So I’m about to apply for a real job, the kind in an office, with a title, though it is part time and for a non profit. I’m trying to spin as much of my personal life/homeschooling experience as I can to fit the job description, because my last full time job was 15 years ago (loan assistant) and after that was the food service job where I worked the past two years and quit last month. It ended badly. Big gap for kids, in other words. Anyway, public speaking is a desired skill, and I’m not scared of it, but it doesn’t come up much in my life. I’ve presented a lesson at a Ladies Day at my church, and I gave my mother-in-law’s eulogy. Should I even mention the eulogy? I mean, it seems odd to put it in, but it doubles my pubic speaking experience. Is teaching a homeschool co-op class public speaking? One class had only two students; another had about twelve. Others were somewhere in between. What sort of organization should I use? Things I did, in chronological order, with bullet points explaining which qualifications they deal with? Or qualifications as headings and things I did bullet pointed under that? But some things seem to fit multiple categories. How far back do I go for this stuff? Any help/suggestions ate appreciated, thanks!

I don’t think I would, but not for any reasons of superstition. I just have a lot of sort of irrational anxieties about stuff like that, and I would dwell on it too much.

I do sometimes but it’s usually not my go to response. I also rage eat (usually candy). Sometimes I go for a walk. Mostly I binge watch a show or read a book, for the escapism. Only some of those things are productive, unfortunately.

I use Liquid IV but it’s too sweet for me at the strength the package recommends (1 packet per 16 oz.) so I put it in about 24 oz of water instead.

We recently found a book ( not a library book, thankfully) that went missing two years ago or more. It is a ukulele book I was working through, but also letting my kids use, and we turned the house upside down looking. I really liked that book, and from time to time over the past couple of years I’ve wondered about it, and what could have possibly happened. it was in a cabinet in a stack of empty folders, binders, and miscellaneous drawing books. I’m sure I looked through that stack, possibly more than once.

I’m not going to count all my clothes. I cringe when I think about it, just like I did when this b thread first came up. There are a lot. We have four seasons here, for one thing, and sometimes crazy weather changes in the same day so lots of layering. But also it seems like every few years I have a sudden feeling like it is time to change things up. It’s been so h hot this summer and after I quit my “jeans and tee shirt” job, I decided I need more dresses (midi to maxi length, with pockets) to wear in this hot weather. So much more comfortable. So I’ve bought about six dresses, one of which I gave to my daughter because it looked really awful on me, and had no pockets either. But she likes black and it suits her better. i got rid of some of the tees from work, but also bought several more on impulse. I shop goodwill a lot, so impulse is neither expensive nor terrible for the planet, but my tee shirt drawer is very full now. i keep trying to thin out the herd but haven’t been able to convince myself to get rid of much. I have at least stopped buying more. The dress itch has been scratched and I just left goodwill today without even looking at clothes.

I was going to say try yoga too. It might not help with weight loss, I don’t know, but it really helps me with aches and pains.

Our dog knows sit, stay, shake, lie down as trained commands. She understands : ball (as in, “ where’s your ball”) Out ”go to your house” hop up I’m not sure she is a very smart dog, but she’s very sweet.

Contact with my children’s bio parents was always explicitly predicated on them recognizing that I was the parent now, and honoring that. They did okay at first, then overstepped a bit, then overstepped in a way that went way off the deep end, and now we have no contact. So from my experience, if at this point both north mother and paternal gm are so disrespectful of you as the child’s parent, it will only get worse. Way worse, especially of birth mom is openly saying she ways the child back with her. It’s hard because one of mine, at least, has really strong feelings of attachment to her birth family, and wants to know how things are going for them, and is deeply curious about her half-siblings. But after the latest “gave an inch/took 10 miles “ incident, I’m done with it. And the first time a photo ended up on Facebook after I said no photos on Facebook, I should have stopped sharing photos.

Ds had a lot of reflux so I did n try to avoid spicy in case it helped. I never could tell for sure.

I am incredibly annoyed by being prompted to tip all the time. I tip at sit down restaurants. I tip baristas if I have a special order that is more trouble than normal. I tip hairstylist, usually, but once I tipped generously through the touchpad, and got home to find my DD’s hair was cut crooked. So I tend to be more picky about tipping hairstylists than I used to. there’s another layer to my annoyance, though. I work for wages + tips, at a restaurant where you order at the counter and then pick up your tray at the end and get your own drink, throw away your own trash. I’m paid well above minimum wage, after a couple of good raises, and even new workers start above minimum wage by several dollars an hour. Like, tips are fine, but it’sa tip Pool split among everyone, and so usually is only a few dollars a day. Today was super high because we were short handed, so we got $14 each. I work on days we aren’t open doing prep work , and get no tips then, and I’m fine with the wages without tips. But we don’t see any of the tips from credit cards, only cash tips. I feel like it is unethical of the owners, but this job has enough other good points for me (mainly the hours that work perfectly with my kids school schedule) that I’m unwilling to jeopardize it by making a stink about it. but Fridays we serve steak and that is actually brought to the table and involves a lot more waiting, and people tip higher, but tend not to pay cash, since the total bill is higher, so we work harder and actually usually make less tips. So if I’m going to tip, I much prefer doing it in cash, because I no longer trust that the tips actually go to employees anyway.

During the shutdowns of Covid, the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books were definitely comfort reading for me.

The embroidery in the hoop is beautiful! I also love the patches on the jeans. Do you have any more examples of patched jeans? I’ve got some jeans that i need to try patching, and I want to do something cute.

Today I made a potholder for my SIL’s wedding shower tomorrow. We got her some other kitchen things, so this is just a supplement, and I tucked a few favorite recipe cards into the pocket. I’m super pleased with how this turned out, love the colors and every bit of it except the batting was from my stash. The tutorial is here. For my son’s quilt, I have been working on cutting out large pieces for block backgrounds and backing for my older son’s quilt. It’s not very exciting. This is my least favorite part of quilting. I bought some football fabric to add a few blocks (on the back, it is a reversible quilt) that portray his current interest. For my younger DS I bought baseball fabric. I also bought a little over a yard to finish making background squares, and will have to buy a little for sashing/binding as well. I’ve also just been sorting fabrics and figuring it what I have, since I use no organizational method to store fabric.

Cute! And with those big blocks it will go pretty fast, I bet.

Okay, I finished the little wall hanging. It should have been squared up before I bound it but I didn’t, so it’s slightly trapezoidal. I’m overall okay with how it turned out. I should have brushed up on things instead of doing them all by memory. I also got the design planned out for DS1’s quilt. I’m really looking forward to this one. It’s just the sort of quilt I like. I’m thinking I’ll try to use denim for the dark blue squares. I’m going to do a test wall hanging (4 squares) for my bedroom to see how it looks and figure out how to do the quilt-add-you-go method.

I started a little quilt project for the first time in years. It’s going to be a little wall hanging, just one block, about 10”x10”, as a prize for a ukulele forum thing I’m hosting in a couple of weeks. Now I’ve been bitten by the quilt bug , and also I’m realizing how much fabric yardage and scraps I have stashed from the times when I did A LOT more quilting. I love buying fabric, and had quite a bit given to me as well, and there is SO MUCH, just taking up space, and I feel like I can’t buy new stuff until I use significant amounts of what I have. So I told my 2 boys I would make them bed quilts. I let them pick patterns (or at least, general guidelines) out of a book of quilt as you go patterns, because if I’m quilting as I go the chances of the quilt getting finished are way higher. Wish me luck. I told them because it adds a layer of accountability for me. If I tried to surprise them I’d end up with half a quilt, guaranteed. But now I will not want to disappoint, and the youngest will for sure pester until he gets a quilt. Years ago my MIL and I made their sister a quilt, so I feel like I owe the boys quilts, too. Luckily they have very opposite tastes in quilts and so I should have enough of what each one wants to make a quilt without buying much. though I feel like I’ve badly neglected my youngest’s education; he asked me “what are quilts for?” He has never slept under one (that he noticed), I guess, and the throws on the couch are all fleece, and was thinking of wall hanging quilts, maybe?

When I worked at a bank (15 years ago) I remember vaguely something about having to report cash transactions that were $3000 +. I don’t know if I’m remembering wrong or things have changed, but most of what I see when I Google “cash transaction flagged” has to do with amounts of $10,000 or more. I think they have to ask for ID and it is flagged to the government to track patterns that may indicate money laundering. i work a tipped job now and I let my money pile up for awhile before I go to the bank, because I’m lazy. I often deposit $1000 plus in cash and no one ever says anything, I’m never asked for ID, etc. I’m not even sure that a transaction like exchanging smaller bills for larger would be flagged at all, since it isn’t a deposit.

I did read her blog, years ago. I missed out on the more recent struggles. I’m sorry to hear about them, and that she’s gone.

I don’t feel lonely personally, though I have in the past. Working outside of the home helps me. I’m not super close with any of my coworkers but I enjoy their company, for the most part. I have church, and people in close to there. We go to a music jam once a week and play music. I’m an introvert. I need close relationships, but not many of them. I do see this as a huge problem for older people. Even in a nursing home, literally surrounded by humans every day, people get terribly lonely because most of those people are either paid carers, some of whom care very little, actually, or there are cognitive impediments that make it difficult to connect with people. Pre-Covid I often visited people from church who were in the nursing home, and was struck how few friends visited, just family, and that sometimes rarely. Some of those people died before Covid, some during, but I don’t have anyone to visit now.

I hate feeling like gifts are required. It takes away all the goodwill and free choice that make gifts meaningful.

I was fairly near sighted (but I think not as bad as your DD; I can’t remember the numbers now) and had an astigmatism in one eye, and LASIK worked well for me. I did have about an year of terrible dry eye, and used a lot of eye drops for awhile. And I never really felt that the surgery corrected my vision quite as well as glasses did, but it was in the acceptable range, and I didn’t need glasses anymore. Now, 7 years later and in my early 40s, I’m beginning to use a little prescription for reading (which the eye dr warned me would happen; the surgery does not prevent future presbyopia due to aging) and my distance vision has slipped a bit and glasses for driving at night, while not absolutely necessary, are helpful. But compared to the time when breaking a pair of glasses rendered me essentially helpless because I was completely unable to drive to work or to the eye doctor(yes, I should have had a spare pair but money was tight), this is nothing. It really was life changing for me. i would get an appointment to see if she is a good candidate for surgery, at least, then go from there.

I can’t say what I would do in that situation. None of the options look good, and it’s hard to tell which is “less bad” without firm numbers. Like how much can he really get if he sells the car to a salvage yard? But it seems like they might have to be a one car household at some point in the near future, so I would have v them looking at all the options. Can he drive her to work, and then she pays a coworker to take her home? Can any other carpool type arrangements be worked out, for example he carpools to work with a coworker, and his wife picks him up after work? Is there any public transportation at all? What about bicycle? And a lot depends on his wife. If she’s not committed to working together for the best for both of them, everything will be harder, and her past track record is terrible for that, iirc.

I used to be very pessimistic and negative. Now I’m much more optimistic about life and things on general, even though the problemas I deal with/have had to deal with in my 30’s and up are much worse than what I dealt with in my teens and 20’s. Party of it was realizing that negativity feeds on itself and spirals. When I feel let myself spiraling into negativity I had to forcibly stop and think more positive thoughts, in ways mentioned above (gratitude, appreciation of the moment, looking for the good, etc). Also I have a tendency to perfectionism. So I would not want to make improvements unless I was going whole hog. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. (This was often quoted by Gretchen Rubin in her blog called The Happiness Project that helped me a lot. Don’t know if it’s still there but she also has a book by the same name that you should be able to find used, at least). Five minutes of exercise that you do is better than planning to do thirty minutes every day but never getting to it. And sometimes if you start intending to do five minutes, you might do fifteen or twenty once you just get started. Making some small, consistent diet changes does more good than two weeks of diet overhaul that you don’t stick with.

Not Rosie, clearly, but I’ve been on a Discworld kick lately. I do like the witches books, but there are also a couple (at least) with Death as a major character that I’ve really enjoyed. Reaper Man was one of them.