@Krysdammit It's more of a small collection of plants this year than a garden, ha. It's doing. Did a lot less than I planned on, sadly. Have you been well?

@tyote
I'm fine, thank you. No balcony gardening for me this year. New ownership of my building is upgrading <waves hands in air frantically> everything. Had to take everything off of my balcony because they are cladding the exterior + my balcony itself is in terrible shape. It needs work.
Gardening indoors instead. 😂
The noise, mess, & dust is yucky.
Still having my weekly 1 hour session with my Ukrainian student.
Feeling guilty about the good weather in my area.🤷‍♀️

@Krysdammit

Shame to hear that, hopefully you can double up next year for what you couldn't grow this year. And at least you'll have a fixed balcony? I hope the dust isn't causing you too much trouble - if it is, HEPA air purifiers aren't so expensive now.

I'm not sure I remember you talking about your Ukranian student - if you did and I forgot, I'm sorry. What are you teaching?

Weather has been pretty good where I'm at, whenever it's not thunderstorming for two or three days in a row...

@tyote
Student is 35, & has gone through a LOT!
Evacuated to Częstochowa, Poland at the beginning of the war with sis & niece & cat in a carrier. Took them 3 days to get to the border.
5 months after they arrived sis had a brain aneurysm & a stroke.Was in hospital for 9 months.
She works on line, raising her 14 yr old niece & visiting her sis daily.
Sis is home now, in a wheelchair, & progressing.
She`s also taking Polish lessons.
We`re doing conversational phrases at present, no homework!

@tyote
The weather here has been perfect for balcony gardening. I`ve only run the ac 3 times so far.
It`s been in the 70s during the day, low 60s at night. I don`t even get the wildfire smoke very often. My sis who lives 1 hour away has bad smoke haze.
It rains every few days. Perfect weather and I feel guilty af.

@Krysdammit Wow, talk about resiliency. It's horrible all that happened, but amazing that she's still holding it together and also managing to learn a new language.

Sadly I can't say the same about my A/C, it's either muggy and stormy or it's in the high 80's to 90's. Just after 5:30am here and it's already nearing 70, haha. No nearby fires, thankfully. And hey, it's not like it's your fault the weather has been good - might as well enjoy it!

@tyote
She's learning English (took it in school and has a funky Ukrainian/British accent when she speaks English. Her teacher was from England.
Her brother in law works all over the EU and visits his wife and daughter twice a month on weekends.
There is no way that I'm going to assign someone in her circumstance homework. I find lists of things on line and send them to her, and she chooses what we do during our meetings.
She's learning grammar in class, she wants to speak in a natural way.

@Krysdammit She sounds like a trooper, and it's great she has someone as incredibly kind as you to work with her in whatever way best accommodates her current situation. I'm sure with your help, she'll be speaking naturally in no time at all.

@tyote
She's been lucky in that she can work remotely.
Most of the lesson plans provided by the org which matched us is work based language wise.
I make up little stories to incorporate idioms, & phrases into everyday situations.
I have us living across the hall in the same building. We run into each other shopping. How I may offer her help carrying her bags. Shopping for an outfit for her big date. She finds this hysterical.😂
Niece can't eat ice cream 5 mins before dinner.😂 We laugh a lot!

@Krysdammit Making learning fun like that makes it a lot easier to learn too, I'd say. Plus, I'm sure just being able to laugh so much is a big help on its own. It is the best medicine, after all. 😊

@tyote
She has classes. I belong to the volunteer fb group. Some of them have their buddies writing 1,000 word essays.
If my buddy was a child (students are 12-35) then I would have her do so. This is an adult with many resposibilities & short of time.
Our sister languages (I'm Polish, she's Ukrainian) have many things in common. I know what causes the most problems for us, and how to get around them.
A, an, & the do not excist in Slavic languages. At her age she prolly won't learn to use them.

@snyde21 Thanks, Brad.