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I'm sure @Karenihas thoughts about some of us "following the rocket" for the Game!

My tinnitus has always been worse when I'm drinking more than a cup a day. I'm at about 3 cups a day right now, so I can't decide whether the second shot made it worse or if it's the coffee! I think it's the shot, since I don't remember it being quite this bad earlier this winter when I was drinking the same amount of coffee.

You are amazing! I'm feeling like I'm way ahead by being two weeks away, ouch. We've been together for more than 30 years but married for 25. We almost always go on trips separately, typically to care for a parent. I've declared a few times that when youngest is graduated from homeschool (two years from now) we will take our honeymoon, so maybe I should start planning for that 🙂 I've never understood the phrase "love language" until today when @Beth S used it. I'm a little slow. But now I realize that photos are one of ours along with rhyming poems (mine) and building projects (his). Making board games is another one for me - I made him a chess set for our fifth anniversary. I'm thinking I'm going to make a set of yahtzee dice and score cards, and get a friend to inlay them with silver.

I "hearted" your overall but would send a sad face for this! I do know plenty of couples who don't do gifts, though that is different than forgetting. My parents "gave" each other a family reunion and a new marriage "certificate" for all who attended to sign.

I like this. I think I've figured it out, so I'm changing the topic.

Edited because I think I've figured out my plan 🙂 But now I'm curious - what did you and spouse/significant other give each other or yourselves as a couple for your 25th anniversary?

Attack of the 3D zombies...

DD16 has both shots. The first just gave her a sore arm, the second she had a full 36 hours of sore arm plus achey, chills, fatigue. Totally fine on the third day.

Three weeks out from my second Pfizer, I think my tinnitus is actually worse, though not constant. Louder when it's on. This observation is not controlled for the coffee variable, though. DD16 had the super-tired-yucky-feeling-24 hours following her second Pfizer, same as DH.

Respect to you, Ottakee and all who are courageously telling their stories here, this must be triggering. Harpy

Melt them in a frying pan til they're tender, blend with goat cheese and a yolk or two, bake as a savory "cheese cake" filling in a tart shell.

Going out on a limb here: the t in often SHOULD be silent.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Harvard Business School professor emerita Shoshona Zuboff is a foundational text for naming and defining what we are experiencing. She doesn't have an especially profound conclusion for the future, but she narrates the development and arrival of the system. She and others will have more to work with as the future unfolds. She's a humanist and an excellent researcher. It took me weeks to get through the book (and I read very quickly.) Highly recommend - and yes, she explains why you can have your phone turned off and still be surveilled. In a tiny nutshell: data mining is ultimately about reducing risk for investors. Controlling behavior is about reducing risk for investors. Human nature is a secondary concern in the system which has been created to reduce risk for investors. Podcast interview with Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/06/surveillance-capitalism

My kids loved the whole series, read them to each other, and have marathon LOTR nights where they stay up all night and watch as many as they can get through. They also played plenty of D&D, which is drawn from Tolkien themes. I was the crabby mom who asked them questions like Why did Tolkien primarily use race to express abilities? Here's a site by that offers scholarly critical thinking about Tolkien and other fantasy genre media: https://www.publicmedievalist.com/race-fantasy-genre/

The Princess Bride and The Secret of Roan Innish. All the LOTRs for the kids, I'm not a fan.

My older three didn't use anything online to compare to, but it's not very rigorous. We love it because Mr. H has kindled a love and appreciation for math in my previously math-hating dd, which is all that matters to me for this one. Workload is minimal with the year-long class, I would guess the faster paced classes have more. The platform is very easy to use, and she gets positive reinforcement by seeing all the assignments and grades laid out. She'll do pre-calc there next year and AP calc somewhere else senior year, and will probably never do another math class!

Me too. I use boring utility ones for cooking but I have a huge collection of vintage ones. One word: rickrack.

I lurked for years. Came for the excellence, stayed for community.

"How to Climb 5.12" was an English - PE - History - Geography - Geology mashup. My oldest was a dedicated rock climber throughout high school and became a professional guide in junior and senior year. This class included reading true climbing stories, historical climbing accounts, developing map and compass skills, a WFR certification, writing 12 essays about his research, an insane amount of climbing and fitness, geology lab field work, and yes, he did learn to climb at the 5.12 level. He and we thought he'd become an environmental / outdoor educator. His college major and current career? Chemical engineering, nearing an MS in nuclear engineering.

Hands-on consumer math lab: start a business. Create a business plan with spreadsheets, learn and use Quickbooks or similar. Dd started a pie business, another homeschooled friend raked and sold blueberries. Lawn and yard care, housecleaning, and website design are a few that come to mind. Apprentice with a small business owner that you know and learn to do their books under the owner's watchful eye. Anything food related will have state regs on having a certified kitchen but researching the regs and working out the costs are part of the lab.

I've never considered CLEPs before, but am curious now that the SAT2s are gone. I guess my calculus will be whether it's more worthwhile for dd to spend the time prepping for the SAT vs spreading out the time and energy available on a CLEP or two plus the SAT. She would be doing them for "outside validation" same as the SAT.

We have wondered if Dd in Geneva did in January of 2020. Her roommate (in their very small room) was in med school at U of Geneva, and in a lab with three docs who had just returned from a lab in a hospital in Wuhan. All of the lab later quarantined. It was right after they returned after Christmas, and I had not yet begun to read the big covid thread. Her roommate had something first that was like a pretty bad respiratory flu, then dd caught it. They each had it about 5 days but without loss of taste or smell. We only thought about it much later, mostly due to roommate's proximity to lab docs and the timing. They're both early 20s.

Well done! You are sending quite a scholar into the world. Way will open on the next chapter for you.

Not responding exactly to this quote but I have a theory honed over 30 years, though with no real data other than personal observation: kids whose parents "pull them out" of school tend to go back to school, and parents who start out homeschooling tend to be the ones who homeschool through high school or wait until high school to send their kids. Anyone else see this?