Teppy, sorry about the bloody scare. I hope you have Tim home by now and that everything goes so smoothly that it is boring.

msbelle, I did a quick skip & skim since I've last been here. You've had a helluva lot of changes, lately. Good luck with the job search and your move. All the best wishes for Mac, too.

My girl's taking a semester off. It's so surprising college hasn't been her thing, but it just hasn't. She's 21 now. She's going to be a barista, at least for the near future. I am being hands off. She needs to work full time, pay for her phone, and get ready to pay her loans when they come due in June. I wish she were facing the future differently, but I just want her to be happy.

My younger son is feeling well and is anxious to get back to college in January. He's our academic and aside from having to deal with the Crohn's disease, it's frustrated him that it's interrupted his plans.

Older son and DH are both job hunting. I'm trying to figure out what's next for me.

I mean, I had an English and Theatre degree and was first gen, so all it did,if I wasn't working in theatre, was make me qualified for a basic office job which probably made about as much money as SYlvia does! And she would not be suited to an office, I don't think. She will find her way. I think she would do well to get her own apartment and just try living because she and her mom just sort of fight about everything and anything Maria thinks she should or needs to do means she won't do it. Which I totally get! Maria is also intense and a little scary sometimes. We are actually toying a little with the idea of SYlvia being my roommate as a starter, because I care, but I am not going to like, cook her dinner every night separate from my dinner or tell her she shouldn't spend her money on Uber. But I actually can't drive her to work instead of Uber or the bus, which is what Maria does because she can't stand the thought of spending that money.

Aidan, for all how tall and grown he looks, is still so very much a little boy, I kind of don't want him to go to away to school yet. I mean no smoking, drinking, partying, girls. He just likes to play video games with his friends from school, who are delightfully good kids too, watch Comedy videos and play with animals. The thought of him in a raucous college environment sort of scares me. I didn't take well to it and commuted after the first year, but you can't commute from forestry school!

Y'all, I'm going clothes shopping with my teenage nephews, mom & SIL. I'm gonna need alcohol.

Happy Solstice, people!

sarameg, clothes shopping with family is a two-flask task!

College, surprisingly, wasn't my thing either. I finished anyway, but I was miserable the whole time. Partly it was because I was academically unprepared, partly because my mental health issues were never diagnosed or supported, and partly because I went to a very conservative college and I felt stifled. The joy of collaborative learning that I was expecting from college just wasn't there. I probably would've been better off if I'd defied my mother's wishes and gone to Berkeley. I'm still sad that college was such a disappointing and unhappy experience for me.

Happy Solstice!

J got into Pratt, but we couldn't afford it, and we kind of feel she's never forgiven us for that. She decided upon Mass College of Art & Design, hated her roommates, didn't like the school, but did fine academically her freshman year. She decided to transfer to UMass Amherst, where she spent her sophomore year mostly sleeping in.

She told us in May she didn't want to go back (not that I'm sure it was an option anyhow). Over the summer, she did nothing, but she'd been struggling with a few things so we just let her coast. This fall, she started part-time at a community college, one day a week, mostly to put off when her student loans would come due. She did fine, but just doesn't want to go back right now, because she doesn't know what she wants.

I feel like my mother would have "made" me keep going somewhere, but honestly, I don't have that in me. I was also a pretty compliant kid. This kid is not -- she's more like my mother, funnily enough.

I just want her to be happy. She's both bright and talented. I also feel like I'm going to make the wrong choices, no matter what I do.

So, I thought Petunia kitten was leaving the tree alone because there were not ornaments all over the floor around the tree anymore.

I discovered, when I went to clean my bathtub, that she has been bringing them to the bathtub and using it like some sort of pinball machine.

I picked out two plastic hello kitty ornaments, and the remains of two glass balls!!!! And now that I look, my tree looks suspiciously bare.....

Cindy it sounds to me like J might have been equally unhappy at Pratt with bigger bills to pay off for her one sad semester -- but it takes a good deal of distance and life experience before one might be able to admit that to oneself.

(Just getting in, in this uber-competitive college ecosystem, is a confirmation of her talent, seriously. Yet it might not have been the right choice when she was emotionally fragile, being even more competitive/cutthroat/critical than her subsequent colleges.)

I can say truly that it was a blast coming back to a college-level school as an adult secure in myself.

Happy Solstice! I am so ready for the days to get longer. I know my days are longer than most of you, but I am so tired of thinking it is bedtime at 6:30.

I am so ready for the days to get longer.

Co-signed.