My DH has alpha-gal, a mammal meat allergy that doctors think is caused by a tick bite. Before being diagnosed, he didn’t react every time he ate mammal meat but when his reaction came on, it was sudden and it was extreme. Because you react hours after eating, it took a while to figure it out. Just another possibility for your DH. Glad he was able to come home and praying the doctors figure it out quickly!

I would not ask the realtor to negotiate on the staging costs or ask her to absorb it out of her commission. She is offering an option to her clients that could help their home show better leading to a faster sale and potentially more money. Just like she can counsel her clients on what offer to make that has the best chance of being accepted, but ultimately submits whatever offer the client chooses to make. From following along, this realtor also found the obscure listing that lead to Dawn finding a fantastic house. Because the people only included 2-3 pictures in their listing, it sat on the market for an extended time. She is offering a service and her clients can choose that off the sushi menu, or not.

I second the dislike of golf carts. Especially adults who have enjoyed a few adult beverages who think it’s a good idea to pile their young children into the golf cart and drive around our neighborhood streets at dusk. With no headlights.

Do you need new furniture for your new house that you would buy anyway? Do you want to put time and energy into finding furniture that will work for staging and your new house? Yes, $1500 is a lot of money. If it would up the odds considerably that my house would show better thus sell faster and with multiple offers, I would do it. My time and energy are limited resources too.

Praying the rash resolves now that you have the right medical care and he makes a full recovery!

I like the idea of a chaise lounge, or maybe an upholstered bench with rounded arms at each end - I will look and see if I can find a picture. That with a small writing desk and rug if it’s hardwood floors could be a simple room, mostly open and easy flow through. You could maybe even look into turning the French doors into pocket French doors to give yourself more floor and wall space

That’s really uncool that they are giving him less than a month notice and after everyone has figured out their living arrangements for the school year. Does he have any kind of signed lease that spells out how much notice is required for both sides? I think it’s not out of bounds to ask for a longer move out, given you are in the middle of moving and the lack of notice impacts his logistics and your availability.

Congratulations! What wonderful news - this house was meant for you!

Well, it would require being blessed with a talent and a dream job, but praise band singer like Bethel or Maverick City Music. A girl can dream….my family will quickly tell you I was not gifted with an appealing singing voice lol.

I’m so sorry. Praying for each of you and especially that today sweet Trooper will feel surrounded by love and peace and comfort for what a good boy he is.

I’m so sorry

Yeah, I would feel compelled to talk to mom in this case too and set a boundary. You aren’t responsible to her or her daughter to do all the things together. She sounds…demanding.

How does your daughter feel about this situation? Has she verbalized to you she is feeling smothered? Does she want this level of dependency from the friend? If she is unhappy and unhappy enough to want things to change, I would highly advise my child speak kindly, firmly to friend to set a boundary. Friend is not responsible for her mother’s actions, but something along the lines of, “i really like you and care about our friendship. Im feeling pressure to meet all of your friendship needs and to give our friendship the best chance of continuing, I need some room to (fill in activity, boundary, etc)

If she doesn’t have anything posted about not tipping, I would tip. I recently booked a massage that said something to the effect of: rather than a tip, please leave us a positive review or refer us to a friend.

I’m so sorry for your loss.praying for you and your family in this profound grief. I’m thankful your prayer for time with Zeke before he passed was fulfilled.

Thank you, all, for the input!

Athletic Greens (AG) has popped up in my SM feed a couple of times and someone mentioned yesterday in a group conversation that these packets have helped her move away from coffee for the caffeine and have helped a lot with her gut health and energy levels. I didn’t get a chance to ask her more. I really need to put work into balancing my hormones. I need to decrease my coffee consumption, the struggle is real! Anyone here try this and can share feedback?

I am fully convinced that if any of my big decisions were different decisions, I wouldn’t have the kids I have today, so then I have total peace in anything I would want to change. This is not at all about DH. It’s about the micro decisions - where I went to college, where I lived after college, my career, etc that led into my mom life. One thing I have let myself wonder is WHO I would be if I was raised in a healthier home growing up with parents that didn’t bring as much trauma into making their own family.

There is a whole calculus to it for me: how many are going, which actual people are going (plays a factor), are there direct flights available, how long are we going for and what are our transportation needs and options at the destination? Typically, over a 5 hour drive I’m looking at flights. When we did college visits with oldest, we drove a 5+ hour trip because we were visiting several NC schools that were relatively close together so driving versus flying made sense. With middle child’s visits, we flew because it was 8+ hours and multiple states.

On the “consumer” side, I’ve had kids in homeschool, public school and private school - and each of them have needed math tutoring at one point or another. Because our tutoring needs were more situational, we only did 1:1 tutoring. For elementary and early middle school math, we paid $25 an hour. For Algebra and beyond, it was $55-65 an hour. If I were in your shoes, I would look to see what commercial centers there are in your area ie Kumon or Mathnasieum and what their offerings are to see if you can see a gap in what they offer versus what someone would want / need and build your “go to market” from there.

I completely completely understand. 1000%. Not giving you enough notice and the emotional guilt with probably needing to miss it…because they didn’t give you enough notice. Ugh. Your feelings are totally valid. You need to honor your work commitments. And you are already juggling work the next day for preK. I’m praying your husband can make Thursday work. This kind of thing has happened a lot to me since being back to work full time. My youngest’s school has super involved parents and I am barely treading water juggling all the things. I feel like the school should give 2 weeks notice for things like this - they’ve certainly had it in the works for longer than that!

I’m so so sorry. Holding you and your family in my prayers.

I am hoping to find a little bit of me back this summer. I work FT that is pretty intense, but not having the added layer of school during the summer and two extra drivers in the house who can sometimes be sweet talked into dinner chefs open a world of after work hours possibilities.

That’s so sad, QueenCat. Praying for each of you - what a freak accident indeed! Kassia, I truly don’t have the words, but so sorry for what you, your child and your community went through. I had a really close friend die in high school from a sudden illness. The family either didn’t know or didn’t want to share how dire it was because I remember the shock of her passing while in the hospital for a few days. There had been a lot of friction between her and her mom over the years and I’ll never forget how gutted the mom especially was at her funeral. My oldest had a friend die of cancer and when oldest graduated from HS, the friend’s mom was constantly on my heart. Any inconvenience or annoyance or surprise expense I had with senior stuff I quickly set aside because getting to see my child graduate felt like a privilege.