My daughter told me that she and her sister don't make friends easily because my husband and I didn't model making friends for them. 🤦‍♀️ My oldest daughter had friends throughout school - three best friends from 4th until 9th when we moved. My younger daughter had a best friend during homeschooling that came over at least once a week if not more and had two close friends in dance too that were all inseparable until we moved. If she wanted to blame us for something, it should have been the moving!

Brie premade spinach dip steak shrimp

Two of the biggest differences I see in spending now versus when I was young is the ubiquitousness of expensive drinks. Starbucks, Peets, Boba, etc are a completely normal part of weekly life for so many of these teens. When I was a teenager and hanging out at the mail, our splurge was a small bag of candy and a soda. Now would those be around the same price, inflation-wise? Probably! The other is the doordash/ubereats. I think it's become so easy to get take out - there will always be those who learn how to cook young and those who just cobble along and learn late or not at all. The latter would have eaten frozen dinners or pizza (the only thing that was delivered when I was growing up), but now they are doing doordash instead and can get anything easily. It gets so expensive! Its hard to think it's generational though. Just looking at my kids and me versus my sister, it really seems like spending habits (while they should be taught obviously) are also ingrained. My sister is naturally frugal, I am not so much. My oldest daughter is spendthrift and impulsive shopper. My younger daughter is a typical teen who likes to spend money on Boba or lunches out occasionally, but keeps track and stops spending if she is worried about her money. My son never spends anything - he will only get a treat like a frappachino if someone has given him a gift card. 🤷‍♀️ They were all raised the same. Actually my spendthrift daughter is six years older and experienced more of our frugality and careful budgeting when we were younger - the twins have experienced us being older and able to indulge in more things.

My daughter said that she knew of friends that had held classes for otherw friends, but just as a favor, no strings attached. That was much more common than money being exchanged, she said. She also knew ppl that would petition to take an overload of courses, and then after attending the first few classes, decide which classes to drop down to a normal load. She never did that, but she did take a normal load and drop to a minimum load a few times. She has had many classes that she was on the waitlist or asked for a PTE (permit to enroll) and almost always managed to make it into the class. She would always go to the first few class sessions and students would drop in the first two weeks, then she'd be able to join.

My 18-year-old who is prone to negativity is still home a little while longer, and I try to just model balanced positivity. She tends to complain a lot, so I just listen non-judgmentally and then try to change the subject. I think of things that are positive to talk about that inspire hope, instead of things that belong to doom-scrolling. I think in general personalities are kind of "set", but also habits of thought patterns play a big role, and while I can't change her, I can try to work on myself and model that in front of her.

This is exactly the type of assistant we hope my oldest daughter will have when she is out on her own making the beaucoup bucks! Someone to keep track of her doctors appointments, her keys, her important documents...

I take lessons from an old family friend just for this reason:) I would stop going if I really didn't think it was worth it for me, and I'm sure your adult student feels the same way!

Oh the unicorn stickers! I had some of those, and my prized ones were unicorn bookplates that I put in all my books!

I loved my sticker album! My favorite stickers were anything unicorn related:) Or rainbows. Or unicorns with rainbows!

No, that was is a lot darker than what we have. But that was the first one my daughter sent me! She was the one who decided it must be the whole multiverse issue.

So we painted our dining room two years ago. Very tall ceilings, it took a lot of paint, and we spent a lot of time picking out the paint color. I know we got samples from both Home Depot and Lowes, but no other stores. It would be either Valspar or Sherwin Williams paint, or maybe Behr. But the thing I KNOW for a fact, is that I LOVED the name of the paint chip. It's a greige with the perfect balance of grey and tan, and the name of the color I am CONVINCED was Anonymous Fog. I loved the name, because it was so perfect. Fast forward two years later and we are trying to repaint a small section on the wall next to the door that the dog scratched up. No worries, we don't have the paint anymore but I know it's one of two stores and I know its name. Only thing is, I cannot find any reference whatsoever for this paint. It's just completely gone. Everyone close to me corroborates that that was the name I told them, because I loved it so much. (I have another paint upstairs called Into the Gloaming, which is pretty close to perfect as well as far as names go). So after scouring the internet I have decided I am in an alternate universe now where there was never a paint chip called Anonymous Fog. That must be the answer.

It really has been quite the ride for your family! Can't wait to hear the final decision!

That would be awesome! It's definitely where we are all assuming he will go but until he clicks on his SIR I am not going say anything to jinx it! Same with his twin - she's choosing between two and we ALL want her to go to SB but also know that it's got to be her own choice 😂.

DS finished off strong with an acceptance to Berkeley. This is the school his older sister applied to and got rejected or waitlisted three times - once for undergrad and twice for law school... so she's going to kill him:)

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Hugs @Tap That is so much pain and such a burden of decisions you had to bear yourself. I hope today and every day will begin to be a little easier. I can't speak to the soon to be adult, however I can understand how much you will miss your dog. But it will be much harder for your than for her and it sounds like she is in a wonderful substitute home where there will be lots of love. What a time of hard decisions. I hope you have some days of peace ahead. ❤️

She hasn't been active since I think December? So 3 months?

I am so sorry💔 That is so hard. I love the Easter decorations.

I miss her spicy wisdom on the boards. But I am glad she's doing well.

Congrats with your husband's new job, but I am so sorry about the month you have had. I hope the meds can come soon.

My daughter became best friends with her roommates from her SOPHOMORE year, after a less than stellar freshman year. The freshman roommates weren't terrible, but one was never there and the other was still stuck in high school mean girls kind of behavior. The second year she got super grounded and loyal friends who she ended up convincing to go on a cross country road trip with her in January!

It is such a roller coaster and I can't imagine how it feels to be constantly weighed and found wanting, acceptable, or, "hey maybe we will let you in, maybe we won't. Let's wait and see."

D24 and S24 both accepted to UCSB! Son for CCS math and daughter for second major choice of anthropology. She is thrilled, because she's got a couple of good choices and SB is of course insanely beautiful! Son is still looking at UCLA as his top choice - especially now that he has literally FOUR FRIENDS that might be going as well! That would make things so easy!

DS rejected at Harvey Mudd last night - he only applied to two privates (HM and Caltech) and they both rejected him. Which works out great for us as we have free in state tuition😂

My daughter had the best luck with pharmacies connected to university hospitals. While in San Diego she used the UCSD pharmacy, and now in DC she uses Medstar which is at Georgetown. She's tried other pharmacies (notably CVS) and had no luck whatsoever.