We bought them at Walmart @4kids2graduate - they were in the organization section where you’d find hangers and hanging shoe racks, etc.
@carolinamom2boys This is so true (balling as I read your post). My sweet girl did french immersion foreign exchange trips in her freshman and sophomore year. She went to Toulouse, France in 9th grade and Strausburg, France in the 10th grade. From managing her money to remembering to use WI-FI to keeping track of her passport she did an awesome job.
The next year she went to Yale for a summer program. She loved it because she felt like a “college” student. She went to class, debated with her “college” classmates, went to the cafeteria on her own, went to the gym on her own and managed her bank account.
You really don’t realize they are listening to you…until you listen to them. It’s me that was secretly loosing it :((
@psychmomma, very impressed with your organizational skills!
@lifegarding, you will make it and then you can relax and enjoy the vacation.
I drove around the neighborhood yesterday to do, guess what? My S got Pokemon go app and we went looking for Pokemon. He is paying for the data add-on, I pay for it once they are in college.
Today my S said “3 more weeks until I leave.” I consulted my calendar and said “3 1/2.”
@psychmomma I organized dorm mountain today inspired by you. I think we still need things.
On Sunday my husband said “We really need to stop buying things.” After teaching my son to sew a button, he went out and bought him a small sewing kit. Whatever! He lost all his credibility with that one.
We found the space bags in the aisle with the irons, steamers, etc. They weren’t with the hangers. So it must vary by store. Try looking in the places they might have storage or laundry room goods.
H called our insurance today and it does NOT cover D’s goods in college, but the renter’s policy we could pick up for about $125 a year covers up to $5,000 in good, including electronics, as well as a rather large liability coverage. The link above only has liability as an add-on. In any case, $125 is a low price for the piece of mind it would offer considering that any one of D’s electronic items is worth more than that.
We’ve also found a solution to the DVD player issue. If D upgrades her Surface to Windows 10, then downloads the video software, she’ll be good to go. so all we’d need is the external drive. And it looks like the video software is free again. We went to a MS store and asked exactly what we needed to do-so no DVD player is needed!
The free Windows 10 upgrade deadline is soon, iirc.
I think my IT guy told me July 28. Don’t worry, it’s on the weekend schedule if I have to hijack D’s Surface and do it myself.
Here is was way to make one’s own space bags: http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Vacuum-Packing-aka-the-Poor-Mans-Spacebag/
We actually tried that with a non-space bag bag. It worked some, but since you can’t get an airtight seal, it’s not as efficient at removing the air or staying sealed. For a car trip, though, that technique might just work.
It is possible that the new found maturity we now see was there for a while but it is us that were unable to see it? As all of this becomes more real we are all seeing our children with fresh eyes and accepting that they really are young adults.
I did see glimmers of maturity before, but I think seeing it in context really magnified it.
Both, maybe? D was looking at a photo someone had taken of her in the spring, and she was commenting on how much younger she looked. There’s a different way in how she carries herself now, above and beyond her actual looks. And even though she’s younger than some of her “students” she is done with HS and looking beyond, and I think that adds to her acting more mature.
What I know for sure is that seeing her this summer I can tell that she’s ready for this next step (even if her room is still a disaster area).
Exactly @sseamom . It’s how they carry themselves, more confidently . I don’t know . I can’t really put my finger on it , just something different. Then we have a little melt down , and I think " There’s my boy"
@psychmomma The college insurance for students you posted offered a pretty good rate even when I added her 1910 Stradivarius violin and bow.
I initially got a renters insurance quote from the company we use for home and auto. They wanted a yearly premium of $204 with a deductible of $1,000!! (Ummm…NOT!).
Pretty sure we’ll be using the insurance @psychmomma suggested as well. The $25 deductible is awesome. I think when I called our insurance company awhile back they said everything would be automatically covered under our policy, but we have our deductible set really high. Murphy’s Law strikes here often…if I don’t insure her stuff, everything will get stolen or the dorm will flood. If I do insure it, nothing will happen. LOL Taking a look at tuition insurance with that same thought process.
I originally got it for the accident protection. If they spill liquid on their computer or phone, it’s covered. Ended up using it for a bike theft. Take pictures of your valuables and scan your receipts. That made the claim very easy. (Plus a copy of the police report.)
This article is from last year, but it was still a good read: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/what-nobody-is-going-to-tell-you-about-freshman-year
@psychmomma the link to the insurance plan is very helpful. It is great to see that it would cover phones as well. Thanks for sending it since our homeowners plan seems a bit too pricey - almost easier to just buy a new laptop for what they were charging.
^^Totally!!
Was Lifetouch the photographer at your graduations, or is that just a regional thing? I need to get around to ordering a couple pictures, wasn’t sure if it was one of those deals where they would start offering discounts as the deadline got closer. (Feels like that was the case with the company that did yearbook senior pictures before school started last year.) Anyone with older kids have any experience with that?