I think it is a coincidence. We have very cold temps and big temp changes frequently and have never even heard of flat tires being more common. We also have a LOT of potholes but any flat we have ever had came from under inflation or obvious punctures.

I have recently researched this because my dd just recovered from frostbiting an ear! In her case it was well below zero and her hat had slipped up, exposing her earlobe, during a race. I don't think it sounds like frostbite. There is usually pain during the healing process and sharp pain as it warmed up. It could be, but I would want to rule out other possibilities rather than just assume it is frostbite. If it is just mild frostbite, there is nothing really to do other than wait for it to heal.

We are in a low cases but also low mask-compliance area. I'd say about 50% of people in stores are masked. Testing is nearly impossible to access here so the "low cases" might not be real. No one in my household is high risk and the vulnerable people in our extended family are not local and will not be close to us in person until we are all vaccinated. We started out very very locked down and cautious. But as this drags on, dh and I have come to the opinion that we are likely going to be living with this forever and some things just had to give. We go to stores/library as needed, which is typically once a week, 100% masked. Aside from the every-two-weeks grocery trip, I'd say we are never in a store for more than 10 minutes. We are not big shoppers in general so other than groceries and library books, it is extremely rare that we need to go inside any non-food store. We order our library books ahead of time so we just have to pick them up (no curb-side or drive-thru) and I arrange my grocery shopping time to when I know the store will be the least busy. Essential medical appointments and non-essential hair cuts, 100% masked and with providers who take proper safety precautions (we had to change one provider over this). We have not been to the dentist this entire time. The nature of dh's work requires in-person interaction. He is around others, many times mask-refusers, every day. This is almost always outdoors and distanced. He wears a mask 100% of the time. That is our biggest risk and there is not anything we can practically do about it. Dd's sport, which is 100% outdoors and requires social distancing to do properly, has been practicing and competing. They wear masks during all activities except when actively competing. We have "podded" with one other family. We spend rare time together indoors and unmasked but try to limit our interactions to outdoors. This is not purely social, we have a reason that one member from each family must spend time together without masks so we decided to pod together for social interactions since the risk is already there. We socialize outdoors with four other families, including the one we have podded with. We do not wear masks but do distance. The types of things we are doing are typically active and spaced, like hiking or snowshoeing. Dd also similarly hangs out with her friends in this manner. Dd is currently dating a new boy. That is tricky territory since meeting up at all is risky. So far they have only done outdoor activities together. I don't know what his stance is on all of this but so far he has agreed to the limits dd has set for staying outdoors and masking. I was tempted to "forbid" it but dd is graduating this year and will be on her own in a few short months. She has had so many things taken away from her. I just cannot bear to put a damper on the first new/interesting thing to happen to her all year. It is also hard because we cannot get to know him the way we have with her past romantic interests since we have no good way of casually socializing together. I work from home and dd is fully remote/home schooling. As the weather warms, we will be doing more outdoors with others. We went camping many times last summer/fall and will again as soon as the snow melts.....in May, hopefully. We do NOT go eat in restaurants or patronize other purely unnecessary indoor venues like bowling alleys, gyms, bars, music venues, pools, theaters, etc..... This is the hardest as we have musicians in the family that prior to Covid were playing gigs almost weekly. I am so very angry at many of our local restaurants for blatantly defying orders and squawking like they are "essential." Aside from the few that set up decent protections, I will not even patronize them for take-out. I will never patronize those businesses again.

I don't think this is necessary. Cars are not manufactured and sold for place-specific markets. I live in a very cold and snowy place and it is not at all uncommon for my car to sit for days or even weeks. The only time in over 25 winters I ever had a car not start due to cold was when it was -30 degrees and it had been sitting exposed in an airport parking lot for two weeks AND it had a battery that was on the outs (and it was 2am just to make it an extra special situation). I literally never hear of anyone around here with a modern (less than 20 years old) car have trouble with cold weather starts unless there was some sort of actual problem. I mean, go for it if it makes you feel better but I would not make more stress or worry for yourself. And I agree with others that just starting and idling for a few minutes will probably do more harm than good.....if only environmental. I'd also like to point out that gas tanks freezing is also not really a thing. I am all about having at least a half tank for emergencies or even convenience, but not because I worry that the gas and/or lines will freeze.

Can people share what the packaging for Misfit Markets is like and what you do with it? I have seen the ads and am interested. But I cannot stand dealing with a steady stream of freezer packs. We have frozen pet food delivered each month and it comes with a return label to mail back all of the packaging and freezer packs.....which I appreciate. Even if shipping it back uses as much resources as dumping it all would, I at least don't have to figure out how to dispose of it all. Our local shipping store used to take freezer packs and other reusable shipping supplies but has now ceased due to Covid. I am guessing like a lot of other things, they might never go back to taking it.

That certainly would be a problem!

Well, at least now I know it is not in my head! I will for sure start moving stemmed items to water jars. I knew I could do that but was always fine with them in the old style bags until I needed the items. That is easier in my too-small fridge. Based on how quickly they are breaking down in the fridge, I don't see that they will be a problem in my backyard compost. I have to screen the compost every year before it goes in the garden anyway so I am not worried. If they don't break down, I will know around July and will stop putting them in there.

We rarely lose power so we are very lucky. We live in a very high snow/ice/cold region and our exterior-wall pipes can freeze within hours of losing power/heat. We have a protocol, like everyone else, on how to store water in the tub, drain the lines, and keep a drain going. We have no back-up heat at all. We have only lost power overnight (in winter) once. We have plenty of cold weather clothing. What saved us was setting up our small backpacking tent in the living room to sleep in. That sounds dumb but it traps body heat. Between that a many blankets, we were actually warmer than we are on a normal night, if not a little cramped. Even a make-shift blanket "fort" and a closely supervised candle or two (when awake only!) would help. Just a tip in case anyone can use it.

That is an option for sure. And probably what I will do in the meantime. I was just (temporarily) super excited about being able to use something that is less of a PITA than the reusable bags while still being "environmental conscience." But first, I wanted to make sure this was not all in my head. It is quite possible I hit the store on a bad produce day so I wanted to see if anyone else had this issue with these bags.

Well, these smell like they are biodegrading in my fridge right now so I suspect they really will compost. I'll know for sure when it is time to turn the compost in the summer. But it will be easy enough to screen them out of the compost if they don't. I just don't want to be adding what should have been perfectly good produce to my compost because it rots in the compostable bags!

The store in which I do 90% of my grocery shopping just switched to compostable produce bags. The print on the bag claims they can be composted in a garden compost bin. That is great and I am all about it. I used to use reusable bags for produce but they are currently not allowed due to the pandemic. So I was pretty excited about this development. However, one week later, I am having my doubts. I shop once every 2-3 weeks and menu plan based on how long I expect certain ingredients to last. By week three, we are typically eating frozen/canned/dried produce I have put up from the summer. But we are often still eating the more robust fresh veggies through week two. I have noticed that the new compostable bags do not seem to keep the produce as fresh. For instance, a bunch of parsley will typically keep in my fridge in a normal produce bag for up to two weeks. When I went to use the latest bunch, that was purchased only 5 days ago, it was too wilted to use. I have noticed this with several more delicate items like green onions, cilantro, and lettuce. I have also noticed a pretty bad smell from the bags, which is not very encouraging. Anyone have any experience?

Natural gas, forced air. I don't know the actual temps in each room but I do very occasionally wake up to find a film of ice on my bedside glass of water on the very coldest nights. The bedroom has no heat register and it has three exterior walls. I'd say the rest of the house varies from 45-50, with closed spaces like closets and kitchen cabinets hovering around freezing. While that sounds miserable, we are asleep, so it really doesn't matter aside from the middle of the night bathroom run. If we are up late or very early, I override the stat to daytime temps.

Really? They might call but I cannot imagine that would be considered abuse or neglect.

We have a theory that we have been kicking around for quite some time within our circle of friends. Our thermostat is on an interior wall in what is arguably the warmest part of the house. We have noticed after years of living in a cold climate in a poorly insulated house with high ceilings that it often feels more comfortable (warm) on the coldest and windiest days than on warmer days. We call this the "delta phenomenon." Basically, the higher the delta between the outdoor temps and thermostat setting, the warmer we feel indoors. I have not officially brushed off my heat transfer equations but the theory is that the faster the heat is leaving the house (due to colder temps outside) and warmer it actually is away from the thermostat. When the furnace is running constantly to try to hold the stat temp, we all feel warmer. When the furnace does not have to work hard because the heat is leaving the house slowly, it is noticeable warmer near the thermostat than anywhere else. So, on a warmer day, it might be 62 degrees right at the stat but really 58 degrees in the next room and perhaps even 48 degrees right next to the walls in the wind direction. But on a colder day, it is still 62 degrees in the next room and while still noticeably colder near exterior walls, less so than on a warmer day.

In winter we keep it 62 day and 50 night. We don't have AC so no summer settings. We just turn it off for the summer although more than once I have had to turn it on in July for a few days when the indoor temps went below 50. We find this comfortable enough. The only real downside is that when we do rarely have to sleep elsewhere (a hotel, someone's house, etc....), it is really hard to sleep in a hot room. And anything above 50 is "hot" to us.

You might get lucky. We have one right next door. It seems to be booked frequently but we've never had any trouble with noise or parties. When I saw it was turning into an AirBnB, I was dismayed, as you are. It's a bigger house with multiple bedrooms so can hold up to 8 people.....which we assumed meant it would be attractive to partiers. But it is probably the quietest house on the block. The only issue we have ever had is with renters not understanding the parking rules in our neighborhood. This did not directly affect us other than having the poor renters knocking on our door wondering if their car had been stolen and us having to explain it was probably towed. I hope for your sake, you have a similar experience!

The downsides mostly revolve around the difficulty of dd being completely independent then having to come home and deal with rules and expectations. This is a big reason why we went straight to DE.....to give dd academic independence. We had been warned that it would be a difficult transition. It was not nearly as bad as other parents report and dd has always had a lot of freedom anyway. It was still a rough transition for dd. The pandemic happened to hit shortly after she came home so that exasperated everything. I don't think this would be an issue for you since your dc would go to college after boarding school. We did not anticipate that the academics would be so weak. Or maybe I am just out of touch with what level of rigor is to be expected in traditional high schools. Dd is an only child and has always been homeschooled so that is a real possibility. All students only attend this school for a single semester. It is part of a collection of "semester schools" that each have a specific theme. The school had told us that although they are selective for academics, it was too difficult to get everyone on the same page in just one semester. All of the students came from different schools/states and there was (supposedly) big variation in academic level/background. They skip math entirely. Students were encouraged to follow a plan from their sending school or take an online class. Dd opted to take an elective rather than math self-study because she planned to take DE math the next semester which would "count" as a full year of high school math. The lack of rigor seems to mostly be due to the short duration that students attend. Knowing what I do now, I would want to see examples of students work, syllabi, and curriculum before committing to a school that lasted more than one semester. Another struggle was maintaining dd's music and sport. She is pretty serious in both and found it really difficult to practice and workout without others doing the same. She came home right as her race season was starting up for the year. Having largely missed four months of coached training, she had a pretty disastrous season and she still has not fully recovered from it. Dd would say it was worth it and the damage was somewhat muted by the pandemic anyway. Anything else you'd like to know?

My dd attended a one-semester boarding school her 11th grade year. So, not directly relevant. But she did go from 100% homeschooled to boarding school to nearly 100% DE at the STEM university she will be attending as a freshman next year. I had huge reservations but dd was very interested in attending. Dd loved it and would not have traded the experience for anything. It was also a great transition from mommy-classes to being accountable to someone else. She was able to move into serious DE classes directly afterwards with far less trouble than I think she would have otherwise. There were downsides too.....mostly from the parent perspective, but overall, the pros outweighed the cons looking at it one year out. In our case, the school dd attended was not academically challenging for her, even though on paper, she should have been in the middle of the pack academically. Had it been more than one semester, that would have been an issue. That turned out to be ideal because she was able to concentrate on the other aspects of being independnet and academically accountable to someone other than a parent. I now have zero worries about how she will fare (academically, anyway) in college next year.

That's really odd. We recently replaced our roof. Prior to that, we were threatened by our insurance company that they would not renew our insurance because of the condition of the roof. It was indeed rough and decades past needing a replacement but it wasn't leaking. I spoke with our agent and he said that it was likely no other company would insure us until the roof was replaced. (For the record, we had been trying to get the roof replaced for years but there is a serious shortage of contractors in our area and we could not even get anyone to quote the job, let alone do it.) In the end, we did finally get it replaced (after being on a waiting list for THREE years) and all is well with the world. But, this is why it surprises me that the insurance company is not doing their own photos and inspection. The only indication that our roof was a "problem" was the spaces between the shrunken shingles. I could have easily made that "flaw" disappear had I been the one taking the photos.

This is going to vary so much. We did a combo. I had a rough idea of how much time would be spent on each subject each day but we would deviate from that as progress rate varied. So, for example, I might have planned to spend 60 minutes on math each day but found one month into a school year that we were not making enough progress to finish the subject that year so then adjusted to 90 minutes per day. Even on a day-to-day basis, if dd ripped through a math lesson in 20 minutes, we would move on to the next one rather than call it a day. And it was not at all uncommon to have a math lesson that should have been "one day" take an entire week to solidify. Now that dd is taking mostly college classes, she now does this calculation herself, on a weekly basis. There can be an entire week where she spends little time in one subject while spending hours each day on another....only to flip the next week. Based on what I saw in the university classes I have taught over the years, I think some college students struggle with this so it is a good skill to learn.

My dd will be graduating this spring. Yikes! She expressed a desire for a "real" diploma on "fancy paper with fancy font in a folder" like her public schooled friends will get. She is not, nor ever has been, part of a homeschool group/coop/umbrella/club/etc..... so we are on our own here. All of her friends were/are public schooled and this is one of the very few times she has insisted on during the "traditional" thing so I am happy to oblige. I found websites to order just what she wants. But, we don't have a name for our homeschool. Never have, aside from the occasional jokes of being the Pajama Academy. She does not want to make up a name and anything we would to make up at this point would not feel right anyway. Any suggestions for what we could put in the school name area of a traditional diploma? "Homeschool" just seems dull and somehow "non-official" sounding to her. Ideas?

We had this last night! We had the roasted veggies on top of a pile of millet with a tahini sauce drizzled over the whole thing. It is a favorite here.

I was just thinking of this now that our stores are allowing reusable bags again. I have canvas bags that I have been using for 20+ years. The variation on attitudes over the years, stores, and geographic location is wide. When I first started using them, baggers often complained. Sometimes they made me bag my own (which I prefer anyway) and other times I just had to listen to them grumble. Now, I still get occasional grumbles at the bigger chain stores. I rarely see other patrons using them and the baggers are clearly annoyed. I do most of my shopping at a small coop, where reusable bags are encouraged, and I always bag my own there so no issues there. Grumbles or not, I use them anyway. I have a pretty long walk from where I park to getting inside my house so disposable bags are a real pain as I cannot load them as full (more trips back and forth) and there is a higher risk of bag breakage. I am in LOVE with the boxes people are posting. I may have to upgrade after 20 years. My old canvas bags get washed frequently but they are for sure stained and beat up.

Additional note. I don't know enough about chemistry classes to know how far off the honors class truly is from AP. But dd had several friends who were taking AP Chem at the local PS at the same time. One was even her boyfriend at the time. They often studied together. He reported that what dd was studying was almost exactly what he was studying. But he had the benefit of having already had a year of regular chemistry going in. Dd was often helping HIM with his class. I am under the impression that our local PS AP Chem class is not very well done. Few kids score a 3 or better..... So it may not be a fair comparison.

My dd took the honors class and I do understand Connie's concern. This was the hardest class my dd ever took (including Lukeion AP Latin, which I really thought would keep that title) and it took far more time than we expected. She was 15 at the time and spent at least two hours a day, including weekends. I think the subject was just difficult for her. She enjoyed the class and both she and I feel it was very well done. She prepared and studied as well as could be expected, even seeking out and utilizing new study methods as the poor exam grades piled up. She is going into engineering and is now somewhat terrified of taking chemistry in the fall. I suspect she will find that she is far more prepared than some of her peers will be. I have no regrets because I think every kid needs to struggle in class at some point. I think the lessons learned from being knocked off her 4.0 GPA pedestal is pretty valuable in itself. But there was no talking her into honors science of any type after that! As to what to do, I don't think watering it down is the right answer. But I don't know what is.