I believe that would be illegal and certainly unsafe.

Yes you do have to prove that you qualify for DAR, but if you have a family member (You said your great-grandmother) who was already a member then the research on decent from someone who fought as a patriot in the revolution has already been done and all you have to prove is the relationship to the member. My mom’s first cousin is a member so she said I only need a copy of my grandparent’s marriage certificate and my mom’s birth certificate to tie the two together. DAR has a research library in Washington DC that is open to anyone. Our local chapter has done genealogy seminars at the library

Same here....my mother’s side has people on the mayflower which I find interesting since her side of the family settled in Tennessee before statehood.

Do you know any of your cousins? It seems like there is usually at least one person in the extended family who has done the research. If a book was put together, there is probably someone in your extended family that also has a copy.

I assume DAR will have the records she used to join because if you have a relationship to an existing member all you need to provide is your relationship to the member. It wouldn’t take you back to the mayflower, but it should be a good start. Joining is on my to do list - thanks for the reminder 😉. Your local DAR chapter can probably help you find her member number and give tips on the rest of the research.

I saw this today in my email. I might be the only one with a 17yo who still loves American Girl dolls. I haven’t read it, but I think it might be part of her common app essay.

It seems that the threads that use half a screen are the multi page ones. It uses half the screen for statistics on who has posted recently and other data irrelevant to reading the thread. Annoying

I second the no dryer or dishwasher when asleep. I might let the dishwasher finish if it is almost done - usually I have been more worried about water than fire with the dishwasher. I grew up with a Uber-paranoid father who turned off the pilot light on the furnace and hot water heater when we left on trips so he was a bit over the top. He was super ahead of his time on food safety as well. I am more easy going, but some habits are hard to break. eta: the two people I know with significant house fires were the car in the garage caught fire and the second one the son knocked his lamp over into a pile of clothes in the morning and then everyone left for the day. Apparently when daughter came home from school and opened the front door the influx of oxygen made it really take off. I still feel bad on some level about the second one. I remember driving down the street thinking it smelled like someone was burning leaves which was unusual in December, but didn’t see anything. By the time I got the toddler down for his nap there were fire trucks all over the street Luckily, there was a fire hydrant right in front of the house.

I agree good is subjective. I like a variety of things, but what I really want to be able to do is have a decent cup that I can fix while half asleep. First, I would ditch the drip machine. Seriously, forget you own it. Most home drip machines (think Mr. Coffee) don’t get the water hot enough to make a decent cup of coffee. I also can’t stand coffee that has been kept warm for too long. I can tell when a restaurant hasn’t made a fresh pot recently enough as it sort of tastes burned. Kurig machines are good, but I like to warm my cup up if I am sitting and reading or get distracted by my kids while drinking which you can’t do with a single serve maker. Plus the cups seem expensive and wasteful. My favorite is a percolator. My 10yo could make an amazing pot for me before I woke up. Use cold water and enough coffee - I use four measuring cups of water and a 1/4 of coffee for a pot. I usually pour out some of it, but sometimes it just doesn’t turn out right when cut in half. I use Folgers or similar grocery store brands so it isn’t too big a waste. The pot is equivalent to a Kurig cup. I like half and half in my coffee (not too much) but I gave up sugar. My sister started coffee late in life (late 40s) and I about fainted the first time I was at her house and she asked if I wanted to stop by McDonalds for a cup on our way to a school program. All the suggestions on methods and beans are good, but too advanced for beginners. If you want to try some out I would try McDonald’s small with two creams - you like medium roast, Dunkin Donuts- you like super mild, Tim Hortins and you like a bit darker roast. Good luck!

I think it fits the definition actually fits pretty well producer - pedophile, Netflix-internet site much more widely viewed than any chat room, intention- committing a sexual offense that millions (including some on this thread who seem to want to write this off as a conspiracy theory - shocking to me among a group of moms) apparently want to justify as not a sexual offense just because it sells and other people pay money to let their babies pretend to be strippers in training. That others do something similar doesn’t make either one acceptable. I don’t believe the show is an expose at all, because someone truly interested in changing things doesn’t commit the same crime that is being exposed.

What sort of price point are you looking for?

This is my dream. I do remember being really ticked off one year after our third outage that the electric company had an advertisement in our bill for automatic natural gas powered generators. My husband keeps trying to talk me out of it, but I really want one. He thinks it is cheaper to just replace the stuff in the freezer than get a generator, but throwing out food really makes me mad.

I don’t know of any lights around here that are set up to change when a vehicle is detected. Maybe those are newer, not sure. I would have expected a button in the crosswalk for pedestrians or bikes in that situation. Our lights seem to be timed to speed limit or more general traffic patterns, but some do go flashing at certain times (like near schools) during off times. I get that most people don’t commute in a business suit, but I see many of my egregious examples on Sunday mornings in people decked out with Specialized emblazoned across their chest quite often riding with others. I also doubt too many people are commuting in those recumbent bikes that you can’t even see until you are coming over a hill. They really seem to hate to stop. I can’t speak to other states, but bicycles are required to obey traffic signals in Michigan. I do know one of my old supervisors gave up road biking and switched to mountain biking because he decided road biking was too dangerous around here. Back to European accidents, Europe does have the distinct advantage that people drive smaller cars.

If he is still in his quarantine period then he probably shouldn’t be visiting the doctor in person either. Can he do a telemedicine visit or reschedule?

Around here (suburban) there are an increasing number of bike lanes, but there are still roads that don’t lend themselves well to them (curvy, undulating hills, no shoulder). Most of the areas have installed safety paths for walkers and bikers, but the hard core ones don’t want to use them. My biggest problem with road bikers (here most people are suited out for exercise, not commuting) is they expect drivers to respect them on the roads, but rarely do they follow the rules. I have lost count of the times that bicycles pause for a red light, then proceed through the intersection or turn left on a red when they deem that no one is coming.

Most vaccines have federal protection against lawsuits. You can only sue pharma for drugs like vioxx.

No...I don’t even buy a new model car in the first six months of production and those have years of testing. We are not high risk here either so I assume that colors my opinion of things.

A man after my own heart...

Well it won’t be reverse polish unless you buy an HP. I ❤️ HP. They are the most logical in my opinion and SO much better than the TI graphing I was required to purchase my freshman year in college. I bought my HP graphing my junior year and have since purchased smaller non-graphing in the years since. One of the bonuses was if anyone ever tried to borrow my calculator (in the days before a calculator app on my phone) they couldn’t use it and would hand it back 😄 I think graphing calculators are propped up by school sales. I don’t think a dedicated graphing calculator has much use after college. I would wait to see if someone requires a certain model.

It doesn’t help for a standardized test, but there are graphing calculator apps and you can graph equations on excel.

They just got back from a week long off grid canoe trip to the upper Peninsula of Michigan with their trail life troop and have started talking about a trip to Alaska next summer. I will say the article freaked me a bit and my first reaction to my husband was don’t go planning a (cross-country) trip to a drought stricken forest. They have been camping during a tornado warning also so I understand you can’t avoid everything, but fires that can explode that quickly just don’t happen around here and are not something that would typically cross my mind. I don’t blame the campers and I believe if the park service thought there was imminent danger they would have closed the park, but in general (as we have seen lately) many people don’t believe rules apply to them and I don’t necessarily trust people to follow fire bans and that sort of thing. People can’t create a tornado or a hurricane, but people can start fires. As to living in the forest and the science of forest fires in general, there was a very interesting Nova episode called Fire Wars that is worth a watch.

I live in Metro Detroit. Whitmer has issued about 175 executive orders since March, but I have not heard of a quarantine period for out of state visitors. There might have been talk of one at the very beginning, but I don’t think it ever happened. I have not heard of any county/city/township being stricter than her executive orders with the exception of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti curtailing indoor gatherings due to the two universities.

My prayers to all of you out in California! My first comment when I saw this was to my Husband - don’t go planning a high adventure trip to a drought stricken national forest. They have been camping during a tornado warning once and that was bad enough. So prayers for rain (but not too much) and safety from smoke and fire.

My grandma always cooked a couple of chickens. She told my brother they were small turkeys when he was little.

Not sure how it will all play out at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We will at least see my parents as we see them all the time. They live a mile away. The kids didn’t go over during our stay at home order, but that is over now. My dad has dementia and my mom wants no part anymore with people staying away. Her mental health was tanking during that period. My brother and his family live in town so he will come as well - his kids are in college so they are always up in the air. My sister and her family are in Texas and they never come for either holiday. I doubt they would anyway this year. My mother was so over the 10 hour drives to my grandparents through ice and snow when I was a kid that she vowed never to make anyone do that for her. My husband’s family is the bigger question. They are generally seem very careful because of my 95yo MIL, but I am not around them much to know what day to day looks like. They live 3 hours away and I have never really broken into the 3 sister circle that all live 5 miles from each other so I am never kept in the loop. My MIL was in the hospital while my husband and oldest son were in the Upper Peninsula on a canoe trip in August and no one bothered to call and let me know until my MIL called and told my 7yo the day before she was going home. We passed on Memorial Day, but we are going over for Labor Day. My husband wants to go and MIL wants to see the kids. We likely don’t have another year to wait out the virus so we will go.