Destiny Skywalker

I'm going to admit that I could only handle so many poop jokes. My kids run jokes into the ground. I would so wear this to the next family gathering, if only to make a point.

Kids against maturity?

I overheard my daughter chatting with a friend today. She asked Q what her most expensive gift was. Ugh. I'm a little nauseated by Facebook and Instagram today. Look at me, In flying to Hawaii! Oooh we bought grandpa first class seats! Oh look at our penthouse. Meanwhile, my kid is enthralled with $25 spy goggles and a $15 minecraft toy.

That's hilarious. We got this for my son and actually managed to install it in his room while he slept. My husband is still fussing with it making sure it's installed into the studs because he never trusts wall anchors.

Alright tell me the best gifts you got and the worst gift you got. Best gift: Sno strip for leaning skis up against the car without them falling over and scratching your car. This has been on my Amazon list for 2 years now. Finally I dropped a heavy hint to my dad and he got it for me. Weirdest gift: these shoes. I think my in-laws went to the clearance section and grabbed something close to but not quite my size. Thankfully they are returnable and come with a gift receipt sticker.

Santa's been hitting the eggnog.

I would pay to see Tank at a Jimmy Buffet concert.

I think at first they just thought it was a normal conflict between a couple of girls. This literally started the second day of school and 2 of these girls were her friends last year. But this is why I've been documenting for 3 months, as well as attempting to ask the school to intervene in that time. Quite frankly, if someone get fired, I won't be sad. In my opinion, there are a lot of staff members culpable here. @Odine, unfortunately I agree with you that usually retaliation is the only way to stop bullying. In the case of girls, you usually have to embarass them. However, if Q resorted to violence, I can tell you it wouldn't end well for her and the school district would come down on her pretty hard. If they actually find these girls guilty of bullying, they will be ineligible for a lot of things.

Triple post

That sounds a lot like the system on my husband's Ford. Its been pretty nice but it also bitches at him a ton saying he isn't keeping his eyes on the road when I'm pretty sure he is. My Volvo has a "keeping it between the lines" function and smart cruise control, but that's it. E can't ride a bike straight so he's getting my car when he can drive.

Ugh

I'm a little disgusted with our new neighborhood. Q tells me the girls speak openly about being gold diggers and how they are going to marry for money, not love. They're 11 and 12, wtf. This is considered to be some of the nicest neighborhoods in the school district, but I would still call this neighborhood solidly middle class. But they seem to think they're rich, and I think that's the problem. I'm told our local middle school is very rough in the hallways, and the teachers don't do anything about it. The principal used to be the HS principal and then he badly bungled a sexual Harassment case and it made the local news where he made some really poorly chosen statements blaming the victim. E has been to a bunch of different schools. Honestly, I think the best one was the Title I school where most kids were on free lunch. Although E is now at a "better" school for once. I will say that his classmates are very inclusive and offer to help him when he's having a hard time with something. It's a good environment, hence why I asked Q to be transferred there. Q does have a 504. Most of her accommodations are for anxiety. And part of the basis for the HIB report was that she was being discriminated against for her sensory differences. I sent 3 pages of documentation from just this past school year alone. I didn't even include anything from last year, which is when this began, with 2 of the girls. I mean some of what I had to document was just ridiculous, their insults are just so terrible but they are clearly trying their hardest to be nasty. Like one of the girls called her a furry because she had a fox tail in her Roblox avatar or something. When Q asked her what she meant by that, she said it meant your dad went to store to get milk and never came back. It was really hard to keep a straight face when Q told me about it. But more damaging has been the insults about having acne and telling the class that she never showers. Part of the problem is Q is just very friendly naturally and continues to talk to some of these girls because they're her classmates and she's just good-natured and friendly. My other issue is that 1 of the moms is a substitute teacher in the district, and all 3 moms are heavy volunteers at the school, and one of the girls has absolutely used her mom's volunteer status to isolate Q when they tried a "distance" method at lunch (basically even if Q sat down first, the girl would tell a volunteer that they weren't allowed to sit by each other and make Q move to the boys table). This is why I requested a variance. There's no way the Harassment is going to stop with their moms being in the positions they are in. E had a pretty rough day yesterday, he couldn't even keep water down. He perked up a little bit today but then he's been napping for the past 4 hours. He doesn't even care that he's stuck in his room, he's so miserable.

Luna doing a concern for her smol hooman.

Rejected for the variance, twice. The special appeal board rejected in less than 3 hours, so you know they really agonized over that one. Filed a formal bullying complaint and 2 of the girls were dumb enough to harass Q about it, when she hadn't even been named as the victim. So that got added to the investigation. And now E has the flu.

Luna (or Isis) always gets a bully stick or a bone. She got kind of sick from a bone recently so might just get her a bully stick. She's not that into toys. Isis had a couple of favorite toys.

I took a picture of my tree because Tami asked on Facebook and then I forgot to post it lol. My tree has a bunch of photo ornaments (I do a new one of our family every year) and handmade ornaments from the kids and me (from when I was a kid). We also have a bunch of silver metal snowflake ornaments from when we first got a tree and had no decorations. Then we have a few silly decorations like Funko Grogu and R2-D2. I do a little bit of ribbon and beaded garland. And then there's the baby gate because my husband still doesn't trust Luna (we have a few handmade wooden ornaments that she's chewed up the last few years, golden retrievers gonna retrieve). We had these beautiful glass icicles when I was a kid and I have no idea what happened to them. They would catch the lights on the tree and be so pretty. I wonder if I could find something like that again.

I think best case you're going to get like a hundred bucks out of something. Millions? Even hundreds of thousands? No way. There's just been way too much mass produced shit since post WW2. But seeing as that's when my parents grew up, they think that old = $$$. But really I think it was rarity that drove antiques to be worth something. I watched a reel about a millennial who said she didn't care if her house was boring because all of the Boomer decor she grew up with was cluttered and ridiculous. This got some Boomers mad, who claimed her house looked like an asylum. But she had a point about all the displayed collections and tchockes. I started to do that shit when I first moved out because my parents were like take all your shit with you, but I realized I didn't want the junk, either. Like I have a China hutch because thats what you're supposed to do and now I wish I had more of a buffet to just store all the stupid dishes instead of displaying them. I think people used to think that collecting was a way to show off your "wealth", but really its just showing off your hoarding.

The first choice (really just cheaper) didnt work out. I could use some opinions on whether the blue vanity is too dark blue for this shower tile? Any other suggestions for a color? My other thought was dark gray? I am going to do light gray for the floors since everyone dissuaded me from black floors.

I finally escalated to the deputy superintendent, who is responsible for Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying. The school counselor is ineffective and conflict avoidant. The principal did eventually step in and it helped for awhile, but now one of the little snots is back at it again. Our psychologist is disgsuted. I've requested a variance to E's school, they said they will take a look at it. We also toured a nearby private school that has multiple campuses, and has a much smaller campus locally. There were 30 6th graders (a few kids from church recognized her) and there's less than 10 teachers for all of middle school. Their very large campus does have a reputation for being a good school but also for being a little more conservative than I'd like. They were open to her joining at the semester break in mid-January. I'm going to see how the variance falls out, but Q has had a significant increase in anxiety that is starting to look more like depression. I've had to pick her up from school multiple times and there have been a lot of sick days that are really anxiety days. I mean, the school nurse is probably the most concerned for her. Her teacher is amazing but a lot of the comments happen at recess or lunch. Any time I have brought it to her attention, she has dealt with it immediately and effectively, but I was trying to not make her life harder because she has 30 other kids that she needs to deal with. The girls knock it off for a few weeks and then they start right up again. I'm done. Q is done. Even if I do get her to transfer to E's school this year, I'm pretty sure we will have to go back to private next year because the middle school is a nightmare and most of my friends have decided to homeschool their kids.

Got out of going lol. Finally someone looked at all the people going on this boondoggle and said having me there for a work statement planning session was a waste of my time. That's right! My rival also told then I wasn't necessary when they said I would be much more useful the week before for the strategy session. I think management may have actually noticed that little slight but they said fine then because I think they were trying to cut the list of people going anyway. But still going to finish my Hepatitis B shots (it is only 2, fortunately). I'll wait on yellow fever and typhoid. They said they might send me later in the year.

I usually do a favorite candy and things like a set of USB chargers (because they are always going missing in this damn house). Maybe a fidget item.

I spent 5 hours today specifying materials for our remodel. What a pain in the ass. I had to pick out kitchen and bathroom faucets and shower hardware. We still don't have the countertops decision done because our designer hasn't come back with a quote. I can't find a bullnose tile in our first choice shower tile (well, the sample arrives Thursday, so we will see if it's still the first choice).

Oh I love picking out wine! I'm good at picking out wine for people who don't know wine. If they like sweeter whites, Riesling is almost always the safest bet (don't get the super sweet stuff, though). Riskier but usually a good payoff is a Gerwurtztramier or Viognier. Personally I love a good sauv blanc like Tami likes, but it tends to be a little too dry for those that like sweeter wines. Please don't buy any Texas wine, that shit is rancid. Sorry, it's just too damn hot to grow good wine grapes. Stick to west coast wine or European stuff. I also prefer Japanese whiskey. My bottle of choice is Hibiki. My husband likes Angel's Envy rye. I prefer bourbon to rye. Old Fashioned is my go to liquor drink as of late.

These were my husband's recommendations for that price range.

Smoky or not smoky?