what are you doing right now?

[TheOtherMe]

I am still extremely upset about everything.  

My sister has not treated me well since I moved here so cutting her off is of little consequence to me.  I don't see my cousins much the way it is so going no contact with them is easy.  I will miss seeing what is happening in their lives but they have created mini-me's and I don't care for them either.  

The majority of my cousins have only ever lived within 20 miles of where they were born in lily white Iowa.  They are the most racist people I have ever been around.  I cringe just thinking about them.  When I was there a year ago, one cousin told me she didn't need to see the world differently.  She likes her world just the way it is.  

Those are not my beliefs and I don't want to be around them.  So I won't.

DN2 and his wife are very concerned about Ukraine.  Her parents are back living there as well as her uncle and his family.  It's also home even though she is a US citizen.  I know they are considering Canadian citizenship for all 3 of them.  They have told me they will never live in the US as long as it elects people who don't care about anyone.  I miss seeing them.  I miss thinking I am going to see them.  

They have told me they won't be coming here in the summers because of how my sister treats NIL.  Why would they come here when she treats her DIL like she is less than.  She always has and she doesn't hide it.  She tells people that she hides her disdain very well but she is very wrong about that.  I've heard DN3's wife go off about DN2's wife.  She hasn't been in the family that long but she has spent time with my sister during tax season watching Hallmark movies and talking.  So she has heard my sister's BS about NIL.

Someday they will wonder why I changed my will.  Hopefully not for a while, but it will happen someday.

[raeoflyte]

Kids get a snow day tomorrow and canceled all after school activities tonight. I like that they call it early.

[TheOtherMe]

Nov 7, 2024 16:16:32 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Nov 7, 2024 13:56:47 GMT -5 giramomma said:

 I was spiraling a little yesterday morning, and DH reassured me that he comes from scrappy stock and that we will be just fine (several members of his family in Hungary are very wealthy businesspeople who did whatever they needed to do to succeed). I'm glad I have him every day.

NIL's parents in Ukraine were wealthy, too, until Russia invaded.  Their life savings was tied up in real estate.  Most of their properties have been destroyed.  They have a small cabin in Moldova left that is quite primitive and their apartment in Odesa, which has sustained bomb damage.  At least her dad has now aged out of conscription.  He didn't set foot in Ukraine while that was a possibility.  He works on a ship for 6 months of the year and home for 6 months.  The shipping compnay let him stay at sea until he reached an age where he could set foot in Ukraine again.  

I hope nothing happens in Hungary to your in-laws, but everything can change.   

[bean29]

Nov 7, 2024 12:20:18 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

y'all..... I just....... 

Hugs.  Many of us are struggling too.

[lurkyloo]

Nov 7, 2024 16:33:05 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Kids get a snow day tomorrow and canceled all after school activities tonight. I like that they call it early.

I appreciate this small bit of good news.

My taciturn British expat coworker broke the stiff upper lip and showed us pictures of his new 10 week old Aussie doodle, which was also a bright spot. 

Still hitting the anti anxiety drugs.

[NastyWoman]

Hungary = Schengen country. There are I believe currently 29 Schengen countries. Holding a citizenship to any of those countries gives you a lot of options. Just saying...

[jerseygirl]

Nov 7, 2024 14:06:50 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

Called author at 8 as planned-he thought appointment was tomorrow but I corrected that and he came at 9:30.  It's a complete re-do of the whole document and I told him I would shoot for first of the year but no guarantees.  I will need to buy several reams of paper this weekend.  

Hoping he pays you well for this frustrating work. Personally I couldn’t do this as who knows when it will end. Do you see any value added in what he wants?

[cooper88]

So I look around my house and just see a big, dirty mess still. The FEMA lady said she couldn't believe how clean we had it already compared to the other houses in the neighborhood. I would have lost that bet. Anyway, we should hear something in about ten days.

[greenthumb59]

Nov 7, 2024 14:06:50 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

Called author at 8 as planned-he thought appointment was tomorrow but I corrected that and he came at 9:30.  It's a complete re-do of the whole document and I told him I would shoot for first of the year but no guarantees.  I will need to buy several reams of paper this weekend.  

Gosh Soup do you really want to do this?

[soupandstew]

Nov 7, 2024 17:08:27 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Nov 7, 2024 14:06:50 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

Called author at 8 as planned-he thought appointment was tomorrow but I corrected that and he came at 9:30.  It's a complete re-do of the whole document and I told him I would shoot for first of the year but no guarantees.  I will need to buy several reams of paper this weekend.  

Hoping he pays you well for this frustrating work. Personally I couldn’t do this as who knows when it will end. Do you see any value added in what he wants?

I do not work for $$ anymore so I do this as an act of friendship and for the learning experience it's proven to be.   I think the edits - most of which were done by a friend of his - will probably smooth out some of the sentence structure and his additions will flesh out the story in some area.  His is a story worth telling and he wants to give hard copies to his 4 children, even if it's not formally published.  I told him he will have to outsource the printing as I'm not doing it on my vintage home printer is not feasible.  I'm not sure it will ever "end" but I've set better boundaries now so this will be my last efforts on it.   

[jerseygirl]

Getting back to cooking potatoes. For best flavor when boiling leave the skins on and don’t cut. Based on lots of experience cooking potatoes in our Irish Polish German ( and more recently Italian and Chinese) ‘potato Europe’ family
And adding heavy cream , sour cream and/or butter is always good. Fat carries flavor

[soupandstew]

Nov 7, 2024 17:21:06 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

Nov 7, 2024 14:06:50 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

Called author at 8 as planned-he thought appointment was tomorrow but I corrected that and he came at 9:30.  It's a complete re-do of the whole document and I told him I would shoot for first of the year but no guarantees.  I will need to buy several reams of paper this weekend.  

Gosh Soup do you really want to do this?

No, not really, but that's okay.  I'll ride out the process for now.  

[jerseygirl]

Soup my mom wrote a ‘book’ about her life but in long hand and with some photos of her family . We made copies for family and everyone cherishes this

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Nov 7, 2024 17:02:19 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Nov 7, 2024 16:33:05 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Kids get a snow day tomorrow and canceled all after school activities tonight. I like that they call it early.

I appreciate this small bit of good news.

My taciturn British expat coworker broke the stiff upper lip and showed us pictures of his new 10 week old Aussie doodle, which was also a bright spot. 

Still hitting the anti anxiety drugs.

I really want a puppy. I have to wait til our last kit-cat is over the rainbow bridge. She is nearly 17 and health problems are creeping up. 

[wvugurl26]

I will say charitable contributions are selfish in a way for us. Being able to itemize completely flips the state tax situation for us. So if my choice is to give to organizations I'm picking or the state government the choice is easy.

Outside of that for several years now, we've been saying we are going to be more selfish with our money especially. We are fortunate and work hard but the money isn't endless. It's been a challenge but we are getting better about not paying for everything in our friend circle.

[Works4me]

I can't believe it but my Gizmo turned 7 last summer. He's doing great and is a real comfort to me on these dark days.

Plus now we have his little sister as a long term house guest, if a dog can be a house guest. Sunny is from the same litter but is about half his size and almost as cute. They've both been to the groomer recently and look a lot alike. They are so cute I almost can't stand it.

Sunny's mommy-person has been very sick for over a year and Sunny needed TLC . Like Gizmo, she is used to lots of love and attention and was in a situation where she was being fed and watered but not much else. It's been really amazing how nice Gizmo is being to her and I can't help wondering if he remembers her in some way. I'm doing this because I love Gizmo and I'd want someone to take special care of him.

[soupandstew]

Nov 7, 2024 18:24:42 GMT -5 Works4me said:

I can't believe it but my Gizmo turned 7 last summer. He's doing great and is a real comfort to me on these dark days.

Plus now we have his little sister as a long term house guest, if a dog can be a house guest. Sunny is from the same litter but is about half his size and almost as cute. They've both been to the groomer recently and look a lot alike. They are so cute I almost can't stand it.

Sunny's mommy-person has been very sick for over a year and Sunny needed TLC . Like Gizmo, she is used to lots of love and attention and was in a situation where she was being fed and watered but not much else. It's been really amazing how nice Gizmo is being to her and I can't help wondering if he remembers her in some way. I'm doing this because I love Gizmo and I'd want someone to take special care of him.

I'm sure he knows she is family.  Thank you for giving her a better life at this point.  

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Going to try a aqua fitness class tonight.

Something to break up the week and a novelty to be interested in.

We'll see if I like it.

[chiver78]

well, I found what was creating a low-range odor in my kitchen this week. I cleaned up as best I could, but the shelf is airing out now overnight, after a healthy Clorox Clean-up bath. 🤢 I'll finish the rest tomorrow, including laying down contact paper.

I was poking around a lower cabinet to see if I had any black beans upstairs or not. I noticed a small puddle under a spaghetti squash I forgot I bought. so I put some gloves on to pick up/toss/wipe up the puddle. Im really effing glad I did, bc the thing imploded as soon as I lifted it off the shelf. 🤢🤢

I'm now hiding out downstairs for the night. that was exactly the cap on today that I really didn't need.

[soupandstew]

Nov 7, 2024 18:37:07 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

well, I found what was creating a low-range odor in my kitchen this week. I cleaned up as best I could, but the shelf is airing out now overnight, after a healthy Clorox Clean-up bath. 🤢 I'll finish the rest tomorrow, including laying down contact paper.

I was poking around a lower cabinet to see if I had any black beans upstairs or not. I noticed a small puddle under a spaghetti squash I forgot I bought. so I put some gloves on to pick up/toss/wipe up the puddle. Im really effing glad I did, bc the thing imploded as soon as I lifted it off the shelf. 🤢🤢

I'm now hiding out downstairs for the night. that was exactly the cap on today that I really didn't need.

I am begging your forgiveness for giving me a desperately needed belly laugh with the visual image your words provided.  I'll never be able to look a spaghetti squash in the eye again.  So sorry about your overnight hideout downstairs 

[andi9899]

Nov 7, 2024 10:32:05 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Nov 7, 2024 9:12:25 GMT -5 toomuchreality said:

I am certainly not the boss of this thread. But this is NOT the political thread.
Please stop.

Unfortunately, the effect of these politics is on friends and family……and we are having to navigate that too.  Dealing with this really is a landmine as I learned yesterday.  

Not to mention that the fallout of this election is going to do severe damage to a lot of people.

[grumpyhermit]

Nov 7, 2024 18:37:07 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

well, I found what was creating a low-range odor in my kitchen this week. I cleaned up as best I could, but the shelf is airing out now overnight, after a healthy Clorox Clean-up bath. 🤢 I'll finish the rest tomorrow, including laying down contact paper.

I was poking around a lower cabinet to see if I had any black beans upstairs or not. I noticed a small puddle under a spaghetti squash I forgot I bought. so I put some gloves on to pick up/toss/wipe up the puddle. Im really effing glad I did, bc the thing imploded as soon as I lifted it off the shelf. 🤢🤢

I'm now hiding out downstairs for the night. that was exactly the cap on today that I really didn't need.

This happened to me once, only it was a potato that had rolled under a microwave cart. I was crawling around on my hands in knees like a blood hound trying to zero in on where the smell was coming from when I found it.

Nothing quite so lovely as putrefied produce.