Marka's Profile

I've lived alone and eaten alone and it used to sometimes make me lonely. Here's advice from someone who has been there and found a way to move on. You need to change your expectations. If you didn't have a strong inner expectation that meal times = socialization time, you wouldn't give a second thought to eating alone and enjoying your meals. Cultural conditioning is strong, but sometimes it just doesn't make logical good since. For example, if you grew up in a culture that declared hair combing to be a social, family and friend oriented event, you'd feel desperately lonely every time you combed your hair alone. As it is, you (I'm assuming) don't think twice about combing your hair alone. You don't feel lonely or like some kind of loser social pariah every time you pick up your comb. As they say, change your thinking and change your life. I still live alone and I enjoy my meals. Sometimes I eat in the kitchen, sometimes in the living room and sometimes, especially on rainy nights or on snowy days when I don't have to be anywhere, I climb into bed with a few good books (hay, you don't want to get up if you want another book), a thermos (ditto with the hot drinks), maybe a pitcher of cold drinks on the night stand and my dinner, desert, phone (maybe, maybe not) and remote. Then I snuggle in and enjoy. Give it a try. Don't compare your life with what pop culture has decreed is the right way to live. Enjoy your life as it is and your friends where you find them. They don't have to be at the dinner table to be a vital part of your life. Enjoy and best of luck.

I agree with Kathy C that parents should do what is best for their children and not pay attention to what other people say. I am also sure that her son was happy, and many parents would also be happy, to have more time with their children before sending them off to school. I would have loved to stay home another year with my mother instead of trooping off to school with the other kids. But how would a child feel as a 19 year old senior in high school with 17 and 18 year old classmates? Her son was lucky. Apparently, there were a group of children held back by their parents, so he found plenty of company and was not alone. Things may have turned out differently if he were the only older kid passing as younger in a lower grade. She gives two examples of children who were enrolled at the regular times and did not fare so well. She does not talk about the thousands enrolled at the proper time that did very well indeed or why she thought that her son ran the risk of being left behind. Again, it is up to the parents. I only ask that they 1) take it on a case by case basis. If you kid really needs it, if he or she is having trouble sitting down and following directions to the point that she will not do well in class or can not concentrate at age lever, by all means hold them back. and 2) count the cost in later life before easing their way in school by slipping them in with the younger kids. A six year old or a seven year old will outshine a group of five year olds. No question. But the five year olds will catch up. As a teacher, I can assure you that that is true. And catch up time comes sooner than you think. By the third or forth grade, those regular admission five year olds have caught up academically if not physically. So the year off buys an academic advantage that dissipates rather quickly while the year lost to adulthood is permanent. It's your decision. You are the parent. But think it through.

Has anyone considered the effect on your child once he is an adult? I've read a lot of comments focusing on the reputed childhood advantages of red shirting. They may be true, but not for all kids. If you child is having problems or is too immature, maybe. just maybe this is a good idea to take this chance and to hold him back to help him cope with school. If he is doing fine and you red shirt him to give him some kind of perceived edge over his peers, it may seem like a good idea, but your child will not be a child forever. What you are doing is depriving him of one year of adulthood to give him a grade school advantage. Will he think that it was worth it when he is spending an additional year of his life in college and is not out there earning his living with his peers? When his career launch or launch into independence is dragging on for another additional year? Life is short. Do you really want to deprive him of a year of adulthood for what may be only a perceived social advantage in childhood? Ask yourself this, Is it good for a child to fail a grade in school? Is it good for them and does it give them an advantage? Most parents would say no, it does not, that the child is being held back while his peers advance. Well, red shirting is doing the exact same thing without the academic stigma attached. Don't bargain a year of your child's adult life away for the possibility of a little more glory in elementary school.

While changing the color of the door will definitely add to the appeal, it will not get rid of your problem. It will only make it a more colorful problem. Go to the library and look at houses that you think have wonderful entrances. The one thing that you'll notice is that a good entrance functions as the focal point for the exterior of the house. That means it is the most important feature and that other features frame it, point to it, lead to it. bracket it and highlight it. Think of the door as the end of a runway. The details point the way in and it makes you feel welcome. The actual problem is that your door is not a focal point at all. It is no more important than the windows. In fact, the windows seem to have greater prominence, leaving the door as a poor afterthought hanging off the edge of the wall. Fixing it is easy. Fixing it on a budget is harder. I'm in favor of peeling off the cladding around the door to see what you have on the wood underneath. That may be the best way, but it is financially risky as you have no idea what is under it. Whatever you do, you need to highlight the door as a major part of the design. How? 1) frame or bracket it. Install either half columns or wide, and I do mean wide, trim to the wall beside the door but at least maybe six inches away from it and not touching it.. This can be as simple and cheap as buying 1 x 8's from the local box store and installing them flat beside the door Use trim to fancy up both the top and the bottom to give the look of a stylized flat column. Even better would be to spring for wide trim pieces in place of the 1 x 8 and still trim out the top and bottom. 2) You need to crown it somehow. Ever wonder why an awful lot of doors that are not on porches have a bump, arch, or peak in the roof right above it? They do that to crown the door. Bumping up the roof with a dormer type peak above the door would match your house roof line beautifully, but may be too expensive to contemplate. Leaving the roof alone, you can crown the door with applied molding forming a rectangle or an arch above the door. Paint the inside of the shape for instant pop. Not nearly as good as fooling with the roof, but not a bad compromise that will not affect the structure of the house and can be gotten rid of or redone when the mood hits. You can do it around the light. 3) Point the way in. I saved one of the biggest design sins for last. I'm sorry, but the stairs and especially the railings will have to go if you want a welcoming entrance. A straight run of stairs that is only a little wider than the door is a major no-no. Again, you don't have to pop for a grand sweeping entrance. Just making a graduated stair case with the bottom stair wide, the middle stair less wide and the top stair still smaller will be enough to add importance to the door and point the way in. Going up the scale in terms of expense, adding even a small, 3 foot deep landing in front of the door would make a big difference in how the door looks and functions. It will not only add importance, but give one or two guest a welcoming place to stand while they wait for you to open the door. Don't get me wrong, even length runs of stairs are ok as long as it is substantially wider than the door but you don't have room to go much wider. before you extend past the end of the porch. You can consider curved steps, decks and other embellishments that cost more, but the stairs have to go if you want a welcoming entrance. I wish that I had a cheap alternative to replacing the rails, but I don't know of any. Lumbar from the box store will not do it. Unless someone else can make a suggestion, you need to spring for premade rails. Anything else is going to look amaturish. Congratulations on the new house and good luck.