For your benefit, I would include some statement that gives you an out if the child doesn’t want to attend after a certain age much the way visitation can be left to the child’s choice after a certain age. I can’t imagine forcing a 16-17 yr old to attend religious services if he doesn’t want to go. Are you a practicing Catholic? You don’t have to answer, but if you are, then I would say he needs to leave it to you to decide, but I know that isn’t how things are working out for you all. Deleted the rest because I like other responses better

I don’t check the College board very much, so I am late seeing your post. My DD attend ENMU for several years but she had some personal issues and never graduated. That was 8-10 yrs ago, so not terribly recent. We live in northern NM, and several people in my social media sphere have kids who attend and/or recently graduated from ENMU. I attended a very large urban university, so it was quite different to me, but it was a pretty good fit for DD. One thing that makes it popular around here is that it provides a high level of merit based financial aid that doesn’t require crazy high test scores. My DD got something like 28 or 29 on the ACT and was offered their second highest tier of merit scholarship. Being from Texas myself, one thing that stood out to me at the time was that it felt much more “West Texas” than “New Mexico” in the general atmosphere of the area. I don’t if that is still the same now or what that would mean in today’s political climate, but it was a plus for DD who had attended public school in Texas until she was 16. The one big downside I can think of is how rural and isolated the area is which might be a positive for others. Portales has a smallish Walmart and a dollar store. Clovis is the next biggest town, but it still isn’t what I would call a city (no Target 😀). The nearest city, and air port) is Lubbock which is about 2 hrs away.

I think the debate over which questions to ask is missing the point of the original statement that it is best to get to know neighbors before complaining on them.

This! This law allows medical provides to pick and choose who they treat. What happens when they don’t want to treat obese patients because “ obesity is a moral failure”, or they don’t treat a person who has been shot because they don’t agree with what that person was doing at the time of the shooting? It may not be the intent of the law, but I would hate to be the patient that dies while these issues get worked out in court.

Although I have not proof or documentation, I really doubt that people are identifying as LGBT+ just for the purpose of rebelling against society. Why would anyone put them selves through the experience of all the hate just as a rebellion? I personally think it would be wonderful when all LBTQ+ are accepted and those who are simply “rebelling against society” move on to another rebellious activity.

I agree that “codependent” doesn’t apply to a parent and a 4 yr old. People judging other people’s parenting should keep their opinions to themselves.

I don’t have any family members impacted directly by these new discriminatory laws, so my plan is to eventually move back to Texas and spend my retirement years fighting against such laws. I don’t want to put any specific details here just in case, but I think it is important for those not directly impacted to continue to vote against the politicians that put such laws into place.

One more thing, I lived in Houston from the age of 16 to early 40’s always in subdivisions with HOAs and wooden fences. In all those years, we never stained a fence. They just weathered naturally.

Yes, that is exactly what it means. They have to send multiple letters before they can start any legal proceedings anyway. Also, many of the management companies are very small companies with very few employees. It can take a long time to get a response. I would make one attempt per week to contact the company. Keep a log of attempts.

A homeless shelter can be a housing option. Rather than “throw him out on the street” you could give him a time limit then take him to a shelter when that limit is reached. I understand your desire to help your son’s friend, but….

First of all, if the letter came from a management company, then you need to deal with the company directly not your neighbor. When management company takes over monitoring of violations, they usually start sending out letters to everyone in the neighborhood for every little violation. We used to get letters frequently because our grass was too long, but the letters would arrive a day or two after the grass has been mowed. Our neighborhood had a dumb rule about getting approval to move the swing set in the back yard to a new location in the same back yard. My DS explained that the swing set was moved every time the yard was mowed (at least 1x per week from March to October) and that he would be “happy” to submit a request each week which would require weekly approval from the architectural committee. The HOA/ management company backed down on that one. We got letters for other dumb stuff like the mailbox needing yo be painted and even for kids toys being left on the lawn the one day that the management company did their drive-by. Call the company, or better yet write a letter to the company, explaining that the fence is the original color provided by the builder. If that doesn’t stop the issue, follow up by taking pictures of your fence and neighboring fences that are the same color. HOAs have a lot of power in Texas, but they do have to apply the rules equally to everyone. If you are being singled out, then you can get a lawyer to fight the HOA. First step would be to have the lawyer write a letter to the HOA. You can also attend and speak at a public board meeting sharing your concerns to all board members any any neighbors who may attend. Although, in my experience, the HOA board meetings are lightly attended. I would also suggest that you interact with this neighbor as little as possible. Don’t call her, don’t text. Wait for the “official” HOA communications by mail. After living in Houston for many years, my opinion is that HOAs allow petty people the opportunity to feel powerful more than protecting property values.

Why didn’t your husband just remind the guy that the bike was given in exchange for work? Whatever the response was, at least then it would have been out in the open. I think it is really too late to door say anything about it. About the cop thing - In this day and age, a profession doesn’t necessarily mean much as far as morality goes. There are “good” and “bad” people in every profession. I think all the clergy abuse cases prove this. I would be more upset that this guy was supposed to be a friend than that he is a cop.

I have been to the original Meow Wolf in Sante Fe several times and that place is amazing. I recommend it to everyone I can. Here is a link https://meowwolf.com/ It does have a story that goes along with it, but I have never followed the story. I would say to plan around 2 hours for a visit unless you have kids that really get into it. No food is allowed in the main “art” area. There are usually some snacks and drinks for purchase in the lobby area. I remember bags of flavored popcorn, but not much variety. It does allow visitors to go back and forth from the exhibit area and the lobby, but it does not allow leaving the building and returning, so I would plan accordingly for food. There is often a food truck in the parking lot, and there are lots of places to eat along Cerrillos road. I think I remember a small area with picnic tables under the big robot, but I could be remembering wrong. I usually just have a cooler in the car. I don’t know if visitors are allowed to bring in food items, but I have carried a protein bar in my purse. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit any other locations, but that sounds like a fun trip.

Where I live, there is no way to get rid of the tunneling rodents for good. I am in the process of redoing my raised garden beds -one set this year, and another set next year. I am putting hardware cloth (wire mesh) on the bottom of each bedroom keep the rodents from tunneling in the beds at least. The yard is a lost cause.

For me it is a combination of cost, time, work, and plans. We used to drive to Florida when we lived in Houston. We had 4 people total and 2 drivers. With 2 young kids and all the stuff we thought we needed to take, it was too stressful to try to fly. Then we moved 12 hrs further away from Florida, so now we fly. I have taken one road trip to Florida. I think it was the summer before Covid. It was just me and my DS who was 17 and driving. I’m a teacher and had several weeks for the trip. My DS drove some of the trip mostly in low traffic areas like west Texas. It is more difficult for me when I am driving all by myself. I can only drive about 8 hours a day, so I will often choose to fly instead of drive particularly when the schedule is short. on the other hand, the whole family likes road trips, so we will often take trips where the whole point is to drive to different places.

I remember your earlier post about this person. I don’t have any experience, but I have done lots research while dealing with my elderly parents. Going to ER and getting admitted to the hospital are 2 different things. As long as he is considered competent to make his own decisions (even if those are what other people would consider bad decisions), no one can force him to do anything including go to the ER. If he agreed to go to the ER, he would probably be treated with insulin in the ER. He is not likely to be admitted for an in-patient stay unless his blood sugar levels were extreme and not responding to the insulin given in the ER, but again he would have to be willing to stay. Any caregiver could call EMS at any time if they thought the person was in need of emergency care, but the person is free to refuse any and all medical treatment. Guardianship and POAs are also 2 different things. POA is him giving you permission to manage his affairs. If he will do it, he can give POA to anyone, but he can also revoke that at any time, so it doesn’t sound like POA would be of much benefit in this case. If you do have POA, and the later the person is declared to be not capable of making decisions, you would be able to do what needs to be done without seeking guardianship. It is hard to watch someone you care about make bad decisions that will shorten their life, but people do it every day. People are allowed to make decisions to smoke, drink, use illegal drugs, and refuse reasonable medical treatment. Having someone legally declared incompetent is a long and different process, and has (or at least should be) to be based on more than making “bad” decisions.

How did the Dr clear him? Just verbally? Do you feel he is unsafe driver? I have to look for the link, but in Texas there is a review process if an elderly person is reported to the state as possibly unfit to drive. Their license is temporarily suspended and a medical review process is required. The doctor must certify in writing that the person is safe to drive. That leaves a lot more liability on the doctor. I researched this extensively and had to threaten my mother with reporting her when she started saying that she was going to start driving again even though she can’t see and can barely move (she was unhappy when my dad decided to stop driving as his dementia progressed). Found the link.https://www.dps.texas.gov/section/driver-license/drivers-age-79-or-older https://www.dps.texas.gov/section/driver-license/texas-medical-evaluation-process-driver-licensing My parents didn’t make it to the 79 age thing, but the medical evaluation part is not limited to 79 and up

There may be other reasons to avoid deli meat, but if you can get it, Boar’s Head has a No Salt Added turkey breast that is good. I think it tastes like an actual roasted Turkey without all the salt, gravy,and the other yummy stuff. There is also a lower sodium Swiss cheese which is even lower sodium than most off the shelf Swiss cheese brands. There are also a few varieties of other Lower Sodium meats including chicken, ham, and a beef, but I haven’t tried those

I don’t think there is anything wrong with you stepping back. You have your own life and another kid. I don’t have any suggestions for the babies other than maybe it is time for her to hire some household help. This could be for direct baby care or for household chores so she can focus on the babies.

I try not to get in the middle of problems between my siblings and my mom. I would do as several above have suggested. Tell her already have plans and she is welcome to come but that parents are also invited. With such short notice, she had to suspect that somebody would have already made plans for that time.

Tax returns are all done electronically, so we don’t keep paper copies of anything. When cleaning out my mom’s house for the last move, we found old tax returns that are as old as I am (50+ years) that survived 5 or 6 moves. I think those should have been burned a long , long time ago. I have kept copies of shot records for those of us too old for the electronic files. My youngest is on the state vaccine registry since birth, so I am not worried about keeping a copy of his now. I did keep a copy for convenience when he was still a kid a needed shot records for camp and stuff like that. While kids were still school aged, I did keep some report cards, standardized testing, SPED documentation. Once they are grown, that all got passed on. We don’t keep any records on cars we no longer own. When cars are paid off, we keep the titles in a lock box. We don’t keep detailed service records our car’s or old insurance documents. I don’t know what else there would be to keep. Old employment records - we keep just enough to fill out the next application or resume maybe. Kept relative’s records until the estate was settled. Anything that was kept beyond that was only for sentimental reason. We probably keep much less paper than some people. Most of what you list could be kept as electronic files on the off chance that it is needed someday. On the other hand, I have yet to find any paperwork that we got rid of that we needed later. I forgot about the old computers. In the past we just wipe the hard drive and then let the kid take the computer apart to see what was inside. By the time he was done with it, there was nothing useable left 🤪. We do electronic recycling when we can find it. I have a small box of old cell phones, iPads, tablets now that need to go to some king of recycling.

The thing that works in my family is to relocate all the stuff that you might “need” but don’t use. The stuff goes in bins or bags and then gets put in the attic or other remote storage location for a period. After many months, we realize that we can live without it all and it is easier to get rid of. There is the rare occasion where DH or I will say “I could really use that **** that we got rid of 10 years ago.” Then we remind ourselves that **** would probably have been broken or replaced by now anyway, so we go buy the item again if we really need it.

I think this idea is key. It is best not to refer to any individual person by a group descriptor unless you know what that person prefers.

With your mention on being worried about being disrespect or dishonoring, I am going to assume that this person is an older relative. I have a close relative who is similar. Different family members handle the situation in different ways. It is all about boundaries as has been discussed here many, many times, Two siblings limit visits to very short visits 1-2 times per year. One sibling has cut this person off completely. I live far away and was visiting 1-2 times per year, but visits have increased recently due to health/ general elderly person issues. I can have individual but very generic conversations with the person. I have called this person out when something “mean” is said. I usually say something like “I am sure you didn’t mean it this way, but when you said ****, that sounds like you mean that ****”. This gives the person a way out without causing a big argument. The person will say “oh, I didn’t mean it that way” even if we all know she really did. Then when the person is being extremely difficult, I will find a reason to run and errand or go out and play Pokémon Go, anything to get away for a while without starting more drama. When there was a spouse to protect (no physical abuse) that was my main focus. Now that the spouse has passed away, the difficult person will have to live with the consequences of previous behavior.

I have trouble with grinding/clenching my teeth at night. I have even ground through solid mouth guards that were supposed to be long lasting. I prefer disposable guards. The ones I like best are these. Plackers Grind-no-more. Each guard can be worn for a few days. I think the box recommends 3 days each, but if I am in a more stressful period I can replace more often than that or go a few days longer on good days. Also, when I first started wearing a night guard, I couldn’t keep them in all night long. I would wake up and find the guard in my sheets somewhere. I gradually got used to wearing one. Now I only have trouble when I am feeling ill.