I don’t have Tricare. But I got a nearly identical message from Cigna. Cigna will also no longer be accepted at our largest non-university hospital or associated clinics. That’s a much bigger deal for me, especially if we need to go to the ER. Kroger may be having difficulty negotiating the rates they want? I pay full price for my prescriptions until I meet my deductible, which is high so we rarely meet it. If it helps, I use GoodRX at Kroger instead, my prescriptions are significantly cheaper that way. For a daily med I take it’s $48 vs $98 with insurance. For my son it’s $38 vs $159.

Also, I’m very sorry for your loss. Whatever you decide, do what makes you comfortable.

My church always hosts a meal for the family. Family doesn’t do anything other than show up. Often times a very close group of immediate family or super close friends will then go to the house after the funeral. There is usually food there that other close, but not as close friends have brought. I’ve lost 2/3 of my grandfathers, it was the same in two different states. One was the week before Christmas in a town of maybe 300 last year. One of my grandmothers passed back in March, her church has maybe 20 people on a good day. Those church ladies put out so much food for the 40 or so family members I don’t know where it came from. The town is tiny, there isn’t a grocery nearby, I felt very loved.

You can set it up how you prefer. Swipe down to choose to set a focus. Click on the three little dots on the right side. Choose settings down on the bottom. On the upper left you will see the box labeled people. You can silence or allow calls from favorites or only selected contacts. There is also an option where all calls are silenced the first time, but if they call a second time right away, the call goes through.

I never have used this feature before, it was fun to discover! I read 10 more books this year, but 3,000 fewer pages. I’m assuming because many of my books this year were shorter books I read with my 10 year old.

Mine was “AT Last” by Brenda & Charlie Quesenberey, shelved by one other person. My rating was a 2, I think it was self-published and badly in need of an editor. I didn’t finish it. I really hate rating books poorly but sometimes it’s required.

I forgot the year we gave the kids a basketball hoop, we hid it at the neighbors. The box was gigantic, like 5’-6’ tall, there’s no place in a house to surprise kids with that! The neighbors loved getting to help with that surprise.

Mine get split between my bedroom closet and my husband’s truck. I bought the kids chocolate from Germany that they like and it has to be kept where the pets won’t sniff it out. Plus, the truck bed can be locked, the bedroom closet can’t.

I grew up in a combined family, 5 of us kids within 3 years of each other. Certain times of year our ages appear to stagger. So the cashier asked my (step)mom the ages of us kids. She answered, “10,9,8, and those two are 7.” The cashier asked, “They twins?” My mom just replied, “Nope they are a month apart!” Then walked off. We still laugh about how long that cashier must have tried to figure out how that happened. My dad and (step)mom would frequently get asked which kids were theirs. We were all raised in the same house from a young age and had the same last name. My bio-mom wasn’t really in the picture. We all belonged to both of them. Even today I will be asked which siblings are my “real” siblings. I spent a long time as a cashier in various places and you carry on a lot of small talk. It’s inevitable you will say something dumb, so I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Someone gave me a Birdie, it was loud, but I never carried it. The first time my daughter rode her bike across town I had her put it on her backpack, just in case. I feel like it MIGHT scare someone off, but a lot like car alarms, most people probably wouldn’t pay much attention.

This isn’t really the same thing but when my son was about 7, he was injured on a trampoline. Another kid bounced into him and broke his tooth on my son’s head. My son has had a bald spot there ever since. I assume it’s scar tissue blocking the hair follicles, but haven’t examined his head that closely.

I got one of my boys the new Star Wars Villainous game. We haven’t played any version of Villainous, but the Disney version has good reviews and won an award a couple years ago.

Hose is good enough for Princess Kate, it’s good enough for me. 😂 Seriously though I prefer tights (black or navy). I have pale legs, they do not look good bare, and in the winter they get cold. I have on occasion gotten a spray tan but that doesn’t help keep warm. Besides I’m not going to do that for church every week. I’ll wear leggings with more casual dresses. If I’m wearing a long dress I leave my legs bare. Make-up is daily mascara, my eyelashes are blonde and invisible otherwise. I’m self conscious about it because I think it makes me look like I’ve been crying when I leave my lashes bare. I also wear tinted sunscreen to even out my skin tone. I think most woman look fine without makeup, but I have no problem with them wanting to wear more.

Since it is summer, if you plan to wear sandals on the plane, have a pair of socks in your carry on. I didn’t this past summer and had a floor vent right by my feet. I don’t tend to get cold, but my feet were icicles after 2 hours of cold air blowing on them.

Last year for my daughter’s birthday I got her the Bernette 33. It is a mechanical machine that works mostly the same as older machines. But the button hole is way easier to use. It’s an entry level machine made by Bernina, which makes the Cadillac (or is that Maserati these days) of sewing machines. The 35 is about $50 more and has a few more features. They are very similar to my 50 year old machine that I still use.

I’m not sure if this is what you are looking for, but Kraig Adams has a lovely youtube channel where he documents his hikes. He was a film major in college and has very little dialogue in his videos.

When my great grandmother passed she had a rather lengthy obituary. Instead of the “preceded in death” line, it said she was married to Husband 1, they had a daughter and enjoyed xyz until he passed in 1969. In 1970, she became friendly with Husband 2, they married she became a step mom to his three children, they enjoyed traveling, playing bridge….until he passed in 1997. Then the last paragraph said survived by and listed all her relatives.

That makes so much more sense! I was picturing 10 people with plain pasta and wondering how a gravy boat of sauce could possibly be enough.

I’m having so much trouble picturing this. Tomato sauce is usually an ingredient in my house, although I do make a tomato based sauce for spaghetti or lasagna or pizza. If it’s in a gravy boat it doesn’t seem like there would be enough for the whole table. What is it served on top of? Do you eat pasta at a lot of meals? Is it a main course or a side dish? Clearly I didn’t grow up in or ever live in an area with many Italians. 😆

I put my own together, but a premade kit would be a good start. Here’s a YouTube video that may be help. What I use the most is sunscreen, tick key, leukotape for blisters, Benadryl, and Advil.

My husband is a last minute packer. Pre-Covid he traveled a lot of work. He has a separate set of toiletries, so he grabs his kit, however many sets of clothes he needs, plus his work bag and is out the door. Last month we went on a 10 day trip overseas. He packed that morning between work calls. Really the only difference in his packing is that in winter he takes a hat, coat, and gloves. I take longer to pack. I do keep a basic packing list so it’s easier to remember what I need. I usually wash everything a day or two ahead of time and pack the night before. I don’t have separate toiletries, hair dryer, curling iron, chargers, etc so it takes me longer to gather that up. I also vary my packing based on types of activities I’ll be doing. I have on 45 minutes notice packed myself and 3 kids for a road trip not knowing if we would be home in 2 days or 7, but that was a one time deal when my husband was traveling a lot and I was going stir crazy at home with young kids. My theory was we would pass a Walmart or could do without whatever we forgot for a week.

We sing a mix of worship music and traditional hymns. I’d say on average we sing 4 verses but know we have sung more. I can’t think of any hymns in our hymnal that have many more than that, but there could be and those happen to be songs we don’t sing often. I can’t ever remember singing 10+ verses to any song.

The book written about him was fascinating and interesting. “Destiny of the Republic” by Candice Millard. A friend recommended it otherwise I probably never would have checked it out.

Ooof! Where the Red Fern Grows was my favorite book in 4th grade, my teacher read it to my class and I just loved it. I have read it several times and never focused on Little Ann’s death. I just loved how the boy saved up his money and went on this big adventure and raised the best dogs in the country. I wanted to be that boy. Our dog had died about 8 months before we read this as a read aloud. The kids loved our dog, but he was elderly and they were young. When he died they were a little upset that day, but then moved on. We got to the end of the book and all 4 of us were sobbing. Not just a little, a lot! I’m an emotional person but my kids are not so it really caught me off guard. I called off school for the rest of the day. Now before we read a book (or watch a movie) the kids always ask if the dog dies. It’s kind of become a joke that I always say no, and then the dog actually does die. All that to say, I don’t purposely avoid sad books, but I’m not going to read several in a row. I think it’s good for kids to experience different emotions and learn how to cope with the harder ones. Sometimes it helps to read about characters whose dog died so that when your dog dies, you cope better. Happy books are definitely a priority when our family is going through a hard time, but not always.