I tried for many years to do composting here, but the climate is so dry that I have to constantly water the pile to get it to break down, and even then it takes forever. I took a class last spring on worm composting which I am considering, but with all the craziness of the past year, I haven’t gotten past thinking about it.

I agree!

I just want to say that my DD28 has yet to out grow Harry Potter, and my DS21 still likes Lego sets although he now prefers the model cars or architectural sets rather than “playing with” sets my suggestion would be a video game system such as a Nintendo Switch.

Not hyper mobility, but I had shoulder surgery two years ago, so I’ll respond since no one else has yet. As a slide sleeper I had a difficult time. I slept on a wedge pillow at first. It made sleeping on my side less pleasant so I wouldn’t roll over. Later I used a small rectangular pillow that I would put under the affected arm/shoulder when I was laying on my back. Later I would put that pillow parallel to my head pillow and make a little trough for my shoulder when laying on my side. Even now, when the affected shoulder is the up side, I use an extra regular pillow in front to support that arm when sleeping and keep the shoulder better aligned.

4 houses in 3 states before marriage. Since marriage- 2 apartments then 2 houses in one state. One house in different state Totals- 3 states and 9 different homes

I’ll have to try that sometime. The difficulty is that I never know in advance when he is depending on me to get up on time. I do intentionally wait so that the person has to rush to get ready on time. The techniques worked on my DS who was motivated to change, but haven’t worked for this other person.

I am frustrated with a certain family member regarding waking up. This person generally fine getting up on time for work, but anytime that we have to get up at a set time for other plans, this person depends on me to make sure that he gets up. Today, there is a PT appointment at 8:30 am that is at least 45 min from the house. From there we are leaving on a road trip to Texas. I set my alarm for 6:00am. I finally wake this person at 7am who then states “I didn’t hear your alarm go off”. Of course, I am sitting on my bed typing instead of getting ready, so I won’t vent too loud, but this person is perfectly capable of setting the alarm on either or both of his iPhones. (One is a work phone, but neither leave his side). I not for the PT appointment, I would not have bothered to wake this person today.

Unless you want to go skiing or snowshoeing, I would look at locations south of I-10, or at least south of I-40. I’m in northern NM and every campground that I know of is closed in the winter. - That isn’t exactly true. There are a couple of RV resorts that are open all winter for skiers.

One sunny day last summer, I decided to set mine out on the back porch for a few hours. Unfortunately, I found out too late that the deer would eat it, and it got quite the hair cut. It is growing back but there will be no flowers this year. I was able to root some of the broken branches in a new pot, so maybe I’ll have a good picture for next year.

I heard a phrase on a YouTube recently, “choose guilt over resentment” Basically, if you set up boundaries you will feel guilt. If you don’t set up boundaries you will start to feel resentment and worse which isn’t fair to anyone.

I get so mad for you just reading this, and I’m sure what you post is just the tip of the ice burg. He doesn’t respect you at all. He seems to see you only as an extension of himself, and he talking to you as if you were a child. My DH and I do lots of things without the other - including visiting relatives and taking vacations. I would not have been able to stay married for 30+ years if my DH had the same expectations as yours.

In trying to figure out what to do with all of my mom’s collections (hoard), I am starting to think about selling, or trying to sell, on Etsy. Does anyone have any experience to share? I just don’t know if it is worth the effort, but there are boxes and boxes of vintage sewing patterns, craft kits, salt shakers, decorative figurines. Most of her stuff fits in the Etsy categories of either craft supplies or vintage. It seems like it might be safer than selling on Facebook marketplace but I might try that too.

The biggest benefit for my DD, ties in to what Janeway just said. Without the diagnosis (and without using a self-diagnosis) she knew things weren’t “right,” or”normal”, or what ever you want to call it. She could observe other people and plainly see that she has a much harder time navigating the world than the people she saw, but she could not understand why things seemed so much more difficult for her. Having a name or a label for why she has a much harder time gave her a sense of relief. I would agree that ruling out all the other possible mental health issues is good too. I don’t know, but I would imaging that an incorrect self-diagnosis could be much more harmful long term that a correct formal diagnosis. I agree that autism-like traits can be caused by other issues that need to be treated in a different way than autism, so it seems logical to me that ruling out other mental health issues would be important. When my DD had her evaluation done, she did want me to go with her, and I spoke to the psyc in her presence. One of the things we talked about was that while we suspected autism, if it wasn’t autism we wanted to know that as well to be able to move on. On the other hand, I disagree with some of Janeway’s statements. It seems like she is making a moral judgment about a person losing a job and assuming that the self-diagnosed person is at fault. While anyone can be a jerk, or lazy, or have a bad work ethic, people can lose jobs without having those characteristics. Some people need actual accommodations in the workplace. My DD cannot combine the idea of being thorough and precise with the idea of taking short cuts to complete work more quickly. She just can’t, and that has caused issues in many different jobs doing all kinds of things, but she is a very hard worker. She comes to work every day and doesn’t call in even when she hates the job. She fulfills her commitments and responsibilities to the best of her ability. Her difficulties with jobs have had nothing to do with her “behaving badly”. The only down side to getting an official diagnosis that I read in the original post is the whole thing about moving to Canada. If that is a serious consideration, then I could see putting off a diagnosis. However, if that is a vague idea of dealing with the US political stuff, then I don’t see it as a strong reason to avoid a diagnosis.

I have had really good luck with the Dell outlet.

My DD was not diagnosed until she was well into adulthood. Like 27 yrs old I think even though I always knew she had many AU characteristics. She did “ok” in school as in she had no trouble passing her classes as long as she liked the teacher. However, she did have social issues. College was rough, and she did not finish. She struggled through several years of low wage jobs. Once she got the official diagnosis, she was able to get assistance from DVR which increased her opportunity to be independent from her parents. Looking back now, she could have benefited from work on social skills and emotional regulation. She see that now too, and asked me to help find her a therapist with experience working with autistic adults. When she was 16-17, we had no idea that adulting would be so difficult for her. I do think the last 10 years might have been easier on her if supports had been put into place much earlier. A related problem that we came across is that it is much harder to find a provider who will diagnose adults, and there was only 1 person in our state who does adults and takes Medicaid. It was a 2 yrs wait and then a 3 1/2 hour drive each way with a hotel stay to get her diagnosed.

I’d just change traditions and go away to a nice hotel for Thanksgiving 🤪 Or go camping instead which is how my DH and I handled Thanksgiving for about 15years until we moved 12 hours away

Maybe I used to go to Costco when I lived in the big city. At the time, it had more high end, organic type products than Sam’s. I thought that Sams had better prices on basic staples. When I moved to the edge of nowhere, I thought I would miss those big warehouse stores, but really it was much better on our budget to not use them. It was too easy to over buy in the big quantities. I order most of my basic items -trash bags, toilet paper, paper plates, zipper storage bags, from Amazon now. Cutting out the impulse purchases was better for us than getting the cheapest price in a store.

I just waited it out, or I’m waiting (been 77 days so far and hope I’m done). It was really bad for about two years. I keep supplies everywhere - in both cars, my purse, the bags I take to school, etc.

I don’t know anything about them except that they are very heavy. However, if you live anywhere near Tyler Tx, I have a very lightly used one I would give you. I think it does need a new battery though.

Can’t she just put the pads back in herself? I tried to look, but I can’t find anything that meets all your criteria.

For my mom the complaining was just part of her process. I guess she complained to get attention. One year I tried to help by hosting the family dinner. I thought the dinner went well, but as she was getting ready to leave she started complaining about all the things she needed to prepare at her home that we didn’t have to eat at my house, and that we weren’t going to her house to eat.

I hope I’m not causing more pain, but with Ting Tang’s post about her father passing, I can really see the big glaring issue. She is supposed to bend over backwards to do everything that DH and DH’s family wants, but she had to go to. Chicago all alone for her father’s passing. It doesn’t even sound like her DH offered to go with her, or that any of those other family members stepped up to take care of things at home so that he could go with her. No wonder she doesn’t want to live with those people. I would be running for the hills. I will leave off any further opinions as I would be not nice.

I’ve thought of getting something like this. https://www.uncommongoods.com/product/couples-split-bedding?utm_source=google surfaces&utm_medium=organic&flow_country=USA&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA0syqBhBxEiwAeNx9N72JKK_2OAoKw59hERSwOW3mDNiVunSc8os_yiT31B_Pi6ksD_NGbBoCgRkQAvD_BwE

This is one of the reasons why it is important to have advanced directives in place. When my parents were no longer able to make their own medical decisions, I felt comforted by knowing I was following what they had said they wanted back when they could make those decisions. Here is a concrete example. My dad had an out-of-hospital DNR and wanted to make sure everyone knew it. My sister and I made sure to honor that. My mom did not have a DNR. When my mother first moved into her nursing home, the social worker informally evaluated her and determined that she was able to make some of her own decisions. My mother still refused a DNR. I made it clear to the NH that as long as my mom was able to make her own decisions, I would not fight her, but the moment she could not, then I intended to follow her advance directive from 20+ years ago that indicated she would not want that. That is exactly what happened. As my mother’s medical and mental condition continued to decline, I had her put on hospice and signed a DNR for her. (I had POA). While I realize that she may have live another few weeks if I had wanted her in the hospital on an IV and dialysis, I do not have any regrets about the decisions I made in those last couple of weeks. What I regret is how she treated me, my siblings, and my father her last couple of years so that all we felt when she died was relief.