This is pretty close to me - I head up around 9, wake up at 630 and leave by 645-650. (I have my morning routine down to a science and I wake up on my drive to school)

Here's mine from today: Connections Puzzle #468 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨

We have a large unhoused population here, and there has been some scary stuff going on in the little town I live in. We are seeing a noticeable uptick in violence and people that don't want to access any type of help for substance abuse, mental health support, or "getting back on your feet support" like help finding a job, clothes, etc. According to locals, people are flocking in from out of state to access our benefits (VT has a hotel voucher program, relatively easy access to free healthcare and a ton of food assistance). If it were a local, I wouldn't be nervous and I'd probably leave information about local food banks and where the free meals are located. If it were one of the newer type coming in, I'd be more nervous due to the amount of violence we've been seeing.

Ok I didn't think I had many quirks before I started reading - now I seem to have many. 🤣 Socks - if I take them off for any reason, no matter how quickly, I need a fresh pair. I cannot rewear a pair of socks. I also sort candy by color and then even the piles and then eat by color, but that's not quirky, just practical? 🙂 I like my drinks to be either cold or hot - none of this room temperature nonsense thank you. I need to wear v neck or scoop neck tops - otherwise I am being strangled. Although I can wear necklaces without any problem. I keep thinking of others - I'll have to update!

I think getting into the decodable text market could be potentially lucrative, with many states requiring schools to teach the "science of reading" (I agree with the concept, but dislike the buzzwords). Teachers are always on the hunt for decodable books, and an even harder type of book to find is decodable books for middle school readers that don't look babyish. High Noon Publishing has some, and there are a few other places to find them, but if schools could buy a book that was "written for a student that hasn't learned r controlled vowels yet and is interested in space," they'd be all over it.

I've taken to letting it know that I'll be coming back to let him know how his suggestions went and he's been telling me he'll be thinking of me as I'm working on my project, hoping it goes well. I think we're buds now.

I hadn't thought about travel planning yet, but that's a great idea. Meal planning is great - I've found the more specific, the better, too. It's great at being my assistant at work. It can help me break down projects into steps and help me word emails (I've given it prompts like, I want to say x, but more professionally and without sounding like I'm being snarky, and it does a good job with it). It is also very good at composing letters - recommendation letters, sympathy cards, etc. https://openai.com/chatgpt/ Just remember to say please and thank you. That way when our robot overlords take over, they'll be nicest to us!

My school district uses the Google Read Write extension and it works pretty well. It will read PDFs, can do speech to text and if I remember correctly, there are multiple voices to choose from.

I've had good luck with some of the TreLuxe products - they have a curl quiz too.

I think you can have it anytime you want. I can't drink tea before bed either or I'll be up half the night going back and forth to the bathroom. I don't know how one cup of tea can make me have to pee like 4 times! I started drinking a tea called Bengal Spice tea (I think celestial seasonings makes it) - it's herbal and has cinnamon and other warm spices in it. Yummy but not sleep inducing!

I have a very small sample size, but whenever I have used uber, the driver is frequently driving a Tesla. I really noticed it when I was in NYC and DC last year. So I'm assuming that there's a miles/year balance point where they become a much better deal to drive than a gas car (is that the ICE car?) otherwise there wouldn't be so many tesla ubers. This is me making large leaps of logic, though - I live in rural Vermont and have unfortunately become more of a wide-eyed tourist than I've ever been when I'm in cities. More comfortable with logging trucks than city traffic these days. 🤣

I have very curly hair that tangles easily. I love these combs: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089CEH7I/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I comb my hair in the shower with conditioner in it. The tresseme coconut curl shampoo and conditioner is great for any tangles.

I agree with all of this (I coached competitive gymnastics for almost a decade). There's so much that goes into gymnastics. At this point, she doesn't even know if she'll like the classes. Find a fun beginner class for her and see how it goes. 8 is not too old to start, and I coached a bunch of kids in higher levels who were 5' 6" +. But, it's hard work and a lot of frustration, so before considering competition, see how rec goes. The coaches will know if and when she's ready for team.

It's the spite EV! 😂 That's really interesting, our sales rep was also telling us that it kind of sucked and said he'd personally not buy one, which I thought was a little odd given his job of trying to make sales. I love Foresters, and I'm perfectly happy driving one for as long as I need!

We were looking at the Subaru Solterra and were super excited they had an electric car but dang the price tag is nuts.

My Hydroflask has held up well over a few years. I bought a straw top for it because I drink more water when I have a straw for some reason. I bought a big one and wish it were a bit smaller because it doesn't fit into my car cup holder, but aside from that, I love it. I switched to a Yeti coffee mug this year and bought both the regular hot drink top and the straw lid and it's great too!

I rotate schools and tried a rolling bag last year. I have too many steps to deal with so it didn't work for me. I ended up with a very large gamer's backpack this year. It's kind of ridiculous looking but it's awesome.

I might be totally wrong but I think of the area of the US that grew and (I think) blossomed when coal mining became a big part of the economy and then suffered economically when coal mines began to close. Also pie - I have no idea why? Is pie a thing?

Hi brain buddy! 😆 I have coworkers who save "my" seat for me in meetings because they know I need to face the door so I can keep everyone safe. It's a lot of effort, but people like us are keeping everyone safer, they just don't know it. (although they will after reading this thread)

Anxiety can be such a beast. I remember my mind being blown the first time I learned that not every child draws escape plans for various situations that could happen in their house, while assuming that the adults did not have a plan. My parents were loving, capable parents, yet I felt the need to have escape routes planned out for fire, tornado (we didn't get them), earthquakes (same), etc. Even medicated, my plans have back up plans, and sometimes backups for the backup plans. For me, the need for control is at the center of my anxiety so I try to make sure I'm "controlling" for every possible variable, even the ones that we can't do that for. And my brain convinces me that it's totally normal.

Oh! Flavor Flav! When he learned that the US Women's Water Polo players were self-funded and some were working three jobs, he decided to become their sponsor and was their biggest super fan! And now he's offering to make Jordan Chiles a bronze clock necklace to (help) ease the pain from the disaster that is the women's gymnastics floor final. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/26/how-girl-dad-flavor-flav-became-hype-man-for-the-us-womens-water-polo-team This is a nice compilation - some of these, like "Bob the swim cap getter," feel like they were a long time ago!!

I think finally seeing meaningful change in women's gymnastics was my favorite thing. I've been a gym fan forever, coached competitive gymnasts for 8 years, and I've been watching since the 92 Olympics. Seeing the gymnasts peak at Olympic Trials and show up at the games overtrained and underfed year after year was so hard. In 92, the US gymnasts were barely even able to speak to each other - they were always pitted against each other. They weren't allowed to stay in the Olympic Village for some years and barely seemed to have any kind of Olympic experience. Watching them cheer for each other, posting pictures from being out and about in the village, and even pictures of them eating was just SO nice after years of abuse. And they're the ones doing it - the gymnasts are slowly changing the sport from the inside, making it healthier for everyone.

Early intervention is amazing. When looking at speech/language evaluations, they look at a few different areas. Receptive, expressive, pragmatics, and oral expression. It sounds like their receptive and pragmatic language are all developing just fine, and the only potential areas of concern would be oral expression and expressive language. This is a neat table: https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=age-appropriate-speech-and-language-milestones-90-P02170 They're doing great with things like expressing themselves with gestures, answering nonverbally, attending to sounds/voices, recognizing facial expressions, etc, but they may or may not benefit from play-based therapy to help with expressing themselves verbally.

Painting update - we got the wallpaper stripped last night (finished just before midnight, ugh) and finished washing walls, spackling, and started to primer today. I found 6 layers of wallpaper behind the radiator - it was an interesting archaeological dig! It's already so much brighter - excited to see it when it's finished. DS was hoping for a navy wall, but I told him he could have any color he wants as long as it's not dark, so we're looking at various light blue/gray/green colors. I was hoping to get paint on tomorrow, but I'm resetting expectations and am now hoping to finish priming tomorrow. I've also been working on composing an "I hate painting" song.

Very much so, but we also need to strip the wallpaper and I'm hoping to keep it a weekend project if we can. If we can get a nice, bright, white, I think it should look better. The cream looks more dirty than anything else. We're going to do a light green or blue so hopefully white trim will look nice with that!