Now that sounds like a disease I definitely don't want!

I can only speak for myself, but I was sooo relieved when my parents split up. I finally didn't have to worry about how my parents were getting along and it was great. My mom was really sad for a few years but now she says she can't believe she stayed married as long as she did. There has got to be a big difference in how kids perceive two happy adults being married, and two unhappy adults remaining married.

This is where I'm at. If people could forgo wants that are truly just wants, people who really need to be near other people could do so more safely. That's about the extent of my thinking. I don't begrudge anyone working out of the home, seeing an elderly relative, or sending kids to school, or being around others for mental health reasons. Then you just do your best.

I hear you. I'm not seeing my mom inside or even hugging her when we're outside, and it's awful. She is so lonely. I am angry with people who are not taking this seriously. Like someone else said, if everyone was being as careful as possible, people who need connections (elderly, people who live alone) would be safer connecting. My mom lives alone. She is not seeing other people hardly at all, and always outside. It's 30 degrees today, though, and soon it'll be too cold to visit outside for more than a couple minutes. Honestly, I wouldn't blame her if she DID visit inside, because geez! Living alone is hard enough when it's not a pandemic. But people with families... they can stay home except for doing the essentials (speaking generally, of course there are exceptions). Seeing people being irresponsible is so upsetting.

I didn't have a great relationship with my father growing up. I knew that he was upfront with my mom about never wanting kids. For the most part I don't have too many memories of him, although we lived in the same house until my parents divorced when I was about 13. I was not mistreated thankfully, but I never really felt like he enjoyed my company. I'm not sure if that's true or not because I've never brought it up with him, but that's how I remember it. Mostly I was mad a lot because he was not as good to my mom as I thought he should be, and that made it hard for me to enjoy HIS company. I have tons of awesome memories with my mom growing up. I think of my mom as my mom, my father as my father, but not them together as "my parents." They are separate in my mind. Things got a lot better with my dad when I became an adult. We had more things to talk about. We now have a good-but-distant relationship with occasional phone calls and a visit every decade or so. It's fine with me. I do feel a bit jealous of other people with fantastic relationships with their dads, but I've made peace with it. I'm not sure how this helps you at all... my story is a bit different than yours... but I want to give you hope that your relationship with your son can still be a good one.

Yum. That sounds delicious!

Well, I just ordered 3!!

Val for short! A cat named Val just seems right.

Yeah.... that's like the vet handing me a bottle of (HUGE!) antibiotic pills and saying, give it to her once a day! Ummmm..... how exactly?! We managed after intense difficulty and it was fairly awful each time. I'm lucky I have a cat that doesn't try to shred me. Amazingly she never even tried to bite me. She just tolerated us incompetent humans trying to give her a pill!

Ha! I can only imagine. I was just wondering the other day if I'm supposed to bathe my cat. She's 15 and has never had a single bath!

Mary and marry are the same to me, and merry (and berry) have the short /e/ like in bed. (Maine)

Carry and airy sound the same to me, but berry is different.

Thank you so much, everyone! I can't wait to research some of these ideas. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with an aversion to swishy fabric on beds! Also... I figured out the word I was looking for: rustles! Not sure why I couldn't pull that one up.

My bedding is driving me crazy! It's cold in our room so we have four blankets that are all heavy, so it's like being flattened under them each time I go to bed. I'd like to get a lighter weight comforter to replace a couple of the blankets. My only hesitation is that I always buy bedding thinking it's going to be great, and then I don't like it. It drives DH up a wall, but I can't help it, I'm particular about bedding! My especial pet peeve is comforters that make noise... like fabric that is swishy when you roll over (I'm probably not describing this well). Anyone have a nice quiet comforter that they really like?

When my parents were really poor, I didn't have snowpants. My mom put an extra pair of pants over my regular ones. I was fine with it, and it worked! My teacher brought in a snowsuit for me that her daughter outgrew. I was so humiliated, and so was my mom! I'm still mad about it. I don't think your kids' teacher should butt in like that. I also think a performance in a pandemic with a packed auditorium is beyond irresponsible. They've never heard of Zoom?

Same. That would put me right over the edge.

Oh my, Cricket is so beautiful! I love her coloring and stripes. My girl Maggie is on thyroid medicine, and it's a cream that I rub in her ear twice a day.

Yeah... what I see and what they probably meant are probably two different things... 😂

Ha, thanks, this made me laugh a bit. I think people should write REEKS! in product descriptions so people know what they're getting into. LOL. I would prefer a good night's sleep on a regular mattress to a bad one on a "good" mattress. I have back/neck pain and I also toss and turn. I need to stretch, exercise, all that. But hopefully a new mattress could help a bit, too.

We're in the market for a new mattress. Ours is probably 13 years old now, and has lumps and valleys. We bought it when we had to buy the cheapest option in the store. Now, I'm wondering about natural mattresses like Avocado. Are they comfortable? Worth the money? Are the chemicals in regular mattresses actually worth spending a lot more to avoid? I want to make the healthy choice, but I also don't want to get sucked into a really expensive, not great mattress jut because it has the label "green" on it.

I don't think my local paper has anything about the dangers of indoor dining. I guess it's just my fear of catching/spreading the virus that keeps me from indoor dining, even if nobody's telling me it's dangerous. My local and local-ish papers report new cases, deaths, hospitalizations. They always mention school closures. If one only read local news, they wouldn't realize that the pandemic is really ranging other places, since Maine "only" has 200 or so cases a day now (side note, it was in the 20s and 30s in the summer, so I think 200 is alarming, but many don't). I like to think that a global pandemic, with school closures, mask ordinances, etc. would prompt many otherwise news-avoiding people to do a bit of Googling. But who knows. I can't really imagine my life without lots of news.

Well, this discussion really brings home the point that clear, national messaging was needed from the start, but didn't happen. Everyone needs to be on the same page, being honest and upfront about all the risks and how risky they are. For example, local news anchors in every town could go over the same basic information night after night. It could be in the newspaper every day. There could be informational posters in every business window. But no. It's really terribly sad that messaging was bungled so spectacularly. We all have our opinions about WHY it was bungled. I'm just bummed that there are basic facts about the virus that all American should know, but don't.

Oh no, I'm very sorry.

All of the Peaceable Kingdom games are adorable and fun (cooperative games). Perfect for 5-7.

I'm sure it's at least that much. I tried to get a deal for my school last year, but I would have to agree to a two year contract, and the discount was not much at all. I didn't like the interface too much when I did the trial. It was not very kid-friendly. Have you tried Epic?