I ignored it and am currently still dealing with the fallout from it. It started with me also being ticked about the stamp and attempted to complete it online. I guess this didn't "take" as I started getting big bills from different providers. After investigating, I learned that BCBS was denying all claims. I filled out the stupid form and asked the providers to resubmit. Some wouldn't and I had to pay up front and submit myself. Many stamps later, several lost hours on the phone, one bill sent to collections, and lots of swearing, and I will STILL trying to get everything covered.

In theory, yes it bothers me. But I know it really doesn't matter so I hold my tongue. Our bathroom has the world's tiniest sink and we do not have a utility sink so the kitchen sink is used for all of the nastiest cleaning jobs. Bathroom hands are nothing compared to cleaning out garbage cans or vomit buckets. I just make a practice to thoroughly clean the sink daily in addition to directly after any gross cleaning situation. I do not put food or clean dishes in direct contact with the sink, faucets, or counter top. For the rare job that requires direct contact, I disinfect the sink/counter beforehand. My very-well-trained cats would never EVER get on the counter, except perhaps for every single second I am not directly supervising. Therefore I have to assume all surfaces are contaminated at any given time. What DOES bother me to no end is people, both in my family and out, who "wash" their hands in the kitchen sink in a way that is really just getting their hands wet then using the KITCHEN towel to dry their "clean" hands. Ick ick ick! I am constantly tossing only-used-once kitchen towels in the laundry because I know or suspect someone did this. All that said, we camp for at least 40 nights a year and all standards go out the window with no ill effect. Often, proper hand washing is not even possible. I should probably stop overthinking this stuff.

I don't live anywhere near one and I don't think dd has ever been to one. But I do fondly remember those contests they had when I was a kid where some lucky kid(s) got to go into the empty store with a shopping cart and had some amount of time (10 minutes, maybe) to put as many things in the cart as they could. My friends and I would spend hours strategizing what path we would take and what toys we would target if we were ever the contest winner.

Does she get her exams back? I ask because sometimes students do not. If she does, I would recommend she go through each missed question and track down where it came from. As in, where the holes seem to be in her study habits for each class. If she cannot figure that out, she should make an appointment with the professor and go through each item to figure it out. I have my struggling students do this and going through this with them helps me identify how to advise them for future study methods. What seems like covering all of the bases to the student is sometimes vastly different than what I would recommend. That said, it is pretty normal to have a freshman adjustment period and also quite normal for a class average to be in the Cs.

I would look into switching to raw food. I had a cat with crystals. She did not do well on the prescription food, dry or canned. It did clear up the crystals but caused other health problems. I actually thought she was going to die. Against our vet's advice, we tried raw in desperation after much Googling. That was 6 years ago. No more crystals and she is completely healthy now at age 17. As is her 19yo "sister" cat. I was very skeptical at first but now I would not feed a cat anything else. We use commercial raw from Darwin but there are many others out there. We do use a high end grain-free canned food when we travel because raw is just asking too much from our cat sitter. The cats seems to enjoy the occasional variety. But their litter boxes STINK every time.

Could be Thai Basil which has some purple in it. Whatever the case, if it is not slimy and smells OK, I'd use it.

I have been feeding my now-elderly cats raw food for about 6 years now. I have made my own from whole local chickens but find the commercial stuff worth the cost. We use Darwin and have it mailed to us monthly. We did use Instinct for awhile because it was available locally but found, like a PP, that it was often thawed and refrozen or otherwise spoiled, so we switched. The difference in my cats' health was dramatic and almost instant. They had been on prescription food at that point were both quite sick before the switch. Not just sick but dull coats, dandruff, etc.... I now have 17 and 19yo cats with no health problems, shiny fur, and bright eyes that act like kittens. The raw food costs significantly more than cheap kibble or even "high end" grain free canned food. But I have already more than recouped the costs in lack of vet bills. Totally worth the expense and hassle for me.

I know Lukeion has Latin 5 and Latin 6. I'm not sure what is entailed since my dd is already planning her I'm-done-with-Latin-forever party after the AP exam in May.

I grew up using one and really wish I had one now. I am so DONE with hauling my extremely heavy vacuum cleaner up and down our steep, narrow stairway. The one in my childhood home did not have a kick plate but that would be delightful. I wonder how hard it is to install a system in an already existing house.....

I am a bit of a real estate buff so I look at a lot of listings online and often accompany a realtor friend of mine on walk-throughs just because. It surprises me how many home owners list houses with dark and gloomy living spaces that could be completely transformed into bright spaces with a different color paint, less clutter, and less-restrictive window treatments. $500 could make a huge difference. I say that to encourage you to not necessarily take a room at face value. I never would have guessed how bright my own house could be when we first saw it. It had dark red curtains on the south facing windows and dark paint on the walls. We changed those things as soon as we moved in. I suspect that the previous owners could have gotten a lot more for this house had they made those changes before listing it. Many people just walked away because it seemed like a cave.

Our tuner declared our piano a "piano shaped object" at the last visit and we have sadly given up on it. Dh plans to turn it into a bar. Luckily, no one in my house currently plays it anymore so not a big deal. It would not hold a tuning because it is right in front of a heat register. There is literally no piano-sized wall space anywhere in my house that is not an outside wall or in front of a heat register. The tuner even searched my house, upstairs and down, and agreed. He then suggested an electronic keyboard..... However, when pressed, he did say an outside wall is better than in front of a register. That does not help us as we also have no outside wall space large enough to put a piano that is window-free. Apparently, the people who built this house were not pianists. If the outside wall backs to a garage, I would be inclined to think it is OK.

I am uncomfortable driving larger vehicles in just a bout any situation. And I hate city driving. Actually, I hate driving. So.... When stuck in similar situations, I ditch my car for the time I will be in the city and rely on public transit or Uber to get around.

Ours is very bright. The house was designed and build before electricity was available so I believe that is why our house, along with most locally, have 10ft ceilings and lots of south and west-facing windows. We also have light paint and light maple flooring. Also, no dark or heavy furniture. Dark and gloomy is a deal-breaker for us. We only get 6 solid hours of light in the winter so we need brightness.

They make an appearance in our parades. But we are small town. There are more people IN the parade than watching it. The more, the merrier! I know many little boys that find garbage trucks fascinating so why not let them get a slow motion look at one...preferably not full of stinky garbage at the time.....

I could never put mine in the fridge because I use it multiple times a day! For salad, I'll wash and spin several days worth but always put the spun greens in another container. I have a handful of gallon sized ziplock bags that I wash and reuse for this purpose. That way I can squish out most of the air which takes up less room and tends to make the greens keep longer. And they are not breakable. :lol:

I say hide it from everyone else. I cannot imagine what the heck they are doing. Like you, my salad spinner is one of my most cherished kitchen items. Mine was extremely cheap and poorly made. It is almost 20 years old and has been dropped and otherwise mistreated many times without breaking. Is there someone in your house that holds a salad spinning grudge?

This is a big issue for me. All faculty and staff on my campus have to buy parking passes. Obviously this hits an adjunct teaching one class (or say the hourly custodial, food service, and secretarial staff) a lot harder than a tenured department chair. This requirement was instituted partway through my time at my institution. I complained so much and so loudly that my department chair added the cost of the pass onto my regular pay just to shut me up. I am especially bitter because even with a pass, I often cannot find an available spot and have to pay a meter anyway. It is all of the little things like this that can really kill the relationship between institutions and employees.

We have been having this problem all of a sudden too. I like to buy dd's school books used. We had four (FOUR) that arrived with significant writing and/or highlighting that was not declared in the description. In three of the cases, it's annoying but dd could work around it. The last book was a Latin book that dd needed to translate. The translations were written in the book. In pen on almost every page. How the heck is that useful for a student? I sent that one back. And yes, it was a hassle and the third-party vendor acted like it was some huge favor to me. Uh. No. The book was supposed to be in "like new" condition.

It is very rare to cancel at my institution. I have had TAs that could cover for me should I need it but usually that is not the case. I am the only person on my campus who teaches what I teach so I do everything possible to avoid having to cancel. I have never had to deal with the flu specifically but I do come in sick. I cover for other faculty somewhat frequently. I don't find the situation comparable to K-12 teaching. Being sick when I have to teach adults for a few hours is way different than chasing after first graders for a full day or pumping out six high school math lectures back-to-back. I can generally drag myself in, tell everyone to stay FAR away from me, get my classes done, then bring whatever non-negotiable tasks home with me.

We had a very large tree come down a few months ago. We did not suspect it was weak so it was very much a surprise. It hit our house and narrowly missed our neighbor's across the street (it was that big). While chatting with our insurance people, I asked what would have happened if it did hit their house. In my state, apparently, it is "no fault" unless we knew the tree was dead/weak and neglected to do anything about it. The insurance companies battle it out on their own. I suspect we may find out eventually. We have three more of these monsters in our yard, all of which could hit another house depending on how it falls. And there are at least six more in neighboring yards that could hit our house. None appear dead or dying....but neither did the one that fell. All are well over 100 years old.

Uh oh. There might be another Amy Barr running around after my kid turns 18. The bar (get the pun?!?!) was set very high early in dd's online class-taking time. We signed up for Thursday but that is mostly because I had not even thought about it and that is what I picked at midnight. I don't do well after 9pm.....

We should have had a party waiting up last night.... We are in. Phew!

It's the ice, snow, and white-outs here that freaks me out. I know the day will come, but I find it very hard to believe that I will gracefully handle my dd driving off in a blizzard. In fact, we carefully timed her driver's training to occur at the end of winter driving season so that she will have her permit for months before the snow flies. I am always scratching my head when a see a student driver car slide by my house. What are they thinking?!?! Luckily, there are winter driving courses here and I fully intend to make dd take every single one possible. I think they should be mandatory in this region but they are not. We are also hours and hours away from the nearest freeway. We will make sure dd gets practice on freeways when we travel but it REALLY disturbs me that many local teens get a full blown license without ever experiencing an on ramp or multiple lanes of traffic.

Unfortunately, dd avoids hats too. She wears them for training but avoids them most other times. That is not a smart option in this climate but I guess she is old enough to deal with the consequences.

I think dd's hair is actually too dry in the winter. The forced air heat, low humidity, and daily washing seem to strip it or something. She does not put conditioner near her scalp but I suspect she is washing ALL of her hair. I'll have to suggest just scrubbing the roots. I really wish she did not have to wash it daily but I don't see any way around it. Her skin is also too dry from daily showering.