Snapped a pic of the cats learning by osmosis today. AKA sleeping all over the school materials. It is a daily fight with them. Stefanie

Yes, I know, been banging my head against the wall for 10 years trying to teach and/or subsidize to help them get ahead and it only enables the bad decisions. Covered the mental health care costs - refused to engage in treatment. Subsidized the housing - still behind because they don't pay their portion of rent. Buy food - brags about latest and greatest toy that was bought when they didn't really have the money to spend on it. Buy a car so they can get to work - quits job because they don't like the job Stefanie

Yes, you might do better, if prices don't immediately go up as they do when minimum wage rises. Some people will learn; I bet not even half would. Change is work and most people don't see the need to do it. However, I can name 25 people that I know off the top of my head that if you gave them a monthly stipend would still be 3 months behind on every bill they have and never have gas, food, or clean clothing; and they most certainly would not be working. Yet, they'd have every new video game the day it came out, would see every new movie on opening night, and they'd be buying a $400 item they don't need every month. And they would cry that what was given to them wasn't enough and they need additional support. I go back to my original statement, a fundamental of universal income would have to be a bit of a hard line and let people suffer the consequences of their choices. Stefanie

I would rather do no strings attached and then hold them accountable for their actions than to be constantly spending money on trying to provide services. My hold out is the hold them accountable. If I'm giving someone an income, I don't want to be whined at how I now need to subsidize food, housing, childcare, etc through taxes on top of it because it 'isn't enough' and there are still poor people. I'm just not 100% convinced it'll have the effect people want or that it'll be "enough". Stefanie

Quite frankly, in practice, people like these rarely want to change their behaviors....even with help. When you've spent 10 years trying to help someone make better choices and they just want you to give them money so they can go buy the latest video game, come back to me. Stefanie

This is what I mean by poor choice and bleeding hearts. There will always be people like this. You can't force them to shape up. You can't always teach them better skills. You can't really do anything but take the kids (or let the kids suffer) and let them suffer the consequences of their poor choices. But honestly, I think there are more of them than people realize. Stefanie

You would lose your state healthcare and all your welfare benefits. That is part and parcel as to how universal income works. It replaces ALL welfare. You don't get an income from the government AND welfare. The thing about universal income is that you don't get penalized for working above and beyond by means testing out of it. Foundational to universal income is: 1. Massive tax reform (never going to happen) 2. replaces ALL government assistance I could get on board with trying universal income, except it wouldn't even be 5 years and we'd start getting calls for "more" because people are still in poverty.

It would never work. The bleeding hearts who believe people just need "more" help won't stop taking to give. In order for a minimum income to work....you really have to be okay with the fact that some people just make bad decisions and stop shielding them from the consequences of those bad decisions. Stefanie

I'd feed mine raw if they'd take it and have fed my dogs raw for years. I have one cat that won't eat anything but dry food though; not even treats or can tuna. My feral baby used to eat raw....but now just wants to lick the blood. I have to watch him in the kitchen or he'll try to lick the meat I'm using for dinner. And yes, cats tend to play with their food and drag the raw at least across the floor. Stefanie

Dh's ex-wife and her family in Katy were preparing to move up to the second floors/attics of neighbors armed with axes last night. We've told her that if they can get here we have a place for them all to stay. Stefanie

We were going to the eclipse.....now we are nursing the flu. I'm not hopeful we are going make it. Stefanie

Maybe your renter would want to buy it from you? Stefanie

I'm beginning to wonder how much of this is about the gf. If Jenny's son is away on tour, doing something even semi-long distance, or even taking his own classes, how does that affect him being available to drive her places? If he feels the need to be so supportive he may not feel he can take to time to be focusing on himself. Is that something he would feel comfortable admitting to you Jenny? Stefanie

Well, I admit, I am very sad these days. My town has plans to develop a major highway right through the middle of my family's property in the next 30 years. Property that was surveyed in the 1800s and today every inch of it remains among the descendants. Over 200 years of family investment and it will be ruined against our will. I am not a fan of growth just for growth's sake. It breeds too many problems. Stefanie

No, nice in theory, but I think it would quickly decentivize a significant portion of people it is designed to help and we'd be right back where we started pretty quickly. Seen the dynamic pretty frequently. I happen to know more people that would use it to justify working less while simultaneously demanding "more" than people who would use it to get ahead. And I include my family in that, yes, we work hard for what we have, but I know if we knew we had x amount of dollars coming in, no matter what, our response would be to cut back on working hours, but we wouldn't necessarily demand "more". Stefanie

I too know people who fraud the system. Sometimes it's not the gov't but the ex-spouse (not getting remarried to keep the alimony) and even charities. We go every 6 months or so to make sure the grandson isn't being used to defraud the system and to ensure that what he is entitled to goes to the right place and the social workers treat us like scum over it. Stefanie

We never park in the garage. Our old house, despite it being a "two car", didn't have enough room for a car to fit unless it was something compact like a mini-cooper. We just felt we needed more than 2 inches clearance from the garage door/wall to be comfortable parking in there. Our new place doesn't have a garage so we are working on building a carport. Stefanie

My daughter and I faithfully have our weekly lessons; huntseat for her and dressage for me. We just bought a place with acreage and hope to get enough of the barn and fences up to bring the horses over next month. We have an 17 year old TB mare and a 9 year old Quarter pony rescue mare. Stefanie

We just bought a 28 acre property that has been fairly neglected. Currently trying to clean it up to bring my two horses home. In a few years I may play with taking on a few boarders. We are 4 miles from a new uni campus and there is no boarding at all on this side of the county. But considering the property make-up (city gravel pits, city water wells, and river flood plain) of the area, we won't be seeing development for a long time still. Stefanie

I'd pass. It never ceases to amaze me that people move to "land" and then want restrictions. Land is too much work and expense to put up with the potential of being limited in it's use. The only time a restriction on land is good is when it's someone who only has 1 acre in an actual neighborhood (with children) who thinks they have enough space to shoot their guns. Stefanie

Hmmm....the only weather/tornado sirens I've ever heard in TX has been the sirens in my mother's hometown. They sound them every day to officially declare it lunch time (noon). Other than that, tornados are infrequent. A small one did run through the neighbor hood I grew up in last year. Completely ripped off the garage and roof of a house on the street behind the house I grew up in. Stefanie

When I get new books in I photocopy all the pages (except textbook) and then hole punch and file under different tabs in a binder. Then we can "do the next thing" or I can schedule. I was getting overwhelmed trying to flip through all the books. This way I only have to hand over the pages I want DD to do. We do the textbook first and then I hand over the assigned pages. If we need to hang out or I decide we want to dig a bit deeper I just have to flip to the appropriate section of practice pages and pick out the pages I want to do. When we are ready to move on we can go back to the TB/WB. Stefanie

We are not legally constrained. We are looking at the future and possible scenarios. When the bioparents have another one, it will go to her. Their issues are severe enough that CPS will not let them keep a child. These people are sick enough that it is conceivable they will scheme to exchange a child for support. We just are not in a position to raise another grandchild. Once that happens, we'll either wind up legally entangled with her for visitation or we'll have to work something out ourselves anyway so the two siblings can have a relationship and so that we can know that grandchild. How is that going to go if we alienate the ex now by cutting her off? It is not as easy as just saying "you can't see him". Stefanie

Wait, how long are these unsupervised visits with his grandma? Are we talking more than a few hours at a time? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk This visit was longer because it was spring break, but they are usually 24 - 48 hours. They've been worked up to and up until now they've been fine. This is the first time this has reared its ugly head in an actionable way. I have my suspicions about what schemes are going on behind the scenes and I'm not really going to discuss our plan for dealing with this online, but we do indeed have a plan to deal with it. Stefanie

Yes, sort of a sudden change, although the change could be him finally getting old enough to process and act on the manipulation. We've been seeing some possible warning signs upon picking him up the last few visits, but couldn't be 100% sure it was her doing something. The first visit we saw a problem he cried during the exchange and the whole hour home. Concerned because it wasn't like him, but he could have been tired/allergies (he has a decent dog allergy and she has indoor dogs). The next visit after he had a bit of potty training regression. Again, concerned but these things often happen on their own as well so no way to accuse anything. This time when we picked him up it was beyond obvious. During the exchange he stated to us he wanted to go home with her and was otherwise chatty. As soon as we left he refused to speak or interact with more than a grunt to us for 4 hours. Then the next 4 days he called me DD's mom instead of the usual. To me, it takes a very intensive and sustained effort to get a 3 year old to call his only known full time mother figure something else for 4 days. The only difference that I am aware of is that his parents visited at the ex's house for a day and a half while he was there. But I am sure there is something else going on. His parents are on the brink of implosion so there is probably some funny business going on there between them too. She's been very critical of DIL's mental illness and lack of interest of the grandchild in the past and now she is firmly on team poor picked on DIL. Trust me, we are very in tune with the situation and the various parties motivations and behaviors. We can generally guess the gist of what is going on before they ever get forced to come clean about it. Stefanie