Yep. I have luckily never had to take any sort of serious medication at any time. But dh had a serious injury several years ago and was prescribed some sort of opioid pain medication. We filled the script for 8 doses. Dh took one and discovered very quickly that it made him violently ill. So he didn't take anymore. His doctor directed him to another method of pain management. I had stowed the bottle with the remaining pills in the very back of an overstuffed and disorganized mess of a laundry room cabinet to await the annual drug disposal date in our area. At that time, and for all I know this is still the case, our local pharmacies did not take back unused meds for disposal. I chose the location to stow it because it was out of reach of young children.....the same place I keep the bleach and handful of other toxic household products. There was about a two month lapse between when I stowed the bottle and the date of the disposal. When it was close, I went to get them to take in and found the bottle empty! Dd, at 3 years of age, was far too young at that time to have been a suspect. And after watching dh violently vomit after taking the first dose, I was fairly certain he could not be a suspect. Nor did he know where I put them (we never discussed it) and as far as he is concerned the laundry room cabinets do not even exist. There is nothing in there of any interest to anyone but me. I could have a million dollars sitting on top of the laundry powder and he would not find it. The seven remaining pills would not have yielded enough street value to have been sold if, say, dh was hiding some sort of gambling or drug problem. We had had a couple of small gatherings at our house during that time, mostly attended by people we know really well and trust. Even so, I actually asked around in a I'm-not-mad-but-this-is-driving-me-crazy-so-please-fess-up-if-you-know-anything sort of way. No bites except to find that two of my friends had had similar disappearances of meds, in much larger quantities, within the same timeframe. We had also had a couple of babysitters and contractors in and out. The idea of any of these people going through my laundry room cabinet to find these seriously creeps me out. They would have been very difficult to find and there were no other meds or first aid type items in the cabinet to suggest it would be the place to search for them. We never figured it out. And my friends who had similar experiences did not either. Lesson learned. We have no need for those types of meds anyway but I would get a safe if we ever did. It is very unsettling to know that someone I know well could have taken those meds. I hope there is some other explanation but to be honest, I still wonder.

My syllabi state explicitly that assignments are still due as listed even when classes are cancelled. It is a fail-safe for me. I have always ended up sending a revision out to students based on the situation but if they do not hear from me, the assumption is that assignments will still be due. So, yes, I would assume that assignments are due as scheduled unless otherwise specified. If I was unsure, a simple email to the professor would clear it up. At the college level, I would expect nothing different.

I always collected neutral boy clothing for dd. It was usually cut more comfortably and often cheaper. It was also easier to find solid color clothing that did not have tacky prints or graphics. But the biggest reason is being able to build a wardrobe with darker colors. Not black or anything. But reds, blues, grey, etc.... that hid stains better. The whites, yellows, and pinks in the girly clothing was unlikely to make it out of dd's life without some sort of impossible-to-remove stain. This was especially true of outerwear. Light pink snow pants.....really? I hate waste and I would rather purchase clothing I know we be reusable since dd was unlikely to be in any one size long enough for wear to be a factor. It is easier to pass along or sell outgrown clothing when it can be worn by either gender too. Dd lived in solid colored onesies with another solid color shorts/pants/overalls.

It is a continuum for sure. The ironic thing is that I am the one that purchases and then sneaks ice into my friends' coolers while camping because I am certain they are going to poison themselves with poor cooler management. You think a pot of chili cooling on a counter for two hours is bad, trying watching people eat four day old already-opened hummus (that their non-hand-washing kids have grazed on for those four days) from a cooler with only some maybe-cool water left in it! Ice long gone. If they are not dead yet, my chili is probably not going to do it. I also wonder if spreading out food on a large surface like a cookie sheet to cool food faster also introduces the food to more potential contaminants? Both due to contact with the sheet and exposure to the air. It bothers me to transfer leftovers from one container to another multiple times, although I am not sure it is a legit concern. I make my own yogurt and noticed a huge difference in success when I started flash-steralizing the jars beforehand. That got me thinking that there are all kinds of goodies hanging onto seemingly clean kitchenware.

Because dirtying a bunch cookie sheets to spread out chili for quick cooling or using a bunch of water to douse hot pots or hauling snow into my kitchen is a PITA. It takes extra time and resources when we are all lucky enough I had the time and resources to make the meal to begin with!. It is worth the pain if the risk is significantly probable and grave. But with the risk being very low (no one in my family has ever had food poisoning) and with the risk "only" being food poisoning (not death), it seems like a lot of work over years and years when my method of the last 20 years of leaving the pot of chili on the stove until cool enough to put into the fridge has not resulted in illness. If I am feeding others, I always do practice "safer" food handling. But I cannot ever see myself trying to cool a vat of beans on a cookie sheet. At that point, we would be ordering a pizza.

Am I the only one who is now going to be peeking in the bushes before going into any guarded building? I hide my car keys in the bushes when I go trail skiing or running. I don't normally even lock my car but in that case, my wallet and phone are in the car so I don't want to just leave it open but also don't want to carry my keys. Once when I went to stash mine, I found another pair in the same place! I guess I did not invent this idea, as clever as I may have thought I was.

My dh flies a lot for business and is always forgetting he has his pocketknife in his bag. TSA will mail it home for you, for a hefty price. We have paid for that knife tens times over in TSA "shipping and handling" fees. Sigh.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Which is not surprising because I feel endlessly confused about NCAA stuff even though I have combed all of the threads here on the subject multiple times. Wouldn't that be going in the opposite direction? Dd would likely not be a candidate for sport-related scholarships but if she does pursue traditional college, she would like to continue her sport. Most of her teammates that have graduated have done so. So that is just another "option" I feel compelled to keep open.

The endless anxiety is something I specialize in. It just occurred to me that the only reason we would reshuffle the what-year-is-what deck would be if dd chooses to pursue a path that does not include traditional college directly after high school. It is unlikely, I think, but not off the table. In that case it is probably best to make her "official" transcript as people have suggested here and if I do graduate her early and I have to change her transcript, it likely won't matter if traditional college applications are not part of the equation. We will be short on credits, even with DE, if dd wants to graduates early if I don't re-assign 8th grade as 9th. We only plan 6 credits a year. With DE, I can get the total number up but cannot get the core requirements where I would like to see them without counting 8th grade math and foreign language.

And then there is NCAA which I realize is a whole different beast.

It is not highly selective but selective enough that DE students do have to formally apply should they seek full-time admission. I do not anticipate that dd will have any trouble getting into this school but she may be a candidate for merit aid which is why I want to be careful.

Dd is in 9th grade. I have not started her transcript. We are in a "keeping options open" mode. I had planned to keep some considerations like whether we will count some of her pre-high school classes (math and foreign language) on the table until when she was closer to applying to colleges. There is even a chance, I will re-assign her 8th grade year as 9th grade depending on what dd plans to pursue. There is a long back story to this that I will not bore you with. Just assume there are good reasons for the uncertainty at this time. I just had a meeting at our local university. Dd is planning to DE there next year and I met with the woman in charge of the DE program to discuss how dd is to apply. They have never had a homeschooled DE student before....hence the meeting. We worked out a procedure. One of the requirements is that I am to submit an "official transcript." The very transcript I was going to avoid dealing with for a couple more years. There is a very good chance dd will attend this university upon graduation. I am a bit concerned that whatever I submit now as an "official transcript" could cause trouble later should we take a completely different transcript approach sometime between now and graduation. I worry that flags will be raised if there are differences between whatever I submit now and upon official application. Her GPA will be different if I re-assign 8th grade as 9th grade, for example. No actual grades will change, of course. Surely others have grappled with this. Thoughts?

We have been an all-laptop-at-home family for over ten years now but my work (and dh's) often requires more screen space for efficiency. Both of us have desktops at work and we both have double screens. However, we work from home often. So in what used to be our desktop area, we have a big auxiliary screen that we can hook our laptops up to when we need more screen space. That was a game-changer for me as I was finding myself schlepping to the office just to have that extra screen space. As for durable, I find ours to be pretty indestructible. We had one around here for a while that had been run over by a car! It had issues but still worked well enough to use. We do keep liquid and food away from them and we have pretty strict transporting rules. My MacBook Pro is 10 years old and still kicking.

We also have corelle. We have it in a pop-up that gets a lot of rough bouncing due to "off-road" camping and have never had a chip in 14 years. It is lighter than other "glass" but can have very hot things put on them (hello, tonka pie cooker that melted the one plastic plate we did have....), and they are thin enough that they don't take up a lot of room in the drying rack. The best part is that I collected them piece by piece from thrift stores with my main criteria being that all dishes should be a different pattern and the tackier, the better. It is great fun to fight over the various "favorite" plates. Our pop-up gets a lot of road dust/dirt in it because it is old and we take it dirty places. I have collected a big stack of second-hand pillow cases that I put all dishes and cookware in when we are moving the pop-up. It keeps the dust off and helps keep things from sliding all around. We do also have some glass wine glasses and ceramic coffee mugs. I put those in old clean socks, again, to keep them clean but also to prevent chipping/breakage.

No PSQ and suspiciously little that they were supposed to do over break (just one regular HW assignment) which has me nervous. I guess it is time to email.....

Has anyone received the new semester info yet? Just making sure we didn't get knocked off the email list (which has happened in the past).

Best invention ever. Every person in my family has a pile of these. It kills me what they charge for them but worth every penny. We have them in several different types: regular, loopy, and polar. I have a set I use only for working out and a set for casual. I have to wear scarves (and hats and wrist warmers) indoors for half of the year. Gone are the days of dipping scarf ends into my soup or the dish water or the cat food!

Thanks for the tips! I had to look up what a spacer is. I don't think she could carry it with her during races but someone close by could. I'll have to ask around because I now know that several of her team members use these so they must have some sort of system. She could certainly carry during training. We are in a very isolated area, which is partially why we have such a severe a doctor shortage. We would be looking at a minimum two hour drive to the next "city" (which also has a doctor shortage) and at least four for a "big city." I am not unwilling to go there but I also think there is a possibility that it will clear up as she continues to recover and also suspect we would be looking at even longer wait times to get into someone cold. Sigh. Not sure how to proceed. The doctor office is now closed until Monday but I did send an email directly to her doctor in hopes that she might consider writing a script before we can get in.

That's terrible! Dd's coaches are taking it very seriously. According to her head coach, more than half of her team struggles with it. It is, according to him, very common in this particular sport.

Collapsable baskets! Someone gave us one as a gift meant for gardening. I didn't know what to do with it for years so it sat in my garage. Then one day, I tossed it in the camper to have something to carry meal fixings from camper to fire. I realized how useful it was and now use it for everything. I swear it gets put into some sort of use multiple times a day. The main thing I use it for is bringing things to and from the car. I am often juggling a bag of library books, a purse, a water bottle, stuff to mail, workout gear, etc..... I usually put this stuff in bags, but I am still trying to carry them all while dressed in winter gear finding myself struggling to figure out how to hold my keys, coffee, and all of this stuff. The struggle is real. Putting it all in a basket that I can set in the front seat. It makes carrying it easier and accessing stuff while out and about s much easier. When it is empty, I can collapse it flat and toss it in the truck. I often bring it to the store when I only need a few items. No bags, no worrying about squishing soft stuff, etc.... Also great for transferring multiple things to and from the chest freezer. The cats also enjoy the occasional ride in it. I need a few more! https://www.amazon.com/RSVP-Polyester-Collapsible-Market-Basket/dp/B0096CDTA6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1515861197&sr=8-6&keywords=collapsible+basket

Thanks everyone. I called her doctor's office in a ridiculous hope they had an opening this morning. We have a severe doctor shortage in our area and they not only had no openings today but cannot get her in for three weeks! The flu is going around and the receptionist told me, after I was on hold for 17 minutes(!), that they are drowning and I might be better off going to the ER (we have no urgent care). Hmmmm. I asked if we could get an inhaler before the appointment but she said the doctor will not consider it without an exam first. I scheduled the appointment and asked to be on their call list if they have a cancellation, to which the receptionist snorted. I'm not holding out much hope there. Temps are supposed to be higher starting tomorrow and her next race is forecasted for temps in the 20s, which is 40 degrees warmer than the last race.. Should I hold out for the appointment I made or.....? I don't see any other options.

Is it your opinion that dd could have avoided this by avoiding super cold weather exercise while recovering? I am even contemplating keeping her home from practice today (another very cold day) if there is any chance it will do permanent damage.

14 yo dd exercises and competes outdoors daily in very cold temperatures. She recently had a bad cold. It may have even been the flu. Dd has a history of hanging onto dry, non-productive coughs for weeks after a cold/flu. She is currently coughing occasionally but otherwise feels fine after two weeks of recovery time. One week into recovery, she was competing on a very cold day (-18F) and partway through had "breathing problems" and had to slow down. This resulted in a slower-than-expected time and much disappointment. I assumed it was a one-time perfect storm of illness recovery, very cold weather, and race day jitters. She described the problem as having sudden, much-reduced lung capacity. One week later, last night, it happened again during drills at practice. It was again, very cold (-10F). This was a first time she was pushing herself as her other practices were post-race recovery practices. I talked to her coaches and googled. It appears to be a classic case of viral-induced and/or cold-induced asthma. Her history of hanging on the coughs after illness is a key clue. Anyone deal with this? Can you give any advice? Can we expect it to clear up on its own and if so, how long? Her coaches said some athletes need rescue inhalers that they use when needed or pre-race when it is super cold. I am not 100% against it, but getting into her doctor is difficult so it will take some time. She races every weekend for the next two months. And these races are important to dd because they are used as qualifying races for something she very much wants to do. The issues she is having, if they continue, will knock her out of the running.

There are permanent, full-time instructor and lecturer lines at some universities. I plan to apply for one when dd graduates. They do not have "tenure" but a parallel system that has different metrics for advancement but work similarly from an employment-security status. It is a small percentage of the faculty at my school and they are generally found in the departments that teach a lot of service classes. But they do exist. I don't know how common this is elsewhere.

I have been one for 12 years and the main reason that I do it is so I don't have a gaping hole in my resume during the homeschooling years when I am primarily at home. The extra pay is the secondary reason. I can control my schedule and do much of my work from home. There are few other professional part-time jobs I could make work. I was bartending before taking this position which actually does pay better but the hours and schedule were not as easy to work with. My university treats adjuncts far better than most and we have very few. I have a permanent office, TAs, a computer, mailbox, admin support, and everything else full-time faculty have access to. I am given very generous extra compensation when I do course development. We typically only hire adjuncts to temporarily fill open faculty lines. My department has one of the heaviest teaching loads on campus so we almost always have a line open just by the sheer number of lines we have and the time it takes to bring new hires in. I am their semi-permanent fill in. I also teach two sections of a class that I developed and for which I am the only person who teaches. My students have no idea I'm an adjunct. When dd graduates, it is my hope to secure a full time instructor position, which is a teaching-only, non-tenure-track position. They have higher teaching loads (no research or grad students to deal with) but are compensated similarly to tenured faculty. I will have to apply and go through the hiring process like anyone else, but my long-term experience in my department will give me an advantage. My chair knows of my intentions and is supportive, although that is no guarantee. I was approached by our local CC several years ago about teaching chemistry (in addition to my current position at the university). I knew the pay would be lower but was still at least willing to talk. I just about laughed out loud when he told me the compensation. It was less than 1/4 of what I get per credit at the university. The guy tried to show me the math about how this was a $25/hr job. First, that is still too low for the work and second, it did not account for the many hours that I would be putting in for prep, grading, student meetings/emails, etc.... which is easily 3 times the amount of time spent in class. By my math, they were offering LESS than minimum wage. On top of that, I would have no office (where exactly was I supposed to meet with students?!?!), be responsible for owning and maintaining my own computer, would have no access to a grader or TA, and (this is the worst) hold the labs for my classes in a local high school, after hours, with no other people in the building except my own students. Having had a seriously disturbing incident with a disgruntled students years ago, I would never agree to put myself in that position. I was suppose to (on my own) coordinate the use of this lab, including materials, with the chemistry teacher at the school it was to be held. Uh. No. Which is why I now realize how very lucky I am and what many other adjuncts are facing. In those circumstances, I can see almost no compelling reason to do it unless you are treating it like a volunteer position. I would make significantly more money working at McDonalds and I would not be taking my work home with me every night.