My kids wouldn't have discovered their 1st ever huge rolly polly bug community under a garden rock this morning while they were helping me de-weed if they had been in school. They were so freaking excited to see that many rolly polly bugs in one place that they declared it the best school day ever.

If she is 18 and makes enough to pay self employment taxes on the earnings for this job (it used to be at least certain amount/quarter for self employment taxes to need to be filed, but not sure what the rule is now), it would not be worth it for $8-$10/hr. At least at a local clothing store or restaurant that pays about $10/hr, she wouldn't have to worry with additional self employment taxes. If it adds up to being not enough income to file self employment taxes, then $8-$10/hr may be worth it if she will have some downtime to study or work on a hobby while the 8 yo is playing with neighbors, at the park, neighborhood pool, or watching a bit of TV. Watching 2 kids in that age range may be less intense than watching 1, because 2 kids can play together and an 8 yr old may look to her to entertain him most of the day. ETA: I read the thread title not knowing you meant babysitting. I read the 1st line quickly as 8yo old boy, 3 days/week, 7-3:30, what to CHANGE? (instead of charge) I was prepared to reply, "turn off the TV, lock him outside with bike and huge water bottle, and tell him to exercise." I thought for an instant you were wondering the amount of time other 8yos sit and what to change in a boy sitting that long amount of time. I need a nap.

I think if you are the personality type to be committed to others around you and able to invest the time and energy it takes to reach out to others, that trait will follow you wherever you go. The fact that you were close to people around you in 2 different environments makes me think it isn't the environment that played a role in being part of the community, but it is one of your personality strengths to be able to draw in closer relationships with those around you. We lived in our current home over 10 years with barely speaking to our neighbors other than hi and bye and how's the weather. That was with me being outside quite a bit, seeing and cordially speaking to neighbors regularly. A young couple moved nearby and hung out outside a lot. They not only said hi and bye to everybody, but stopped and asked people about their lives and people would stay and chat with them. People didn't seem interested when I tried to reach out, maybe because I'm a bit socially awkward. Within a year, all the neighbors started getting to know each other more and more through hanging out outside with this couple and now we borrow flour from each other, give rides when there are car troubles, help move big furniture when needed, say more than hello when getting the mail at the same time, and have an occasional block party. This couple has a knack for getting close to those around them super quick, be it neighborhood, church, workplace, etc.... They were the same way where they lived before and it was a completely different living dynamic. It sounds like you would be the same way if you moved. I love being part of the community, be it workplaces, church, neighborhood, or wherever. But I am an introvert by nature and *sometimes* I'd like to just do my daily responsibilities (currently as a homeschooling SAHM) and outside of that live in a bubble by myself without expectations or commitments to those around me. Plus I am not a people magnet so it takes a lot of energy on my part to keep involved without being socially stressed out to the max. Most of my extended family usually keep to themselves. They just go to work, home, watch TV, prepare the simplest of dinners and eat in front of the TV, and go to bed. Everyday. They do not have many community relationships, but they also don't have to deal with relational drama that sometimes occurs in small community settings like the stress that occurs when a small church is struggling for volunteers or money to stay functional or their HOA board needs to brainstorm how to address a neighborhood policy violation. But they also do not have people dropping meals at their doorstep when there is a health issue or a bunch of helping hands when they need moving help. I think being involved with community is overall beneficial to all involved.

I know of a homeschool curriculum company that is fine with someone doing that if original buyer is done with it.

Thanks for answering the question. I was just curious if It likely got deleted by mods-which I couldn't imagine on this topic, OP requested its deletion-which I also couldn't imagine (but a lot could change in a seemingly innocent thread in under 24 hours), or was something awry with my account.

I came on the forum just to chill and read updates on a couple threads I had commented on recently. I had a couple of "likes" as early as a couple hours ago on one thread, but it says the thread can't be found and I don't have permission to read the post when I click to pull up my comment so I can catch up from where I last posted. Now I can't find the thread on the listing and I am a teeny tiny bit annoyed, because I am tad curious how the thread turned out. I don't think there was anything controversial in the thread and it wasn't heated to my knowledge. There were some differences of opinion, but not on a hot topic and it didn't contain deep personal info-so nothing I would guess would have caused admin to lock or delete it. Do threads just disappear? I don't really NEED to catch up on this, and out of respect to OP, I don't want to know details if the thread got heated and it is gone because the OP requested its removal. If the latter is the case, I didn't know one could request the removal of a post since I always see "do not quote" requests on threads with sensitive or detailed personal info. I had once posted sensitive info on a thread and regretted it after the fact, so just PM'd the couple people who quoted me and asked them to delete my quotes. Just curious for an answer to how the thread possibly disappeared, not any details about the specific thread if the thread ended up becoming heated or hurtful.

Is a Christian umbrella school okay? I understand many people use Homelife Academy and everything needed communicated (grades, attendance, curriculum list, etc....) is submitted online. You choose your own curriculum, but I think you record what resources you use for each subject for their files.

Undecided, but tipping toward no. To me it depends on a few things. First, the bathroom situation. I hate water parks and pools that have tiny messy bathrooms with little room to change and shower if needed. No benches for wet stuff in the changing area is a deal breaker for me. It also depends on if you will likely have a lounge chair or table to relax at while the kids are in the pool. Shade is a plus. If the space for parents to relax fill up fast, it isn't worth it to me to spend the summer sitting on hot concrete while the kids play in the pool. The price you quoted is more expensive than community pools in our area, but private fitness center pools run about the same. I don't care for our indoor Y pool either, but combining it with drop in daycare time during my pool trip made it worth enduring when my kids were little. If there is drop in childcare while you are at the gym, I would suggest your weekdays having the kids in the drop in center while you exercise (or relax) at the gym an hour or two, take the kids to the pool at the Y an hour or two, eat a picnic lunch at a park on the way home, maybe or maybe not play at the park, and have a downtime with everyone in the room at home the hottest part of the afternoon. You can still wear a cute summer hat everyday 😉. A day trip every few weeks should break up the monotony.

Thanks for the update. I hate being left not knowing how something turned out when a post has got me curious about how an odd situation gets handled, 😊

After thinking on this a bit and rereading the student letter, I wonder if this was the progression of events. The school usually doesn't verify attendance and it got around by word of mouth in the slacker clique. In past years, a student or two skipped out in the internship, the lack of attendance was never reported, and the couple of slacker students faked the presentation as if they had done the internship. This school year, a friend or two skipped out last week, but had the misfortune of having the company report the absence to the school. The school doesn't disclose how they found out to protect the companies from getting falsely slandered by the students, so the busted students think the school is calling to check companies to check in on student progress this year (unlike in past years.). Your dh's interns are thinking, "Oh, carp, I hope they haven;t called D yet! We've got a hole to dig out of it. Maybe we'll get lucky and they haven;t called him yet! If not, maybe he is a cool guy that will help us out!" Since the letter states, "Hopefully they haven't called you yet....," the students truly don't know if they have been reported already. If your dh calls the school Monday morning to report the date confusion and no shows (and the company is so very sorry, but since he thought the students had alternative project arrangements when they didn't show up, other arrangements were made by the company that unfortunately doesn't allow for internship to continue) , the students will never truly know that your dh ratted them out, they will just think they sent the email too late. For all they know, your dh only checks his emails in business hours and maybe hasn't even read the email. If the students show up Monday morning, dh can just claim cluelessness about the email but say, "I'm sorry, but I assumed you had a different plan for a project when you didn't come last week, so our company made other commitments for this week that does not allow for student observation. I wish we could chat, but I have something I have to tend to right away. Goodbye and have a nice day." Honesty and openness is truly the best policy, but this is a way I can see your dh exiting this mess without covering for anybody, without appearing to rat someone out in a way that may cause false slander to his business, and not having to have it take up more than 15-30 min of his time.

Will your husband be held liable for not notifying the school that the students haven't shown up? If it is counted as a school day, I would expect he (or whoever is in charge of the interns is responsible for them during the school hours) is expected to notify absences so the school can verify they aren't absent for some concering reason like an accident. I wonder if your husband is in charge of them, they don't show up, and your husband keeps silent that it will look bad for him (especially if the kids are still under 18). IDK if that is the case. In his shoes, I may or may not report the email just cuz kids like that may go ballistic on someone who doesn't give them red carpet treatment. I know this is not a WWYD post, but I would call the school Monday and say something like, "I understand the intern students were supposed to rotate days at our company starting last week, but no students showed up. Did I have the dates wrong?" Then if the school verifies your dh's dates were correct, he or the main supervisor can kindly state the 2 interns will need to make other internship arrangements since his company does not tolerate unexcused absences. That should cover him from backlash for waiting until the end of the internship to say they never showed and get him out of having to intern unmotivated students.

I would suggest respite sitting for the elderly. Either in a home, assisted living, or nursing facility where the family needs more one one one care to prevent the patient from wondering off or falling. She can fish for a position that doesn't require physical care, just one looking after the elderly person to provide company and make sure they are safe.

Someone I know recently had a similar problem in a similar located tooth, only pre-crown. She wanted to have it pulled for money and convenience reasons and because it was the back tooth. The dentist strongly advised her to save the tooth for reasons like others stated above.

I'm having flashbacks to the school I went to in K eons ago. Some specialist thought something mentally wasn't right with me because I answered "black" as my favorite color on some type of verbal assessment test. I remember answering it with confidence, and answering that my least favorite color was brown. I remember the lady kept asking "are you sure your favorite color is black?" A 5 year old claiming black as a favorite color was supposed to be "off" in some way. Their radar may have been up because I had significant speech problems. They had a meeting with my mom about it, and my mom immediately told them why I gave those answers. We had a brown hairbrush. It hurt when she brushed my hair and I gave her grief about it. I had thin straight hair that tangled easily. She brought a new hairbrush that was black that didn't hurt my head. I loved that hairbrush! I may still be a little "off" mentally, but overall I turned out just fine.

Oh, I am so sorry! I so didn't mean it as a shameful thing! I just meant it as a trend I see many people of my generation making. I even make that choice to pay for services that otherwise could be had at a co-op sometimes to avoid the commitment! Forgive me for coming across the wrong way. I put myself in the category of not wanting to lead and organize many things. I was responding to a generational observation across the board,

I read this after I typed mine and it is an interesting perspective.

This! I am in my mid 40s and saw it starting in high school with the school staff telling us how unusual it was for so few of the student body wanted to hold class office or come to the games, in college with the faculty pointing out that we were the 1st class body not wanting to be involved in student leadership or volunteer things on campus (I believe that has now trickled down to less involved alumni volunteers), in the workplace with employers not getting takers to head up committees that at one time had plenty of staff that wanted to do more to contribute to the workplace than clock in and clock out for their shift, at church as a whole (there are exceptions) where no matter how large or small a congregation the older generation is ready to pass the baton to the upcoming generation and the upcoming generation does not have time to take on duties--or people go to more affluent churches where paid staff does most of the work, public school PTAs--I see big burn out among my PTA committee friends that can't get enough parents to volunteer at the fundraisers and end up slaving away to pull off events--when we left ps the PTA was just asking for a flat out hefty donation/student to have all the bells and whistles parents wanted, and homeschool groups--my observances have been mentioned by others. Overall (with exceptions of course), my generation and the one below mine wants to have things led and organized by other people so they can show up and benefit only "if" nothing better comes up. If other people aren't leading it, they resort to 1. Leaving the group, church, job, school, whatever 2. staying and complaining how little they are getting out of said group, church, job, school, whatever, 3. Pay money to outsource whatever it is they want for the time frame that it benefits them. I see this in homeschool groups as well as other areas mentioned. I even think the bigger trend to go to restaurants for large family holiday meals now is partly because many from my generation and below can't or won't put the time and energy into Christmas dinner like grandma and great aunts did. (another part of that latter statement is businesses don't close long enough to allow anyone enough time off work around the holidays to pull off a large family holiday event, but that's another vent for another thread). ETA: I am sorry I was misunderstood that I think less of people who pay to outsource, I think no less and pay for outsourced services a lot. I just meant that it is a trend that I observe which is contributing to less people volunteering time to lead and organize group things, or to takeover when burn out happens among long time group leaders. But there is no shame in not volunteering, I just think if you are participating in a volunteer based group and benefitting from it, everyone involved needs to contribute as well as benefit.

Baked sweet potato with cinnamon sugar and dairy free butter substitute. Hearty salad- Protein choices: boiled eggs, diced chicken, diced turkey, ham, goat cheese, chick peas, walnuts, slivered almonds, or bacon. Other topping choices: croutons, tomatoes, shredded carrots, diced cucumbers, diced apples, berries, sliced peppers, olives, or avocado. Would a baked potato with chili or pork BBQ on top still be a stretch? Chicken pesto pasta with homemade dairy free pesto sauce. My recipe uses EVOO, raw sunflower seeds, lemon juice, lots of garlic, and basil. Taco salad sans cheese. Fruit, mixed nuts, chips, raw veggies of choice.

I'm impressed! Maybe add in: loaded baked potato with ham, brocolli, cheese or pulled pork BBQ, cheese, green onions, sour cream Salad with homemade croutons, shredded carrots, cheese, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, boiled egg, and whatever leftover diced meat you have on hand Tacos with lots of black beans added to the taco meat or pulled pork Ground turkey instead of ground beef in meatloaf and chili at times If you are still on a tight budget come November, buy 2-3 extra Turkeys when they are dirt cheap and freeze the extra to use during the year.

If it makes you feel better, there are some companies that advertise open positions via word of mouth or email in the homeschool community circles before publicly posting, because the manager prefers to hire homeschoolers. A man I was making small talk with while in a waiting room recently owned a business and told me he only hired college students from one of several local universities. He told me students from that university were always dependable and he had misfortune employing students from the few other local universities. I haven't read the posted article, but maybe the company owner had a bad experience with one or more homeschooler employees and generalized the entire homeschool population.

Doesn't United staff know from US civil rights history that if a customer sits down in a seat that was paid for by that customer, forcing the customer out of the seat can't turn out well?

It's the future. Texting is about to become as outdated as email, lol! 😉 ETA: apparently everything becomes outdated once I am finally on board with it.

I don't see texts as equal to email, because when I had email and not texting (I was late to the ballgame adding texting to my then 'dumb' cellphone bill), certain people let me know it was inconvenient to them to not be able to text me something they wanted me to know and respond to right away. It seemed like people wanted to reach me with something that required an immediate and semi-immediate response and not have to go through the labor of talking to me. I eventually got texting and people were relieved. Big bunny trail JAWM. This is not related specifically to texting, but how the evolution of communication methods has driven me batty: early 90s I was a student with little money, but able to pay for a landline. I got a lecture from someone who was calling mid day to notify a group about something and I was the only one of the group without an answering machine. She was aghast to have to wait until I got home that evening to notify me and went on and on how terribly inconvenient it was for her. So I asked for an answering machine for Christmas the next year so as not to be an inconvenience to people trying to reach me. Then early 2000s I was one of the last of my friends to get a cell phone and some people seemed put out to have to wait until I got home to check my answering machine before I could respond to a question or request, I eventually got a dumb phone and people were glad I got messages instantly. Mid 2000s, still on a tight budget, I was late to the game on getting home internet, and got told by someone it was inconvenient to have to call me and leave a message about group plans involving me when everyone else was able to be on the group email list. I now had a cellphone to respond to anyone soon, but only checking emails every few days was an inconvenience to society. I eventually got home Internet to check emails at least daily. Problem solved, right? No! Early 2010s, the lack of having a texting plan on my cellphone became an inconvenience to others as I mentioned in the 1st paragraph (hence my stance that texting and email are not like the same thing!) Texting eventually got cheaper and was added to my cell phone plan. Then it became inconvenient when I didn't have a smart phone to plug in directions to a GPS (if I needed directions when out and about), receive a last minute group FB message if a field trip plan changed at last minute, or get the email about the urgent thing (the ones who like to use email like texting sent) since everyone else but me had their email account app programmed on their phone. I used birthday money to get a used smart phone. Now the smart phone is a few years old and recently a volunteer job involved pictures being sent to me. I asked the lady to text them to me. She was puzzled that I don't have a phone that is up to date enough to just " airdrop" them to me. How did people stay sane before landlines, answering machines, email, cellphones, texting, and whatever is next? rant over, thanks. Back to topic, I am finding more people are using texting like email even though people originally wanted me to have texting . for immediate response things. When I get a group text, I immediately put that conversation on "Do Not Disturb" so as to not be awakened by the late night and the wee hours of the morning responders of the group text. If the reply is only relevant to the sender, I reply to the sender only so as to not inconvenience anyone of the group who could be napping, worked night shift, or driving. I reply at a time I expect the receiver to be awake, but would hope the receiver had their texts off if it was a bad time. I turn my texts notifications off for school or when I am set on not being awakened by a ping. No one ever calls me but immediate family since it is so inconvenient to call people these days anyway, so no need to ever silence my phone calls, lol. Surely, a police officer or hospital will call instead of text in an emergency.

Add me to the list of those who received no guidance about studying for the ACT. This was a high school in a somewhat low income area. The guidance counselor never mentioned it. I was just advised to take it the spring of my JR year and fall of my SR year. No SAT was encouraged in our area at the time. I scored just a tad above average and got a small amount of scholarship money to a local private university for being Valedictorian. Had I known the people at the private high school down the road with so so grades got great scores due to excessive prep and multiple test sittings, I could have at least bought a prep booklet and took it another time to get more scholarship money.