It's a bit more of a pain, but if you can't get parental controls on an older Kindle you could not save your credit card information on your Amazon account. I do it to keep myself from impulse purchasing.

I found that The Hobbit might not be a straight through read for me. I was getting bogged down so I took a break and started Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and finished it in one (admittedly quite long) sitting :001_tt1: I'm not sure I want to start on the rest of the series, the ending felt a bit rushed and I'm not personally a fan of stuck-on cliffhangers since the sequels tend to disappoint. Anyone read them and had a different experience?

I don't know how much debt and would feel impolite to ask, but if you're not making a dent at all due to the interest, can't make larger payments without using your assets, and wouldn't have to cash in all of your investment accounts to clear at least some of it off, I would personally pursue that option YMMV. I've never had a credit limit over $1k (how do people get tens of thousands of dollars worth of credit cards? Those companies must just not like me or something) nor been trusting enough in the market to invest so your investment banker may have more reliable information in that respect.

All of this. It makes my AP friends faint where they stand and my grandma have a near coronary when I have to tell her to enforce it with me when we're all together. Color coding plates and working out a perfect rotating schedule to ensure fairness is not the real world and my dining room is not going to be a democratic fantasy. Knocking out nastiness to each other, especially at mealtimes, is my hill to die on.

My "me" time is at the gym, or at home reading.

Schedule a follow-up for a service they refused to offer? I'd be writing a strongly worded letter, Marmee style.

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

I'm interested in the answer too. This sounds like my high school schedule, daily but only semester long classes for "core" subjects that still counted as a full credit. If they don't accept it, is that only for younger kids or high school age too?

Those thoughts shy me away from starting the large family I want, but I agree with this: You're not there to entertain your children or be their chauffeur, learning about life and how to be a mature adult will make them better able to handle any disappointment they may harbor about missing an activity because you had to do first things first.

36 in Portland. . . and I'm having ice cream as I type :laugh:

I don't have property now but plan to in the future. I'd prefer to not have people on my property unless I had a very good understanding of the insurance liability in such situations.

BOOM :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: Boundaries are scary at first but awesome. Good for you.

Like I said, tangental and not news, however OP's question was "WHY?" and that certainly was a sort of answer.

Mergath, while tangental, it seemed to me like an explanation of how apathy, disrespect, and getting whatever you want no matter if it's fair is more common these days, when frivolous lawsuits and such are rising. No, it's not particularly new or necessarily caused by ps education, but it's a mentality I've noticed.

Yup. What are you using now?

Starting out with The Hobbit, a long lost favorite gathering dust. It seemed short enough not to be discouraging (though fellow Tolkein readers may be smirking at that presumption) and since I've heard many friends talk about the film and realized I'd forgotten there was a dragon involved, I thought it was time to refresh my memory.

I'm in for sure. I'll be keeping track on my GoodReads page and hope to do reviews so I can remember later what I thought about each one. Quick question: do people usually make a list of books they want to get through or just read what sounds good and list it?

I took this to mean 1. the dog owner, under the "she's my baby" thing brought the dog without asking and assumed everyone would deal because it's what she wanted, 2. "bouncy" means the dog jumps and is not easily controlled nor is the owner inclined to do anything about the bouncing happening at the table, and 3. the grandmother is kinda frail in addition to being blind. If those are true, yeah it was pretty rude, not the worst thing ever, but still entitlement burns my biscuits and people who do not train their animals and then bring them around people are being disrespectful.

This right here.

Face cream is an extremely personal question? Yup, we really all do have different boundaries. *shrug* As far as medications, the bathroom cabinet is a bad place to keep it, humidity can really foul them up.

Wouldn't bother me that they were looking through it, using my expensive face cream would mean they were using my master bathroom, which I don't allow for guests. I'd ask them not to use your things without asking first and maybe suggest that if she liked the face cream that much you could make it a Christmas/Birthday gift? Confession time: I look at people's medicine cabinets and bathroom drawers, however taking it upon myself to use any of the things in there besides the hand soap never crossed my mind. Most of the time it's because I like to see how people organize their cabinets, partly because I'm just a nosy person and saying something like, "I noticed you use x face cream, I haven't tried it. Do you like it?" is a good ice breaker and I'm painful at starting face to face conversations.

This is the unrealistic expectation I'm worried about, it's a beautiful fantasy but what if your partner doesn't share it? Everyone has a history and just because you're married doesn't mean the TeA is going to be "sunshine and daisies" or that your partner (who may or may not have used a TeA cosy with someone previous to your meeting) won't have expectations of what kind of biscuits are appropriate for TeA time and you've never heard of them so is that "normal" or is the uncomfortable feeling because you're not into that flavor and never will be? The "just get it over with because the world could end tomorrow" attitude I can deal with, I've survived so many ends of the Earth I feel like I could teach Douglas Adams a thing or two.

This is an assumption based on anecdotal evidence. Have you met everyone in the world with firsthand experience with every kind of abuse? Saying "most" would be a stretch, seeing as many survivors choose to write about their own experience. I have first hand experience with abuse and do not find every depiction of it offensive. As far as whether or not there may be someone reading it because they enjoy it for lewd reasons, those people no doubt exist. Those people are also looking at Walmart ads for children's clothing and thinking lewd thoughts. Pervs will perv, but avoiding talking about about abuse because it's uncomfortable helps them get away with it. For all the authors using those descriptions for shock value rather than actually making a point, there are those who agonize over how to impress upon their audience using vivid imagery, a specific message they believe needs to be told.

I think the Hungry Caterpillar/Goodnight Moon thing is because they're books that tell a story with rich language and are accessible to young children and aren't so modern (I don't like most kids books based on TV media characters but don't totally subscribe to the notion that old is better than new always.) Good literature is like good art IMO, it depends on your personal philosophy. Tales of real, gritty life with no moral lesson, where bad guys win or only bad things happen can be well written, but if you don't want those lessons in your life they're probably not "good" for you. Likewise stories where the moral always wins can be seen as "bad" because they paint an unrealistic view of life that can be equally depressing.

I agree about making sure to at least balance content so that children don't have unrealistic expectations of future relationships or events in the world. In a perfect world, my ds will meet a girl far far in the future who has read similar books on Christian marriage and intimacy and not the smut I grew up on, but I wrestle with sheltering a child and having them find a world that is far darker than they ever imagined or exposing them to serious issues in fiction before they hear about it happening to a friend and don't understand what happened.