He’s home. Christmas is complete.
So the good news is I don’t have to drive 100 miles each way to be at court at 8.30 a.m. 2 days after Christmas as a witness for the prosecution. The bad news is it sounds like the person who burgled our car of about $1500 of property and fraudulently used our credit cards is not going to face and consequences AGAIN! She was already in a suspended 4 year sentence for stealing a car and being in possession of stolen property (& not her first conviction) - 2 weeks after that she burgled 4 vehicles then a few days later she burgled ours. she repeatedly has not shown up for court dates. And yet you’ve released her yet again. If she hasn’t been out she wouldn’t have robbed us.
I can see cutting a first time offender a break but this is a multiple offender. The only thing she has learned is that there are no consequences for her actions. And the only thing we have learned is it’s not worth bothering to report it when we are robbed (except we had to for the credit card companies to take the charges off our accounts). Kudos to the police who did find and arrest her.
My dear friend, a single mom of 2, one of whom went to elementary and high school with my DD, lost her apartment and all her and her kids’ possessions in a terrible fire last week. She had just arrived in Beijing to visit her daughter who is doing a semester abroad there. OMG, I can’t imagine.
I wish there was a sigh or wow button.
Having hung out here for many (way too ?) many years I have come to develop deep sense of gratitude for my family’s total lack of awe and worship of all things Ivy (or Ivy +20). It just sounds exhausting and takes up an awful lot of brain cycles.
I wish I could get the “feeling” back. I really would like to be excited for the holidays once more before I die.
Sometimes I just wonder why I spends hours shopping and putting 45 presents under the tree for my 20 and 21 year old college students. All they want is money, but I like to see their faces Christmas morning opening all these presents!!! I must be nuts :))
I am trying so hard to feel the holiday spirit, but it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards this year for me. I am not depressed, just not feeling the joy I used to feel at the holidays. I need to figure out what to do with my life that will change that, I guess. And I used to think old folks had it all figured out. Silly me.
You did not plan, did not get enough information and act as is I am pushing you order to sort it out.
Just watch your tone.
You say you need to lose weight and can’t figure out why you keep gaining. As a thought to consider, it’s entirely possible it has to do with the 3 huge helpings you had of ham and mashed potatoes at our Christmas dinner last night. If those slices at the store are truly 8 oz, then you ate at least 2 lbs of ham alone - then add the rest of the full plates - with nary a veggie in sight if we don’t count the potatoes. Mashed potatoes are hardly low cal compared to the peas you say you “can’t eat.”
One dinner won’t do it, of course, but every time we see you this seems to be a pattern. Why do you not see it? Your weight gain really isn’t a mystery. I’m suspicious your digestive issues aren’t either. Eat what you want as it’s your life, but all of us are getting tired of hearing about your unexplained weight gain and stomach problems when you can’t even recognize the basics. I may have a tough time not saying it out loud next time you tell me about them even though I know your answer will be to hang up telling me, “You just don’t understand. I know my body.”
Dear “expert” college-application-mom on a certain other social media thread -
You do not know everything. Stop trying to disguise your assumptions and opinions as facts. Actually, yes, many colleges DO care about 9th grade grades, and no, “most colleges” do NOT want well-rounded kids. Some of course might, but many want a well-rounded CLASS (there’s a difference!). Do “most” colleges want well-rounded individuals or do “most” want pointy individuals? Well, out of thousands of colleges, I don’t know - AND NEITHER DO YOU. Just because you are going through the application process right now with your oldest child does not mean you know everything there is to know about college admissions. In fact, from your posts, it is clear to me that you don’t know what you don’t know.
If your “math genius” daughter’s essays come off half as arrogant as you come across in your posts, then she’s doomed.
I’m sorry I’m so difficult to buy stocking stuffers for. It’s not like you have to buy me many presents - I always have to do that myself. Or buy for the kids - I generally take care of that and just ask you to find one thing for them. I do the rest - buying, wrapping and figuring out what’s from you, me and us. And since DD is abroad and not coming home you didn’t even have to do presents or stocking stuffers for her. And for years I also bought for your parents and sibling’s family. I know use special chapstick and beauty products - but they’re sold by our neighbor - you know that and her and could ask her for suggestions. So I only like dark chocolate - so go to the amazing chocolate store in town and buy me something I would like that I wouldn’t buy myself. Or a mix for cosmos, or Kleenex packets. Just for once think of something I would like and try. And you wonder why I don’t like this holiday time and am missing DD so much! Even DS can figure some thins out on his own for us!
Ok, so maybe I couldn’t keep quiet when you started discussing your health issues around the table as you were lamenting your “fate” while totally ignoring absolutely everything healthy offered in favor of extra large portions of the unhealthy, but the fact that you never thought to equate “healthy diet” with helping keep one’s body healthy and able to more easily fend off challenges from the common cold to healing cuts truly surprised me. Where did you think the words “healthy diet” originated from? The body uses various vitamins and minerals from those foods to keep itself in good shape. Without enough of them it gets stressed and/or can take longer to try to do repairs. A meal or two is no big deal, even on a weekly basis, but 40 years of never eating healthier things seems to have caught up with you - so of course - blame the doctors for not being able to fix it or how you got the bad genetics. Just don’t be surprised when med school lad chimes in saying, “that’s not fair!”
We are truly blessed by our daughter and the lovely young man that she met freshman year. They are so wonderfully in love. What a joy to have visiting us this Christmas, I am sure his own parents are missing him. Merry Christmas all.
Oh good god. The “symmetrical TVdudes” as Mr. calls them are having a field day. Like nothing else important happened here tonight?!
Thank you, Christmas Ships for the great show!!! ? See you next year. 
I m dreading for tomorrow…I m forever leaving Alabama, and honestly, I won’t miss Alabama. I am more afraid because I am going to leave my best friend and I will not know anyone in North Carolina. hope I make new acquaintances quick.
Couldn’t everyone held their mouths for two days together instead of going crazy.
We have been making gingerbread house kits for 20 years. The kit I bought this year at Target was a complete fail - the thing would not stay together - had to throw out the entire thing! Good thing my daughter is 24 and not 4, or it would have been a huge disappointment (as it is it is a small disappointment).
Son reading stuff on internet - loud laugh - I ask 'what??"…He reads line…
"Be your own secret Santa with Ambien and Amazon’.
Snort.