Thank u for replying! You give me hope that it won’t be too hard. :)

A family member recommended target circle as a replacement for Amazon prime and I am researching it. It’s still a big company…but where I live there really isn’t TRULY local options (I.E. small businesses) for household goods and such. I figure target is a pretty good alternative and since we have a store pretty close, I can pickup stuff instead of getting so much extra shipping.

Keeping our Amazon prime until it’s 2025 expiration date. Spent today researching alternatives so I can placate my Amazon loving spouse. Fortunately coming armed with info and the promise that they’ll have a several month “get used to it” cooling down period, they took it pretty well. I also reminded them if they MUST get something from Amazon, they still do the free 2 day shipping if u spend over $35. But it’ll probably be easier than they think with all but the oddest of purchases.

Been wanting to get rid of it anyways and this was the nail in the coffin.

I really love it, been using it for about 2 months, came from YNAB, used that for probably 3-5 years. Although I wish it was a little more mobile friendly, it works on mobile well enuf for me to record my daily transactions and then I just use a desktop once a week when I do all my bill payments and budget catch up.

I really like the reporting options, and also it has some mass note append/prepend/replace functionality which works great for me hashtagging the expenses I have addressed, confirmed and moved around to various accounts.

I do wish it had flagging, I really loved the colored flags, but I’m using the hashtagging as a replacement and it works pretty well.

One of mine does that too. He only likes sparkle balls or rattle mice tho, so no risk of gross items from the garbage fortunately.

We have a wood floor and his favorite thing is to have me throw it in that room so he can slide halfway across it while fetching the toy.

He has definitely slid into the wall a time or two.

My cat is obsessed with grooming beards. As in…will not stop until you force him off. My partner plays a little game where they fight for kisses. The cat will try to get close and groom his beard and my partner will take advantage of the closeness to smother him in kisses. The cat is not a huge fan of the kisses so they do this thing where they both waver in front of each other like cobras, both trying to find an in to kiss/lick. Sometimes when my partner moves in for a kiss, the cat will lean backwards and turn his face to the side, denying the kiss. Then as soon as my partner backs off, the cat quickly moves forward to lick his beard again. It’s hysterical and I never tire of watching the game.

My cat died.

He had been acting funny for a little while (week or so). Not moving much, growling when you pressed his belly. I was a young teen and my mom didn’t have a lot of money and basically hoped to ignore it away.

Turns out he had some sort of bladder blockage and it burst the evening of my birthday. He died in awful pain while I could only watch helpless (mom worked nights and wasn’t there). I tried to comfort him but he ended up biting my finger, I still have a scar some 30 years later.

RIP Eclipse. You deserved so much better.

I actually am a fan of unreliable narrators, but they can’t also be insufferable assholes. I can’t stand that book and I did read it when I was 15!

That said, I understand it’s not really meant to be a cherished story…but if I’m gonna read about someone I would actively hate, I’ll stick to non-fiction for that.

If you can, donate to your LOCAL non-profits or the local branches of larger non-profits. Get to know the people in those organizations (volunteer, visit organization open houses/orientations, go to a hosted event) and you’ll feel a lot better about where your dollars are going.

I used to be on the board of a local domestic abuse shelter and now I’m on the board of a local food pantry. Both are amazing organizations, both have incredibly passionate people working for them, and the board is filled with mostly normal working people who have or want to have good community connections.

My partner has a little with big brothers big sisters and that turned into a board position for him because he was super enthusiastic and active. That’s a bigger organization but his contributions are at the local level and we’ve gotten to know the local “ceo” as well.

Also, 501©(3) orgs must publicly list their tax returns and you can find out the salaries of the executives on those tax returns. So even tho in my experience, the executives of the orgs at the local levels earn every damn penny (and it’s def not enuf) you can also find that info out for yourself. But please remember that if a non profit doesn’t have an excellent, passionate and well paid staff, they will NOT be able to get the donations and funding they need to fulfill their actual purpose. I’m talking specifically about local orgs tho, some of those giant orgs with executives making millions definitely should take a closer look at their priorities.

And finally…if you can’t donate money of course there is always volunteering but there is ALSO serving on a board. Every non-profit ive been involved with has had problems filling their board seats with active, enthusiastic individuals. Sometimes there are monetary asks of board members but no one is going to kick you out if you truly only have time and no money. And if u experience that, find a better board, they are out there and they are working really really hard to make things better.

Yep, she was Wendy

Prom: no. Graduation: no (graduated early, didn’t walk in the summer even tho I could)…but lotsa regular dances.

Same, I was 13

According to the cdc website pretty much everywhere in the u.s. went up during 2020-2021 and things started coming down 2022-2023. In fact it looks like the average across the u.s. was pretty much back to “normal” by 2023. But what we see here is that while things declined again for TX in 2022, they still remain quite elevated above 2019 while the u.s. average went back to pre-pandemic average, which would tell me that something else is going on in TX unrelated to the pandemic.

I’ve read the sleeping beauty ones (knew what I was getting into with that)…but literally never knew that about the movie!

Not sure if they’re a “leader” but I got two shark robot vacuums (same model) that are excellent. In the past I have purchased the “bump around and vacuum in circles and hope they don’t get stuck” type and they were just ok. The new ones I have can map the room with IR and you can program no go spaces in the app. I have two because the downside is it can only map one floor at a time so if I wanted it to run on two floors one would be mapped and the other would be “random bumping around” method.

The new one also came with a tank so if I run it on the whole first floor and it gets full it’ll go empty itself and start back up again.

I got em last year and ran me around $350 each I believe.

Twice. First time from waaaay too much time sitting as I had a full time job and then several hours studying for my CPA exam for several months. That time it got better over a couple months just by getting a standing desk at work (I alternated standing and sitting about an hour at a time) and light exercise along with nsaids.

The second time I reinjured it deadlifting too heavy. That one I could not get rid of it despite stretching, PT, acupuncture and laying off most compound lower body work for at least 6 months. But then I went on a week long vacation that involved a LOT of walking…and it was like 70% better when I got home and almost fully healed 2 weeks later.

I still get dull aches here and there but nothing I can’t work around or stretch out pretty easily. Mine never resulted in numbness of extremities but it was pretty limiting. And in my case it really appeared that regular movement and breaking from my day in and out routine made a huge difference.

There was a movie with Rosie O’Donnell called Exit to Eden. My mom was not particularly uptight about us seeing R rated stuff and the previews made it look like a slightly dirty comedy. It was Rosie O’Donnell in like…the 90’s so I mean…she did not look into it any further than that.

Turns out it’s basically a soft core porno with a couple funny bits and it was extremely awkward to sit through.

Hmmm…truly new tech that came out after I was 35…

VR …yeah pretty cool, my partner has one but I’m not a gamer and don’t generally go for anything gaming anyways. Use it more widely for non gaming uses tho and I’m on board. Self driving cars …cool, don’t have one, never been in one, but I’m all over learning/using that shit if it becomes mainstream AI… personally not a fan, mostly cuz I think it could be like nukes where it’s used for more bad than good, but I’ve messed my way around ChatGPT and it’s whatevs. Probably eventually very useful if we don’t murder ourselves first.

Personally, having gotten our first school PCs when I was in 7th grade (92’ -ish), I find that I tend to at least be curious and want to learn about new tech. So I wonder if the late genX, early millennials might break rule #3 just cuz we were forced to know more about computers to run them and thus don’t view tech as inherently scary. Then again, I’m always fucking around with stuff and my siblings (2 yrs older and younger) are always like “woah how u do dat?!?”…maybe im just a lazy oddball always looking for a way to shortcut my life with technology.

What goes around…apparently. My 57 year old co-worker does the same thing and it drives me batty.

Well I haven’t dropped social media entirely because….I’m here. But about 2 years ago I got completely off of FB…I had been off Instagram for a while, never did TikTok and rarely used Twitter or chat style social media. I cancelled my Reddit account during the API thing and came here…but still occasionally lurk without an account there. And the reason is this…what I really miss is other people’s thoughts. Sane, crazy, silly, angry…whatever. I love to learn random facts, I love to watch a tv show and see what everyone else thinks, and I like reading what the average person thinks about world news and yes, even politics (though I always keep in mind that bots and trolls are a thing). I liked it on Reddit because if I read something that seemed off to me, it wasn’t connected to the face of my beloved Aunt, or well intentioned but batty mother. It was a face in the crowd but it was a way to find out thoughts from people outside my bubble.

Podcasts are helping because a lot are run by just normal people…so I get a bit of a “fix” there. But I love watching something or reading a random book and then just searching it on Reddit to see what other people thought. I really hope one day Lemmy grows enough to fulfill that for me. It’s getting closer for sure.