My mother said that several in the neighborhood had broken windows. Apparently that is a TikTok thing too.

If it is a TikTok challenge, don't people then post videos of themselves doing it? Seems that would make finding them easy.

No advice. Just hugs.

That looks like short Billy bookcases and desktops? For our soon-to-be desk in the addition, we got kitchen countertops because they are sturdier. I don't how the dimensions will work out. but something to ponder. The kitchen island size might work. We've bought a lot of IKEA lately. You have to watch the website closely for stock and get it while it is in. Because it won't be there long.

I had been shocked when we first started and saw that. We are white but the first homeschooler I meant was a black lady I worked with over the summer as a teen. First impressions have a big impact. It was around that time that I decided I wanted to homeschool my future kids.

I've always thought that would be a very interesting study. Deep dive on former or current public school teachers who homeschool.

There can be important societal expectations. A good friend of mine recently married a women from an important family in a city in Mexico. He listed off the expectations for a wedding of anyone in that family. I think he said that the minimum guest list was 400. In addition to the normal expectations of a big wedding, each table needed to have three bottles of liquor and decent quality. Guests stayed until the wee hours and then they were served something and left. I don't remember what the something was. Fortunately for us, they ended up having it here because of the lockdowns. I say fortunately because travelling there would have cost us a significant percentage of what we spent on our wedding. Travelling to a wedding does change expectations. One of my favorite weddings as a guest, we were served sheet cake and canned sodas. If I'd had to travel to that, I'd have been disappointed.

Yes, because if the recipe has beans, it isn't a chili. You make a variation of stew, so of course a potato works well.

Anything you can do with other potatoes, you can do with sweet potatoes. They even make great baked potatoes. The sweet dish people serve at Thanksgiving give them a bad name.

Texas Proud, that is rough. People probably think that you have plenty of friends since you are so involved in stuff. Then you add in that the things you are involved in, you are in a position of authority. For example, in my daughters AHG troop I became best friend's with with one of the other moms. Fortunately, our daughters get along and are now best friends. We see each other weekly. I've known the leader of the group for longer. She's never seemed an option as a friend. Of course our kids are different ages. Without kids and without the nice town that we live in, it would be hard to make friends. Except for the friend I mentioned, all others have been friends for 20+ years.

I don't think I spent $1500, but my skirt was Silk Organza. I hadn't been set on my making my dress, but as someone a bit overweight with wide shoulders, strapless dresses weren't an option. Non-strapless dresses were rare. I remember going to the bridal show at the nearby really large city. They had maybe 200' of hanging dresses. I asked if they had any that weren't strapless. "No." I got the dress-inspiration from the cover of a Orson Scott Card book. That series where people were forced to be low-tech to limit warfare. Memory is fuzzy on that. Earthborn?

Count me in as another that craves meat, likely due to anemia. In my case, I absorb iron fine, the problem is the monthly blood loss. Dh jokes about me, "She likes her vegetables. Processed. By a cow." My favorite protein is eggs, though, and we have chickens so I probably eat around 24 eggs a week.

When I planned our wedding, I noticed that the venue made the largest impact on the budget, even though it wasn't the biggest item in the budget. So, if you picked a wedding venue or a hotel, you were automatically limited to using their very expensive caterer. Because we picked the Elk's lodge, we were able to have a full bar with good champagne, choice of salmon or prime rib for dinner and a wedding singer for 5K. The only savings someone else couldn't have reproduced was the photographer was a friend of mine, and I made my dress but even then the fabric wasn't cheap.

People discount the value of the free food you get working at a restaurant. There was a little over a year where .my main real food came from dates, free food at the restaurant where I worked and the one lunch a week with my mother.

Small add. I like to have a birthdate for my pets. Even for our rescued dog we assigned a birthdate. They said she was 3 years old, so we assigned 3 years before the day we got her. They were found on May 8th. Since they probably opened their eyes earlier than normal, we assigned May 4th. As Star Wars nerds that appeals to us. When the first time I told DH that I loved him he said, "I know." I'm also Episcopalian so the "May the force be with you" "And also with you" tickles me.

Update for anyone curious. The momma has really settled down. She's even given me the blinkie-look a few times. Cat people know what I'm talking about. But, she still attacks my oven mitt hand when I add water and hisses regularly. We also see her on her side much more often. That is the important part. The other day we had all few kittens out of the cage for several hours and then she started to howl. We figured out that she was full of milk. So, we put the two smallest kittens in with her. She seems happiest when she only has 2-3 kittens. So, we leave her at least two for most of the day, swapping them out. Then all 5 kittens at night. The first vet appointment was Monday and the vet mentioned when I made the appointment that they might be too small. So, I called and we postponed the appointment to when we get back from vacation. The kittens weigh between 15.5 and 22.5 oz. They were found May 8th with their eyes open. The vet said that feral kittens open their eyes earlier. So, the kittens might be younger than we originally thought.

Hindsight is 2020. I bet you wished you'd put a cheap one in, and took it with you. We got lucky. I'd bought a new dishwasher for our house that didn't clean worth a darn. It did look pretty and impressive though. A few months later we decided to sell our rent house and replace it with one closer. The rent house had an old dishwasher that I loved and that actually cleaned. The buyers complained about the old dishwasher, so we happily swapped them out. I got another three years of use out of it.

I've bought a couple of dishwashers recently. (Rent houses and ours) You have to be very careful. The focus the last many years has been on noise-level and energy efficiency. So, most removed the grinder in the drain because those are noisy, but that means you are hand-cleaning the filter every couple of weeks. Most of them use a sensor to see when the water seems clean enough and stops the cleaning cycle prematurely. Trouble is the stuck-on food isn't cleaned and then gets baked on in the drying cycle. Consumer reports even said that they don't even rank based on cleaning ability since they all do a good job - defined as cleaning 95% of the dishes. 🙄 We got one that had the grinder and it has a Sensor-cycle, so the normal cycles don't use the sensor. It also starts the normal cycle with a steam bath. I got it at Best Buy. We got it earlier this year so I can't comment on repairs.

This air fry discussion makes me feel better about the air fry setting on our toaster oven. I was thinking that it was a poor man's version of air fry, but maybe it is the real deal? DH loves using the toaster oven. I dislike things on the counter, but I understand the toaster oven love. Maybe if we get the double-oven range, when the toaster oven dies, we won't need a new one. Theoretically the top of the ovens will be basically the same thing.

This one is calling to me. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Cafe-7-0-cu-ft-Smart-Slide-In-Double-Oven-Dual-Fuel-Range-with-Self-Clean-Convection-in-Stainless-Steel-C2S950P2MS1/308798841?irgwc=1&cm_mmc=afl-ir-397881-459920-&clickid=0u32pXV%3AvxyIUhDUv9wCCy1YUkD2hVRV3yM82E0#product-section-overview

Good thing she started a week ahead. That is a convincing. Current range is all-electric. I'm not so worried about the price. I keep appliances until they die a natural death, and we'd like to never move again. So, we'd get many many years of use. Current range was bought probably in '98. Then convection died about 5-10 years ago, and we are down to two burners. Reminds me of when I was in college and I suddenly lost the ability to make good pancakes. I tried and tried and everyone else said that they were fine but I thought that they tasted nasty. My boyfriend's brother started dropping by in the mornings because I'd insist he eat pancakes. The problem. I'd accidentally bought some diet maple syrup. Then his brother fessed that he'd figured out the problem, but was enjoying the pancakes.

I am shopping for one now. The love for double-ovens is very interesting. I had been on the fence about that. So, can you bake twice as many cookies at one time? Current oven has a warming drawer and I've never once turned it on. I use it to store cooling racks. The reviews I've read said to not bother with the dual-fuel ovens anymore. They've done enough improvements with both fuels that having both fuels isn't a big benefit, and the only dual-fuel ones are in the Pro category so $$$ and don't rank that high. DH wants one part of the range to be gas, so we'll be getting all-gas. My main thing is that I want Convection. Also a High-BTU burner and a low one, and one with a bridging thing for large griddles.

I've listened to a ton of audiobooks. I started back when I'd listen behind my dad back when you had to prove a major vision problem in order to check out unabridged books on tape. I also dislike the whole zombie genre. So it should be impressive when I say that World War Z was the best produced audiobook. What I love is that the voice of the different characters was written with particular actors in mind. When you are Max Brooks you know the big actors. The writing really nailed what those actors would have really said if they were in that situation. Then the audiobook has those actors reading their parts. I think I remember that only one of the actors said No. You mentioned "like a soap opera", have you ever read Vanity Fair? It was soap opera in book form before there were soap operas. The chapters are all very short. Lots and lots of non-PG stuff happens, but you don't actually see any of it happening. Lots of scheming. Maybe get an audiobook of it if you haven't read it already.

I think you will find that after some point of defrosting, you will be able to remove large chunks of ice. Oh, and lots of towels. But, I don't think this is something you can just open the door and leave it for a long time.

Clay for the babies. OK. When they are big enough to climb into the litter-thingy I'll switch to clumping. I do prefer unscented.