Lol @TexasMom18 - my daughter was voted Meme Lord on their senior trip. Not quite as much pressure
@DiotimaDM I hear you about the Waaaaaahhhhh. I know that unless she goes into medicine, she’s not ever going to live near me again. We also agreed on a study abroad program for next summer, and I hope and believe she’ll get internships the summers after that.
It’s got to be hard on all the rural parents, who see better financial opportunities for their children to be far away from them.
@MACmiracle I think both Rowan and TCNJ are wonderful colleges and have engineering programs that are realy getting a lot of hype lately. Especially the money being poured into both these fine state institutions. I happen to be a big cheerleader for TCNJ, the campus environment, the kids I met there on multiple tours and open houses, the absolutely beautiful campus. I am not as familiar with Rowan outside of knowing kids who are absolutely thriving there. As an aside, a good friend’s son suffered a very serious concussion his senior year. He was on target to play college level sports but is banned from ever playing again due to the nature of his concussion. Anyway, he went to Rowan and is THRIVING. He became a football coach, his grades are great, he’s getting his teaching certificate etc. Wishing you the best of the luck but my heart says both institutions will nurture your daughter, particularly in their honors programs.
@AmyBeth68 Awww. Thank you for sharing all of that. It’s nice to have such supportive friends here. It would be very lonely going through all of this without you.
Since it’s snowing and I’m stuck inside, I tried to cheer myself up by doing my first Zumba video on YouTube. The puppies were watching me and wondering what was going on. Just watching them watch me got me smiling again.
@vistjay. Because my fraternity Sigma Nu was founded at VMI and as you may know has its national headquarters in Lexington we made a few road trips to Lexington in the early 80’s and attended a few parties at W&L. It was the first time I saw kids do the gator…
@MACmiracle ((HUGS)) this is such a supportive little community! Also we’re looking at anywhere from 6 - 12 inches of snow. It’s coming down hard now. Stay safe and warm!
@burghdad dare I ask…the gator?
My S was voted most likely to be president. How, I have no idea. He’s not a leadership kids, has never run for anything in his life, and is going into engineering. LOL.
He says it’s because he knows history and likes to debate in class.
My daughter was nominated as Most Studious. It’s pretty darn accurate LOL, that kid has her books with her everywhere she goes.
@MACmiracle what youTube video did you use for Zumba? Good for you to do it.
@msatoor Thanks! I think it was called Easy Zumba and it was about 30 minutes long. I found it by googling “youtube Zumba”. It was a collection of videos so it wasn’t ideal but it worked for today. 
@burghdad , Gatoring was EXTREMELY popular at my fraternity in my day. There’s a very good chance you were at my fraternity house in Red Square. Pretty sure I can trace my herniated disc to a college gator.
@AmyBeth68 , gatoring was a sort of mosh pit type of frolick. As soon as the song La Grange by ZZ Top came on, usually late in the party, all willing participants (for some reason, only males were willing), began jumping off tables and the stage to dog pile on the dance floor, then you flipped onto your back and gyrated, while others landed on you and on watchers threw drinks on you. Looking back on it now, it is hard to remember the attraction of participating, though it was fun to watch.
Have mercy. A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw. @vistajay Wonder if you had the urge to gator every time the Geico commercial played.
@yugefamily , not really. As a 5’8’’, 140 lbs cross country runner, I had NO business gatoring with the water polo, rugby and lacrosse players who populated my house. Eventually I figured that out.
I always picture @vistajay as an elegant sort of person. I can’t imagine him as the type to gator, or Zumba for that matter.
@MACmiracle , I will take that as a compliment that I may at least write elegantly, on occasion. But enough scary fraternity stories from bygone eras! Let’s get some more college acceptances going!
@melvin123, don’t leave this CA parent off the list of people who think there are better financial opportunities for their children far away . . . . we are certainly not in a rural location, but the cost of living is so incredibly insane here in the SF Bay Area that it seems almost anywhere would provide a better a better financial, especially since my kids are not interested in working in tech. This is one of the main drivers for me encouraging my kids to look OOS. Ironic that my S18 may stay in state now after all of the OOS energy expended.
@vistajay thank you for that visual. I might still be laughing at the thought of it. Oh my how nobody got seriously injured is a mystery, although youth tends to help with that.
And here I was just picturing the gator chomp… @vistajay 's version is so much better!
@pickledginger I’m right there with you. Was actually a little disappointed S got in to SLO because I thought he’d be better off in Colorado or Washington.
D is insistent that So Cal is the only place to be so I knew there was no hope for her.
Re: CA and cost of living - We got priced out of Santa Barbara. We gave up and moved to the desert where you can get something surprisingly nice for $250-300k, and $400k plus buys enormous luxury. We stuck to that bottom number.
When we made the decision, it sort of felt like defeat, like were were settling for something lesser because we couldn’t hack it in SB. Two years in, the desert has exceeded our expectations at every turn. We are financially stable, edging toward comfortable, and very, very happy here. Yes, the first summer was brutal, but after that, you adjust and the following summers aren’t that bad.
We don’t golf, but we chose a smaller, interior unit in a golf course development because the golf course keeps the population density down. Choosing an interior unit means we have less surface area exposed to the sun, so our cooling costs are lower in the summer. We’re in the center of the development, so there’s not a peep of traffic noise. We hear birds during the day, owls at night, and the susurrus of breezes through the palm fronds. There’s a pool and spa across the street, tennis courts, a gym and a clubhouse with a library and restaurant.
The HOA covers all of our exterior maintenance and landscaping. Now that we’re here, we think we should have done it years earlier.