gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 15:35:08 GMT -5
Shrug, I guess. I've done the Martha Stewart recipes before kids. It was very time consuming and for my common-folk taste buds, not worth the effort. Peal and cut the potatoes the night before and leave them in the pot near the stove. Just add water when you're ready to boil. Chop all vegetables the night or two nights before while watching t.v. I hate chopping vegetables, so this is what keeps me from losing it or worse a finger.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 14:46:39 GMT -5
Am I the only one that thinks the turkey is the easiest part? An oven bag and the oven do all the work. 15 minutes of prep and that's all the attention it needs. What are people doing in the kitchen so long? I get it if you're in the kitchen rolling dough and baking every pie from scratch. But why do that to yourself when Stove top stuffing, Sister Schuberts rolls and Mrs Smith's pies are good too!
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 11:58:55 GMT -5
Everybody's parents are different. My grandma (my dad's mom) lived in her house for 60 years, never moved and died 1 week into hospice care at 91. She hired out any help she needed with cleaning, yard and maintenance. My dad is 68 and they bought a new home 10 years ago. They hire out any help they need. When I grow old, I will live in the house I want and hire out any help I need instead of becoming a burden to my children.
My husband's parents are 70 and can go either way. They bought a new house 2 years ago. They do not like to spend the extra money if they can avoid it. They do expect more help from their adult kids and ask, but they will hire out if nobody can come and they need something done.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 11:43:23 GMT -5
I want to be like swamp and host my own thing every year and not care if people come or don't come. I'm a master of time and can always plan for appetizers at noon, dinner at 3:30 and dessert at 6. People can come for it all or just for part of it. People can bring a dish or not. People can join in the kitchen or not. People can stay the night or just make it a day, whatever suits them. Gooddecisions: You say you are almost six months pregnant. Great excuse for not travelling two hours for Thanksgiving with toddlers in tow. Car travel is making you nauseous right now and will through Christmas and the rest of the year. lol, I wish. The decision is made and nobody is cutting me any slack for pregnancy and young children. But, the horns will come out if I have to spend the night when I've made it clear that we won't.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 11:34:35 GMT -5
I want to be like swamp and host my own thing every year and not care if people come or don't come. I'm a master of time and can always plan for appetizers at noon, dinner at 3:30 and dessert at 6. People can come for it all or just for part of it. People can bring a dish or not. People can join in the kitchen or not. People can stay the night or just make it a day, whatever suits them.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 9:19:24 GMT -5
To answer the OP's question, I think it brings out the worst in people because everyone has their ideal for the holidays and getting other people to abandon their ideals for another's is nearly impossible without irritation, frustration and disappointment.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 7:02:01 GMT -5
Well you could be like me. MIL has alzheimers but not really interested in any holiday. No family perse, what there is is very distant.
I am getting DD and maybe we will have pizza or whatever, but we will be home. Nothing for that holiday.
Christmas hubby gets home Dec 23rd. I will decorate the outside of the house for both I like that.
So think about it would you rather have family squabbles or no family?
I dread having to even go see MIL, may get cussed out because its all my fault she is in assisted living, sigh. Do you ever visit your son and his family for the holidays?
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 13, 2015 5:45:05 GMT -5
Something must be in the air because we just had our own fight about this last night. We didn't have our plans nailed down for Thanksgiving. I prefer to have these discussions in August, but that's wishful thinking when it comes to my husband's family. Knowing his parents are out of town, I asked him to find out what his sister is doing and that we're happy to have them over if they don't have plans. For the past 8 years, his parents have either come to our house or his sister's house. His sister has either hosted, come to our house or flown out to her husband's house. Their parents (my inlaws) who live closer to us, have never hosted.
It turns out they didn't have any plans, but want to instead have us over so they don't have to deal with traffic but it's perfectly okay for us to deal with it with 2 crying kids in the backseat. They are about 2 hours away and think we should come the night before and stay Thanksgiving night too. And this is where I get annoyed. I have an 18 month old, a 4 year old and I'm almost 6 months pregnant. The four of us will have to squeeze into a full size bed. We were just there in July and none of us got any sleep. It was horribly uncomfortable. So, I said no we'll just make it a day trip and be there around 10a and leave around 6p. Fair enough, right? Nope, now his sister is upset because that's not enough time to spend with the kids and it's not worth it. They don't have any kids to factor in.
Meanwhile, we have a huge house with more than enough room to accommodate, 3 very nice extra bedrooms at my house on top of the three we use- one with a king size bed and private bathroom, all the kids toys, a fenced in backyard w/ playset for the kids to play in and a huge kitchen that opens up to the great room so nobody has to be sequestered cooking.
I'm really irritated that they refuse to make things a little easier and just come to us or be content with a day trip to them. I am no Martha Stewart, but I've never found cooking Thanksgiving dinner to be all that stressful. I make the casseroles the weekend before, peal the potatoes the night before and put the stuffed turkey in an oven bag. And everything turns out just fine. We've gone to her house several times for Thanksgiving. They have a very small house with a small closed off kitchen. She's no Martha Stewart either, but spends the entire day in the kitchen sweating and stressed and usually dinner is very, very late- except the year they ordered in. So, she's right, she won't get to see much of the kids. We'll all sit in their small family room, watching t.v. all day until 5:30 pm and if the food isn't ready, then we'll leave hungry. Not my ideal at all. And, yeah, if I sound cranky about it, blame it on pregnancy.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 12, 2015 22:44:42 GMT -5
That's a tough situation. We've had a similar culture shock at my company when after 10+ years of working from home they recently started moving us back into offices and they actually expect us to be there everyday even though we all have laptops and fully functioning home offices. Productivity was not the issue as that was tracked and working from home proved to be much more productive. Collaboration and innovation was (supposedly) suffering without the water cooler conversation and such. My department is all over the country, so there still isn't a lot of in person collaboration.
I recall one peer asking my boss if she could work 7a-3p and then take whatever meetings after 3p at home. Our boss, who lives in a different state, said no. Her reasoning, it would be a perception issue leaving at 3p and working 10+ hour days would be a work/life balance issue. She was pissed and I don't blame her. My boss told the folks on the west coast it was fine to work east coast hours if that worked better for them. No perception issues there, but I guess a better business justification. This has created huge problems as still over half the department gets to continue to work from home while the minority of us shmucks have to leave our cushy, private at home office for whatever non-ideal accommodations they set up in a center. So, maybe perception is your manager's issue and people are complaining about you leaving early or whatever. It's none of their business, but office politics are always an issue.
When I worked from home, whatever time I took to do anything else- using the bathroom, getting something to drink, throwing in a load of laundry, getting the mail, whatever- got added back into my productivity time. Now that I'm in the office, I'm there 8 hours. Whatever time I spend chit chatting, eating lunch, bathroom trips walking to the cafeteria, etc does not get added back in and I track fewer productivity hours, but technically I'm there. sucks.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 11, 2015 20:56:10 GMT -5
Maybe it is too big if it was you buying it at their age. When we were buying a home, there was nothing more annoying than family members (who wouldn't be living with us) telling us what they would do and how much we would hate living in an hoa, hate having a house too big, hate taking care of the yard, yada. Listening to this unsolicitated advice and letting it get into our heads really added unnecessary stress.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 8, 2015 20:54:30 GMT -5
I'm not at all dismissing what you're saying, but a lot of guys are just sore losers. I wouldn't take it too personally.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 7, 2015 13:27:40 GMT -5
But, really... are people so anxious about missing out or fretting about stuff in their real life - that they can't take a couple of hour breather? I would think the 'need to check their phone' would become a bit anxiety driven... how do you become present and enjoy the moment if you are so concerned about something that has little do with the actual present/moment you are in Yes because if they didn't take that picture of themselves at the opera and post it, then it didn't happen. And once you post it, you must compulsively check to see all the likes and comments about how awesome you are for being at the opera and that easily takes up the next two hours. It doesn't matter if you don't see or talk to any of these virtual friends that you once knew in real life.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 7, 2015 10:43:18 GMT -5
I don't know a single other person without a cell phone and everyone thinks I'm nuts. Shrug.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 7, 2015 10:42:11 GMT -5
Got me. I lost my dumb phone a year and a half ago and that was that. I've never had a smart phone and I've never been a phone talker. I have a laptop, ipad, itouch, home phone, work phone and so on. None of that stuff comes with me when I'm out and about, so I'm disconnected. I don't feel like my quality of life suffers. There are a few times I'm inconvenienced, like when I get lost or when people change the plan after I've left, but I figure it out.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 7, 2015 9:22:10 GMT -5
I don't understand. Was the aisle not wide enough for somebody to have the cart to the side and still allow people moving to move through? One cart stops and the whole aisle is backed up? If the lady parked her cart in the middle of the aisle blocking movement from all directions, well she's the rude one. Just my opinion. But, I shop during low peak times because I want to get in and out. I don't hold other people up and I don't like it when they hold me up, but I try to keep my crazy to myself. I was entering the aisle from the back (perpendicular) of the store. The lady was coming from the opposite direction and had her cart on MY left side of the aisle while standing in the right side of the aisle trying to get something from a lower shelf. I was probably partially frustrated how this lady choose to park. The cardinal rule of grocery shopping is that you don't take up both sides of the aisle. Still though, if I was a d*ck to him, it was probably because I thought it was such a dumb comment in the first place. I literally had my cart pointing down the aisle and I was looking at someone (who he couldn't see) and he says "I'm trying to go down this aisle". It's not like I was standing there reading the back of a cereal box. What the h*ll did he think I was trying to do? It was the equivalent of someone waiting in a drivethru line and then telling the guy in front of him that he's trying to get to the front to order some food. Yeah, that's what I thought. She is definitely the inconsiderate one. Everyone knows you push your cart a little passed what you need so you don't block the whole aisle. I probably would have said excuse me to her and pushed on through or turned around, gone down the next aisle so I could come up the other way. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of patience for these sort of scenarios. And, grocery shopping is not a leisurely experience for me.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 7, 2015 7:54:22 GMT -5
I don't understand. Was the aisle not wide enough for somebody to have the cart to the side and still allow people moving to move through? One cart stops and the whole aisle is backed up? If the lady parked her cart in the middle of the aisle blocking movement from all directions, well she's the rude one. Just my opinion. But, I shop during low peak times because I want to get in and out. I don't hold other people up and I don't like it when they hold me up, but I try to keep my crazy to myself.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 16:11:31 GMT -5
And, yes even when they are all three finally in public school, I'll still be paying somewhere between $8000-$10,000/year per kid for after-school, summer, administration, snow days and the countless other days schools are out. So, this expense isn't going anywhere for a long time.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 15:57:31 GMT -5
A co-worker was talking to me about how expensive daycare is and how it was hard to make ends meet. I said tell me about it, I'll be paying about $800/week. She said oh wow, that's like a mortgage. And, I said- no a week, not a month, it's more like $3500/month. That's the equivalent of a monthly payment for a $750,000 mortgage. She was stunned. It turns out she was struggling with her $80/week bill. Granted, I have a higher paid position and she commutes from a lower COL area where daycare is less expensive. But, it's almost one of those things where it doesn't matter how cheap it is, it will always be too expensive. Holy Crap!!! How many kids do you have?!? Infant Daycare (12+ years ago) was I think around $275 a week. You provide your own formula and diaper/supplies. The cheapest it ever got was IIRC $185 a week for before and after school care. DH and I knew before DD was born how much daycare was so for us it was just part of the budget. That was also our college savings plan (in addition to what we were already putting away) every time the daycare cost went down we just put the difference into savings for college. We didn't have those dollars to spend before so we didn't miss them. It will be $332/week for the infant until she's 15 months old, $302/week for the toddler until she moves into the next room at $278/week and $249/week for my 4 year old who won't start public kindergarten until September 2017. Tuition goes up in September every year, so add in at least $10/week for each of them. I get 5% discount on the oldest's tuition. Then add in another $1000 for annual supply fees for the three of them. I like to gross up my overall cost by 10% to account for back-up care for sick days and other expenses so I don't freak out every time another fee or expense pops up. I have not opted in for additional optional enrichment activities like art, dance, soccer, etc that are offered. I did pay extra for swim lessons, which weren't worth it. So, it's actually closer to $900/week.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 15:18:28 GMT -5
That's kind of the gist of my argument. As a society, who are we encouraging to reproduce, and who are we discouraging? Don't we want to encourage people who are responsible and have careers to have children? By the way things are structured, I'd say we don't. I understand what you are saying and am to a limited extent probably influenced by it. DH and I have 5 advanced degrees between us. Yet we stopped at one child, for a lot of reasons honestly, but not last among them is the fact that we wanted to make sure DD could attend college and graduate without crippling debt. We'll have enough saved for her, but would have been hard pressed (even with our good salaries) to do it for two or more. When DD was in daycare (that we fully paid for) you could tell who was state subsidized and who wasn't. The state subsidized have 2-4 siblings usually all pretty close to each other in age with a single parent dropping off and picking up (schedules tend to be pretty regular). The full pays usually were only children, or at most two. Yea, it really pissed me off when I heard someone bitching about having to come up with a $25/week co-pay each for three kids because who can afford that?!? (We were paying over $200 per week for DD). Over 60% of the kids at DD's daycare were state subsidized. At the time DD was in daycare there was no caps or waiting lists in IL, it was all income based. AND we were not in a particularly poor area. So the folks who can't provide for their first child are subsidized heavily and really have limited reasons to stop at one or two. I just don't think raising the bar on subsidizing other's choices is the right answer either. Because ultimately someone will have to pay and I pay enough in taxes as it is. A co-worker was talking to me about how expensive daycare is and how it was hard to make ends meet. I said tell me about it, I'll be paying about $800/week. She said oh wow, that's like a mortgage. And, I said- no a week, not a month, it's more like $3500/month. That's the equivalent of a monthly payment for a $750,000 mortgage. She was stunned. It turns out she was struggling with her $80/week bill. Granted, I have a higher paid position and she commutes from a lower COL area where daycare is less expensive. But, it's almost one of those things where it doesn't matter how cheap it is, it will always be too expensive.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 14:31:03 GMT -5
I could totally get on board with a public school system that operated 8-5 and only took federal holidays. Kids could have 4 weeks excused vacation time and 2 weeks excused sick time. 5-6 hours of the day would be dedicated to structured class time and there would be other periods dedicated to lunch, physical activities (recess, sports), art programs (band, drama, art, etc), independent study hall for homework/projects, clubs and any other activities that are currently considered "after-school". Kids could get out after the 6 hours if they had a job or parents who needed them home. I don't know how it would work, but something like this would be ideal.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 12:06:12 GMT -5
No, I don't feel like this is something the government can solve. It was a real eye-opener for me how little time I have now that I have children. I think it's just what happens when you add in taking care of children on top of all your other adult responsibilities. You're stressed and stretched thin if you stay at home with them and you're stressed and stretched thin if you continue to work. It is what it is. Being a parent is hard.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 10:51:36 GMT -5
I have an uncle that is 72 that retired twice and went back to work twice. Either that or divorce his wife or she kills Him. They have been married for over 50 years and she has been a stay at home from Day 1. She feels he is all up in her business when he is home and she has things set a certain way and here he comes trying to change it. I don't get it because my uncle is a really quiet man; but I think she is just used to seeing him a couple hours a day before bedtime or in the morning, 24/7 is a bit much for her now. She is so used (after 50 years) of running the household and making all the decisions that I don't think she is ready to just give some of it up. I have another that is 67 and he went back to work too. But for him it was because his wife turned him into her personal chauffeur/assistant. He said if he is going to get bossed around; he might as well get paid for it! Think of your aunt this way. She has run a successful 'business' for over 50 years. Now someone who has zero experience in her field of expertise comes in as a new employee and starts to tell her how to do her job. Most 'business' owners would resent the new employee. But it's the right thing to do. When my parents retired, my stepmom made sure that my dad got used to doing some stuff that she used to do- cooking, cleaning, laundry. The last thing she wanted was her health declining or worse, not being around at all and thinking about him struggling because he had become too dependent. It's not the same, because they both worked full-time, are the same age and retired at 55. They've always been supportive of each other and enjoy life together, still after 30 years. It's been 12 years of retirement, they play golf together, travel together and are pretty much always doing stuff together...and having a great time while they are at it. I really feel sad for couples who are clearly miserable together. You're only guaranteed one life...
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 6, 2015 9:56:44 GMT -5
I had more than a few comments when I mentioned we both work from home about how in the world that doesn't drive us crazy (it doesn't). So the comment about getting along better when they're apart more doesn't really surprise me, although that was an ugly way to put it. I think it's not an uncommon thought from a SAHS who is used to having the place to her or himself all day and will now be annoyed by their partner being around all the time as well. In fact I heard a radio show talking about how many couples love it when their spouse travels for work so they can be home alone.
There is a woman in her 60's at work who has been complaining for a year now that her husband is going to retire. He's turning 70 and she is horrified at the thought of him retiring. She has no plans to retire and doesn't think he should either. She feels she will have to support them on her 6 figure salary. It's baffling to me because the man has a high-stress job as the Chief Credit Officer of a bank and I'm sure has more than enough put aside to retire comfortably. They raised one son who is grown and live in a very modest house with no mortgage. Let the poor man retire and try to be supportive!
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 1, 2015 17:55:13 GMT -5
My brother and SIL live in an HOA about 15 miles from us. Since I've listened to their complaints for the past several years, I told DH there was no WAY we would buy a house in a HOA when we moved here! lol Most of the people in theirs are young professionals with kids, so I would have expected some leniency. Nope! DB wanted to build a shed a while back. He could only get permission if it matched the brick used on the house, was low enough it couldn't be seen from the front street, could only be placed in the back corner of the house nearest the garage, and on and on. By the time he would meet all the requirements, it would cost him about $10K. While we have a couple of neighbors who aren't so careful about keeping their yards and houses looking nice, most of our neighbors are considerate. It was really difficult to find someplace in this area that didn't have an HOA, but we learned that if we bought in the county rather than in town, we could avoid them pretty easily. Good luck to you! Yep, we went through this, but didn't complain. We built a shed that met the requirements of the neighborhood and the rules we signed up for when we moved in. It had to be behind the footprint of the house and not in a corner so it couldn't be seen from the street. It had to be stick built with the same roof and siding, etc. We followed the rules and got approval without any issues. We had it approved the first time we brought it to the modification committee and built it in 2 months. It is a really nice shed, but we managed to do it for $5K. I live in a super strict HOA that enforces everything. Again, it's what we signed up for so we're fine with the rules. I just don't understand why anyone moves to a neighborhood with rules, then expects exceptions to them and whines when they don't get the exception (no offense to your family, just in general). We have painted exterior doors, replaced the mailbox, adding a play set (but didn't paint it purple), added a backyard fence, removed trees, moved the air conditioning units to the north side of the house along with a lattice to conceal them and added a structure to store our trash cans next to the garage. We've extended and widened our driveway and cut the curb for our drive-way. Next we'll be building out a deck and patio. We have followed the rules every time so there haven't been any issue with getting approvals and have made our house and yard work for us.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 1, 2015 16:51:01 GMT -5
I personally don't feel like a resource officer should have ever been called. I don't how "disruptive" this girl even was. She had her phone on her desk, the teacher told her to put it away, she didn't and was told to leave. She put it away and was still told to leave. Since she wouldn't leave because she already complied with the original request, a resource officer was called.
With kids and phones, this situation probably happens a million times a day and it doesn't get escalated. She could have been shown a little more compassion and patience from the teacher and principal given her mom just died one week ago and she is dealing with that and a new foster environment. I am amazed she was even in class. Maybe the counselor could have been summoned instead. I don't expect much from a thug with a badge, but do expect more from administrators. She was not a threat. It just makes me sick.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 1, 2015 16:09:11 GMT -5
But how many of those 100 students were in classes that were disrupted by this student repeatedly and were tired of their classes being derailed by a very selfish classmate? I'd hazard a guess that those 100 students were in many or all of the classes that had experienced the problems and they were sick and tired and just waiting for someone to do something about it. I read that it was less than 100 and most were on the football team, where the cop was an assistant coach. Go figure.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Nov 1, 2015 14:27:57 GMT -5
I've always liked living in an HOA, but I like a nice looking neighborhood with well-maintained homes and amenities. I've never had a problem and seriously don't understand people who move into HOAs who hate following rules and just want to do their own thing.
For $500/year, my family of 4 (soon to be 5) gets a pool membership, well manicured, park-like common grounds with sidewalks lining the main streets, multiple playgrounds, a walking trail, tennis courts, basketball courts, soccer field, and several festivals/events per year. It's a nice neighborhood and I love that the HOA keeps it that way. Disclaimer: not on the board and never have been.
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gooddecisions
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Church
Oct 31, 2015 22:51:57 GMT -5
Post by gooddecisions on Oct 31, 2015 22:51:57 GMT -5
I went to a contemporized Nazarene service every Sunday and Wednesday, along with bible camp in the summer until I was 13. The church services stopped for awhile after the reverend went to prison for embezzling a lot of money. I never went back to church. That experience didn't turn me away from it, I just found it too expensive and you don't really know if the money you give helps anyone.
My husband went to Catholic service growing up and private Catholic school. He wants nothing to do with church. He is atheist whereas I would lean more agnostic.
So far we haven't taken our kids. I suppose I would take them if they asked, but I would dread the offering plate.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Oct 31, 2015 22:24:01 GMT -5
I gave out full size candy bars along with rings and gummy bears as alternative options. I live in a neighborhood with over 1600 homes and 2-4 kids in every house. And, do you know I only get about 12 trick or treaters? It was a nice evening, so we set up a nice spot in the front yard from 6-8 with Halloween music and a fire pit for roasting s'mores. Not one trick o treater came by after 7:30 and my porch lights stay on all night.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Oct 27, 2015 21:03:39 GMT -5
I would have no problem sending my kids to a magnet public school, IB program or advanced specialty school, if they got in and it's what they wanted. It would not matter to me in the least if they were the poorest. But, hell no would I pay those prices or any price for private school. I live in a good public school district for a reason.
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