Best Of

I am so excited for my kiddos to get to an age where they are interested in sitting for movies - I thought Encanto looked so good and I'm glad to know that it is!  I also think it's great that movies are presenting bigger/"real" issues.  

SSDD here.  My office extended our optional in office work through the end of the month - so I will be home most of the time.  Very excited to keep chipping away at organizing and deep cleaning on breaks and lunch.

H is really struggling right now with anxiety and depression and I'm kind of at a loss for how to support and help him.  He's been really short with me and the kids.  Everything is so negative and tiny (to me) things are just the end of the world.  I'm working with my therapist too, but I am getting so frustrated. Trying to balance support and understanding with also needing him to be a present and helpful partner/parent.  I'm not even really looking for advice I guess, just don't want to talk about this with anyone we actually know, so internet "strangers" it is. (I call you guys my internet friends when I mention the group, lol).

Woke up to snow on the ground.  It's at that stupid "not enough to plow" level, but also enough to make driving a PITA.  I love my Crosstrek, but I'm still not quite used to it on the snow.  I've only had to drive a handful of times on it.  I drove a front wheel drive vehicle my entire life and Sassy (my car) is all wheel drive.  Last year I finally just went out to one of the mall parking lots and re-taught myself how to pull out of a skid with an all wheel drive vs. front wheel drive.  So, I have confidence in my ability, but I'd really rather just not have to drive on it at all.

Still just grinding away at work.  Nothing too big is really going on.  Connected with some local friends last night re: our friend who passed.  We're going to get together to have a Manhattan (his favorite drink) in his honor this weekend and just remember him.  He was a complicated man and my feelings on him are complicated, but he was a mentor of mine and a big influence for all me, as well as numerous of my friends.  It's odd to think of someone who had so much influence over all of us (and continued throughout his career as a college professor), to just be gone so suddenly.

Y'all, I am OBSESSED with Encanto.  I've watched it five times now.  It's up there with Inside Out for me.  I think it's perfect and I love the music.  There has never been a more Varuna Disney song than Surface Pressure.  I started crying at one point, b/c I kept thinking how this new crop of kid's movies are talking about things that were just verboten to me and so many of my peers when we were growing up and how healthy these kids were going to be and was happy about it.

STARMOON44 said:

Gentle nudge to give your therapist a heads up about this

Thank you, ma'am.  I'm actually not actively in therapy anymore (he had told me I had the tools I needed and now it was just time and practice.  I was setting up to go back, but since the instilled boundaries at work, the vacation and a few other steps that I have now accomplished and put in place, my outlook has improved immeasurably).  This is actually pretty normal for me, it's just not usually this long.

Interestingly enough, b/c of that damn Tiktok app, I've been doing some digging and speaking with friends who have an ADHD diagnosis.  I think I have a very mild level of ADHD, not medication requiring.  But once I started digging and finding the coping mechanisms people were using, I started finding a lot of things I was already doing to deal with behaviors that I thought were just, IDK, normal I guess.  All of that to say, the food thing (which again, I have deal with most of my adult life and I can think of things my mother did for me growing up that fit in with this same pattern) is another facet of ADHD behavior that I can see throughout my life.

Gentle nudge to give your therapist a heads up about this

@ei34, I hope you start feeling better!  How frustrating your STBXH is trying to crack your TK p/w.  WTF (eyeroll).  Even if you were talking major shit about him, why would he even want to read that.  Just to make himself mad and feel righteous about it?  It would probably be more ego-bruising if he saw that you only mention him occasionally, lol.

I have to say, being on this board has been my anecdotal evidence of just how contagious this new strain is!  Since I have to work in the office, plus my Costco scan side gig, I feel doomed, lol. 

It's been amazing weather for the last two months but, with January, winter and much colder temperatures have come.

Here is a funny example.  My dog Izzy, is normally very well behaved with commands.  I was sitting on the couch with a heated throw and then got up to get a drink.  When I returned, she was sitting on top of the throw on "my spot" on the couch.  I gave her a few pets on the head.  Then said her name and pointed for her to move to the next cushion.  Normally, she would move right over.  But this time, she broke eye contact, looked away, and "pretended" not to hear me, lol.  

When I wasn't budging and kept repeating her name in an increasingly more annoyed tone, she changed her tactic.  She looked at me again, flipped on her back to show me her belly...we call that her bell-bells...and started happily wagging her tail.  She is a master manipulator and knows we can't resist petting her belly when she is being so cute.  So, of course, I gave her a few pets.  But then I picked her up and moved her, since she wasn't being cooperative on her own.  I know.  I would be a terrible dog trainer, lol.

@ei34 oh man, I hope you're better soon! Also, why the hell does he care if you post on a board to strangers? Get a fucking life! 

I'm back in the office today and damn, is it dragging. We're still doing a rotating schedule with just one person in the office per department per day. I'm here today and tomorrow, and then back home. Not sure if we're still going to be doing this next week, but with how many people are sick, I'm thinking yes. 

Anyway, NYE was nice and relaxing. The band we were supposed to see in concert did a live streaming thing, so we watched that. I stayed up there for the rest of the weekend and then drove home Monday morning. It was nice to get a break these last 2 weeks from the city-ish feel of my place and be in the woods. 

banana468 said:

STARMOON44 said:

MissKittyDanger said:

@Casadena Yeh. I've posted. I had my mum post on her neighborhood also. No takers I also asked people who I know personally or that I sold to before. Either don't need or no space.
We have local donation places we usually toss our stuff we don't need so it's at least an option. 

Then just donate it this weekend. Why keep stuff that’s stressing you out that no one else wants until April? Free yourself!!!!!!

That's my intention in the next couple weeks.  I'm not interested in making sales.  I have clothing I haven't worn in years.   Some is too big, some too small, and some from my 20's.  It has to go. 

I am doing the same thing. Dresses, sweaters, and shoes are done. I still have to go through pants and tops but I'll probably wait till after baby just in case. 

Ssdd here. Actually kind of a lot of changes happening but I think my insomnia has me so dulled to life right now it all feels the same. DS is doing good a nursery. It's good they share pictures of what they do throughout the day because he doesn't tell me shit, lol. DH is back at work, thank god. It's nice having him home but sometimes it is too long. This is the first week of the new Monday- Friday work week and it is throwing me off more than it should. The CEO of DH's division at work was fired and they already brought in the new guy. DH is really happy with the change and I hope this brings him more job satisfaction in general. I finally got around to scheduling a family/maternity photoshoot, the only opening she had was the last weekend in January. Nothing says second baby more than a maternity shoot the week before the due date. FX she stays in that long. My BFF is arriving on Feb 1st so double the reason DD can't come too early.

Other than that, ssdd. 

Woke up to a sheet of ice this morning. Was almost impossible to walk my dog. Skidded through 2 stop signs (I was driving super slow too, just couldn't stop, along with 3 other cars), car off the road into a ditch on the highway. Definitely not a fun ride this morning. And I even left later than normal hoping to give more time for the roads to de-ice. 

Anyway, had a nice night. N came over, he came with me to run some errands and then we got takeout. Watched this show about Oak Island that he loves (which honestly puts me to sleep..lol). 

Thankfully WFH tomorrow. 

MissKittyDanger said:

@Casadena Yeh. I've posted. I had my mum post on her neighborhood also. No takers I also asked people who I know personally or that I sold to before. Either don't need or no space.
We have local donation places we usually toss our stuff we don't need so it's at least an option. 

Then just donate it this weekend. Why keep stuff that’s stressing you out that no one else wants until April? Free yourself!!!!!!

banana468 said:

If I remember back in HS there were at least some studies saying that single sex schools may have academically performed better? 

That said, the only single sex aspect of my schooling was in my dormitory living and I lived in an all women dorm for 3 years and a co-ed by floor my senior year.

It's because the studies have proven that girls and women actually are called on fewer times, speak less, and are less likely to contribute ideas or to the conversation when in mixed sex academic settings.  It's especially low during the the Jr High and HS years because of all the things about the timeframe in kid's lives.  In single sex settings, girls have much more confidence to speak up and teachers are more apt to call on more people because you've somewhat removed misogyny from the equation.