Welcome LJoy. I'm not the greeter, but thought I'd say, "Hi!" My first reply was one of frustration. Did you read the follow up? We have sudden rains, birds, water restrictions, and wind, too. Everyone does. And I'm sure your lawn with straw came in nicely. My point was that you don't need it. Mother Nature does not use straw. She uses force on the ground from livestock hooves to press the seed into the ground. Obviously I can't come through the screen and enforce anything I might suggest, but I can try to present some rationale for doing or not doing what I suggest. Basically my suggestions are the combined wisdom of my time on this and several other forums. My suggestions are definitely not based on my personal experience. I had to unlearn a lot of what I thought was the truth about lawn care to come up with what is a fairly simple approach to it. Sometimes that takes a long time to explain why it is so simple, but it really is. I owned many homes for 30+ years before I learned how to take care of my lawn. I wish I could go back in time to the 70s when I had a terrible lawn, and the 80s when I had a terrible lawn, and the 90s when my lawn was only decent every other year. It's only been since 2002 that my lawn came alive. That happened because of what I learned here. All the experts who were here when I arrived have moved on or were banned for various reasons. New ones have arrived. I'm just giving back where I can. I'm looking forward to new posts from you about your issues. I can tell you that 80% of lawn issues get back to proper watering. If you are not doing it deeply (inch at a time) and infrequently (weekly or twice a month), then you are doing it wrong. If you live in the north you should be mulch mowing at your mower's highest setting. And if your turf seems thin you either need seed (wait for fall) or fertilizer (only organic in the summer) or both. And sometimes Mother Nature does not cooperate.

"Early twenties tends to be when you have some truly wonderful opportunities to explore life and make your way." If that's what you want fine. I wouldn't change a single thing about my life. I would make the same choices. I enlisted in the AF at 18, had DD at 20, married DH at 21 (he was 22 and just out of the AF) and we bought our first house within the year with help from his father, had DS about 8 months year later and I got out of the AF at his birth and started college when he was 4 weeks old (It was DH's last semester*) . My FIL loaned us $3500 on a $38.5K house which we repaid (he only asked for what he would've made on the money in a Money Market account) when we sold the house for $46K a few years later. Life's been good. Kids are grown and on their own, but are renting because of house prices here in northern VA. I got my degree at the age of 32 (life happened), but I make great money 17 years later. We're on our 3rd house and even in the depressed market it's worth $500K more than we paid for it 14 years ago and we owe very little on it. I'm so thankful that my FIL was willing to take a chance on his 23 yo son and the son's 22 yo wife of 1 year and loan us the money for a down payment on that first house. Those were great times then! DH was in college with only the GI bill and Ready Reserve income, I was an E4 in the AF, we had one child and were trying for our second. I loved that first house - our 1000 sq ft rancher on 1/2 acre in Gloucester County VA. It was white with black shutters, 3 BR and 2 baths and a one car garage with washer and dryer in the garage. Now DH and I have our retirement almost completely saved for (and still 10 more years to put away more money) and we have money to help the kids out (but not too too much, which wouldn't be good for them), plus money for vacations. Our credit history/score has always been perfect. To get back to the topic at hand, there has been good advice for how the son can get a credit "history" fairly quickly, and I would advise that route over buying the house for him outright, or co-signing.

Alisande, the minors are the "farm teams" for the major league teams. The lowest level is Rookie, and progressing on up it goes as follows: Short Season A, Low A, High A, AA, then AAA. After that, it's "the show" (the major leagues). Depending on how good the player is, he might start in Rookie, or he could start in AA, and some have even gone right to AAA. When a major league team has to put a player on the Disabled List (DL), the team will generally call up a player from either AA or AAA (depending on the location of the team at the time -- home or away -- and how close to that location the farm team is. There have been times when a player has been called up from the A team to fill in on a major league team. And, of course, every minor league player's dream is to be called up to the show on a permanent basis. Also, when players are about to come off the DL, they are often sent to the team's AAA team for some rehabilitation games before returning to major league play, so you sometimes get to see some really big-name famous players in a minor league game. We live in a suburb of Sacramento, and there is a AAA team -- the Sacramento RiverCats -- which is part of the Oakland A's organization. The inaugural season was 2000, so this is their 15th season. Hubs and I had season tickets for the first 13 seasons, but we didn't renew for the 2013 season and didn't buy tickets for this season, either. I was one of the first 30 people who got to choose seat location for season tickets, so we had seats right behind home plate. Awesome seats. But Art Savage, the majority owner and CEO, died (age 58!) in November 2009. In our opinion, the organization changed for the worse after his death. Art's goal was for everyone to have a good time when they came to a game, and he wanted the ballpark to be a place where a family could afford to come more than just once or twice a season. After his death, it seemed that monetary profit was the name of the game, and fan loyalty was disregarded. Major league players who made rehab appearances at Raley Field (the name of the ballpark where the RiverCats play) include Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, and Manny Ramirez. RiverCats who went on to make a name for themselves in the major leagues include Dallas Braden, Eric Byrnes, Andre Ethier, Aaron Harang, Houston Street, Kurt Suzuki, and Barry Zito. There are more, of course, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. We've all heard about the huge salaries that some of the major league players earn. But minor league players are very poorly paid. The major league team pays the salaries of the minor leaguers (they "own" them). So most minor leaguers have another job during the off season (e.g., teacher, fireman, insurance salesman, etc.). Several minor league players have filed a lawsuit against some of the major league teams, because they are paid less than the federal poverty level. The salary of a minor league player goes up depending on how much time he has spent at that level. For example, a player in his first year in Rookie or Short Season A will earn $1,150 per month, and it goes up $50 a month for each additional season at the same level. Low A and High A start at $1,300 and $1,500 per month, respectively, and increase by $50 per month for each additional season at the same level. Players at the AA level start at $1,700 per month and it goes up by $100 per month for additional seasons, while players in AAA start at $2,150 per month for their first year, going up to $2,400 per month their second year and $2,700 per month their third year. But, bear in mind that they only earn that monthly salary during the baseball season, which for minor leaguers is about 5 months per year. They also get $25 per day for meals when they are on the road, and they have to pay for meals in the clubhouse after every game. And the low minor league salary is what makes it so important for a minor leaguer to be called up, even if all he does is warm the bench. Once a player has been "up to the show," his salary will be much higher for the remainder of the season. This is where the 25-man roster and 40-man roster come into play, but I won't explain all of that here... And once a player makes it onto a major league team, his minimum salary will be $500,000 per year. Not bad for playing a game they love, eh? During the time we had our season tickets, we got to know a lot of the RiverCats. It means so much to the players when there are a lot of fans at the games. They definitely hear the crowd and the cheers. We even went on a lot of road trips with the team. No, we didn't officially travel with the team, but, yes, there were times when we'd be on the same flight. We would stay at the same hotels as the team (and pretty much every hotel would give us a big discount when they found out we were there to support the team). And the players always put us on the "comp list" so we'd get into the games for free. And there were several other folks who would go on the road trips, too. Some would only go to the games that were within driving distance (like from Sacramento to Reno, or to Fresno), but others would fly to where the team would be playing (Tacoma, Portland, Las Vegas, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Memphis, Nashville, etc.). We would always whoop and holler and cheer like crazy so our players would hear us. It was a ton of fun. Here's a photo I took from my seat during a game back in September 2004. The rows in front of us were owned and controlled by Art Savage, and he would have some of the starting pitchers sit there and chart the game. One would score the game just like any fan would do, one would chart the pitches (speed, type of pitch, where it ended up [98 mph fastball, ball, high outside to the right; 82 mph curveball, strike]) and one would sometimes chart the other team's pitches. One of the guys would always be the next game's starter. Anyway, the guys you see in the rows in front of me are three of our pitchers. The guy in the blue short-sleeved shirt is one of the aisle ushers who had just kicked some folks out of that row because they didn't belong there, and he sat for a while to make sure they didn't sneak back. Whenever Billy Beane (GM of the Oakland A's) or Branch Rickey (grandson of THE Branch Rickey, and President of the Pacific Coast League) would attend games, they'd sit in front of us. So, those rows had to be kept clear because there was no telling when a VIP would show up.

The State of California has 19 basic insurance plans from which to choose for active employees and retirees who are not yet on Medicare, and 9 supplemental plans (all of which include prescription drug coverage) from which to choose for retirees who are on Medicare. Different plans have different drug coverage. So, yeah, there is some parsing to do. The state contributes $1,343 monthly towards our health care premiums, and different plans have different premium amounts. We have the plan with the highest premium, so I know we're lucky that the state's contribution covers it as well as the Medicare premiums. I do know that Medicare uses "letter designations" for the various supplemental plans -- you mentioned you have the high-deductible Plan F. I know that all insurance companies who offer, for example, a Plan C must cover everything that all other companies' Plan C covers, but each company can set their own premium rates. The plans that California state retirees have from which to choose do not show any letter designation whatsoever. You have to read the Evidence of Coverage booklets (available online) to determine if a plan is right for you or not. In that respect, we have more parsing to do than you. (And, yes, I did speak to the folks who are in the health insurance section at the California Public Employee Retirement System [CalPERS], and they have no idea what plan letter designations the various supplemental plans would have.) From my review of the various supplemental plans offered by the state, I know that the plan we have falls into the Plan F category.