I know this topic pops up from time to time, but I just had a new thought and wanted to hear from others what they think would create the "perfect" CS system.

My new thought? Treat CS accounts like HSA accounts (for those outside the US, an HSA is a Health Savings Account; you can save money throughout the year in the account pre-tax to be spent on medical expenses, and if you use it on non-medical expenses, you pay something like a 20% tax on those goods on top of whatever local tax you paid to buy it).

The good: OSS had a band competition two weekends ago. Received gold medals. Overall, excellent job!

The bad: YSS is failing half his classes while getting A's in the others. Two of the classes are taught by the same teacher, and YSS doesn't like her method of teaching. We (even I) have had conversations since the beginning of the year about how to address those issues with his teacher.

Has he done that? Nope.

We had to have my mom's dog put to sleep. He was a very large dog, 14 years old. He lived a long, good life with my mom and SF.

They had rescued him after a house fire they had worked. The family couldn't take him to their temporary housing, and he was still a pup. My mom called me when she got him and asked me to go buy him stuff for his new home. I spent most of my paycheck, since I was still in high school, getting him food, toys, collar, bed, and crate.

I knew it would be too good to be true if I made it 2 years in a row without getting sick around Christmas. I blame my inability to exercise consistently the last few months due to injuries as the culprit. Man, I was never an exerciser and didn't see what people got out of it until I couldn't do it. Now I'm itching to get back at it!