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Today is the first day everyone is testing negative. Now I just have to not be brewing up some covid germs. DH still coughing pretty hard, and middle DD (tested positive until today) is still pretty emotional/tired/worn out. Everyone started feeling ok on about Saturday.

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And a substantial collection of Rainbow Loom bracelet making thingees and bands just got added to the pile. Whoo-hoo! I'm thinking one of the libraries may want those as well.

I work at 2 libraries, and they both have LEGO building clubs, so I'm going to ask the youth managers before I donate them to Salvation Army. We got them into 20-25 gallon sized bags.

I am in shock today. I have quietly started doing a loose version of Dana K. White's methods (a slob comes clean). I'm keeping up on dishes and cleaning the kitchen, and I'm randomly opening drawers and cupboards and flinging out trash and obvious clutter. I have done nothing that might be "hard" decisions. I have mentioned nothing to anyone, but they've noticed the piles in the car to go to Salvation Army and the increased trash. It's been about 5 weeks since I started. I have touched no one else's clutter except boxing up some artwork that was on the floor and putting it on a closet shelf. This was when middle DD (my most sentimental-clutter one) had covid and was sleeping in a different bedroom and I had to stay in her room. Today, DH cleaned out his work-from-home area and his rather sizeable collection of water bottles. Middle gathered up and offered her entire large LEGO collection for donation. Youngest set aside for donation 2 entire shelves of books! It's a little more chaotic than when I do quick little declutters, but I am definitely not complaining. Y'all, this is HUGE!

Oldest: Graduated with 31, which included enough DE to achieve an AS. By far my most academically inclined child, but struggles with ADHD and anxiety, for which we have not found the medications that work well. Attended a 4 year school for 2 years during covid and has switched to a 1 year Mechatronics certification. Likes that way more than the 4 year college. Middle: She will graduate in May with 26.5 credits, of which 3 are DE. Honestly, amazing to me since 8-10th grade, she dealt with debilitating physical and mental illness. Junior and Senior year are much heavier credit years than 9th and 10th for her. Set to go to a 4 year college in the fall as a nursing major. Youngest: Currently a junior - I expect she will graduate with about 25ish credits. Maybe 1 or 2 DE credits. She is my kiddo who least likes school (it gets in the way of her own reading, etc); ironically, she has chosen a path that requires grad school though. She plans to go into library science, and will most likely start at the local cc. None of them attended/will attend a highly competitive school. Oldest went to UAH, middle will attend Coe, and as I said, youngest will start at the cc.

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Her son, Mitchell, a kindergartner, practices spelling with magnetic letters on the refrigerator: "cat," "dog," "dad," and "mom" have been proudly displayed for all to see. One morning while getting ready for the day, Mitchell bounded into the room with his arms outstretched. In his hands were three magnetic letters: G-O-D. "Look what I spelled, Mom!" Mitch exclaimed, a proud smile on his face. "That's wonderful!" Mom said. "Now go put them on the fridge so Dad can see when he gets home tonight." That Christian education is certainly having an impact, she thought, happily. Just then, a little voice called from the kitchen. "Mom? How do you spell 'zilla?'"

My co-worker currently has mine: she's trying to decide if she wants one, and I'm trying to decide if I want to declutter mine. So a 6 week trial for both of us. I'd say the 6 qt is standard; it's what most recipes are written for. So, it'd be what I'd get since I am not a natural cook and need a recipe. I love Kahlua Pig from nom nom paleo in it, hard boiled eggs, and a couple of pasta dishes. I never did get yogurt to work in mine (but mine is an off brand so the buttons are a little hard to understand what they are doing). Everything I make in it could be done differently, and it does take up a lot of room. Hence, why my co-worker has mine...

https://www.facebook.com/reel/774286174565258 I don't know how to share this one without the link: short video about the newest Monsters Inc employee.

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I haven't used CLRC for any of the specific classes you are asking about, but I've had 2 kids take about 6 classes through CLRC over the past few years. My kids have taken their foreign languages at CLRC - not French though. Youngest loves her Spanish class (she's taken Spanish 1, 2, and is currently in 3), and older loves Arabic (she's in her 2nd year in Arabic for all ages as it's the only Arabic class). Older took German 2 & 3 through CLRC as a freshman/sophomore. Older also took Chemistry through CLRC. It was solid, and DD enjoyed it. So far, we haven't had any duds.

Can I whine for a moment? We are going on week 3 of trying to be good citizens and contain covid here. I feel like the world is working against me on that though. One DD tested positive on the 25th; she tested 2x negative on Feb 5th. Everyone tested negative on that day too. We had pretty much stayed home - DH and I switched off working from home and working in our respective offices (masked) for the time. Other DD tested positive on the 10th; her covid test is just as bright as the 10th today. Urgent care only gave her a school note for last week off. She trudged through her cc classes today, and she looks like he*$ when I picked her up and she's asleep now although she was feeling pretty good this morning. DH tested positive on the 13th, and he's having pretty severe tachycardia (his watch told him he'd walked 800 steps, but reached his target heart rate 155 minutes the other day) to which urgent care said, "Yeah, that's normal." Urgent care didn't even wear masks while swabbing DD's nose - WTH? I remain testing negative. One of my jobs is paying me for not showing up (my boss was hospitalized in 2020 and is very covid-cautious), and the other I go into as long as I am negative and masked. DH missed a couple of days last week, although he was able to work from home briefly Friday. DH is expected to show up at work Friday, positive or negative. I'm absolutely exhausted from trying to manage quarantine, up my normal cleaning routine, work 24 hours a week, and keep myself as healthy as I can so hopefully I can dodge this. Financially, it's been a huge hit as well. It's cost well over $200 in covid tests to continually test 4 people (although our local health department has been doling them out depending on the employee - one lady there was cranky and gave me "my one free test", but the guy today gave me 10 - bless him), and $100 in urgent care.

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I've had 3, and yes, they can be a lot to handle. It usually started around age 11-12. Mom is often the problem; I choose to believe it's because they feel safe with me though that doesn't always help me in the moment. My 22 year old comes to me for advice now. My 18 yo is a tough one, but she does seem to like me sometimes. My almost 17 yo may be coming out of the stage, but time will tell. I do think me not having any hormones has made it a tiny bit easier (I had a complete hysterectomy back when the kids were 3-8 years old) than I've seen in other families going through this. I can only imagine how hard my tongue would need to be bitten if I were perimenopausal for the last 10 years...

Woot-woot!

I'm in the midst of a quick dash-and-declutter spree (meaning: I'm not dealing with the hard stuff yet, I amsimply opening a drawer or cabinet and throwing away trash and donating anything that hasn't been used in who-knows-how-long). Books, DVDs and board games go to the library. I work there, so I just take a bag/box in with me a couple times a week; if I didn't work there, everything would go to Salvation Army. Everything else has ended up at Salvation Army, which is down the street from work. I load up extra reusable grocery bags, since I'm decluttering those as well, and drop off a bag on my way home from work. We have several different places within 30 minutes that will take stuff for pets/refugees/recovering addicts/DV victims/etc, but I can't deal with the extra mental bandwidth to figure out what could go where. Salvation Army will sell it at a discount, so someone can use it. I have learned to be good with that.