You are right and whoever is slamming you needs to be shut down and told that their opinion is not welcome. If it makes you feel any better, I was 17 and dh was 19 when we got married. Just celebrated 20. We were not super mature or wise, but I still think getting married young has been a distinct ADVANTAGE in our lives.

I took a bunch of pictures. I think that’s why the smell was such a big deal. You can’t take a picture of a smell. (If someone figured out how to do that, they’d be a millionaire) Then I started crying and had to talk myself out of it so I would stop plugging up my nose!

I think you are really onto something here.

I fed him. It was one of the sweetest moments of my life. Then after staying at the hospital for awhile, I went to his house for the last time. I walked through every room. The smell. Nothing will ever smell just like my grandparent’s house. Just need to process.

I’m dying to ask...but I won’t pry ;-). We had a family over one day and the husband was looking at our bookshelves when I realized that I had a bunch of books on there that don’t represent our values. Quite the opposite, actually. I was reading them for the purpose of being able to have an informed conversation challenging some of the ideas. After that I always put books like that onto the shelf backwards.

We have 1375 square feet and 5 people currently at home. We have people over 1-2 times a week. We used to host a weekly church group, which put 40 people at our house once a week. That was mayhem. We’ve since passed on host duties to another family. Dh has a couple of friends over every Monday. We have a random smattering people over another day a week, on average. We host 1-2 big parties a year. We are mostly introverts, however, dh is a pastor and a lot of what we host is related to the church.

For those of you wondering why her dh is examining the budget, the OP posted in another thread that they’re losing 20k of income next year. In light of that, I think you should consider making major cuts to the gift and clothing budgets. Get cheaper shoes for a year.

If it’s something like jeans, they can sometimes send a different color in the correct size. Sometimes it does come down to stitch fix math (cheaper to keep an item and resell it than to return and lose the discount). I don’t think they’ll give you 25% off on 4 items, even if they don’t have the exchange size.

Your gifts and household supplies budget is high to me. Do you really spend that $200 on household supplies? Can you give me a rough idea of what that looks like? We have about the same grocery budget, but that includes our household supplies. Gifts. Our gifts budget is less than half of yours. A big part of this is that we intentionally go very small and simple at Christmas. We also don’t do a ton of friend birthday parties, and when we do, the budget is $20. Dh and I don’t exchange birthday presents. The kids don’t get huge ones. We just aren’t high ticket presents people. Your clothing budget is higher than ours, but not unreasonably so. Especially when you have kids growing out of stuff left and right. I accomplish a lot by thrifting or waiting for sales, but sometimes we just have to lay down money to catch up a wardrobe.

What an amazing idea for your son’s quilt! Please post a picture when you finish!

Paperwhite. Being able to read in the dark is my favorite.

That’s what I’m afraid of!

We just lowered the expectation, in both directions, that dd would be present for every family outing or moment. We would let her know in advanced if we had something planned, but be ok with her not being present. She also had to be ok with the fact that fun or important things were going to happen without her sometimes. It was pretty organic, with her craving more or less time with the family at different points, and us having to roll with the punches a bit.

What do you guys write in yours? Events from the day? feelings? So I got one for dd who starts high school in the fall thinking that she can have it all through high school, but now I’m thinking that I would NOT want a full daily record of what high school was like for me. I hope her experience is better!

This is the first time I’ve heard of these. I bought one each for dd and I. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1542355524/ref=gp_aw_ybh_a_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=RT6FQSA28N0MSKFJCHH3 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1542792045/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y44PHKCXDPPKM8TREY3B&dpPl=1&dpID=51ASZHpVdEL

There’s just so much that fascinates me about this post. Thanks for sharing your bidet experience! But wow, all I can think about is how skeeved out I am by an airport bidet.

LOL. Says every type A person, to every type B person, since the beginning of time. And I reply: you are so freaking uptight and stressed about every little detail all the time. RELAX. The truth is, the world needs both types. I think that’s why so many marriages have both types. (My dh is AAA)

Is the type of stuff he does telecommutable? He may be able to pick up contract work for them (especially if he’s only working 40 hr a week for the regular job).

After reading through the rest of your posts, I think I have a better idea of the situation. Here’s what I would do. Tell dh the hours you’ll be gone. Plan to either have dh figure out/pick up dinner, or just plan on a simple dinner +2. Clean the bathrooms, relax about the rest. Go about your day.

Tell him what hours you’ll be home.

Don’t worry about the house. Seriously. It is what it is.

Type B here. Not sure if I totally understand the logistics that you are worried about. It sounds like you have tickets to something. You should plan on doing that. Don’t plan on them joining with you. When you get about an hour before dinner, check in with your dh to see where he is and if they’ll be home. If they’ll all be there for dinner, have them pick something up on their way home. If not, just make dinner for you and the kids as planned.

Losing about $800 a month. We also have a teen driver coming up. I’m looking into work at home income or part time out of the house if necessary. Ds can’t take on a job. He just doesn’t have time for that. I’m tightening up the grocery budget. No more meal delivery for us. We also have some fluff spending we can cut. We need to make it to May. In May my disabled son turns 18 and he’ll have some ssi income to cover his expenses. Also, after May, dd’s major dance expenses will end. We bought an electric vehicle about 2 months ago and that lowered our monthly gas bill by a net of $300+ a month. (We we’re all excited about the extra money in our budget, haha) Dh is getting paid about $500 to coach in the spring. So we’ll see. We can always get rid of other extras. I’m sorry about the 20k cut. That’s a hard one to swallow.

Another question! I knew I was forgetting something. Why don’t some bidets have seats? Are you supposed to squat? Just sit on the thin rim?

My perfect scenario is the one I grew up with. At my grandparents for Christmas Eve, then they came over later on Christmas Day. It helps that I only had one healthy set of grandparents so there was no competition for time. My grandmother was a firm and vocal believer in kids getting to stay home on Christmas Day. Because we moved away when my kids were young, they’ve had a mash up of family coming over for Christmas. We only traveled to family twice in all these years. Both times it was pretty rough and not at all my idea of a pleasant holiday. The last few years we have traveled home the week after Christmas and made the rounds. I hope that when my kids are grown, they’ll celebrate with us on Christmas Eve, but I also know that so much will depend on where they’re living and their spouses’ family plans. I also hope at least one of them is happy to have us over on Christmas Day.