Dh says he had one 4 years ago. This was when he made a complete career change as a first step to improving our marriage. It was the best thing for our marriage and probably the most positive midlife crisis I know of. I think I'm going through one right now. I just feel like something needs to change. I'm often sick of the monotonous day to day life of a stay at home home schooling mom. I'm stuck in my own Groundhog Day and need a change. Overall, I am happy with my life and don't actually want to change anything. However, the idea that I'll be doing this for another 14 years is hard to grasp at the moment.

Sounds yummy. Not weird

The amount for those questions vary way too much for anyone to give an accurate answer. What I'd do and plan to do for my kids is see what number I can fit into our budget once our retirement is set and cut them a check at whatever major financial life event happens to them first. $10,000 per kid is a realistic amount for us at the moment assuming we're still at least 5 years out from the first kid's first major financial event. But finances are ever changing and I'd love to think we'll be able to offer more per kid when the needs arise.

that's crazy and annoying. sorry you are dealing with that

We got our taxes in and expect the refund to come in the first month of March. Dh got his first paycheck with his new salary and the yearly bonus he gets last week. We put roughly 50% of it into his 401k and various savings categories. Some of it will be fun money and the rest paid our home owners insurance yearly premium. We don't have any major expenses in Feb so that is nice

I'd recommend just going straight to the supervisor with the issue. It is not your job to handle a coworkers poor behavior, that is what HR is for

I have a few people like that. Dh is one of them. I could tell him absolutely everything that goes through my brain or that i've done and he'd be loving, understanding, and support me through whatever. Another person is my closest friend. She's been my confidant for nearly 20 years and I can't see that ever changing. I have another friend who I've known just as long as my closest friend and I could also tell her anything if I needed but I don't share quite as much with her, mainly because the first two people fill my need for venting and sharing. Then there are my 2 sisters. I could tell them anything and they have been my confidants at different periods of my life. But not so much lately because of the business and hectic times in their lives. For them, I listen now more than share

We haven't decided if it will be for our 20th, which is in 4 years, or 25th but we plan on going to Ecuador and the Galapagos. We started saving for it this year. I did a 5 week trip their in college right before I met dh and have wanted to go back ever since. I'm so glad that he is excited to help make that happen

That would be fun but it's a fetal pig. Actually, there is a frog in the box too! I just thought it was so funny when I saw the box with dead animals in it next to his gift to me.

Bigger

Today two packages were delivered. Unbeknownst to me, dh grabbed them and put them on the table. The one on the left he had no idea what was in it, but it was marked for me so he put it where I'd see it when he called me in to retrieve the gift he got me, roses and chocolate covered strawberries. Any guesses what is in the other package? Here are some hints... 1. It is for my high schooler's biology class. 2. It smells considerably worse than roses.

I'm sorry that happened to you. I eloped, so I'm not sure how I would have handled that if it happened to me. I'd like to think I would have kicked her out until she came back in anything else. But maybe not. I didn't even wear white though

I think the only time I'd bring up an clothing issue is if I knew someone was going to attend in a white gown. And in terms of a reception, if I knew someone was planning on attending without an invite.

me too

Mine started leaking over the summer. It was a broken part. I diagnosed and fixed it for $20 and maybe an hour or 2 of my and my sister's time

right. parents don't need to be involved in a breakup

Sadly, sometimes it is too little too late. If they have been having issues for a while then her going to therapy now won't necessarily fix things. A neglected marriage sometimes just needs to end. And in terms of it seeming incredibly sudden to you, that isn't surprising to me. My parents don't know that dh and I separated for a short period of time and they lived with us during that time. On the outside we had a seemingly happy marriage filled with love and few hardships. But the reality was we did have a marriage filled with love but lots of poor communication that created huge rifts between us until I no longer believed he loved me since his actions didn't show it. On his side, he was struggling with the strain of being the sole financial provider while having a job that was the root of all our marital issues. And he didn't know how to change things so he shut me out thinking it would protect me. During the separation we both stayed in the family home just in separate rooms. And we were always cordial and co-parented well. Had we not worked through things and divorced everyone in our lives would have been shocked beyond belief

Thanks. Checked and our 2004 Corolla is not part of the recall

We booked our Airbnb for 20+ people. I'm pretty excited, even if the sky turns out to be cloudy. Now I've got to plan the first leg of our trip, solar eclipse is the end.

Ok so, I remembered portions of it. Glad you're able to make it this time. I'll be praying for clears skies for all.

I have been thinking about you a lot while I plan my trip because if I'm remembering correctly you were going to few the last one and decided not to last minute because the rest of your family wasn't particularly excited about it. Am I remembering that correctly? If so, I'm glad to hear you will see it this time.

This is what we did last time. We camp about an hour away from totality and then the morning of drove about an hour to Sparta, TN and happened about the most wonderful library event for the eclipse. So, we spent the day outside of the library meeting people and enjoying the festivities. We are trying to solidify an airbnb or vrbo today that will likely be about an hour away from totality. At the moment we have a lot of options that are reasonably priced. There are also a lot of option that are incredibly overpriced!

I highly recommend going to totality. It is quite the experience

We are driving farther than we need to as well. We have relatives on dh's side in Cleveland that we could stay with. We actually will be visiting them leading up to the eclipse. However, from there we'll be driving to stay near Cincinnati or Dayton in order to meet up with my side of the family. It will be a lot of driving but dh has off the 4th through 10th.

We drove to Tennessee for the last one. And it was such an amazing experience. But dh couldn't come with because he had to work so I told him that when the next rolls around he doesn't get the option of not coming 😂