I do a bullet journal but not using any of the original bullet journal stuff 😁 For weekly planning -- I write out the days across 2 pages to show all required places/times -- and then down at the bottom of the page I put any repeating or to-do's. I fiddle with the layout all the time but I don't do any fancy stuff. Plus for monthly I write days down side -- similar to that one @73349 posted as Franken type -- but I usually only put a couple months at a time and I just start wherever i'm at instead of having the months all pretty across the top (and I found that idea somewhere online but so long ago I cant cite whose idea it was). ETA: I see that Franken one has you put the actual things to do on next page, no on the calendar -- whoever I got my idea from just had it written right next to date. I do write notes when reading non-fiction in my bullet journal but I don't do any indexing. Been wondering if there isn't some way to move all that note taking online and make it searchable (have only looked slightly at things like Notion and Obsidian )

I do band assisted pull-ups all the time (although at my current weight I need two bands) BUT my pull-up bar is in the doorway so I can still put my feet on the floor while in the bands fwiw one thing I do to work on just hanging is put my feet on a stool -a tall one, like you would sit on, not a step stool - it takes a lot of my weight off (and I’ve used it occasionally to get the bands off too) Also have gymnastics rings on the pull up bar but I only use them to do rows- if I had a taller bar I would definitely be trying to do pull ups on them (and dreaming of doing fancier things 😂)

I think your younger is in early high school or late middle school? IME that is the worst time for friendships not the easy one it's often thought. All 3 of mine lost long term close friendships in middle school (not due to moving or trauma or anything -- just kids changing as they hit puberty). Only the first just moved on easily and has maintained high school friendships after high school. The 2nd found a "group" to hang with eventually but kept touch with none of them after, and the 3rd is in early high school now and struggling. No advice-- only saying this because for me, knowing it isn't necessarily the trauma would help.

Well, this thread got me trying out my pushup level 😁 -- and although I could do a few on my bottom step, when I tried to switch to the floor I was getting stuck right at the point where my upper arms were parallel to the floor and couldn't even squeeze out one 😢 I was thinking, I wish there was a band assisted way to help with pushups the way there is for pullups -- and google granted my wish (after a bit of playing around with search terms haha). You can either use a band attached to something else (longer style band) and wrap it at your chest or hips, or wrap the band around your arms (either longer style or shorter style band) and either way will give you a bit of help at the bottom part of the pushup. Here is a video from youtube showing both ideas (+ there are lot of shortie versions if you search on "band assisted pushup") youtube video that shows both ideas

Doing full pushups on stairs, moving down a stair as you get stronger, are the best way to build the strength for full pushups on ground imo i also never could transition from half to full before I saw that idea. (also found that keeping arms at 45 degree angle instead close to body or completely out, like most people do/recommend, was a game changer for my shoulders!)

My parents spanked us (with hand, belt and yardstick) but they never spanked my 5 year younger brother- which I believe is because the acceptance of spanking was changing during those years.

My mom was known as very strict- for example when she said I could get my ears pierced at 18 my bff’s parents also relented and let her get her ears pierced, saying specifically that if my mom was letting me do it then they knew it must be ok - however she was not all that strict in my adult opinion, looking back ( she had an extremely strict upbringing and was trying to be less strict- and I wasn’t socially adept enough to understand when things were negotiable) (the earring thing is weird to me now but a big deal when I was in high school in the 70’s)

I completely disagree with the idea that school was harder "in the past" and easier "now". I graduated in 1980, so 40+ years ago -- my high school had NO honors or AP courses. There was no advanced math. And even so long ago, all required for graduation courses were dumbed down so that everyone could graduate. They were so easy that one of my classmates took the full senior year english and civics (the only 2 senior level required classes) in SUMMER school-- a full year of 2 classes in less than 3 months --so she could graduate early and head off to college. And even looking at non-required for graduation classes -- what few classes there we had were pretty much equal to my kids HS's regular classes -- and not as hard as honors classes much less AP. I do agree there is more push to standardize teaching now and less focus on "the basics"-- in my HS education I had a couple teachers who were really focused on "basics" and pounding them into us & that was helpful to me -- and I think that doesn't happen as much now with the standardization -- there is a lot of expectation that "you should have already learned that" and less going over "the basics" again and again. But I also think that is luck of the draw as well. There was no guarantee at my school that you would get one of those particular teachers, for example.

We sometimes run dishwasher twice a day and sometimes once and sometimes not at all. The person who loads during the day is not the person who loads at night. It was causing pretty much daily problems- which (homemade) magnet works perfectly to fix. only downside is dh refuses to use magnet (but he only loads maybe once a month & usually I’m the one unloading after and can figure it out)

You take the red pill - because actually we are all just batteries in a computer simulation 😁

I would tear it down 😄 However, we put a big ‘window’ in our wall (load bearing) and that also opened it up considerably

You poked the bear and he got all wigged out- and then you kept poking. Clearly the emojis didn’t work and yet you didn’t change the way you presented your humor. Saying we just don’t get your humor doesn’t fix that (as I also keep telling my daughter). Anyway I don’t agree emoji are the key - ime poking fun, dry humor and sarcasm are generally not leavened enough by emojis and need something more explicit (unless the reference to poking fun is clear to everyone - which is clearly cultural and may explain why you think only Americans get away with poking fun at Americans)

Probably because what you are calling ridiculing comes across to Americans as purposefully baiting (trolling) without any of the sense of poking fun/joking/ridiculing that you think you are showing. Americans can tell when other Americans are just making fun -- but your 'making fun of' doesn't show us any of the cultural signs that would mean it is all in fun. As I have had to tell my younger daughter recently- if the other person doesn't think her 'jokes' are funny and gets upset rather than laughing -- then what she's doing is not actually the "joking around" she thinks it is. Not really different whether it's due to social cluelessness or culture clash IMO, especially when doubling down on a joke after seeing that people didn't take it as humorous.

I've taken Meyers Briggs tests at college, at work, at church. I wouldn't say anyone I know commonly discusses it -- but if the subject comes up which IME it does occasionally (even if not commonly), everyone knows their type (or types for those of us who test into multiple). I personally wouldn't like an employer who considered this key info that needed to be used and discussed on an ongoing basis though -- but that probably has to do with the fact that my type changes depending on the specific test.

One of my friends had their dining room table in what was really a very big entry way -- because it was normally used more as a pass through they got one of those old fashioned dining room tables that dropped all the way down. Of course this also only really works if you use the dining table more occasionally (I loved the idea so much I got a table like it when we moved to our current house -- but we used our table every day, and I wasn't willing to drop it down and put it up every day so ended up switching to a more normal table).

Interesting -- I had never heard the name "reception room" for what I would call a "formal living room" -- but based on Google it is the same thing -- "a room in a house where people can sit together" We had a formal living room growing up (most families did) and one of my good friends did more recently for many years-- I would not be willing to give up a room to be only that since we would literally never use it. However, I can certainly see that a room such as you have described might be difficult to use for anything else (using it as a dining room does sound like a good idea -- if workable for set up/take down as well as passing through the room).

I was also thinking about Gretchen Rubin's 4 tendencies -- I did mostly fall into the "the obliger" in her model -- the idea itself was helpful for me but her suggestions for dealing with it were not (although I think she's done a whole class/website now so maybe this has improved). Also, I don't feel like I really quite fit in her scheme at all -- which is normal for me when taking such tests (which she puts more into "the rebel" category 🙄) However for me -- it is far better to not do something at all then to think I will be able to stop when I hit a certain point. Everything in moderation is not a strategy that works for me. Deleting the app that pulls me in works. Not having the food in the house (or keeping it in a place I do not look) works. Telling myself I can limit myself to 15 min a day or 1 cookie or to stopping when I get the 'full' point -- that just guarantees kicking myself hours later. ETA: that is why I like the Agile sprint schema I posted above -- it lets you try things and see what works and what doesn't and then re-implement -- obviously everybody will be different in what works for them

None of this really sounds like therapist stuff to me, more like normal life in my world. My DH sets himself rules and follows them. I set myself rules and then don't follow them, waste a bunch of time doing stupid things I don't even want to be doing, and then kick myself a bunch after. I have plenty of things I truly want to be working on -- and then spend my time surfing or playing stupid app games instead. And I guess I'm just missing the joy/pleasure gene that many here apparently have 😄 because if I waited for that, I wouldn't have tried a LOT of the things I have tried and eventually ended up enjoying doing (I think the lack actually goes along with being very hard on yourself about everything). The top things that have helped: ADHD strategies (even though I am not ADHD). treating my life/projects as a series of Agile sprints -- not all the work/code related details but at this type of level: Short term planning (1 or 2 weeks) --> implementation --> review/retrospective of what worked and didn't --> repeat over and over Making most rules super simple and non-restrictive-- things such as "do it for 5 minutes and then I can be done if I want or continue if I want" or "here's a list of projects and to-do's, I can work on any of them I want" (I use todo-ist for this currently) utilize what works for me even if it doesn't make sense -- for example, sometimes I need super restrictive rules ( I guess I can't even follow the rule that I never follow the rules 🤣) - for eating in particular it generally works best for me to let myself eat whenever I want but be super restrictive on what I can eat It seems to me a life coach would be a better fit than a therapist -- no idea how to look for one though (I've occasionally thought of looking for one myself, but things never got bad enough, somehow I always managed to bumble through) Note: I have done EMDR and had great results with one therapist -- then she moved and handed me off to another who was useless 👎 -- it did a lot for a low level depression I was in, but nothing for my inability to get things done in the 'normal' way.

I agree that there needs to be something calling you to a particular creative activity over others-- but I don't agree that it needs to be joy or pleasure.

Personally, I have to make myself do almost everything -- my life is all about finding ways to trick myself into doing all the things I've set for myself, including many things I enjoy quite a lot. But not due to a joyless existence or depression -- I just have trouble getting started. For me, the best way is to make the thing I have decided I want to be doing very easy to do and with as few 'rules' around it as possible. I also have to work to make certain things harder and with more rules around them -- certain sites (including this one) and certain apps -- otherwise I can easily waste all day on stuff like that. It sounds to me like you're making the sites/apps/reading the easy thing to do and the writing the hard thing with many rules (can only do it if everything aligns just right). (also I really disagree with the 'if you aren't feeling joy you shouldn't be doing this at all' advice that several people gave -- but that is a post for another day lol )

FWIW regarding tech savvy -- my dad also bought one of the 1st computers -- and yet, starting about his mid-70's, he got more and more clueless about tech, even though he still completely loved new tech and continued to buy the latest and greatest things. It got to the point where he bought a new computer and couldn't get logged in and gave it to me out of frustration (I tried to give it back after I logged on in less than 5 min but he wouldn't take it). This was not due to dementia but just old age (he got tested pretty much every year after his 2nd wife got Alzheimers) It seems a lot of us are assuming that aging is the issue but that you don't think it is -- however some things you write (started X years ago, her age, etc) seem to point to that. And if this is in fact part of the issue and yet you are still thinking of her as having her normal ability to understand and to be able to not do these things, you will just be more and more frustrated. My point is not that you should just take it -- but having lived through a person aging and losing their filters and abilities --IMO confronting her in an attempt to change how she acts toward you in the future will do nothing because she actually has no control over it. No great ideas on how to deal with it unfortunately -- best I could do was to end the conversation and walk away. My dad certainly never understood what he said that hurt my feelings -- he certainly wouldn't have apologized, and, as someone else said, wouldn't have even understood what he needed to apologize for. Thankfully we didn't really have the history you and your Mom seem to have (actually thinking about it -- if it had been my Mom instead of my Dad, it would have been very bad!)

The password one, unless your mom is tech savvy, I would take it as she didn’t even understand you had done something for her - just speaking from my experience 😀

Is the person already in the process for guardianship or is it just a bunch of people saying this 'should' happen? Because my understanding is that it's a hard long (and potentially expensive) process to prove to the court that someone actually needs guardianship, even when they're making a lot of horrible decisions due to age-related issues. My understanding now is that if the person ends up in the hospital for anything, that is time to get them into 24/7 care (although from stories on here, even one person helping elder leave the hospital can end up with the person home again and ineligible -- which makes me extremely thankful to the county in-home PT who got my elder back to another hospital immediately and back in the system when we cluelessly believed hospital wouldn't discharge if wasn't ready to come home)

I would consider saying "I'll do it later today" to mean before I go to bed that night -- which may or may not be at what someone else might consider a normal adult's bedtime. Work-wise I would have considered it to mean by the end of my working day, i.e. before I left the office (or closed the computer), not specifically by 5pm or any other specific time. OTOH -- if someone is telling me what time they need something done by -- that is most often a 5pm (stereotypical end of working day) or 12am(midnight) deadline (schools especially) -- usually that tends to be more for timestamp or report generating reasons though.

🤣 I also got no instruction from my parents -- thrown right into drivers ed (which was through the school system & the first day, the instructor informed us was just a final check that our parents had taught us to drive correctly!) --then first time driving with her was on highway (small town with pretty much no other cars thankfully!). After she assigned me some hours and both parents refused to drive with me. Only managed to drive with my older brother rarely so it took 2 years because I was too honest to lie about the hours (most places were only a 5-10 min drive away). Drivers test was basically just driving around the block thankfully -- otherwise, I'm sure I would have failed it. Which is all why I just dealt with the hours of driving with older - especially after DH refused to drive with her.