Lots of good stuff here. I'm mostly having fun browsing shower curtains, lol. If you go all white, how about varying the texture, like this?

? Maybe try those search terms on Pinterest, instead. Yikes.

I can't wrap my brain around either patient or medical community considering prolapse surgery until the patient was done with child bearing.

Yes, for pictures I would add an attractive shower curtain in a too-white bathroom. Maybe not that one, as I find the flowers a bit feminine and busy. Bed, Bath & Beyond or even WalMart likely have an inexpensive bright curtain that would appeal to your target renter.

PT and surgery can be complementary treatments, not either/or. Yes, I was told that prolapse surgeries will need to be redone after many years, so the later in life you begin the process is likely more desirable.I wouldn't call that a failure. Pacemakers need to be replaced after many years, too. They're the best surgical options we have for health issues at this time.

What is a failure?

I'm not sure I ever had the best housework routine, but yes, just the family routine is so, so different now! I can really relate to this.

Total aside, but in our little circle we are finding our parents' generation had two-storey 1970's houses (2500 sq ft) with basements, garages, large lots with room for a shed... and our generation seems to be stuck in townhomes or basement-less, smaller homes (1500 sq ft). Or renting out the basement of a bigger home to supplement the mortgage, so still having less space. Could just be the crazy accelerated real-estate inflation in our province/country, though.

Living Math is sort of like that.

Many years ago now, we made the same decision. We had been members for a couple of years, but chose not to renew. They have great produce, their meat is actually edible, they have some lovely things come in to the store. However, their parking lot, size of the store, and line-ups at the checkout made the visit take much longer than other stores. They never had everything on our list, so that meant another visit to another store. And then there was the membership fee. Having one monthly trip to the city with small children in tow made the choice easy, once a Superstore opened up.

My first thought, "How would I let you know I had joined you?" :-) But seriously, off to read the rest of the comments as there's some merit here, for sure.

I'd pick #3 based on my basement-envy. We have a crawl space. Working on services, having services worked on is so inconvenient. I would *love* better storage space.

Maybe I'm from too small a town, but this really, really depends on the cashier. And on circumstances. Sometimes it will depend on their mood. Sometimes it will depend on my mood. If it's the height of a busy day during tourist season, both cashiers and customers may not want to small talk. If it's a quiet day in the dead of winter when everyone is starting to feel cabin-feverish, there may be much more small talk. The older cashiers tend to be chattier than the new cashiers in their teens and twenties, trying to figure everything out. People tend to read body language - eye contact, whatever - and adjust accordingly.

Distant rushing was what came to mind for me, too.

It's not a panacea, but I ❤️ stretching. If you have a yoga mat, google stretches for upper back pain or look on YouTube. It may not fix everything, but running through a few (less than 10) stretches in a relaxed way in the evening while you chit chat with dh can be a nice way to end the day.

Thanks for all the responses - very helpful! Dentists do root canals here. I've not heard of any particular specialist until this thread, so I will look into that.

Anyone have a successful root canal story? My dd was hit last summer by a flying stick which broke off half of her front tooth. We saved it in milk and got her in to the dentist as soon as we could (it was a weekend, so a couple of days). They successfully reattached the piece, but mentioned she might later need a root canal. She is complaining of pain with hot and cold, any food touching it almost. I've had one root canal which was completely botched, that led to years of complications before the molar was finally pulled. I've had a couple co-workers need replacement front teeth and it has been expensive, not entirely successful, and of course very noticeable. My dd is a beautiful girl, but definitely at 15yo does not see very far. She wants to just fix this tooth, but I foresee many potential complications. We have some dental coverage, but a pretty limited budget otherwise. WWYD?

There's a difference between marrying young and not using birth control. I've known couples to continue their education before starting a family.

Well done! Congratulations.

Oh definitely. But that particular benchmark of independence seems to have moved for ever-increasing numbers of people. As you mentioned earlier, your state has basically pushed it two years forward for most people.

Well, at 18 it should be one of those things that's starting to get faded out, at least IMO.

Oh for sure, there are significant differences in how our govt's spend their tax dollars and in COL expenses for families. I was thinking car insurance though is more of an apples to apples comparison. Its super high cost in our location is one possible reason we're seeing a decline in that previous benchmark of young people's independence, at least in situations where it is possible to avoid.

Car insurance for youths, for even the oldest beater, is at least $200/month in our province.

We've noticed these things, but at least in our area the causes seem to be exactly inverse: city kids can take the bus everywhere so they don't get their license and then when transit is not convenient they are still dependent upon their parents. In our rural location, the kids are usually *extremely* motivated to get their license. There is much less of kids still living at home as jobs, education and opportunity are elsewhere. Other things that play into it are rural kids' opportunities to drive other vehicles earlier (though the safety people are intent on making that as difficult as possible, since yes it does pose risk); and the opportunity for starter jobs since there are fewer people to fill those positions. They often have at least a bit of dough to contribute to the very expensive process of getting a license and insurance. City kids seem to have a bit harder time finding their first part-time job.

Just had to click on this thread. The middle bits really helped out there. :D