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katilac

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Everything posted by katilac

  1. Definitely don't just hope for the best. It's less about your son paying rent and more about being owner-occupied. The mortgage and the insurance are two separate issues. Dig up your mortgage agreement, and it will tell you if there is an owner-occupied clause, and if it's for a specific amount of time (sometimes it's really short). Check your mortgage. If there's an owner-occupied clause, it might have expired years ago. If you refinanced and the mortgage is kind of new, they still might approve you to rent it to your son with no changes. The only thing that matters is your specific mortgage agreement.
  2. Certainly I would leave a seventh-grader alone for a couple of hours, but I wouldn't leave them home alone for a couple of hours every day or several times a week, for a few reasons. One, that's a big chunk of the homeschooling day for him to be self-teaching and working independently and just alone in general. If you can go very early morning, that would alleviate that to some extent. Two, I think knowing that they have a reliable amount of ongoing time without supervision, whether it's every single day or three times a week, is a mighty temptation for tweens and teens. Especially one who doesn't want to be doing his schoolwork, and especially one who won't have a sibling there to potentially narc him out. My third, and possibly slightly-crazed reason, is that I never wanted anyone to be able to figure out that my kid was going to alone every Tuesday and Thursday from 11-2, or whatever. Is this a specialty gym for the sport, like a gymnastics gym? If it's only ten minutes away, is there a reason you can't just go home sometimes? If it would be daily, or several times a week, I'd want to mix it up a bit. Sometimes he stays home alone, sometimes you drop dd off and come home, sometimes he comes with and maybe the two of you do some Starbucks schooling.
  3. Your insurance broker isn't positive? He should certainly be able to find out. There are a lot of things at play here. If you charge someone rent, they are renters, even if you would be living in the home. That means their belongings and their liabilities aren't covered by your policy; they need their own. Because you are not related, you will not be covered on your boyfriend's standard policy, you would have to be added to it (which some insurers will do and others will not). Otherwise, you need renters insurance with decent liability coverage. For the insurance, start by reading your policy. Standard language is that you need to inform them, in writing, of any changes to occupancy. If something like a fire occurs, they are almost certain to find out occupancy has changed, and they will deny coverage under concealment. For everyone to be adequately covered, you will likely need landlord insurance (because you can't be covered both under your homeowners and your boyfriend's, or renters at the boyfriend's). But the insurance company will tell you for sure, just give them all of the information. If there's a mortgage, I'm not sure how important owner-occupied language is if you've been paying it for years.
  4. Do it anyway. If he wants to fix it, he takes it down when he's ready to fix it and not before. If he likes bare walls, he needs to say so, and y'all can come to a reasonable agreement - I decorate the walls in the dining room, you decorate the walls in the den, and so on.
  5. Probably not, but, interestingly, I used to have allergic reactions to mosquito bites (not anaphylactic) and I'm also allergic to sulfa meds. I have a fair number of allergies and sensitivities, though.
  6. This is worth doing, but my stubborn baby had strong bottle refusal from the first attempt, which was on the second day of her life, lol. She also spit out every pacifier known to man (we got different ones as gifts). Apparently, she thought any kind of rubbery taste was disgusting. I just took her everywhere as well, until she started some solid food.
  7. My husband's dad has helped us over the phone many times (retired IRS).
  8. I would never think of teens discussing their vision of future family life, unless they come from a background that is big on early marriage.
  9. Lumbar cushions for the chairs, comfy throws. A spare pair of shoes so your feet don't hurt from wearing the same ones all the time. A stack of facecloths to freshen up easily. Good books, for you and to read to the patient if they'd like that. Bone-conducting headphones are great, because they are unobtrusive and don't block surrounding sound. Ask someone to bring washed (and cut, as needed) fruit and vegetables to the room. This is a great assignment when someone says to let them know if you need anything: not hard, not expensive, not time-consuming, but very helpful to you. The same goes for actual food: thanks for asking, would you be able to drop off a po-boy or something and give me a break from hospital food? When I'm the person trying to help, I'm always super-happy to do that, because again it's easy but also helpful. If appropriate, ask people to visit for short periods of time. Like ten to twenty minutes, not an hour. Short visits break up the monotony, and don't dwindle into awkwardness and an inability for the visitor to semi-cheerful. The only people who should make long visits are those who are willing to sit with the patient while you go get coffee and walk outside to make sure the sun is still there. Sometimes I think that hospital psychosis doesn't apply just to the patients . . .
  10. Some Christian lifestyle books and social media accounts do talk about it specifically, and it's preached in the pulpit. But I'm sure much of the teaching is informal: girls are told to watch their tone and/or keep sweet when they don't talk that way, and get approval when they do talk that way. What churches or denominations would you describe as fundamentalist but not patriarchal? People are not judging Katie Britt based on her speech; they are judging her for a (very bad) performance in which she did not use her usual voice and speech patterns. Compare clips and it's abundantly clear. Except it is not at all limited to followers of Gothard. No, it's because you're not familiar with her usual voice and speech patterns. Watch her speak in a few other contexts and you will see the difference. People don't have issues with her actual voice, they have issues with her obviously and purposefully changing her voice and speech patterns for this speech. And, related to this, Katie Britt intended to change her voice and speech patterns as a coded dog whistle for certain listeners, but obviously overshot her mark by a mile, lol. While I'm over here yelling "fundie baby voice!!" before the third sentence. Katie Britt was a practicing attorney before she became a senator. She has given many, many speeches. While I'm sure she was coached on this particular speech, I think the breathiness, the near-tearfulness, and the wide eyes were all just as purposeful as giving the speech sitting at a kitchen table. It just didn't work.
  11. But wouldn't you try and find out about any new place before going on a hike or such? And the other dangers in the desert besides flash floods? Or maybe it's true that God protects fools and children 😄 I get the "what if?" chills just reading this. That's a completely different category than illegally going off-trail, or diving into the wilderness with no preparation.
  12. Try the dcluttr app for anything with a bar code. The comic book collection can probably be appraised. Or, just call an estate sale company.
  13. One thing to consider is establishing a trust from the get-go, then it's not something you're doing 'in response' to the marriage and you don't have to use the P word. When you're sharing financial information, you simply say that these accounts are already being held in trust for my kids, and I have X amount in life insurance that you will be (partial or complete) beneficiary of. Of course, you can also choose to certain things to the trust that will go to the new spouse if you wish. A house can have the wording of the spouse being able to live there as long as they wish, even if it ultimately goes to the kids. We are just now setting up a trust with our adult children as beneficiaries, because they will have immediate access to whatever is listed in the trust, versus waiting for probate.
  14. I have been surprised more than once at how seldom some families talk to each other in between visits. OP doesn't give enough context. Is it conversational or an info dump? And, of course, is the listener interested? I agree that endless conversations about people you don't really know or care about is torturous.
  15. If dh wasn't working, he would mow the lawn at our house and my mom's house. If I wasn't working, I'd spend more time meal planning and grocery shopping. I'd wait till I was at X store to buy the thing we were out of, whereas now I will sometimes grab it for convenience. We could take more care with entertainment expenses - we were at a Lunar Year festival recently and tried a lot of food and had a few drinks. Back in the day, we would have skipped the drinks because they're so pricey anywhere but home, and probably had less food. Definitely we would not have been buying food for our grown kids' friends, lol. The vacation budget could always be trimmed. Gotta say, though, that I don't wanna do any of those things, lol. I'm pretty glad to be spending less time watching every dollar.
  16. It's good to rinse with water after meals, snacks, and any beverage except water - and very easy to do when you work from home.
  17. Stickers, enamel pins, buttons, backpack clips, change, write a prize on a piece of paper and put in the egg (for a bigger prize, put one letter in each egg for a word scramble to solve), adult coloring books, small craft kits, coupon for lunch out. We did the colored eggs as well, only 2 kids so they got a few colors each. Our homeschool group did names, and it seemed like such a nice way to even things up between the more aggressive and less aggressive kids. I have really fond memories of the kids waiting until everyone was done to check their stash, and helping the slowpokes find all their eggs ☺️
  18. You can buy cranberry powder to mix in with their food. One brand is Cranberry relief. Our cats get a few powders mixed in with their dry food. We just put everything in a food bucket and shake.
  19. I use several different things. We have sponges for washing the sink, counter, and some dishes, because dh likes them and he does a lot of cleaning, lol. If a sponge smells, it is not clean. I like thin dishcloths for wiping up spills, cleaning counter, lots of things. Heavier dishcloths/rags for heavier cleaning. Some towels similar to bar mops but not as big, for bigger spills and messes. I don't like Dobie-style sponges that much because I find particles stick easily and they look dirty quickly. I don't like Swedish dishcloths; I don't find they work exceptionally well and the way they dry stiffly bothers me to no end.
  20. I would put it on my bed and see if it still seems necessary in a couple of weeks 😄
  21. I like the closing argument idea. It ties into a genuine interest, and she could re-enact a famous one if she likes (not that people will specifically recognize it, but saying it's a real argument by, say, Clarence Darrow, gives a license to be dramatic.
  22. I would just get a second electric skillet! You can cook so many things in an electric skillet, and two would let you do two different meals (each in one skillet) or all the meat in one and sides in another. Almost anything you cook in a pot or pan can be cooked in an electric skillet instead. And you can do ready-made frozen foods in it as well.
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