Parents of the High School Class of 2017/College 2021

[mamacatnv]

Just curious - for how many of you will this be your last or only heading out of the house?
If you are now facing empty nest, any grand plans?

I got a 15 hr a week paid job working for an non-profit that works with service dogs - I am really excited about this, it is a couple of nights a week and 4 hours on Sunday afternoon. It is on top of my regular 8-5 "career" and beats binge watching Netflix.
Also adopted two kittens last weekend - we have always had 2-3 cats in the house and as of a week ago, we had none so, its kitten season and off to the shelter I went. Andy and Oly are now tearing up the house and harassing the dog. Funny how a 1# 15oz kitten can rule over a 125# dog.

Just curious about your plans.
FWIW our grocery bill has dropped significantly.
While our DS was no longer at home, until a couple of months ago he was close by and he, his girlfriend and their dog were around often. They are now 2000 miles away on their new careers as traveling Physical Therapists.
DD has been away at her summer job for a little over a month.
House stays significantly cleaner.
If DH is not home, I am stuck hauling in the groceries AND putting them away - he usually goes with me but yesterday, I was on my own.
Funny how the washing machine is usually available, there are no loads sitting in washer/dryer.
The electricity bill has dropped as well as we just dropped our usage on our internet as we are way under what we were paying for.

 

[sksjasams]

Just curious - for how many of you will this be your last or only heading out of the house?
If you are now facing empty nest, any grand plans?

I got a 15 hr a week paid job working for an non-profit that works with service dogs - I am really excited about this, it is a couple of nights a week and 4 hours on Sunday afternoon. It is on top of my regular 8-5 "career" and beats binge watching Netflix.
Also adopted two kittens last weekend - we have always had 2-3 cats in the house and as of a week ago, we had none so, its kitten season and off to the shelter I went. Andy and Oly are now tearing up the house and harassing the dog. Funny how a 1# 15oz kitten can rule over a 125# dog.

Just curious about your plans.
FWIW our grocery bill has dropped significantly.
While our DS was no longer at home, until a couple of months ago he was close by and he, his girlfriend and their dog were around often. They are now 2000 miles away on their new careers as traveling Physical Therapists.
DD has been away at her summer job for a little over a month.
House stays significantly cleaner.
If DH is not home, I am stuck hauling in the groceries AND putting them away - he usually goes with me but yesterday, I was on my own.
Funny how the washing machine is usually available, there are no loads sitting in washer/dryer.
The electricity bill has dropped as well as we just dropped our usage on our internet as we are way under what we were paying for.

Sounds like you have done a great job preparing for your empty nest!

I am not doing as well. I feel like I am shutting down in anticipation of DS leaving. He is my only.
DH has 3 much older kids from his first marriage, but this will be his first real empty nest. They all still live only 30 min away where they grew up.

 

[Poohforyou]

Hi all, we're back from vacation and onto planning dd's early 18th birthday party (she'll be at school on her actual birthday) and college shopping.

She's been talking with her roommate quite a bit and they have some common interests which is nice.

Dd has taken a total of 5 AP tests and will get credit for 4 of them. Her school requires a 4 or 5. She also took a college class her senior year. All that together means she'll enter with 19 credits. That gives her a nice buffer if she needs to lighten her load at some point.

Hope everyone's summer is going well.

 

[bethbuchall]

Sounds like you have done a great job preparing for your empty nest!

I am not doing as well. I feel like I am shutting down in anticipation of DS leaving. He is my only.
DH has 3 much older kids from his first marriage, but this will be his first real empty nest. They all still live only 30 min away where they grew up.

I'm going through waves of shutting down, too. I am excited for him. I do know that this is everything we've worked toward for the last 18 years, but he's the "baby," and I know that life will never be the same again. Driving away from the school once we drop him off is going to be so difficult. Sure, he'll still come home over the next four years (sometimes for extended stays), but I know from the older two that it's just not the same. My biggest job over the last 26 years has been mom. I was a SAHM for a lot of the time, though I've been teaching preschool part-time for the last 16 years (starting with a couple of hours a week and moving up to 5 days/week). Unfortunately, demand for private preschool in our area has dropped significantly, and I'll be working only 3 half days a week in the Fall. I was a computer programmer before I had children, but not only do I not have current skills, those jobs are leaving faster than the preschoolers. I guess I need to figure out where I'm going...

The bright spot is that my daughter proposed our first mother-daughter WDW trip for the first week of September, so I have that to look forward to.

 

[sksjasams]

I'm going through waves of shutting down, too. I am excited for him. I do know that this is everything we've worked toward for the last 18 years, but he's the "baby," and I know that life will never be the same again. Driving away from the school once we drop him off is going to be so difficult. Sure, he'll still come home over the next four years (sometimes for extended stays), but I know from the older two that it's just not the same. My biggest job over the last 26 years has been mom. I was a SAHM for a lot of the time, though I've been teaching preschool part-time for the last 16 years (starting with a couple of hours a week and moving up to 5 days/week). Unfortunately, demand for private preschool in our area has dropped significantly, and I'll be working only 3 half days a week in the Fall. I was a computer programmer before I had children, but not only do I not have current skills, those jobs are leaving faster than the preschoolers. I guess I need to figure out where I'm going...

The bright spot is that my daughter proposed our first mother-daughter WDW trip for the first week of September, so I have that to look forward to.

I loved the happy ending to your post. That will def be something to look forward to!!

 

[bethbuchall]

I loved the happy ending to your post. That will def be something to look forward to!!

I'm feeling a little melancholy today. I'm not always as down about the first part as I'm feeling right now, but that last part is definitely keeping me going at times. My crash on September 10th may be intense, but I'm not thinking about that.

 

[AustinTink]

Reading some of these posts about preparing for the big move makes me feels very lucky to have DS staying close to home. Our summer has been stress free and I know it would have been completely the opposite if he had chosen one of the out-of-state schools. I'm so happy to have him going to school just down the road.

 

[bjscheel]

Reading some of these posts about preparing for the big move makes me feels very lucky to have DS staying close to home. Our summer has been stress free and I know it would have been completely the opposite if he had chosen one of the out-of-state schools. I'm so happy to have him going to school just down the road.

Oh yeah, I can't imagine coordinating a move that is many hours or a plane ride away. DD is my oldest, and I'm comforted that she'll be just an hour away.

So our Color Run was yesterday and we called it a success! I had tried putting some powder in my hand and throwing it and it was not very impressive and very messy on my hand. We bought some condiment dispensers at Walmart (like the restaurant ketchup bottles, but the BBQ sauce ones in the grilling section were cheapest and clear). That was so much better! DD filled the bottles and we had 18 total filled.

We had 18 kids total, 7 that sprayed powder and 11 that ran (a couple of those had a bottle of powder too). It was 90º so we said they could turn around wherever they wanted- didn't have to do the full 1/2 mile out and back. After they ran there was more squirting and lots of selfies, followed by food, and water balloons!

 

[mamacatnv]

BjScheel - Your DD is darling! Looks like they had a great time, running in flip flops, my kind of activity! (Running not so much but flip flops I'm totally down with!)

 

[aprilgail]

This is my one and only and on top of that I am a single parent- she and I have always been like best friends doing everything together so for me this is going to suck big time. I have friends though whose only is heading to college the same time so we are all planning on scheduling a bunch of things to do- movies, shows, casino, and other activities to keep us all busy LOL. Out of my 5 close friends only ONE of them has more than one kid so we are all in the same boat. I am more stressed out thinking that any day now the college is going to say "oh sorry we made a mistake, you really have to pay $$$$ more"

 

[Mom3girls]

This will be my second to leave for college. My first DD is at a college only 40 min away and is home a lot. This DD will be at Florida State and we live in NJ. I'm sure this will be a HUGE adjustment to get used to. One last DD will graduate high school next year so we will be empty nesters next fall. (Except for my two furbabies) My husband says we won't be getting a third puppy to replace the third child leaving

 

[wannabee]

Ds is my only. My husband has twins who are 12 years older. We've never really been without kids in the house.

DS will only be an hour away so I'm sure we will see him some. It's the day to day that will be so weird. He 's so loud. Always playing his guitar or loud music. Cant say I'm going to miss that. I've worked full time since he went to Kindergarten so my days will stay the same.

I'm hoping to fill my empty nest with travel. I have a two week trip to visit my sister in Singapore in September. DH will stay home to take care of the dog and be around if DS needs anything. Then in November, I have short cruise planned for the two of us.

 

[lilia78]

This is my third out of four. But for some reason this one has hit me hard. I really don't know why, but it did. For the two to three week leading up to grad I cried daily about something. We have it down when they leave, we are sorta used to it, but the final one, oh man that one will be very hard. I do not like my kids gone at all, but I know they have too! Doing grad they have a part that they come and say thank you their parent, give each of us a rose and a hug. I held on to him a long time and he did too, I said that I was proud of him and love him, he said I love you too Mom. Wow that was hard! Thank god for waterproof mascara!

He has a room assigned, choose a quad room. Everyone get their own private room and there are two bathrooms, a living room,dining room and kitchen area hat are shared. These are the newest dorms they have, they include cable, wifi, power, ac, heat and all that included in the fee, it works out to be about $700 per month, so for 8 months and a total of approximately $5600. They can cook as much as they work or they can buy a swipe card and get meals at the many options around University.

Grad was great! His valedictorian speech was really good, I was so proud of hi ! He receive the Most Athletic award, a community award from the school division and another award that I forgot. He also received some localscholarships that total $1000, a scholarship from his university for have an average over 90% for $1000; he also has one from the Province it is $500 per year, so $2000 total; a $2500 US (3224 CDN right now) one from my husband's Company; so a total of axproimately $5724. Tuition is $3405 a semester so $6810 a year so that will almost cover it all. Books should be cheap since a great friend of his is two years ahead and he's been saving his books for him. The university has other fee, but I'm not sure of the costs, they have a recreation fee for use of their gyms, pools and stuff like that.

We are paying a combination of out of pocket by my husband, scholarships and savings from my so. This is what we do for our oldest as well. Our older son is in Millitary College so all we have to pay is to fly him home once in a while, they pay for everything and the men and women get paid as well!

 

[LilTinkFan]

This is my first one going to college. Our youngest is heading into 6 grade. So I will be "mom" for a few more years. Our dd is going out of state. I decided to leave my part time work so I can travel at will. At least first semester. I'm sure that drive will lose its novelty.

She was assigned a new roommate. They seem to have zero in common. Besides being freshman. Not even similar major/classes. Sometimes that can be a good thing. Knowing too much about a person can lead to certain expectations.

That color run looks like it was great fun!

 

[bethbuchall]

Target has bath and bedding on sale for 40% off. It's today only and on-line only. And my son was more cooperative about looking on-line than he would have been in the store.

(Plus, I bought myself a new pillow and mattress cover.)

 

[robinb]

Mine is a one-and-only. I'm in denial about having an empty nest.

 

[laughinplace199]

DD is our first one going off to college. We'll still have DS16 and DS10 at home, so it will be a while before our nest is empty!

 

[J'aime Paris]

My DD is an only child.
I was a stay at home mom for years, and then worked part time in the same school district to have the same schedule as her.
It's gonna be tough....but I try to focus on the positive.
She will only be about a half hour away.

 

[bjscheel]

Just got online and checked out cost of books for fall semester- it's not too bad. If she takes the cheapest route through the college (renting where possible), it is $140. There is one book that is $14 cheaper on Amazon so we might do that. There is another that might be on Amazon cheaper, but the site doesn't give enough information to know exactly what book/edition it is so might just order from the school to make sure it is right.

Oh- for one class she was gifted the book by her cousin, who took it last year and said they never used it

 

[robinb]

Apple has finally announced their Back to School sale! Free Beats headphones with a purchase of a Macbook. https://images.apple.com/promo/pdf/EN_US_BTS_2017_Long_TandCs.pdf

I'm very excited that the University of Wisconsin's Tech Store participates in the promo, so I guess YET AGAIN my DD is rewarded for procrastination. Her College Orientation is in August and we planned on purchasing the laptop then.