Phew! I remember all the discussions on this board about it - I had been planning for this moment for years 😂

My son liked using the Pomodoro method -- of course during the break you wouldn't want your son to go use screens because he'll never come back! But it makes the tasks seem less overwhelming which makes people procrastinate more. But both my son and my oldest daughter did best with a study buddy (or they call it body doubling now?) Being at the table physically working makes it easier to focus and stay on task, even if I am actually just surfing these forums. Especially if it's a task that's particularly irksome, my son will ask me to sit with him. So, writing college essays, lol. My younger daughter never has this issue, she just is amazing now at executive functioning. She works ahead, plans constantly, and always keeps track of all assignments. My son and older daughter, not quite as much.

My oldest daughter is ADHD, and the passage of time thing is definitely a red flag. She used to get lost in thought staring in the mirror brushing her teeth. Not just for a little while, for 45 minutes. She will always struggle with procrastination as it is baked in. Taking away things that she loved to do wouldn't have worked -- she was always LEAST productive when she had the most free time. She's read a ton of books (Driven to Distraction, Delivered from Distraction, Atomic Habits, books by Dr. Barkley, and learned a ton from the youtube channel How to ADHD. She's also on two ADHD meds. So, better, but still not perfect. Is there something that can lock down other windows on the computer to make it more limited?

Well, ever since I started homeschooling my mathy kid, knowing we planned to move back to California in high school, I had been aware of the multitude of discussions about the geometry requirement of the UCs. So when my son first tried to submit his application last night and it did not let him due to one math missing, it took him completely by surprise. After all, he’d inputted 11 different math credits from 7th grade on, all the way through Diff EQ! So he had to put geometry under 7th grade math, and we put a little note that he had actually taken it in sixth grade. Thankfully it was at least taken officially through AOPS so we have a transcript, if they really care. But I wish I could relive that sound of disbelief when my son saw the red “1” for a missing math! It was too funny.

Nope, but since I wear them almost exclusively and they are made of wool, they just do get flat quickly. I try to get the close out colors to get them more cheaply. I got my daughter a pair of yellow ones for 40 instead of 100.

wonderful news!!

I and my daughter both wear them a ton, my daughter exclusively and myself about 2/3 of the time (otherwise it's a regular sneaker or slippers) I love them. However they do wear out quickly - I probably order a new pair every six months. But so comfy.

My husband hated Gabapentin. Same as above, lost blocks of time, completely spaced out. It was pretty freaky to watch since I didn't know what was happening and he was on a few different drugs post surgery. Hope you get some answers and relief!

My kids have all taken probably an average of 10 AP classes. While I don't particularly love College Board, they all take as many as they can because 1) regular classes have pretty disruptive students and 2) now that the UC's don't take SAT's, they need test scores from SOMEWHERE. The biggest bonus about AP's is that the schools always have the best teachers to teach them. That is the single best advantage they offer. Even if the subject material is constrained - an inch deep and a mile wide - my kids are pretty much guaranteed to have a better teacher than if they took the regular class. My son discovered this very quickly his sophomore year when he was in World History instead of AP European History. While his sister had great lectures, debates, mock trials and tons of interesting projects to work on, my son's teacher watched tiktok videos with students, put on movies for the class, gave out answers to tests ahead of time, and just basically led a social club rather than a class.

We all use Speed Stick in my family -- it's aluminum free.

UC apps are due at the end of the month. I am gritting my teeth here. Two kids, one has rough drafts of two PIQ's, the other has three, but they are definitely ROUGH. And while I have tried to give advice, lead, etc as much as possible, apparently I didn't inform my son that the Common APP essay is NOT the only one he will have to write for the non-UC schools. He had no idea there were supplemental essays! I do feel bad that I didn't know that restrictive early action was a thing. DS probably would have applied with that to his top choice, had he known. So his apps will all be regular decision. Oh well. I can only do so much.

My kid never left earlier enough, always made her flight, but many of those trips were so close. Sitting in stopped traffic on the freeway is never fun. But she always checked luggage (at the time we were in VA and she only came home at Christmas). If he’s not checking luggage it will be easier. Good luck!

My daughter always Uber-ed and you really need to allow so much more time than you think. Especially with thanksgiving traffic, especially with the I-10 shut down (as I have heard ar least). My dd had a lot of close calls leaving in what she thought was plenty of time. It’s a 30 min drive but can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. The airport road gets backed up too! It’s crazy. ETA and great news about the classes!

I hate gift opening and expected reactions. I'm not good at it and I have two out of three kids who aren't good at it either. It's so stressful to express emotion on cue. If there were basic gifts that were exchanged every year (like my sister and I for a little while were exchanging puzzles at Christmas) it's so much nicer. Thankfully my husband knows this about and is ok -- he once spent a lot of time (that he doesn't have, he works so hard!) and ordered a mug on shutterfly with pictures of all the houses we had lived in over the course of his military career. I really didn't like it -- particularly since the picture of our current and final house (that we have been pouring money in to make look nice) was the listing picture when the house was salmon pink. And the mug was red. I had an immediate adverse reaction to it that I couldn't hide. I have specific shapes of mugs that I like as well and that was not it, lol. I like round bottom mugs for my morning coffee, and very wide round mugs for afternoon coffee, and this was a tall mug. He once surprised me with a cruise when we were in our twenties - I thought we were visiting family but no, we went on a cruise. I was pretty irritated. So yeah, my idea of gift giving is either what my son does -- makes a list a month ahead and includes links to all the items, or to have set categories of gifts, and then concentrate on enjoying the time together - the meals, the decorating, the board games, the puzzles, etc.

The four essays are half the length though -- 350 words each. And all the admissions info says to treat it like an interview question -- don't get florid, no metaphorical language, just answer the questions in a straight forward manner. That being said, my oldest threw that out the window and wrote some pretty flowery, flash fiction style essays, lol. It worked for her I guess, as her whole thing was being a writer!

Having a friendship end involves so much grief. I had a friend last year who I thought was a “friend forever” just start ghosting me, until I reached out to ask if she was ok and she just told me that she is not in the same place for our friendship anymore, and “thanks for reaching out”. I still don’t know why or what happened to change her, and while I can hopefully accept that there was something about me she might have grown to dislike, she and her circumstances might have also changed and our friendship was not able to withstand those changes. I have to accept that while I would have done anything to fix it, I can’t control the actions of others. It is her life, not mine. But you would be surprised at how often I find her flirting through my head at random times. Probably once a day or so, and it’s been a year. Grief over friendships ending is not talked about as often as other types of grief, but it is very real.

I would have much rather explain why Santa can't bring live penguins than why - if Santa is so magical - he can't make a remote control dragon. This was a few years after the desire for a very SPECIFIC "puppy that barks when you squeeze it". We went through three or four puppies and none were what dd had in mind.

So my ds never really got his act together to apply Early Action. I didn't realize there is a new Restrictive Early Action which I would have pushed him to apply under, but alas it did not happen. However since both kids will have a free ride if they get into a UC, really that is what we are aiming for. Or at least I tell myself that since we are too late for early action:) But at least there is progress being made. DS has completed the UC application and has rough drafts of two out of four of the Personal insight Questions. DD has three rough drafts and an idea for the last, but hasn't start the app. She also has supplementary materials for one of her ballet focused applications, so I am stressing about that! But at least progress has been made I guess! We toured UC Irvine last week and dd LOVED it. And it's so close. So something to work towards.

This event really just illustrates how 1. news agencies jump out way too fast to report before they have all the details, and 2. It's pretty hard to get an accurate account of something when the news is automatically so slanted. Many right wing online news sources are so happy to pounce on this for its salaciousness. Left wing news sources attempt to paint him as a martyr who couldn't live his true life due to conservative environment and as proof that trans-identified people are killing themselves due to lack of acceptance. The reality is much more nuanced, and honestly, WHY does it have to become national news?

Sending healing thoughts❤️

This is something that was on my radar when my oldest was going through the college admission process. We were in Virginia at the time, but it’s very different getting into a car, driving to school, and going straight into class. We toured Willam and Mary and my first thought was - huge campus, going to be very cold to walk from class to class, especially if it’s windy! Also if it’s cold, it makes it much harder to find places to be alone if it has to be inside. My dd sought refuge outside on the lawns and in the sculpture garden all year long because she was in CA. I couldn’t imagine going to school anywhere with a real winter!

My daughter and I listened to Sold a Story together. Just the other day in class (12th grade) she said she experienced watching a student who had apparently been taught this way. They were reading Shakespeare and he would read words and the beginning and ending were often right but the word was a completely wrong word. (not real examples but like using supposedly instead of surprisingly or destruction instead of determination). This is an AP Lit class. My daughter was so sad for the student. Seeing the results in real life vs just listening to a podcast helped her understand HOW this really affects everyone who was taught that way. We were in this school district when my kids were in Kindergarten, and I purposefully taught them to read before sending them to school. I didn't know as much as I do now, but I knew that Phonics worked and what the schools had didn't, so they learned over the course of the year before!

I love my brother printer. We had a black and white printer and then upgraded a couple of years ago to color. It does copying and scanning. I am not sure what you mean by chipped -- I just find the compatible ink for the printer model and buy it on Amazon. We had HP for years and I have always hated them and found Brother to be much more reliable.

I think the classes that are the most in demand for prerequisites across different majors can often be hard to get if you are a freshman. The registration system can be pretty nerve wracking as well, as for every period it looks like classes are full, and then the next week more spots open up for the next period. Also going to the class for the first few days and putting in a request to enroll (permit to enroll or something like that) is a strategy my dd used frequently. If there was a class she really wanted, she would put her name on the waitlist and go the first few classes. Eventually students would drop. I have heard of students asking every quarter for a permit to overload - then they drop the class they like least. That can make the classes seem full every quarter for the first two or three classes as well.

We charged 500 dollars rent but held it in a savings account and gave it back to our oldest dd when she moved out. She’s not super great with money and didn’t really conceptualize what expenses would be like when she was paying for them all herself.