DtchGrl

As funny as it sounds, "Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume. I was recently down in Key West and came across her book store. She was there, had a great chat and she signed the book for me. It was a childhood favorite, and it absolutely held up!!

Hello fellow spud.

My mom was a preschool teacher, so yep. We all went. I will say, it was at one of the local public parks, so not what we know it as today.

My oldest sister, it was no problem, right from the start. Middle sister, it took her about a month to adjust. I've been trying to get used to them for about a year now. I just can't get used to moving my eyes only down to look down. I don't look down my nose to read, so it all feels counterintuitive to me. We've all had glasses since our tween years.

I was young and had minimal responsibilities. Parents & grandparents had pretty allmuch passed already, so had tiny inheritance and a house. We had all the fun before settling down in the 00's! Zero regrets!

Wait... We can't haunt people if we're cremated!!?? I'm going to need that rule changed right away!

This.

I just finished a year on it (started Feb '25) and finally lost the 30* lbs I've been trying to lose for the last 10 years. After 3 years of eating right, running regularly, and adding strength training with my doctor, the scale was not budging. My sister started it and was having success, so figured I'd give it a try. For affordability, I did go with Hers. Com for mine (with doc approval) because ins wouldn't cover it. The first few (three?) months I did have the nausea side effect. But I found nuts, baby carrots or cucumbers helped that when I'd snack on them. Also, sticking with a protein high breakfast (usually a boiled egg and yogurt for me) helped the hunger/nausea throughout the day. I didn't make huge changes to my diet/exercise routine, because I'd already tweaked that the 3 years before to being pretty healthy. I steadily lost about 1-1.5 lbs a week. Until December. Not sure what happened, but I got a new vial, and it was like instant nausea. I lowered my dose, still nauseous. Skipped a week, still. Lowered again, still nauseous. December (after almost a year on the meds) was by far the worst for me. I couldn't eat anything but a few saltines and chicken soup for the month. I lost the final 12lbs I still had in that month. Since I'd hit my goal weight (not happily) I stopped the meds, cold turkey. Because I still had 3 vials, my doc suggested an extremely low dose to 'wean' off and finish up the meds. I've been back at the start dose now since February and not losing anything and also not gaining.

It was a mix between rubber, cotton candy/bubble gum and juicy fruit gum. Somewhere in between that is what the erasers smelled like.

Inherited 1/3 of parents & grandparents houses (all had passed by early 20s). Saved, combined and used that to buy first house.

Same story as you. But probably until the early '00s. The nice change was noticing when all my family stopped as well. We're pretty much a smoke free family now, and I'm proud of us!

Same.

Not for me ('74) but both sisters do. Not age related. One has had lupus since our 20s. The other has hyperthyroidism, since late teens (as did mom and gran). So far it's just that for both of them.

Anything Beasties!!

Have you seen Shrinking?? I've considered taking up the rock tumbling..

Lol, my dad always had a handkerchief, but never used it to blow his nose. It was for cleaning us up or his/our glasses.

My best friend died of lung cancer 2 years ago after battling it for 7 years. Quitting smoking was pretty easy. Gave up caffeine years ago when I had a lump scare and doc said lots of caffeine can cause lumps/misdiagnoses. Scared the bejeezus out of me, so I did it slowly. Switch to decaf coffee, still had tea and soda, but stopped all caffeine after 2pm. Noticed I started sleeping better (life long insomniac), so stopped all the caffeine. Still sleep like shit, but at least I can fall asleep, just have a hard time staying asleep.

No shame in Roxette! One of my favorite bands from the early 90s. They were a lot bigger in Europe, so I even saw them in concert. It was a great show!

Since moving to a warmer climate, long pants. I'm fine with capris or shorts, but the minute it's cold and I have to wear jeans, I want to turn into a 5 year old and throw a tantrum. (I don't, I just want to!)

Yep. The teddy bear I got when I was born. Have my blankie too. He's just Teddy. He still wears the pj's my Oma made for him. He's in a basket in my closet with my blankie, the little elephant my Opa gave me after I broke my arm and a little monkey I don't remember where I got.

Cocoa Krispies. Not even secretly! And we still get them every now and then with the variety packs.

I've always been a horrible sleeper and it's just getting worse. I drink a sleepy time extra tea (which helps but adds to the bathroom breaks) and a melatonin every night. If I have ANY caffeine after 10am, I'm needing an advil/Tylenol pm on top of the above if I want to sleep.

She passed away in '93, but if she was alive she would have been 81 in January. She literally had the best birthday 1/23/45 😆

Where do you live? I might need to move there. Just paid $2.49 for a small can in FL.

The motor gave out. I probably could have had it fixed, but like I said it was a beast. It would have cost a fortune to send it anywhere to fix it. We had looked locally and there wasn't anything we could find.

Most useful was a meat slicer that was older than me. I think it was from the 60s? Opa got it for Oma to slice her delicious corned beef for sandwiches. I used it to make jerky. It died last year. RIP Henry (yes, I named it after my gran, Henrietta). I replaced it with a new one. Netta is great, but she's not the beast that ol' Henry was. She needs breaks after 10 minutes working.

If I pivot incorrectly (which could be any different way on any given day) my knee buckles. There is no rhyme or reason and I'm never doing anything crazy. It will be fine for weeks/months. Then, out of nowhere, it gives out. Luckily I can usually shake it off, but I'm walking a bit more tenderly for a few hours.

Was so mad today - went to a car wash to get my car cleaned. It's one of those automated ones, that you drive up to. Yet they still have some kid out there pushing the buttons and taking my card like I'm incapable of reaching 10 inches out of my window to do it myself. Then the little turd has the audacity to ask if I'd like to leave a tip! I just sat there dumbfounded for a second and asked why? I could have done all of this myself and avoided the unnecessary social interaction. Eff you Mister Car Wash. Eff you.

My husband and I moved to FL when the kids moved out. We purposely wanted to be Disney adults. It was great, we'd go to a park one day a week, get some fast passes and have a great day. Then 2020 came and it's now the payment lighting lanes and we will not pay for something that should be free. So, now we basically go to Epcot one day a week and have a great time drinking and people watching. We trade off each week as to who's "drinking day" it is. So we can always get home safely, while still having a great day drinking and maybe doing a ride or two. Second favorite is Hollywood Studios, the brown derby bar makes a great martini flight!

Absolutely!!

Can you block her on PayPal? I don't use it, so not sure how it works. Next time she send a request maybe respond saying something like "ask the kids dad, I'm not their parent. It's the responsibility of both parents to support their kids. Not just the mom and mom depending on acquaintances". But maybe a bit nicer?

This is the correct answer. We're at the age we have the stuff we want. But memories are always fun to make!

Same. I won't swim in any ocean I can't see my feet in, to this day. Black bottom pools can also freak me out.

Sharks in a pool. We'd watch Jaws as kids with family friends at night, then go into their black bottom pool with no lights on and terrify each other playing "shark" (Marco Polo, but "shark" instead of Marco). It was mostly just quietly swimming around to scare each other so we'd scream and then be "it". To this day, I can still freak myself out about a shark in the pool at night.

Thank you!!

I took on the job of scanning all of our old pictures (parents, grandparents, along with all of my sisters and mine before digital) and it's a LOT!! I'm not kidding when I say it about big 4 tubs (those moving/storage ones) and about 5 boxes, plus a few boxes of albums. Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed. If anyone can share links to the scanners or services you've used, I'd be forever grateful!!!!

We've got a box of them in the kitchen. I use them for baking, husband for teeth.

They usually contribute to the household in some meaningful way. Grandparents will watch the kids while parents work. Adult kids will help take care of grandparents and usually are employed so help with the household finances as well. Not in my personal experience so I can't say, but from what I read, that rarely is the case here when people talk about needing their adult kids to move out.

As the other commenter said, take a look at Rover. It's what I use to book new clients. Once I've booked with them through Rover, I leave it up to my clients if they want to stay on rover for future booking or go off app and book directly with me, hence the business cards 😉

I do. Only because I've recently started a cat sitting business, so I have a magnet card I leave for new clients so they can contact me outside of the app they found me on. It's working too. All my repeat clients have it somewhere on their fridge and I'm getting that repeat business directly. Otherwise, nope and I don't keep any given to me.

My parents "good" dishes are now my daily dishes. They weren't the typical fancy China dishes, just the blue mist dansk from the 60s. I absolutely love them!

Hello fellow Valley Kid! 👋

Yes!! So many birthdays of mine, friends and family celebrated there!

Happy birthday random internet stranger!! Hope you get all the birthday wishes today!! 🎉🎂🎁🎊

100% 16 year old me was in a rough spot, my dad was a few months from passing away, my mom had debilitating MS and I was severely depressed without knowing it. 16 year old me never expected to live past 50 (both parents passed just before and just after their 49th birthdays). Today's me is happy, healthy, managing my depression and living a great life about to turn 52 next month. Life is never perfect, but those ups and downs define who we are and I'm proud of what I lived through.

After lugging around boxes (affectionately called box mountain at one point when it took up most of our basement) from NL to CA to CO to FL of my parents and grandparents stuff for the last 30+ years, because "maybe I'll want it later." I'm all for it. As mentioned above, it's been a lot of moves and there's always been space, until this last move to FL. Where they don't believe in home storage, only storage units every other block. I've spent the last few years slowly but surely going through it all and using what I liked, putting out what has sentimental value and donated the rest. I think because they all passed before I was 22, I just hung on to it all to hang on to them. Stuff won't bring them back, they always lived on in my heart and memories. It's been the most freeing and cathartic thing I've ever done.

If it's worth it, I'll do it. But I find outdoor venues tend to be better for my ears! Stadiums are a bonus, because you can sit if needed between singing and dancing!

Yeah, we've had one for years. Long before Netanyahu let it be known what a shit head he truly is and ruined life for so many of my fellow Jews.

The soda stream has been one of the best purchases of my adult life. Got it to get my husband off soda, but I use it more than he does now. Just for fizzy water.

I gave up caffeine back in my 20s (in hopes it would help with a lifetime of insomnia, spoiler, it did not), so the soda pretty much went with it. Juices just taste like fruit flavored sugar to me now. But water gets boring very quickly, and even iced tea (at restaurants, etc) has too much caffeine for me. I make iced tea at home (lots of caffeine free/herbal options available), drink a ton of water, with a squirt of lemon so I have a little flavor and now that it's more readily available, I'll have a caffeine free coke a few times a month. Every now and then I'll have a regular coke (usually when I'm training or just finished a half marathon), but I'll have to take a sleep aid that night. Caffeine is not my friend.