<p>Love that story kmccrindle</p>
<p>Modadunn: Wear a smile and something new you pick up at TJ Maxx or another store of the same ilk 
Go shopping and be fabulous! I wish we had some kind of gathering of other families at DDs’ school. I would like very much the chance to meet other parents.</p>
<p>hmom: Good to hear from you!!! You have been missed. Glad the twins are doing well! Hooray for them! Sounds like they are truly launched and enjoying the cruise, full steam ahead!!! ;)</p>
<p>Both schools D2 is considering are within a half hour of home. Big surprise there…NOT! 
There are tons of small LACs close to our area. (Macalester, University of St. Thomas, St. Olaf, Carleton, Hamline, Bethel, University of St. Catherine’s, Augsburg, and Gustavus Adophus (which is a little further away). And then of course there is the University of Minnesota. Several good options if she seriously examines what they have to offer and matches them to what she is looking for. It exhausts me…or as I have been known to say to my friends…she sucks the life out of me sometimes! ;)</p>
<p>Alright Historymom… you’ve convinced me. I will let you know how it goes. </p>
<p>This place important? It’s become my primary social interaction!! To have to talk to real people without the advantage of a delete key might truly put me to the test. :)</p>
<p>Oh Modadunn…I am also looking forward to dressing up tonight! I have a fabulous eggplant colored top and was planning on wearing an old standard necklace with it but went to target last night for some food shopping and saw a fabulous scarf that matched perfectly!!! I am ecstatic with my thrifty find that will pair quite well with my not so thrifty top ! Got to love those bargain finds!</p>
<p>YAY!!! for bargain purchases that make us feel beautiful and SMART!!!</p>
<p>the earrings that garner the most positive feedback from everyone are ones I bought at Fred Meyers for $10</p>
<p>hey good to hear from you H-mom
what great news you have to share</p>
<p>Heard from my daughter last night - she really misses the city and auditioning/performing professionally. She did say she really likes it there but. I don’t think it’s a permanent state of mind though. She didn’t even look here because it’s too close to home and she thought it would be better to get out as a student and then come back in.</p>
<p>Of course that put me on the internet all day today and sending her emails with lists of agents, casting websites, etc. She’s in Chicago so it’s not like she’s in the wilderness! I’m not sure she can work professionally and still do everything in school but that will be her choice. She’s never been very patient but I’d prefer for her to wait until summer stock auditions come through and hopefully that will appease her and also get her a summer activity in her field.</p>
<p>Why couldn’t she want to be a mathematician?</p>
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<p>Yeah, the green anoles that they sell in the pet shops hang out in my back yard all summer. On occasion we’ll get something so exotic looking that we’ll take a picture. We had one large gekko (about 7" tip to tip) that would hang out outside on our front window every night…we named him Twinkie.</p>
<p>These lizardy things were not around when I moved to Texas in 1981. The majority appeared maybe 10 years ago. I live very near a major airport and I’ve heard they flew in from Hawaii.</p>
<p>My husband and I spent the afternoon with the wife of our friend who passed away from H1N1 complications. She’s able to talk about things, we laughed, we cried. They weren’t even half way done with college visits. None of the remaining schools are big on requiring an expression of interest, so I told her they have months to fit the actual visits in.</p>
<p>missypie, it’s nice you could give her that kind of reassurance. I’m sure she is overwhelmed.</p>
<p>historymom - welcome back! and thanks for the updates on TwinE and TwinK. sounds like they are both off to a good start and that being at the same place is not holding them back from each making her own way.</p>
<p>NM - ouch! sorry about the slower-than-expected recovery. tell your H that CC is rehab for your brain and you can’t neglect it in favor of your knee!</p>
<p>I’m envious of those of you getting dressed up (with or without sparkly shoes, NM ;)). I’m having dinner with a friend, but wearing my usual jeans and sweater. Did pick up a new scarf at Target today that completes my ensemble perfectly! (really. D16 says so.)</p>
<p>I may indulge the kids with Chipotle tonight. It was lovely to spend so much time with our friend, but I hadn’t realized that I was stressed until I got back to the office and ate half a bag of Gummy Savers. </p>
<p>It was sweet to see no-emotion H get choked up when he talked to our friend about her husband. This has rocked his world. As I may have mentioned, Husband is a firm believer that everything bad that happens to you is your own fault. If someone hits your car in a parking lot, it’s because you were parked badly. If the toaster breaks, it’s because you pressed the lever down too hard. To have a friend die, while otherwise healthy and under medical care, makes no sense to any of us, but it really doesn’t make sense to him.</p>
<p>the travails of your friends, missypie, still seem surreal to me, so it must seem even more so to them. They are lucky to have supportive friends such as you. So very very sad</p>
<p>Well H gets an e-mail from #theoryson tonight (no cc to me - boo)
He has dropped game design in favor of jazz theory!</p>
<p>This is especially gratifying to #theorydad, as he is a jazz musician.</p>
<p>So as far as I can tell, he is still double majoring in math and CS and doing his humaities project in music.</p>
<p>He got an A in the game design course last term, so I am guessing it was not difficulty that made him drop it. Hopefully he will share with me at winter break.</p>
<p>This is the first time he has volunteered any info. EDM???</p>
<p>missypie your H sounds like mine. Poor guy. Poor you. I am so sorry for your loss. Agree that the reassurance and support you provided his widow is priceless. Bless you over and over for your ability to do that.</p>
<h1>theory EDM indeed! Jazz theory however boggles my mind. It’s like the rules behind the breaking of rules right??</h1>
<p>At work at 11:00 am yesterday, text from D, a junior at BS: “Plz come get me.” Why? “I have 102 fever.” </p>
<p>Call to infirmary: testing rules out regular influenza, implying H1N1. This would make her among the last in her school to get it - it was rampant 2 wks ago. Drove 3.5 hrs each way, now she’s upstairs. At least before before bed she thanked me and said she felt better being home. </p>
<p>So now I’m going to test all the precautions about washing hands regularly, et al, and see if spouse and I can avoid getting it.</p>
<p>ShawbridgeSon’s school has a separate dorm for H1N1 cases. They had a bunch of cases last spring and have few this fall relative to other schools. ShawbridgeSon fortunately got his H1N1 vaccination yesterday.</p>
<p>Late last night finished proof-reading the last of S’s essays for grad school. He just wanted another opinion. Much easier as he is doing all the work including the leg work but he should be. Only problem is that I feel like I just finished reviewing D’s essays and that was a year ago at least. Must be getting old as the time has flown by. S wants to get his JD and his MBA at the same time. He found several schools that have that option but is only applying to 2. I tried to talk him into atleast one more since so many students are going on to grad school but no such luck. So we know play the waiting game. Only downside I thought was that at both colleges he needed to apply to each school – now what happens if he gets into law school at one and businees school at the other :o Hopefully that WON’T happen.</p>
<p>I did not do well on the “sale” except that I did buy a pair of boots - haven’t had “dress” boots since a pair of frye back in college. It was fun and H and I decided we needed to throw a dinner party or something if we ever wanted to have a social life again. We had fun last night but we’re still home by 9:30! :)</p>
<p>Hoping to hear from son today. He called his dad the other day, which is great, but then H doesn’t remember anything he said so it’s very unsatisfying for me!</p>
<p>MIssy… I have thought often of your friend and saw somewhere (CNN maybe?) that texas has had more than it’s share of deaths to this thing. I read where Bowdoin has it’s own dorm for H1N1 patients, but that it doesn’t seem their students are taking advantage of the vaccine whereas at son’s school they seem to blow through the stuff so fast that every “clinic” ends up sold out at about the same time it’s begun. But here’s a question for you… if you think you’ve already had it do you still get the vaccine? And since they aren’t really testing to see if you really have H1N1 and look at all flu-like symptoms as cause for isolation, what’s the likelihood that you actually contracted H1N1?</p>
<p>Laxtaxi, aren’t you so happy that your D is in school close enough that you could go get her? I’m sure she’ll feel better in her own bed with Mom taking care of her!</p>
<p>The one thing I wasn’t able to give my friend much advice on is the FAFSA. She was not planning to fill one out because her H was a partner at a law firm - she knew their income was too high (this is child # 3 applying for college.) But now that they have no income, she thinks maybe she should fill one out but doesn’t really have a grasp on their financial situation. All I was able to tell her was that she could put it out of her mind until January, and that by then she’d have a better feel for things financial. I think I’ll post a separate question on the topic unless anyone here knows how FAFSA treats life insurance proceeds.</p>