Giving her the benefit of the doubt, is it possible that she was ill or preoccupied with personal matters? Is she normally a thoughtful person? If this goes against what you know of her character, it's possible there are extenuating circumstances that she might not want to bother you with. But it's also possible that she was being thoughtless. I've had a few friends whose parents have passed and while I had only met the parents a few times, I definitely sent flowers if I couldn't attend the funeral.

I previously worked in higher education at a mid-size private liberal arts university. That was 13 years ago and we were talking about this way back then. This particular institution doesn't have a large endowment and so is very tuition-dependent. Since I left, they have done a great deal of building to attract students, and their facilities are admittedly top-notch. In fact, I still use their fitness center and indoor track. However, enrollment is falling, they are overleveraged financially, and have even come close to not making payroll on a few occasions. There have been several rounds of layoffs. They are taking some risky steps to increase enrollment that could potentially alienate certain demographics. My husband is convinced they are going to end up closing, but because they have very well-regarded programs in career-focused areas like nursing, engineering, etc., I think they will end up becoming more focused on career preparation rather than the liberal arts. They've already dropped several majors that don't clearly lead to particular careers. ETA: In looking at the Forbes list, they have a D grade.

Shoot, I just bought a big thing of monkfruit sweetener with erythritol. I'll look for the Sweet Leaf stevia.

I never heard of homeschooling until I was in my 20s and some families in our church homeschooled. Those kids were pretty advanced academically and generally great kids so I thought it was a cool thing.

My youngest was in the NICU for 11 weeks. He is now 10 years old. I would be extremely concerned at the lack of response. My kiddo crashed while in the NICU, with oxygen levels going into the 30s (I witnessed this) and he only survived because of quick response from a doctor and a nurse. We had a terrible experience with a nurse, one of his regulars, who completely lost it while my son was being prepped for a tracheostomy. He was crying inconsolably and since he was not stable, I was not holding him. She started yelling at him to stop crying! My husband, mom and I were all so shocked that we froze. Later, I went to the patient care representative and demanded she be removed from his case. Another nurse tried to convince me otherwise, saying that the yelling nurse was one of the most experienced in trach care, but I would not give in. We were assigned other primary nurses who were wonderful!

The sciences are strong at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN.

At the moment, four members of my family have Covid. The three adults (two in their 70s, one in their 40s) have had extreme lethargy, headache, cough, sore throat and congestion. My 16 year old son has only had minor sore throat, runny nose and cough. In fact, I would not have tested him had the others not tested positive.

I would let her try it but at least in our area, I might not do public if I could help it. We sent our oldest to public middle school for 8th grade and I regret it. The school, despite its "good" reputation apparently has a culture of apathy, minimal deadlines/consequences and he internalized that. As a result, we sent him to private for 9th grade and it was a struggle academically because he had coasted through 8th grade, doing very little work and getting mostly As. We sent two of our younger kids to private school when they were done homeschooling and they are both doing well. If private wasn't an option financially, I probably would have sent them to a local two-day-a-week co-op where they could take the bulk of their classes and get some social time. This starts in 5th grade.

I'm following this pretty closely because I used to live in the state and had lots of friends/co-workers who went to school at U of I ... 🥲 I've read the affidavit and I haven't heard this either. It wouldn't surprise me, but I'm wondering where you found this information?

We live in a rambler-style house with a basement walkout that is about 25 years old. My husband sets the daytime temp at 67 and it is about that temperature in the two bedrooms upstairs but quite a bit colder in our basement where three of our kids have their rooms. At night time, he sets it at 62. (This is colder than I prefer but this has been an ongoing battle!) One of our kids' rooms was 51 degrees this morning when I woke up! The other two are a bit more moderate because they are on the side of the house where the basement is underground. I think 51 is absolutely insanely cold but other than running a space heater during waking hours, I'm not sure how else to fix it. We tried turning off the vents upstairs and it got extremely cold up here and not much warmer downstairs. We also get a lot of ice on the windows so closing the shades as insulation doesn't seem like a solution, either.

I prefer self-checkout for most purposes but for large numbers of items, like a weekly grocery trip, I prefer an actual person.

I got both two weeks ago, at the same time. I felt fatigued for a day or two but was otherwise fine.

I think I had it a few weeks ago. It definitely wasn't Covid (tested several times.) I had a bad cough, sore throat, lost my voice, was congested and generally felt unwell. The cough is still lingering although it has gotten better. I'm pretty sure a couple of my kids had it too, including the medically complex one who needed steroids and his red zone neb treatments. This same kid was on a ventilator for RSV as an infant so I'm grateful it wasn't worse this time around.

Yes, my kids have bought from StockX and one of my kids just sold some shoes on there.

My kids and I all had it last February and it was basically a bad cold for all of us. We are all vaccinated, however.

She is beautiful!

Our doctor has a dual specialty in peds and internal medicine so our kids can see him into adulthood. He is also a family friend so my 13 yo daughter prefers to see a woman but my three boys all still see him. Our youngest has some pretty complex medical issues that will last throughout his lifetime so I'm grateful we will have that continuity of care.

I love running. I started for fitness but now it's a big part of my time to myself/mental health/self care. I prefer running outside because I love being in nature but we also have really long, cold winters. I have a treadmill but it's not my preferred way to run. When I do use it, I will find a show to watch that I don't watch any other time. One group that was really helpful in terms of getting me back into running after a long hiatus was Moms on the Run -- not sure if you have it in your area but it was fantastic.

I didn't homeschool my kids through high school. I have one who went back in 8th grade, one in 9th grade and one just this year in 7th grade. I think they have mixed feelings. There were definitely good memories and plusses to being homeschooled but what led all of them back to school was that we didn't have enough connections with a homeschool community. We did things like church, a weekly gym class, a biweekly co-op, field trip groups, and occasional nature center classes, but those groups didn't overlap and they didn't really develop close friendships with other homeschoolers. Covid made things A LOT harder and we lost a lot of the connections/activities we had before. They needed that consistent community/peer group and thankfully, they've been able to find it in their schools.

It sounds like a difficult situation but taking away recess would be the last thing I would do, too.

I don't think this is all homeschoolers. I have taught at a homeschool co-op for three years, ranging from 2nd-10th grades, and other than a few chatty kids, I've had no classroom management issues.

CNN issued a statement in their CNN 10 newsletter that Carl is leaving CNN due to a personal decision.

You might try emailing them. I also don't like to make phone calls but they've always been prompt responding to emails.

I'm hope it's temporary but I'm not hopeful based on the delays and what his wife said. If he was out sick, or something similar, I think she would have just said that rather than saying she can't comment on it.

We have watched Carl for years as homeschoolers and my kids also watched him when they attended both public and private schools. We are all disappointed that Carl isn't back! It's not CNN10 without him. 😞 My kids say it's all over TikTok as well and I've seen both teachers and students commenting all over Twitter about his absence. His wife is in a Facebook homeschool group that I'm also in and she said she can't comment. 😞 She did encourage anyone with opinions to contact CNN.