I kind of glossed over the don't come part mentally. That is more problematic.

DH has some training he needs to do that will require travel. It's been okay to put it off during Covid, but now I kind of wish he'd just have gone while masks were in place. Sigh. It's been hard to know how to time it with surges since he has to get time off really far in advance. Part of the hesitation is that Florida is one the big locations. We're really unicorns here with our precautions.

Yep! That might explain not mentioning it or feeling like it was taken care of. I think adrenaline factors in about his course of action itself. I think people get an adrenaline rush with something like this, fix the problem (I assume it stopped bleeding), and then they crash after that rush is over. By the time he said something, he might've been barely awake. I think it's good that he called to say he'd be napping. He might've thought his son heard a noise. He had already addressed the problem even though he underestimated how bad it could be. I think it might be worth making sure that people ask him probing questions if he calls with something like that. Otherwise, honestly, a baby monitor doesn't sound bad if he wouldn't find it invasive. It would help with hearing alarming sounds that happen too far away to be heard normally.

A tale of two respiratory people that looked similar on the outside, but different lead up... One (50's) had Covid "like a cold" a few months ago. Fast forward...sudden oxygen saturation in the 70's (set in over less than 24 hours). Not much improvement with multiple breathing treatments. Requires 4 liters of oxygen and is in acidosis. In the time between Covid and this acute out of the blue episode, this person had bronchitis (recovered) and developed chronic sinusitis (supposed to have sinus surgery). No history of smoking or significant exposure. Is in actual respiratory failure. Second one also needs 4 liter of oxygen, but had a recent bout of pneumonia and has tons of smoking and smoking exposure--lungs are shot. No acidosis. Is on oxygen all the time anyway. Is not quite in actual respiratory failure. It's pretty shocking to think that a "Covid cold" could cause more acute disease in a few months than years and years of smoking. I think we're quite possibly in for a rude awakening about long-term health post-Covid.

Asking my typical medical crowd question...are they letting their guard down in their personal life? DH's ER group hasn't had a staffing crisis since 2020, thankfully, but I know people are getting it here and there. I worry about some group activities they've resumed that might create a crisis (optional, morale building stuff or restaurant meetings that have a phone in option, though DH has attended one in person, masked, but just asked for his meal to go). He phoned into a meeting the other day, and his boss could hardly get out single sentences without having a coughing fit--he's had Covid in the last month or so and says everyone he knows who's had it recently is in the same boat with the never-ending cough.

I am sorry she did stupid stuff at a stressful time! Regarding your sister's clot; sometimes they don't want to test to find out what it is once they are on blood thinners for life, but every time I look at blood clotting information, they have new stuff they know, such as data on which meds are best for which kinds of hereditary (or sort of hereditary) clotting issues. It matters. It might require a push, so just be aware. We have clots in my family, and my family member is on a random but convenient for doctors clotting med--if he has what I think he has (his brother has it!), then he's not on the best med. It infuriates me that the hematologist won't test, and everyone defers to the hematologist. You need to be tested too.

I would be less worried about morels than almost any other kind of wild edible. They are super distinct.

I am wondering if there are some executive functioning issues that are cropping up due to having less bandwidth due to his mental health. If so, I wonder if there is a concrete way for him to have some structured help to realize that kids do things like outgrow shoes, and people step up to fill a void, and here's the cheat sheet for where everything is now? Not that this is your job, but maybe something someone else could do or have input into if it would work (therapist?). Something that puts a pin in it to say, "This is water under the bridge. You were away, but now you are present. It's dismaying to have missed these events, but if you want to know what happened so that you can re-enter the stream of life, re-orient yourself with this list before grilling your kid (or anyone else)." "And by the way, you should be glad your BIL has been supporting your son--even if you were well, the more loving adults we have investing in the kids, the better. The kids don't need to be made to feel weird for having experienced things while you had a time lapse." Concrete details really do tether us to the change of time, and it's not unusual to think of kids at various ages and picture things like their specific outfits, whereas with adults, we know they don't outgrow stuff in a short time. I can imagine those details poke at grief over the situation, and it might take a concrete solution since those are concrete details that crop up. I had a co-worker that I met a year or so after a big family loss. Her young adult daughter experienced that loss from across the country, and she hadn't been on her own all that long to be used to being away for normal milestones, much less the death of a very close relative. Another daughter was at home going to college locally. It was a really big deal every time the older daughter came home--way too many firsts of not having the relative around, feeling like other people were moving on too fast, etc. It was like her grief was in slow motion while everyone else's moved at "normal" speed (I know there is no normal, straight line way to grieve, but there are definitely things that can warp the process). No mental illness that I am aware of. Anyway, this reminds me of that. I am so sorry it's another thing to deal with.

I'm not Catholic, but this is a very applicable perspective for Christians generally and well-articulated. (It's an argument to keep masking.) https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/04/20/mask-mandate-242861?fbclid=IwAR1ZZlhZzL8QucfdBLlUGzKrJEFqciYI2AZrOWGF6ycvqFgzRSFoe6zIIGA

The title says it all. They are retiring their sites by June 30th. I didn't realize they had more than just lit guides for free...check them out while you can. http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/index.html?fbclid=IwAR334rueYrOxAVEwcyD5dQZGXN30LJ-4z9pitrQgn78sLrzKay_xzEhcNuk

I think it could lead to that perception, even if it's not legal to do those things, but that still betrays a level of cluelessness or ill intent on the part of the person taking advantage of the legality. I bet it does happen with punch, but I bet it's usually targeted, and someone is assigned to keep the kids and grandma away from the punch.

Have you been on their Facebook page? I think the curriculum is likely to be solid, but I think it's also likely to ask a lot of you. They really expect people to be out of the box, build the kids' box of tools, and to constantly use skills/methods you learn with them and apply that to very individualized curricula. It's cool in its own way, but not everyone wants to do that. It's not necessary to do that these days with dyslexic curriculum available, but it really appeals to some people. Barton is the whole enchilada as I understand it. Your signature line doesn't look up-to-date. At what point do you want him to be ready for a school? You mentioned years of slogging, so I am unsure what grade/age you're talking about. All that said, this group is local to me, and they are solid. I know families that have used them for therapy. They are great! They want to empower parents because the need outstrips their ability to fully serve clients. That said, I think the families I know that have used them all had kids go there for language therapy/tutoring long before Pinwheels was around, and they pretty much had RiL structure the work while their kids took stuff home for homework (possibly to supplement homeschool curriculum, but it might've been in place of that--not sure). Very different from learning their method and learning to apply it to all your language arts work! I have one child that didn't need Pinwheels to read but would probably love their methods for lit analysis, etc. I would not, lol! I have just enough of their stuff to know that it's inspiring but ultimately not my cup of tea. I recommend it widely to people that it seems might like it. I have used things that have a similar bent but offer more structure, but they were not reading programs; they were literature (https://www.rfwp.com/bookstore/aesops-fables-books-about-reading-writing-thinking/).

Have you considered seasonal work to dip your toe into the working pool? I am hoping to do that next year. I had considered it this year, and it turned out to be good that I delayed a year. Anyway, my son works a seasonal job at a greenhouse/garden center. They aren't open late, so you'd always be home for bedtimes. They'll let him work as many hours as he's free, but they pretty much take whatever hours people can do and will just hire more seasonal people if they have to, which is nice. I understand this, and with the used market so tight right now, he might've felt like it wasn't going to get easier to delay a purchase. We had two used cars with varying challenges (no A/C in one, etc.). We weren't dying for a new car, but we didn't really want to get stranded on a long trip (no family nearby), and we knew we couldn't put things offer forever. We bought used, but it was the most we've ever paid for a used car. Anyway, it's saved our bacon to have it a few times. The other suggestion I would make is that if you have teens, maybe they can take on paying for some of their "extras." Some families are loathe to do that, but I think it's good to start transitioning. Some do that with car insurance/phone, others by having them buy their own clothes, etc. In previous generations, it was normal for teens to pay for a lot of their own stuff, at least where I grew up. Doubly so if it was a big family. It wasn't terribly uncommon for my generation either.

Ah, the bolded makes sense. That's not so much the case where DH works, but I think almost all of them are getting sick outside of work when they do get sick. They are hosting an indoor family event for workers and their families that I think could end up being a super spreader event if number here tick up next month (and I think they will). I just hope it doesn't mess up DH's schedule too much if people get ill. We can't go with a pending major surgery in the house less than a month afterward. For schools, I think the timing of masking or not makes a big difference. For my son's school, I think big rooms, small classes, and high ceilings are protective (and they often open doors to the outside). He attends PT at a vocational school, and they had room to build three very large sheds simultaneously. Their class has about 13 kids, I think. Their numbers have been manageable the whole pandemic. As much as I hate the Test to Stay program here vs. sending exposed kids home (mostly because the school already let kids stay that were masking and exposed if asymptomatic/negative, so it incentivized bad behavior), I think it did end up containing (to a degree) a lot of the Covid cases while not making getting a covid test punitive. Test to Stay here means that if you are exposed, you can choose to stay in school but wear a mask, and you have to get tested on a particular schedule. If you test positive or develop symptoms, then you isolate. I am not sure what the current policy has evolved into, but we had Test to Stay through the fall and through the last surge. It kept a lid on it in school until about Thanksgiving--people did all the family stuff unmasked all winter, and then it went crazy outside of school.

This. You're not petty, but finding an off-white shade with the right undertones is maddening. We've had someone paint our house only once, and we knew we didn't want yellow undertones, but we did want warmer than cooler. Every shade we came up with, the painter said, "That's going to be yellow (or orange)." It took forever! We dodged that bullet only to buy two off-white wingback chairs at an estate sale. They were definitely off-white in the color scheme of the house they lived in. They were off-white in the bright sunshine. They are pale butter yellow in my living room and match nothing there. It's very classy, I'll tell you! I am hoping that at some point, they can be moved to a more suitable room, but we're stuck with them for now. If we could replace the area rug in that room, they'd be livable. Sigh. If we had room, they would look nice in our bedroom, but I am not sure we have room or would use them in there right now. I really prefer to have neutral wall colors and then liven it up with textiles, etc., but it's super hard to find the right neutrals for lighting, and sometimes paint places change how they mix their colors over time (that one drives me nuts!).

It's been a little sketchy here, but I haven't been shopping in person for very long either. Like Carrie said, CVS seems to have fewer. CVS has had some outright bare shelves here and there all over at various times.

Ugh. DH had this a few weeks ago. I think a separate bathroom helps a lot with avoiding transmission since stomach stuff/norovirus is usually surface-driven. You might consider paper plates for the sick child or being really careful with his dirty dishes.

Are they masking outside of work? We had noro here too, but I haven't heard about hospitalizations. DH got it, but we managed to not catch it from him. Our schools had rampant covid in the last wave, but it's not going nuts here right now. We are always a little behind the other parts of the state. During the last wave, it was insane--sometimes half empty classrooms, etc. Lots of trouble getting subs and bus drivers.

Registered and sharing widely. 🙂

It's not how I would choose to do things, but the article made me think that they had family and friends who were supportive. ETA: Honestly, where I live, people eat out a lot, and it's the expected way to socialize, and in some circles (many), you don't really get invited over for dinner, you get invited to eat out almost exclusively. Some groups do it almost exclusively. Paying for a single celebration meal doesn't seem as presumptuous as expecting people to eat out weekly or at least regularly as a bar for who can be your friend. (Sorry if that sounds harsh to people who do a lot of eating out with friends--my issue here is that it's so pervasive.)

How is iffy. It's sometimes lumped with wh- questions as an issue.

If he is on the spectrum, these kinds of questions could be a major challenge for him. Wh- questions are often tricky for people with ASD. My son has really narrow but deep language issues (mostly remediated), and no one realized until he was 13 that he struggled to answer those kinds of questions because he compensated so well. A new environment or context could've easily stripped him of some of those workarounds. As a guess and example, my son would've probably done okay with the first set of questions, but in the second situation, he might've dug in because he didn't know to ask why the meds were organized that way and absolutely would've needed to know to feel confident about following a rule that didn't make sense (if it's an arbitrary, "We follow standard system A vs. standard system B to organize our drugs, and you'll have to just memorize it," that would also be acceptable to his brain). My son would come across as rigid or stubborn vs. feeling like he's doing something random that might be incorrect because he isn't able to ask a meaningful question for clarification. This guy might not have the cognitive flexibility to navigate ambiguity over things like placement or multiple options and might not have the language to clarify (no matter what language is being spoken). The first situation you described had me thinking expressive/receptive language disorder, and the second one made me think autism. Language issues often go with autism. I don't know if he has a diagnosis, but someone in management might or might know legally the right way to ask him without running afoul of laws about it. Anyway, if he has a diagnosis, he might qualify for a job coach. If he doesn't have a diagnosis, he might need situations documented about why he's hard to train so that he can get a diagnosis or assistance. It might mean finding a job that's a better fit but filing for Section 504 accommodations vs. getting fired serially with no idea why. I have known people with ADHD who have been fired serially and truly have no idea why--people who have niche skills and/or advanced degrees! It's sad to watch that happen. People of goodwill deserve to know what's going on. You can't fix their glitches, but you can give them the feedback necessary for them to get help, to get accommodations, or to find a job that fits.

It might have also been functional, meaning that it was worn down to dirt in many spots from playing or work tasks.

https://peoplescdc.org/?fbclid=IwAR26OVI7FOgByX_oET-xZ6RpIvwLE_SkQnguXYanIKY-kcPSIlwelq5CI34