macncheese

Thanks, I thought it would be tough and at first it was weird but it hasn't been too bad overall. Similar with Amazon, I thought I could never give up Prime but I cancelled that as well. I still have it for a few months that I paid through but I have not really made orders through it and guess what? I'm still alive lol.

Ooh that's something to look forward to. Yea my kid's only 5. He can do so much more than he could a year ago. There was this podcast called One Bad Mother that ran for a long time and it just ended. But it was fun to listen to occasionally cause they would just share the bs they were dealing with or things they would F up and the host would always remind everyone we're all doing a great job. Sometimes just solidarity helps. I used to listen to other parenting podcasts and realize it was doing more harm than good.

Yea, I often have to remind myself that it took me decades to get to where I am and I still don't have it together ha. Someone told me in your head or even start a sentence aloud by saying your age and then their age and you realize how absurd some of your expectations are.

Yea that's tough. Honestly what has helped with the mindset, my mom has since passed and of course I wish she was still here, but it has given me permission to let go of a lot of things. I am slowly trying to help my dad go through their house and it's....a lot. But in the end it's as you say what matters is your health, times with loved ones etc. Towards the end, I told her it was just stuff and don't worry about it anymore. But now when I purge at their house...she isn't telling me she can use this or that and I can just get on with it. My dad has a bit of it too so I just don't even let him look at the bags of stuff I donate or trash now. Oh yea check out Freecycle, trash Nothing or buy nothing. A bit of a double edged sword cause you can use those services to get things. But I have given away a lot of things on there and it feels good.

Yes, we had a computer lab in grade school that we would go to maybe once a week or once every two weeks. We learned qwerty and the teacher would cover your hands with paper so you couldn't look. It was infuriating at the time but once I learned it, I was set for life. I don't really think about it, it's just like speaking a language to me. For the most part I type properly but I have gotten into a strange habit of hitting delete with my middle finger instead of my pinky finger. No clue why/when that started and I have to reach over farther but now that's second nature as well. I recall if you got good enough you could play around on the games in Mavis Beacon!

I loved Keukenhof! I think I went in May the year I went and it was spectacular. I also might have had a weed brownie that morning ha

Thanks. Yea I fall into these cycles of telling myself not to get frustrated and then I do even though there's a voice telling me this isn't helping, by being short with my kid etc. I know they're resilient, but man it doesn't feel good when you react to your buttons getting pushed and the filters come off. Sigh. yea tomorrow's another day.

Sounds like a good plan. Yea part of it is...my mom was a hoarder (not like TV show levels but definitely a hoarder) and I rub up against the fact that I have the same tendencies. It's livable but I realized my livable is at a level that's probably kind of embarrassing to the average person. Been doing some purges but it's never enough. I have to face the fact that I have tendencies to want to hold onto things beyond what is reasonable. Reasonable would be a proper place in the house for what we have. If there isn't space, it's too much stuff and I can never seem to get down to that level. I have stopped a lot of discretionary spending though at least, used to do weekly Target runs but haven't been since about February.

Yea, my mom was the most hands-on grandparent but she passed a couple years ago. The rest...very hands off. She was great when he was little but the funny thing is I don't ever remember her playing with me when I was a kid. When did we switch our mentality to just being so actively parenting all the time?

Da fuq?

Everybody's got to fart loudly once a day in front of people.

I mean honestly this is the most deranged and worst it's been in my ... at least adult lifetime. I think a lot of the political mess we're in is tied into our appetite for some pretty terrible pop culture. Yes, yes, we have moral and intelligent and sane people here too, but the way that we have leaned in so hard to trashy reality television, infuencers, anything to grab your attention and reward it monetarily...hell we have a reality tv president. It's not the only reason I think we're in the mess, but I think we've been primed to accept more and more outrageous behavior cause we've always been over the top and big and loud. I always assumed I'd live in a democracy, it was just a given. This is the first time I'm doubting it.