Thanks for this idea. I think this will be something I do with the kids, too, I think reflection and reliving [some] of our memories would be a good exercise, especially since next year is going to be a lot of change. Starting to cement the good memories may help the move coming up. Dec 1st - Something that was new to you in 2017: Lighthearted fun thing: First time making sushi! Well, rolls, like California rolls and the like. Dec 2nd - 2017 summed up in three words: By God's grace. Dec 3rd - Your favorite memory of 2017: Kitty was born :001_wub:

From what you describe, yes, I'd assume that her coming is contingent on getting the kids that extra week. My mom often does the "but it'd be best for you! I'm thinking of you!" tactic when trying to get her way. 95% of the time it sounds like a good idea, which ends up just being more work and less enjoyable for me. Especially if you miss out on family traditions, but don't really get that much downtime (if they aren't taking ALL the kids, the downtime will not be true relaxation and IME the baby is more work when the older kids aren't around, lol), you will probably resent the time away from kids and it won't help much. I think others have had polite responses. I'd probably stick to the polite no with no real explanation past "that won't work for us, sorry!". If you do take her up on it, try moving the traditions to a few days before they leave so that you still have something enjoyable with them and the traditions aren't in danger of falling away completely. And maybe figure out if there's a way you can get some true relaxation in that time, too.

And off of this globe! :lol:

Our kids have seen the original 3. Those are ok, just a bit dark in some spots. The Prequels are mostly kid friendly, though we haven't shown those to them. I'd say those are ok for a action-y 9yo. I saw The Force Awakens and Rogue One. They were just more charged movies overall. I don't think they would qualify as PG, and had the feeling they were trying with a couple scenes/story choices to make sure they weren't PG. I personally am a traditionalist and would show in the order of 4-5-6-1-2-3, that's it, lol. But, I'm a "give us Legends" person with a bone to pick, so a bit of bias there, lol. Maybe try out 4-5-6 to see if your son likes the universe first?

I already made my "Do or Don't" decision today: I'm out of bed! Yay me! lol I went to Market on the Move last week. Still have pumpkins sitting here. Posted a thread about what to do with them and there were some great ideas, but everything sounds like so much work. I have a couple more days before I need to really use them up, but I hate that feeling of food you don't need. Parents are having Thanksgiving maybe on Tuesday next week, not sure yet. Either way just need to bring a salad and a dessert. Same with DH's family. So at least I don't have to do the whole shebang, though neither family we are visiting really has a touch for turkey or stuffing, which is a shame. But that's okay, so long as I don't have to make it :)

Funny how things work. Because I wrote this, my DH of course decided at 10am that today was The Day to get our acts together, lol. We'd been planning to do a "Military Month" with the kids for November, but it was pushed back to start on Veteran's Day, then after Thanksgiving, because we haven't had time to get everything in place for it and plan it out. Well, at 10am (after the oatmeal complaints and dishes disaster), he declared martial law. All my little troops are very excited for this (they love theme weeks/months, and our military isn't too brutal), and my house is already looking clean. It's taken away from what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing today, but at least SOMETHING is getting done, which is more than I can say usually, lol.

My life. Needs to get together. Please. Send help. This week isn't the week to do anything, though, I just have to try and endure. (when is it ever really the right time, though, kwim?) By Saturday everything should be over and I'll be able to focus on holidays and getting set up and taking these kids to task. Would love a personal chef and I think that will be our first luxury once we win the lottery, lol. I say this as I am listening to kids argue about who got more oatmeal and my DH grousing about dishes. So only the chef if they wash their own dishes, or come with a washer.

What do you do with small pumpkins? Never had these before. Don't feel up to pie, unless that's the least intensive option. Any easy uses for these?

While this is technically against the David Ramsey know where every penny is going idea, you can have a "Forgotten Things" budget amount. Say, $50 for things that weren't included in the other categories. So, the $8 extra for the tour tickets comes from there, the extra lunch, the Chipotle, and the shampoo you forgot about, and the present for the birthday party you didn't know your kid would be invited to when you made the budget. But, once that $50 is gone, that's all. This gives you the opportunity to make the budget categories as they should be without having to add wiggle room everywhere, but enough wiggle room for life that you don't blow the budget in a category then say "Well, we already blew the budget, let's get ice cream!" lol, as I am wont to do. This only works if you have the money to even budget, of course, but it seems if you are spending the money, it's coming from somewhere, right? Cant' help with the cash vs card part, we use credit cards for the purchases for ease, record keeping, and rewards.

I said analysts, just wanted to clarify I meant analysts looking to find best play patterns, champion matchups, items to buy, objectives to take at wha time, etc. In other words, number crunchers looking for the optimal way to play the game. Since many games tweak numbers and interactions with each patch, analysts have a full time job keeping up with this.

Game testers, streamers can do well but it is not easy and being a pro reallly helps, analysts both for teams and for companies, artists (computer-aided mostly), user experience teams , then all the marketing and social media teams, customer service. Then you have exports journalists. Lawyers seem to be big as well, since as with all sports, millions of dollars are at play. I would say League of Legends is much bigger than most, Overwatch is growing a large tournament infrastructure but idk if it will have the viewers needed to sustain it, they need to change their spectator mode if they want to actually have spectators (current rumors is this will be released soon but there is skepticism it will be good enough).

Blah day. Client issues from last week took over my weekend and continue this morning. I'm so done, and its not even lunchtime yet, lol. If you go back to sleep, so will I, so please do! lol

Completely true. But, still surprised that people are saying they never hear this used as a shortened version of "A third of a pound", as I hear it often. I was remarking on that, not the correctness.

Surprised a third pound isn't more common. A third of a pound sounds more correct, sure, but so many more syllables! So much more effort! lol I wouldn't mention it unless it's an ongoing issue, such as if this happens at the deli counter 3 or 4 times in a row. Then it becomes something the manager should know for training reasons. Only one time, though, I would just assume they heard wrong or couldn't remember at the time and knew that there was a "3" involved somehow, and made their best guess. Similar for the sandwich. I wouldn't mention it, unless it happens a second time. They probably just didn't read the instructions, because most sandwiches are in 1/2s and it is an easy thing to auto-pilot. I often accidentally cut all sandwiches in half down the middle, even though I know who has a standing request of triangle cut, due to auto-pilot.

Praying, both for her and for you. I'm sorry you are both having to deal with this. :grouphug:

We decided not to put our name on it. Or, we will say something like 'typography and music setting done by "us", score edited by "composer name." ' He has no prior published works to look at. Only 2 others have worked on his written music before and they were not professionals (also, if he didn't pay them much since it was their side job, it probably wasn't worth their time to actually LOOK at the music, just push it out the door). And, maybe this is the first time he's done this in his music; I mean, we are talking about 8 pages out of 40 for this piece, so it's not like everything was wrong. It's a tricky thing, because composers approach the music like an artist might in that "There is no such thing as wrong art", but written music notation conforms to standards like authors have (spelling, punctuation, etc.). There are rules (for his type of music, we aren't talking about an avant-garde cut out score or anything like that -- and even those have conventions). Without going into details I can't really talk about, all I can say is that this issue is definitely a notational issue, not a compositional one. We've already put in considerable time, and I think at this point cutting him off would do more damage than finishing the work. I think he could cause a louder ruckus to musician-friends than the negative that his music will reflect on us (especially if we leave off our name). The good that's come of it is I've done a "post-mortem" on what happened and what I can do in the future to prevent it. I don't think we were in the wrong and were acting within the originally-agreed upon parameters, but adding a few extra sentences to the contract will help, if we have another composer like this in the future. Thanks everyone for the ideas, and input on the possible impacts.

Are you around an Ikea? I got this bag as just a impulse buy, and have been amazed at how dependent I've become. I used it at a conference, and carried 2 of those smaller 16-20oz water bottles, a book, my phone, wallet, a few odds and ends that you pick up at a conference, and it had room for more if I needed. Fits an iPad, even though you don't need that. There is a net area that I keep my keys in. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10313576/ Comes in red and black. I'm considering buying another for the eventual day this one wears out. It's holding up well though for the cost, I wasn't expecting a workhorse but have been pleasantly surprised. Bought in March, still going strong. The zipper doesn't feel awesome (typical zipper), but hasn't given out yet, despite my sometimes harsh tugging.

Kids play differently, it doesn't sound worrisome. My 6yo tenses up a lot when he plays, especially if it is sit-in-one-spot play. It's just a sign of his full engagement, his body is getting in on the action of no-action, lol. If your daughter recognizes and describes what she is doing is pretend, then don't worry. Even if she is pretend-spell casting, the fact that she recognizes it as pretend play means she isn't taking it seriously. Trying any intervention may make her wonder why and re-evaluate if you know something about this pretend-thing that she doesn't. I don't think you need to redirect with other activities, structured or non. If she enjoys playing this way, she'll just find a different time to do so.

Thanks. Yeah, the time already spent on it doesn't make sense to back out now. I don't mind notating stuff wrong (well, I do, it really bothers me), but what got to me more was his treatment of the issue. Thats a death knell unless something profound happens like an apology, which I doubt. I can't imagine working on a larger piece, that may have real problems, and then either letting it go or taking the possibility of a verbal smack down for my trouble. Better just not to accept the work. Musicians/composers are touchy about their 'art', I get it and deal with it every day, but there's a line. Good idea to the unedited notice, but he will proof the final printed version so it wouldn't stick and would just tick him off more. Perhaps just won't put our name on it at all, though.

don't quote, may delete when calm. We do work for people with their music, getting it ready for publishing. I have an issue where a section is entirely wrongly notated. I guess to translate to English, it would be a scholarly work that all of a sudden the WrItInG iS aLl DoNe LiKe ThIs aNd No PuNcTuAtIoNs For us, it is a standard and simple thing to simply re-notate and go, without changing the actual music, simply how it is written out. When its a large section, we let the composer know. This is a big reason why people hire us, similar to how publishers have editors for books, I guess, to continue the analogy. The guy responded with a long screed about how we know nothing about music, etc, we are not here to comment on his compositions, and no one has ever questioned him before, and to just get on with our job. It was mostly caps and just...demeaning. I was very careful with my original email of course, and it certainly had no hint of judgement or questioning his music. So we will leave the music as is, complete the job as quickly as possible, and not take on one of his jobs again. Just stinks because I put a lot of time into getting this customer (he looked like a great prospect) and now I'll have a sour taste the entire time I have to work on this. And, if this work is actually shown to anyone, WE will look like the ones who didn't do their job. sigh. thanks for listening.

We have wood, only disadvantage is when your 3yo mysteriously disappears, to be found filling the entire sink with water to wash the dishes, and the water makes the wood counter weird. Not unusable, just...weird. Ours is from Ikea, it's held up to 3 cooks with heavy-handed imaginations of what you do in a kitchen, lol.

Not in the mood today either. I skipped breakfast and went straight to chocolate for motivation, never a good sign, lol. Love the atmosphere in here today, Scrap, good call on the lights and tea. Thankfulness goes to DH today, who has worked the past week making mega-meals, so that my freezer is completely stocked and at least 30 frozen dinners ready to go. I'm going to start using it immediately so that hopefully something else gets done other than my procrastination around dinner, lol.

:grouphug: :grouphug: Good luck on the surgery!

We will probably wait to list in January, one last Christmas in the house. Listing right now is still an option, but seems like a lot of hassle -- holidays and busy season for work are at the same time. We'll make that decision within a couple weeks. Hope to sell in ~1 month (1-3 weeks is average for our area at the moment), probably 1-3 months living with family as we finish up purchase/update/setup of the RV (living with MIL, so hopefully just 1 month, lol). I'd like to leave right after Easter, but am aware we may be here until June.

Great idea re: book coffee give away! 2 birds with one stone. Maybe even 3 birds, depending on your coffee requirements for the day :) Yeah, I'm having a bit of "Want to do photographs, NEED to get these kids on task" type of days. So far neither is really working out. I've gotten through core subjects but none of the fun stuff for them so no one is satisfied. Yes to yard sale. Probably in January. Will be just about everything in the house. Maybe not a great return compared to what I purchased the stuff for, but if someone else buys it at least I'm saving myself the fee/trouble of taking it to the dump, and recycling is better. So I'll do it and just look at it in a "at least I'm not paying them to take it" way, lol.