I’m so so sorry. Holding you and your family in my prayers.

I am hoping to find a little bit of me back this summer. I work FT that is pretty intense, but not having the added layer of school during the summer and two extra drivers in the house who can sometimes be sweet talked into dinner chefs open a world of after work hours possibilities.

That’s so sad, QueenCat. Praying for each of you - what a freak accident indeed! Kassia, I truly don’t have the words, but so sorry for what you, your child and your community went through. I had a really close friend die in high school from a sudden illness. The family either didn’t know or didn’t want to share how dire it was because I remember the shock of her passing while in the hospital for a few days. There had been a lot of friction between her and her mom over the years and I’ll never forget how gutted the mom especially was at her funeral. My oldest had a friend die of cancer and when oldest graduated from HS, the friend’s mom was constantly on my heart. Any inconvenience or annoyance or surprise expense I had with senior stuff I quickly set aside because getting to see my child graduate felt like a privilege.

This is my go to as well. Such a great recipe!

My toxic person would do something like that (low but audible muttering) intentionally so I knew something nice was in the works for me and I better mind my manners or else said nice thing would be taken off the table. Yes, even a gift.

We just got our first dog right before Covid hit and he is honestly a dream dog. I am 100% certain he is the only dog I will ever have because he is one of a kind and I don’t want to imagine a day without him. I understand what you wrote.

Thankful she is getting treatment and praying for a quick recovery and some respite from care giving

My DC and I are in a pickle ball league. Super fun and DC is really the talent lol.

I bet Downtown is asking for data because this AP has trends of shrugging their responsibility across multiple area. Natural consequences of her choices

What about a puzzle? It’s something that can be very relaxing, could do it solo, with a family or with a class. And a cute note about how “puzzling” it can be to fit self care time in, but so important!

I had a partial hysterectomy in the fall - so many identical issues to what’s been already shared in this thread. My ONLY regret is leaving my ovaries as I have some ovulation pain each month that is pretty uncomfortable. The doctor cleaned up some endometriosis around my ovaries with my partial. I do wish I had done it sooner (I am almost 50 and I’ve been chronically anemic for yearsssss)

We are also in an area that the schools contract with Josten’s for grad stuff. Which is a silly way for me to put it, since the school isn’t paying for the gown, the parent is. But the school system selects the vendor who gets the benefit of charging whatever they want, grrr. In the fall of my oldest’s senior year, I get a text from him that says, “this has everything I will need for graduation” with a clickable link. You guessed it, and as you said Quill, all kinds of silly unnecessary junk, plus the cap and gown, for hundreds of dollars. They had an info session about graduation and the Jostens rep had them all pull out their phones and text their parents their created text to push to their parents. I was so turned off, I spent all the extra time it took to buy only the “necessary” cap and gown and nothing else. It felt so gross how Josten’s tried to present it as “here’s the bundle you NEED”. I get the idea of marketing, but just, no.

Wow, talk about showing ALL his true colors at once. Goodness!

I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m holding you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.

Praying

I’m in denial that my income doesn’t magically expand to offset new purchases I want to make.

I have a 5 minute make up routine that works super well for me - a couple of cream eyeshadow sticks, eye liner and mascara - all from Thrive; and a somewhat sheer lip color. Since you also asked about hyaluronic acid, I highly highly recommend treating yourself to a facial and getting the aesthetician to recommend one that would work best for you. I was ready to pull the trigger on one and she had gotten a ton of negative client feedback on one particular brand, so she recommended something I would not have picked on my own.

@Katy and @easypeasy I have one of the Miracle Balms, and shockingly, it’s not a miracle 😂 I went with bronze and it’s probably that I just chose too subtle of a shade for me. Quill, I’ll join the chorus of do what feels right for you. For me, I’ve started wearing more make up, not less, because with video calls, I feel like I am not as washed out. My minimal routine is Thrive eye brightener in two shades blended together, Thrive eye liner and mascara and a Chanel lip stick that has more of a sheer and non sticky shine to it. It takes less than 5 minutes and for me, is a self care win when some days I barely leave my desk during work hours.

We always rent through Costco travel for rental cars. We can compare side by side rates with multiple companies and we haven’t had any issues so far.

Is he interested in trying public school? Does he have a strong opinion one way or another? What is your opinion of you local high school options?

Praying for each of you

My DH sees a phenomenal internal medicine doctor for his multi-layered health issues including autoimmune stuff. She is a source of truth and trust for DH that he hasn’t gotten in any other specialist - and she does recommend other specialists as needed.

What a mess, I’m so sorry. There are some store credit cards that do a “soft” credit check and will issue credit immediately. We unfortunately ran into this when someone had a family member’s social and opened up a credit account with a major retailer (I don’t want to say who because it was way too easy to do and created so many headaches for us). The identity thief spent thousands on the spot and we only found out when they were kind enough to have our address on the credit card statement. It didn’t show up when we first found out about the identity theft and we’re looking for opened accounts. We froze that family member’s ability to apply for credit through Experian et Al directly.

Depends on the season but I recently had a grapefruit martini that I keep thinking about and wanting to recreate

Scout, I really don’t have the right words, but am sending so many prayers to you, your church family, your community. My heart is so heavy.