Destiny Skywalker

Mandatory retirement age for all of them, I'd be fine with 70. These people stay for the power and control, and nothing more.

Our permit was finally approved and we start our remodel in a week and a half. Here's to 2-3 months of no kitchen and no laundry. My husband tried to talk me into buying some sort of portable washing machine and I just gave him the sideeye and said I'd be dropping our laundry off every week and picking it up. Gonna be expensive but ain't nobody got time for this.

You need a dangly chandelier. I fully admit my bedroom is minimalist. I need to change up the comforter but I can never find anything I like. It's white and teal chevron currently which I'm pretty sure screams 2015.

My BFF lives in Louisiana, they apparently split things up like you propose. Middle school is 4-6, junior high is 7-8. I think they might even do K-1 and 2-3 separately. I really liked E's K-2 school. (Well, really they also did ECEAP for the north end of the district, too, which is the more rural part.) They have a 3-6 school as well, but those are the only 2 in the district that aren't K-6. I'm going to admit to being shocked that they changed their recommendation. I assumed it was a done deal when they announced it. But the uproar was huge. Most parents were opposed and loudly so. Apparently a lot of our middle school bus routes also pick up the high schoolers too, so that was a concern to be exposing 6th graders to high school bus antics. Q's school is a mess. The kids are out of control and it stresses her out. Today the boys were squishing bananas and smearing them everywhere at lunch, and the principal had to come talk to the class after lunch because they refused to stop when the assistant principal showed up. The other stories she tells me too, it's like an asylum.

Woooooo, bullet dodged. Our school board tonight miraculously voted to not move 6th grade into middle school. This is such a relief to me. E has made so much progress but there's still so much ground to cover. It is my hope that he will not need paraeducator support in middle school. If we don't have to worry until 7th, I think that might be achievable. If Q does well at the new school, they sounded open to accepting E if he no longer needs the writing support. I think that small environment would be much better for him, as well. When I brought it up, they said they had a few kids with ASD and they seem like they offer more 504/IEP support than other private schools in our area. I think if Q does well, we will have a good idea of whether they will be able to support E.

I still do! I definitely don't have time to consume all the content, though.

Q got into one of the private schools for next year. That's a relief. It's a really small school (22 kids max per grade/class) so I hope that's the right fit.

My husband was reading something on his phone tonight and I asked him what he was looking at, and he said he was trying to figure out when Trump was going to jail. I asked him if he was just hitting refresh. We had a good laugh about some idiot saying the RNC should pay Trump's legal fees. Getting ready to vote in our state primary. I like to identify as a Republican in our state because they don't require caucuses in the primary, and then I can vote for someone other than the dumbest Republican candidate and hope that the stupidest one doesn't get the nomination.

Oh and don't worry about getting an Oyster card or anything for the tube. Seriously just tap your credit card when you get on and get off. Not worth the hassle for such a short trip. I had to get from Heathrow to London City airport and it was very quick and easy. If you're going to Picadilly, though, might be better off taking the Picadilly line from Heathrow. I'm not sure if it will take longer but it's more direct and you won't have to manage a transfer. Don't make the mistake I did and try to walk from Paddington to Picadilly. I thought it would be a nice stroll and it took me literally all freaking day.

Our Gateway low-end gaming desktop from 2008 is still running. Didn't realize it was so robust!

You can catch the London Underground (aka The Tube) Elizabeth line from Heathrow to get to Central London. Absolutely worth it!

So I'm not a huge gamer. Dell did buy Alienware, though. And while the reputation has fallen a bit because of that, when I Google best gaming desktops, the Alienware Aurora series pops up a lot. I mean, honestly as long as you don't live on the thing, it's probably fine for what you want to do. We just bought a new laptop because my kids think they will be YouTubers and want to make videos. Haven't done shit with it yet lol.

Is this kind of like my Boomer pare ts hanging onto to all my old toys because they might be worth something someday, and missing out on the actual Beanie Baby craze?

I volunteered yesterday at Q's classmates party and watched the dynamics. It was interesting to say the least. One of the bully girls moms showed up and pretended that she barely knew me. I said oh no, I remember you. I enjoyed making her nervous, not gonna lie. I was polite and neutral, not overly friendly. This way if she tries to talk shit later, I gave her absolutely nothing and she looked like a ditz. The other moms who showed up didn't do squat. They literally stood there and chatted. I asked the teacher how I could help and got to work. Admittedly, this teacher has excellent classroom management. I was expecting total chaos and I was very pleased with how she runs her classroom. She gives clear instructions without being overly controlling, raising her voice, etc. I actually felt fairly useless, I don't think she needed me there, honestly! I was told the class next door was absolute chaos. The class is something like 70% girls, 30% boys. The boys were not as rowdy as the ones I saw at Q's former school. The boys are pretty tight knit, probably for survival lol. There are 2 distinct girl cliques. 1 of Q's bullies is in one of them. They did not let Q take a group picture with them. She just wanted to get in on the fun. The other 2 girls, her former friends, are also not part of the 2 cliques. There's about 5 girls that seem to not have a place to belong. Q is one of then, and her former friends. There are 2 other girls, one of which I know has learning disabilities and some not disruptive but also not desirable behavior issues (sneaky, lies, doesnt do her work). The other girl seems to have some hygiene issues, but was very nice. So I found it somewhat surprising that Q's former friends turned on her like they did, because it certainly did not help their social standing. They seemed like they were avoiding Q, I think they were also intimidated by me being there. The class went out to recess in the middle of the "party". The other moms bailed. I was the only one who came back. The teacher thanked me several times for my help. Q came home sad, she felt very left out by her classmates. I can see why.

I think you may be a victim of geography here. When you live in remote areas, commutes are longer. Traveling that far for HS is nuts but makes sense given where you live (in the mountains). He furthest games from us currently are about 2 hours drive, and these are maybe 1-2x a year. Most others are within 1 hour. We quit right before the weekend where they have a game thats 1.5 hours north on Saturday, and then 2 hours south on Sunday. Have fun! However, her old old team she wants to go back to? Usually only plays 2 weekends a month, but they travel 5-6 hours to games a couple times a year, and a west coast regional showcase once a year. FML. But Q did say last year that she thought it would be fun to play on a team like that and enjoy traveling. But you have to really like your team. You can't be doing overnights with a bunch of jerks. My friends tell me that we need to move some place more chill. Honestly, if I get this next big promotion, we might consider moving back to Florida or something. But my husband and I have talked about this and there's a few reasons we think the coaches let them get away with nonsense. 1. Lack of experience. The coach is 26 and working on his college degree so he can be a history or math/science teacher and coach at the HS level. He's also a dude and apparently completely clueless about Mean Girl dynamics at the middle school age group. I find that men think you can just ignore the Mean Girl behavior, as a woman I think you need to police it hard. Most soccer coaches are just big soccer nerds who weren't good enough to go pro, but lived soccer in their youth. They don't know what else to do with themselves, and they need to make money. And if we are being honest, they really don't want to coach kids, they're hoping a pro or college team picks them up as an assistant. Most of them have no business coaching kids. Her coach is very nice and good with kids, at least. I think he does best with his U9 boys team (no drama), but I think he really wants to coach HS because he definitely falls into the soccer nerd category. 2. Money. They barely had enough girls to put together 2 teams at this age group. The A team apparently plays a lot of basketball as well, and they have had to call up some of our players to fill in. There's a core group of about 5 girls whose parents drive a lot of the team dynamics. I would say only 3 of the girls behave unacceptably, the other 2 clearly don't like Q but behave themselves. Only 1 of the girls is actually good enough to move up to the A team next year. I really think they may cut most of these girls next year and make 1 large team of 17-18 girls instead of 2 teams of 15, especially if the A team girls continue to play basketball. But more teams = more $$$$. The coach has had this team for 2 years, and they usually switch up every 2. So he's just trying to get through April. If those 3-5 girls walk because they get scolded for their behavior, they're screwed. And I can tell you from the behavior of their parents, they absolutely support their daughters' shitty behavior.

There's only a couple cat tracks (service run roads) and they are narrow and steep. It feels like going down a kid's slide standing up. Mildly terrifying. I've told Q how much I hate it. If someone goes down on it, you are going to run them over. It's also not well lit. But it is how we get across at the end of the night to go to the parking lot. I think they might groom the beginners area regularly and that's it. They used to groom some of the blacks and it was glorious. Now they think everyone wants the back country experience on the front side. No thanks. I haven't skied my favorite run in 3 years because it's straight dangerous. It's like a literal cliff face. I have thought about practicing on some of the easier blue runs, but the lift lines make me avoid them. What do you ski on at Purg? Do they groom pretty well?

I think we will definitely have to do one of the shark tank/aquariums. I'll have to see which one is easier to get to. Do you guys recommend the arcade at Circus Circus or Excalibur? We are next door to CC. My friend said it would be fun to stay there but also loud af, so we opted for something quieter. I think the plan is one kid friendly thing a day, lots of pool time, and maybe some fun restaurants. Hoping to also get a nice dinner or lunch with my husband, but might need to do that before we go, his birthday is the week before.

They stopped grooming? I've bitched about it when they sent a survey after our last visit. Really the problem is you've got people heading to blue runs that have now become black runs because of no grooming, and it makes it a shitshow for those of us who actually belong on the runs. I'm just trying not to die here, folks. And then the blacks are nothing but deep moguls. The only thing they groom are the crappy flat blues and greens at the bottom. However, this past week they've been bragging about their new grooming equipment so maybe they finally got the message. Or the base is so low they were forced to groom more. Not sure which.

You may have mentioned it. I may have, too. I think we are settled on going back to her old old team since the club fired the old coach. We are going to watch them play this weekend. We might wait until May to tryout, because I think she could use the time to heal emotionally.

So I may be insane, but I always wanted to do kid-friendly Vegas. I'm too old to go clubbing, and I'm not much for gambling (too chicken). But I do like good food, nice hotels, pools, and shows. We used our timeshare to book a week over spring break, and my BFF is going to meet us with her kids. Got any fun things for us to do other than M&M World, and the resort pool? We are staying at the north end of the strip, and planning on taking the monorail (hotel across the street has a stop).

IEP progress report was good. Graduated 2 goals, and had 2 that he didn't meet because they were pretty ambitious. I get it, we are all trying to figure out what he can really do. I think the hardest part is I definitely got a feeling of, "if he'd try HARDER..." from the teacher. I'll be real, his ADHD is real debilitating. Even with medication that works relatively well, he is so easily distracted. It's like having a golden retriever. SQUIRREL! I'm not sure he can actually try harder. You wouldn't tell a kid with a missing foot to try harder to walk. She isn't my favorite teacher he's ever had, but she's not a bad teacher. I think she just doesn't understand, and that's going to happen probably more often than not. But she is treating him with kindness and not complaining every single day. That's all I can ask. The most humorous part to me is that now E draws. Q learned to color and draw at an early age. She draws and colors beautifully now and has amazing handwriting. Legit top 3 artists in her grade, her report card even said she is amazing in art. But E never wanted to color, draw or hold a pencil. It was straight up hard and therefore not fun. But now that he is more comfortable with a pencil, he now doodles at his desk, to the point of annoying his teacher because he is not "on task". Like, I get it, lady, but this is actually a small victory for him. He colors on kids menus now. That never happened before the age of 7. We pulled Q from soccer today. I could tell at yesterday's game that her teammates were harping on her, and the coach was benching her for missing practice for being sick. She broke down at school today and the counselor called me about it. The girls were swearing at her and calling her a bitch after she jumped from her position to save a goal, and then it went in eventually because they all stood there yelling at her for being out of position (she was also marking 3 players while they stood around marking no one). She said the opposing team is usually nicer to her than her own team and some of them have even noticed how mean her team is to her. I talked to her coach and he was mortified. We all agreed this is not healthy and that her confidence is shot from playing with these girls. They regularly blame her for every goal, even though she's not on the field for over half of them. She didn't want to admit it because she loves soccer and didn't want to quit playing. So we are going to do personal training for the next few months instead. She can do skills training 1-2x a week and endurance a few days a week. She doesn't love running but realizes she needs to bring up her endurance on the full sized field. Her coach told me that when she's confident, she's a great player. I've asked him multiple times to step in, but I think he is too young and inexperienced, and he let it get out of hand. I told him I've never experienced this toxic of an environment on any team I've ever played on or coached. I remember one nasty girl my last year on varsity who clearly didn't like me and apparently went to talk shit about me to some of the girls, who I had played with for 5 years. They told her to shut up and earn her spot on the team. She begrudgingly did, and tried to make it up to me on senior night by making me a really nice sign. We weren't going to be friends, but I accepted her apology. You don't have to like everyone on your team, but you have to respect them and be a good teammate.

Don't go look at Ancestry. Before birth control, people were definitely having a lot of sex and having lots of babies. Then the wife would die in childbirth and the husband would need someone to feed his 8 kids, so he would go find another wife and make 5 more kids with her.

Yeah it can happen. I was barely 11? My best friend was 13.

That's a fun home life situation for sure. Got report cards today. I'm annoyed. Lots of complaining about E's handwriting and emphasizing that he can't do writing independently yet and knocking him down for it, despite understanding concepts. Yes, that's why he has an IEP for writing services. I just think it didn't need brought up in every single subject area. I'm admittedly looking forward to when he does most of his work on a computer.

Yeah there is something not right about that. I mean E really struggles with impulse control and he's made a few dumb comments, but nothing to that level. That makes me concerned that she is either witnessing or experiencing some sort of sexual abuse.