And it needs some kind of added spices or something, but I can't figure out what's missing. I don't cook/play around enough to be good at that kind of thing.

I mostly make it up as I go along, but a great process is to look at a few recipes and just take what you like from each one. I usually add a bit more of all the spices because we like the flavors in abundance. My poor super taster son doesn't even want to be at the table with some of the creations. He will eat plain pasta. And when I say plain I mean without butter and salt! The most complex thing he eats is plain cheese pizza, if the sauce isn't spicy.

I'm sorry about the stress, Jen. I'm the finance person here too. I try and give Brendon spreadsheets now and again, but he just can't. I really need to do some estate type stuff as we are getting older, but don't even know where to start. Every time I research my head explodes.

My poor super taster son doesn't even want to be at the table with some of the creations.

Heh. My DH is a super hot and spicy food lover, and I'm a mildly spicy appreciator. He ranks what he's made for himself as Jen can eat/Jen should not. I rank by bring your own hot sauce/and.… yeah, just bring your hot sauce.

Soup is tasty this morning with the addition of broth from a different set of bones + a kick of some mildly spicy mushroom powder spice. Win!

Yah, I tried a spreadsheet share once -- that just amplified his anxiety. Lesson learned! Now I just get the convo down to as few details as possible, present steps we're taking and why, and open the floor for questions. Much better.

Glad you guys are powered, Steph.

Speaking of soup! This was in my email today with 6 soups. Including my favorites, tomato, butternut squash, and mushroom varieties. [link] As always, I suggest looking at several recipes and picking and choosing what looks good. I would not recommend combining tomato, butternut squash, and mushrooms together though. That would be very tricky.

Dad got power back.

Main Street businesses here are open. We don't a have power. I got to work. Only had one close call with a car...came half a car length of hitting me. Managed to skip ahead of the line and turn to get into work. Almost everyone was in line for the Gas station..

We ran out of bread, about to run out of water , peanut butter, no candles etc.. most wal marts are closed due to no power. If it wasn't for the power outage Tuesday and the generator we got our store would be closed.

At home we have few candles. One flash light. My phone. I have a portable charge but it needs a micro USB to charge it and I left that charger at home. So it's for some power but not sure how much.

I don't have enough gas to get to work tomorrow. Or enough gas to wait on a long line for gas. M may get up early in the morning to see if the line would be shorter. I'm hoping. If he can get me gas I'll probably go into work.

I got hot from all the running around but I had hot food which was nice

Power~ma! Did you manage to clear out your freezer/fridge before the power went out? My sister starts going down to as little as possible refrigerated in the spring. I clear as much as I can before I go north for the summer. Summer in Florida means you will lose power at some point.

Timelies all!

Got my covid shot yesterday. My arm hurts and I'm feeling a little blah. Of course I haven't gotten enough sleep because silly boy had to come into our room and be disruptive. Sigh...

Today much better than yesterday already. Got up felt ok and went and met my friend and her 2.5 year old at toddler soccer. Hilarious. Then we walked around a bit with the dog (toddler insists on having the leash, which is super cute), hit the grocery store, about to do some laundry, and then a soccer game! Yesterday I sat on the couch the whole day.

beekaytee, I'm no help on the legal stuff, but please send Todd my love and let her know she is missed.

Also the finance person. ND is always willing to listen, but it can be hard to engage about it sometimes. It was incredibly hard these past four years when money was so grim and there just weren't any solutions. We've turned that corner now finally with the closing out of Dad's estate and ND's business thriving again (finally, post-Covid!!!) due to his hard work and tenacity, but woof.

We do have an existing trust we set up before we got married, but we never actually put anything in it (never had any assets!), but now that we have paid down a lot of debt and have equity in the house despite the mortgage, we need to revisit it. It's on my list for early next year. I also need to talk to a financial adviser about my TIAA-Cref retirement investments to make sure they are what they need to be so I can retire in 12-15 years.

Friends, things are a shitshow at work. Being very vague on the extremely unlikely case anyone could find this post, we are 90% sure our Big Boss (BB) just fired our secondary Big Boss (SBB), who had been at the school 25 years and was beloved. SBB has been disappeared. No one in lower admin knows where she is, but she's been removed from email lists and her work phone has been turned off. No announcement has been made. If this is true, a LOT of people are going to leave this school by the end of this year. It's...it's not good. SBB was the only one putting guard rails on BB, who has gotten more and more rigid and scary the longer she's been in power.

Cereal: Beekaytee, I'm so sorry to hear about Toddson. Thank you for helping her. I don't have any connections beyond recommending doing what you probably already have done, which is to do some googling to find local attorneys who can help. Durable POA isn't too expensive to set up, and I'm sure those of us who are able would contribute to help pay for it.