It's been a while since I was down Rutland way, but Verizon was better than my husband's AT&T at the time. That said, depending on where you go, Verizon has gotten pretty bad in other areas. I'm in Milton and we had an Xfinity outage on Thanksgiving night and I couldn't get anything to check if it was just us or not. My husband's phone (Cricket) had service the entire time. My daughter's phone (Mint) also had better service than mine. I asked Verizon about it and they told me that I'm too close to the lake and that water interferes with the signal.

If your pediatrician says Children's Motrin is acceptable, I just checked and Costco has that available.

From what I've been told by a pharmacy manager and our doctors, cold and flu-related meds are in high demand this year because of RSV, the flu going around, and still COVID, so there are going to be shortages. We had a bad cold pass through our house, and after it was determined not to be COVID after multiple tests, we were told just to stay home and rest. For a week, I was burning through Mucinex and Advil until we felt well enough to get to Costco who had plenty.

I'm in Franklin County with AWD (been driving since the 80s so plenty of experience) and winters on. Roads were fine for me. Plows are out now too. Our town plow has been by twice.

Everything I've seen in the weather alert for my area (Champlain Valley) is that the snow is going to change to rain at noon. This snow isn't going to stick.

Georgia didn't stop paying as much as Langevin decided to cancel the four-year contract ten months early when the town wouldn't agree to pay him more than the contracted amount. It left the town in the lurch and Milton offered to step in for the rate the town had budgeted.

I get he didn't like the contract a prior administration had created, but it was a signed contract and if a bank suddenly came in at year four of a five-year car loan contract and said they don't feel the amount is favorable anymore and wanted 35% extra each month for the remaining year, there's no way anyone would accept it.

Hilltop's co-op plans open on I think it was July 1st.

Exactly. I knew who to write-in from reading the news and doing my own research, but I know so many others who didn't even know he'd been charged or that there were other options.

We locked in at $2.79 and turned the heat on when it hit 58 in the house, and since then it's been on and off several times because of the roller coaster temps. Hilltop Energy for the win!

I was out yesterday and lines of Malloy's signs were still out from Georgia to St. Albans.

No flavor of Ben & Jerry's is as good as it was pre-Unilever. How I miss the factory second freezers in general stores. I stick to Lake Champlain Chocolate's ice cream now. That stuff is amazing, even if it means a trip to Burlington.

Honestly. The few times I've reached out to him for some of the advocacy work I do, he's responded directly and even if he agrees with every point I make, he explains why the others in the government are unlikely to support it and what needs to be done to enact the change that is needed. I'm fine choosing another party if that party shares common ground and is willing to listen.

The people I will not vote for are the politicians like one who once told me that she knew what was better for advanced learners than their parents or guardians did. Another local politician once told me that marijuana, medical or not, was against his religion and therefore he'd never vote yes on anything related to marijuana. Those are the politicians who do not deserve support IMO.

Exactly. We're on Milton's border and often go to Essex Junction, St. A., and Colchester. The three of us picked different carriers. My Verizon is not better than other family members AT&T/Cricket or Mint/Sprint. In fact, they usually have exceptional service while I have nothing. Milton's really become an annoyance as areas I used to have great service now struggle to get much of anything. But head south to the Brandon area and I have great service while theirs tanks. When I asked Verizon's customer service and was pushed to tech support and a tech support supervisor, the answer I got was that being close to the lake, and water impacts Verizon's service greatly.

This! When my mom moved to Alzheimer's care and needed a doctor in that area rather than the doctor she'd had for decades, I called eight practices and was turned away from seven. The last one finally said they were taking new patients, but they had a nine-month waitlist and that was before the pandemic. My primary moved on a few months ago and even as a patient for close to 30 years with the same medical practice, I'm just bouncing from one physician's assistant to the next.

Yes. Also got the medal cross that was sent out about a week earlier. And yesterday, we got that hatred-spewing "Joe Biden and Left-Wing Officials..." flyer that I've found the most outrageous of them all. I want to know what makes any of them think they're finding supporters in my household.

I've read several police reports after the fact. The last year or so have always had the drivers admitting they saw all the signs and opted to try it anyway.

I've had them recently at McGillicuddy's. Not better than I can make at home, but it's convenient.

Or bruise (thankfully just bruised) a hip and I knew someone broke two ribs... Yak Trax are essential!

In my town, they are all over people's yards. There's one guy locally who keeps raving all about Malloy being the only answer to the financial struggles senior citizens are facing. They're totally buying into it.

I don't think it's the same one after it stopped by and annoyed my dog again last night. It has more white feathers on the tail than I realized. We're in Milton.

Twiggs in St. Albans did a party for us with 35 guests about eight years ago and it came to $20 a plate and then the back room I believe was $500 for four hours. I'm sure the prices have increased since then, but it may work.

I wonder if that's the one that keeps visiting us. We have one with distinct white feathers on the rear (can't tell from this photo). If it is, the family that took him after a friend had to get rid of him apparently have given up on trying to get him to stay. He's been returned several times and he keeps leaving, so he's becoming hawk, fox, and coyote bait. I feel bad for him, but I don't have the equipment or fencing to give him a home.

We had an equally lousy time with VTFCU when our septic system failed and needed replacement. Our lender micromanaged every step and wanted to see the work completed before funds would be released, but the engineer for the state permits and septic installers wouldn't do the work until payment was made. The tellers are great, but that septic replacement ended up taking half a year and seemed far more stressful than it needed to be.

I took a drive out to the Islands this weekend as my husband wanted to have lunch at Kraemer & Kin's newer brewery/restaurant location. My guess is it will reach peak this weekend and several establishments out there have vacancy signs.

Yes! I've seen people on other forums saying the sign saying "Thru Traffic" was taken down. It wasn't.

Honestly, $30k isn't even close IMO. You might want to read this to get a better idea, but that's two years old and housing prices went up a lot. A home near me that sold for $180,000 about 8 years ago was sold "as-is" last month for $360k. https://www.vermontpublic.org/programs/2020-06-05/is-vermont-really-so-expensive

Most people I know who've bought a home recently have mortgages in the $1,000 range for a basic, smaller home, and that's not including property taxes (Chittenden and the southern part of Franklin counties). Rents in my area for two bedrooms have been at the $1,400 to $1,800 per month area for months. Here's one of the more recent rental listings:

<Renovated 2br | 1ba apartment available for rent as soon as 10.10.

$1,650/m, tenant responsible for electric and heating oil.>

I can't speak for heating oil prices right now, but I know on propane with a new high-efficiency boiler, we go through about 400 gallons a year. We're locked in at $2.69 a gallon. Winters can get frigid, though it's impossible to know how cold it will get. Recent years have been milder than usual, but about six years or so ago, we had an extended January deep freeze that was causing regular frostquakes, and I'd never experienced them in decades of living here.

The electricity bill for our household is around $100 a month. (I work from home so there's always a computer on. Heat pump water heater and energy-efficient appliances. To get to most anywhere, you need a car.

High-speed internet isn't available everywhere. Comcast/Xfinity tends to have a monopoly, and it can be pricey outside of introductory rates. I negotiated this year and got it down to $40 a month but after that, I'll have to negotiate again. I know people who only get DSL and their connections continually go out, making it hard for them to work from home. The closer you are to cities, the higher the odds of having high-speed, but that also means higher rents. Another thing about the city, that's where you'll have public transportation access. In most areas, you need a car and that means gas, yearly inspections, registration, maintenance, snow tires, etc. I've seen a few posts from out-of-staters who are shocked by how strict the inspection rules are, and cars they expected to pass with ease required thousands in repairs first.