 100% guaranteed to be answered incorrectly so then we have to go over anything I missed AGAIN. The time they are wasting with me calling up to three times and having to repeat part of the appointment seems worth a little more effort on their end but it must not be since it happens with every single doctor we see. I just don't understand how this happens. They KNOW she has dementia. Why even ask her important health questions? Most of the questions are actually more appropriate for the nursing staff at her care facility, which has permission to share medical information with her providers. This has to be common with dementia patients. Why not just make it standard practice to call in the care facility or POA on file for every appointment. What are they gaining by asking a dementia patient what their sugar levels have been over the past few weeks or if they are sticking to their diet? She has NO (accurate) IDEA (she does have lots of inaccurate ideas....). If they ask again in five minutes, they will get a completely different answer. How is this useful? Then if I don't get there in time, they will give her follow up instructions! She is not going to remember these instructions. So, I have to call AGAIN to get those. Some of her providers don't have electronic chart systems or it takes some time for them to be updated when often an instruction is to get labs or something right away..... Sorry. Rant over. The answer is that your dad is going to have to get pushy and not assume anything.

It hurts to watch. I had one specific outcome that I tracked the entire 13 years. One of the classes I taught involved drafting and scale. Despite my having more teaching experience over the years, my students' ability to understand scale and therefore be able to recognize they had made a mistake declined significantly over the 13 years. Between blind calculator faith and the fact that less and less of them had ever used a real map (hello GPS), more and more of them just could not grasp it as the years went on. I had students turning in drawings of entire subdivisions on a sheet of standard engineering paper with a scale of 1:10. There were all sorts of issues....not understanding how units worked, blindly following numbers punched into a calculator, or simply giving up and writing down something "official looking." I would stand in the middle of the classroom with 10 sheets of paper lined up across the floor and ask the class if a subdivision would really fit in that space. Blank stares. My first year, I had about 75% of the students leaving my class having eventually grasped the concept. By year 13, I was down to about 40%. I have no idea how to fix that once they are in college. So many students asked why they needed to know this. They told me that whatever CAD or solid modeling program they used would do this for them. I kept pleading with them that yes, those programs do it for them but if they cannot assess what is reasonable, they cannot recognize mistakes. You know, like BEFORE that bridge gets built or that airplane part is installed.

I am late to the discussion but I did not allow a calculator for math until dd took her first DE math course (pre-calc) at age 16 and it was required for that class. Dd did have to use one for some of her science courses (outsourced) but even then, I only allowed a scientific calculator, not graphing. I was warned by everyone that she would never catch up and be calculator proficient for standardized tests or college courses. That has not been an issue. At all. Like others, I have two reasons for my philosophy. As a college student (engineering), my class was the first to have a series of calc class option: Old school (plain old calculators), graphing calculator dependent, and math program dependent. I had to take the old school style because I started in calc two and the options were only offered starting in calc one. I lived this experiment. In later classes, I knew my math MUCH better than the people tracked in the calculator and computer courses. My dh and I are a closed experiment as he took the computer based path. To this day, I can do mental math much faster than him and he actually blames our math paths from 25+ years ago. That is pretty anecdotal and the fact that the classes were brand new could also be a factor. After 13 years as a university instructor for freshman engineering students, I was flabbergasted that most of my students whipped out calculators when doing the most basic math. Literally 2+2. And their conceptual math skills were very weak. As others mentioned, they have complete faith in what the calculator says. No one seems to ask themselves, "is this number reasonable?" This was what really clinched it for me and even steered me towards and away from specific math curriculum....specifically high school math. Even the most complex math can be introduced using numbers that do not require calculators. Dd caught up just fine with her peers when she needed to use a graphing calculator for DE math classes. And she also transitioned to the computer programming methods that they use on her DE classes as well. Even if higher math was never going to be in the picture, having mental math skills is very handy for every day operations.

Access is another issue. We have little access to the SAT in our area so we really had no choice. The SAT is issued during the school day at our local schools and homeschoolers are not allowed. We had the option on traveling 2+ hours for the SAT or taking the ACT locally. I figured the stress of traveling would outweigh any benefit the SAT had over the ACT for my dd. Therefore we did not even bother with considering the SAT. Dd took the ACT cold and thankfully got the score she needed, one and done, so I am probably a bad person to ask about prep! I only mention that in case the OP does not know what access they might have to both tests in their area.

I don't do much backpacking any more but still pack like one in many ways. Tarps are heavy and bulky so we don't use them over or under the tent. Our tents are older than dirt but the rain flies and bathtub floors still work fine. They are all low end backpacking gear....a few steps up from a Walmart tent. On one backpacking trip, we were in a campsite that we learned (the hard way) was in an area that floods under certain conditions. Conditions that happened in the middle of the night. We were set up in what became 4+ inches of water. Our tent felt like a water bed. It was so weird! And the next morning all of our stuff that was not inside the tent had to be collected from the surrounding area as it had floated away. But we stayed 100% dry inside. I was amazed.

I see this a lot in campgrounds and I have always been too chicken to ask someone what this is about. At first I assumed the tent might no longer be waterproof or they lost the rainfly, but it is so common that cannot be why they are all doing it. It looks like a lot of work!

I do a lot of camping. In fact I am heading out this afternoon for four days. One thing I always hate is losing my headlamp or other essentials in the dark if I am awakened suddenly. I have an old tube sock safety pinned to the outside of my sleeping bag. I put my headlamp, chapstick, and glasses in it when I go to bed so I can find easily in the dead of night. When backpacking or cold weather camping, I always stuff my morning clothing into the foot of my sleeping bag. Actually what REALLY happens is I go to bed fully clothed then as I warm up, I shed layers while still in the sleeping bag and stuff them to the end with my feet. It helps keep my feet warm, makes the clothing warm to put on in the morning, and even will dry out slightly damp clothing from the day before. After years of practice, I can fully dress and undress without leaving the sleeping bag. It's not pretty but can be done when necessary. I see a lot of suggestions for bringing extra stuff since you are car camping. As you consider backpacking, you will want to examine your gear and see what can be used for multiple purposes. Go ahead and bring all the creature comforts but start taking note of what you really need, what can serve more than one purpose, and what can go.

That is actually the funny thing. She DID use APA format. That is what she has been required in her DE classes all along. But she has never used that format for me. She usually uses single space, 10 pt font, which is what I taught her to do early in high school just to keep the paper bulk in check. So, when I set a minimum page number, I had our "normal" in mind. She would definitely have grounds for challenging the length requirements. The general half-assed-ness, she would not.

Thanks everyone! That is really what I want to do. I just needed some sort of "permission." Now I have it!

My dd is graduating. She had four subjects this semester. Two were DE and those courses ended two weeks ago. Both were very challenging for her and took a lot more time and effort than she expected. She worked really hard on those courses. The third subject is outsourced and wrapping up this week. The final course is US History, designed by me. History is dd's least favorite subject. I have never attached mommy-course grades to exams. I have always approached assessment from a mastery standpoint. Basically, we never moved on until she had full mastery of a topic. That means that if she did the work and put in the effort, she got an A in every subject that I supervised. There was one subject in 10th grade that she slacked on and I gave her a B. She actually did all of the work eventually but it was turned in far outside of the due date parameters and when the due date passed I gave her the option of completing everything late and getting a B for A work or repeating the subject the following year. She took the B grade option. For this history class, she had reading from several sources, including primary sources, each week. She then reflected on those readings by answering prompts provided by me in short essay format. She was also expected to complete a substantial research paper each semester. Her fall semester paper was very well done and all other routine assignments were done on time and done well. Her spring paper was due last Friday. That day she asked me for an extension. We had some family circumstances that made this a reasonable request and I extended to Sunday night. Then forgot all about it. I woke up at 2am to use the bathroom and discovered dd was still awake writing this paper. This paper was assigned in February. I now have it in my hand. It is not well done. At all. It is very clear that she did not put much effort into it. It is shy of the minimum length (pages) and on top of that she double spaced it and used a slightly larger font so it is not even half the required length. I realize that I should have used word count in the requirements but I have used pages from day one and she has never pulled this sort of thing before. I am trying to decide what to do here. If I were to grade this, I would give it a D. If I were grading traditionally, I would say this paper should be 10% of her total grade. With that in mind, she would still get an A in the subject. If this were any other semester I would ask her to redo the assignment until it was A work. Dd's graduation ceremony is next week and I need to submit her final grades to her university. I am struggling to figure out what to do that will not forever put a dark cloud over her last weeks of homeschooling. Options I am considering: 1. Do nothing and give her an A. Explain that I feel this was a half-assed effort, but even at half-assed, the whole year of effort is still A work. 2. Give her the choice of redoing it or taking a B for the subject. Her grade would not actually be a B by anyone else's standards but would be consistent with how we have operated in the past. 3. Other ideas? I am about as done with homeschooling as she is. I just want to be done done DONE. If this were any other semester, I would for sure go with option 2. It does not do her any favors to let something slide since no professor is going to do so. She has a lot of exciting things coming up and it would be very difficult for her to redo this work before her final transcript must be submitted. She has a 4.0 in her DE classes, including a class from this semester that kicked her butt in the beginning and that she crawled her way back up to an A. This paper is literally the only thing that she has slacked on all year.

Thanks! Bummer on the pressure canning. I use one of the huge ones from the 1970s that I'd hate to replace. But I could always use a stand alone burner (outside!) if I ever go this route. I am intrigued for sure.....and because I am, my gas stove will probably live forever.

I second Cedar Point! It's a really fun park and the weather will be better. My family is sadly not into amusement parks and even Ohio is too hot for us in summer, so I will probably never go again but I think it is a great alternative to Florida parks at that time of year. They have some of the best roller coasters in the country.

Dd is just finished Calc II at a 4-year university as a DE student. It was her third math class to use WebAssign. She eventually figured it out but it was a painful ride. Luckily she had great professors who promptly answered any type of questions but had she not been at home for me to literally hold her hand through parts of it, I'm not sure she would have been successful. I was no help for the actual content but was often called in to help decode the correct-answer-wrong-format problems. I swear she spent more time trying to crack the code than learning the actual content. So frustrating! I will be watching with popcorn as she starts her official freshman year at the same school in the fall. I am guessing she will be quite popular in the dorms since 75% of her new housemates will be taking Calc I and grappling with these issues for the first time. I am actually VERY glad she tackled this while still in high school when we could help her so she has one less stressor as a freshman. As for the overall topic here, I live in an area that has very limited CC options. My experience with our CC has been terrible and that really colors my opinion of this free CC idea. I am generally in favor of programs like this but I feel like you might as well burn the money rather than attend our CC. Dd took one class....not "remedial"....as a DE student. It was terrible. Worse than terrible. I expected more out of her in the 4th grade than this college class. Not a single thing was graded at any point throughout the semester and she was given a grade she did not agree with, with no explanation. I actually feel unethical about transferring the credit to her college because she absolutely did not learn what the stated outcomes on the syllabus listed. I would chalk that up as an isolated experience but the very same school once approached me about teaching. With no interview, they were prepared to offer me a job teaching chemistry. I got a C in college chemistry 30 years ago. And they were going to pay me what amounted to less than $5/hour to do it. They were desperate. I cannot help but wonder what percentage of their faculty are not suited for what they are teaching and I am quite certain none are being paid enough to care.