I adored APW long before I was thinking marriage and long after, so it piques my interest that Meg is going to do a vow renewal. That seems like it could be a lot of fun for the right people. Would that be a thing you’d enjoy doing? I wonder what interval of time would feel appropriate to do a renewal (for us, if we were ever into the idea).
I find it kind of annoying that JB used to eat eat zir veggies, and is now going through an “I don’t like it” phase. I should be glad that it took so long to kick in.
We tried being a one car family (involuntarily) and it’s just not realistic at this point of our lives with a kid and two dogs, so my enjoyment of the Bitches’ rant here had everything to do with their writing and nothing to do with my opinion.
Tami on dental health. I had never made the connection consciously but Mom was a diabetic who had serious dental problems (that I thought we had resolved) but she died young of heart issues. I have to wonder now if she would have gotten better if I had been better about making sure she had regular cleanings annually.
Now I have to start reading Laura Lippman, on the strength of this essay and feeling like I like the person she is here: “Motherhood is a story where I don’t control the ending.” On second thought, I don’t think I can hang with her thrillers. Possibly too much tension.
Similarly, I’ll never read anything by this author: Dean Klein. I can’t decide which combination of adjective sums him up: ridiculous pompous entitled?
Matt on the cases people make against charity. I definitely have a scarcity mindset and things like the unpredictability of the health insurance landscape (an example: the squeeze of high deductible high plans) or the high cost health care in general feed mine. But I still give, one way or another, to people who need help, to small creators, to causes we care about.
Nicole Cliffe’s told the funny version of her grandmother (CW: suicide, substance abuse, and sexual abuse) online but this is the serious version.
Men who behave like this at first look like any other men, thus I look at all of them askance until I KNOW I’m safe around them. I also think he should have been moved to the worst seat and arrested coming off the plane.
Don’t be a Natasha Tynes. I don’t get why people feel the need to police (particularly black women) people for doing necessary things like eating.
The politest (puppy) eviction
I saw this on reddit and I’ve watched it a minimum of 27 times and every single time it has only gotten better and exceeded my expectations pic.twitter.com/Y6xPMCtJ99
I relate so strongly to this letter about chronic mystery illness taking away one’s identity touchstone. I felt such loss when I had to accept that my illness had irrevocably, irretrievably, altered the course of my life. It still echoes sometimes when I remember everything that I hoped to do, or the things I would still love to do but cannot. I lost a huge measure of who I was – strong, unbreakable, defiant against any and all odds, brave and undaunted by challenges (at least on the outside!).
Lisa of The Traumatized Budget is a writer in her mid-50s facing down some pretty serious financial circumstances. I’m not convinced that formal financial literacy is the answer though. Anecdotally I’ve seen many friends grow up with frugal and financially capable parents and they just ignored every lesson in front of them. I’m not sure how one gets past that.
Wild Nights With Emily spends significant time with the person Smith now knows is responsible for mutilating Emily’s letters: Mabel Loomis Todd, a woman who was having an affair with Susan’s husband (and Emily’s brother), Austin. Despite never having met Emily face-to-face, Todd acquired the letters after Emily’s death via Austin and Emily’s sister, Lavinia, and set about removing Susan from them before publishing them. “When I showed this movie to the Emily Dickinson International Society last summer,” Olnek recalls, “the president of the board said, ‘What people need to understand is that when Emily Dickinson scholarship started, people didn’t know that Mabel was Austin’s mistress. They just thought she was the nice, young wife of a faculty member at Amherst College. They didn’t understand her stakes in spinning a certain kind of story about Emily.’
Rich and Regular: Fathers on FI. I like what I see in the changing norms around fatherhood so far as the FI group is concerned, I hope that’s something that ripples out to non-FI and non-PF people.
We love pan roasted brussels sprouts already but I think we need to try this version of brussels sprouts with sausagebrussels sprouts with sausage.
Are recessions really necessary? (Nicole&Maggie, your thoughts?): “In November 1990, the Australian treasurer (and later prime minister) Paul Keating described a painful downturn then underway as “the recession we had to have.”
His point was that excesses in a lending and credit boom, combined with high inflation, meant that the Australian economy needed the wrenching experience of a downturn to rid itself of those excesses. It was also a horrible political gaffe, a comment that went over poorly in a country then burdened with an 11 percent unemployment rate.
But the question of whether he was right is profound — one that economists can still debate.”
An interview with Kassandra Dassant, talking finances after 40: Building her Business and Finding Her Purpose. This is a timely read / series for me as I examine how I want to end my 30s and how I want to enter into my 40s.
Done by Forty: “In poker terms, the meritocracy argument is an example of resulting: of judging the quality of our decisions based on the results of those decisions. If you get a good result, you made a good decision. If you get a bad result, you made a bad decision.
Except that life doesn’t work out that way.”
Just when I thought the credit reporting bureaus couldn’t be grosser, it turns out they’ve got this going on: “Equifax has marketing material pitching employment status to debt collectors who want an early nod that someone is no longer employed.”
Earthquake liquefaction zones are why I don’t put much faith in Bay Area property values. Won’t mean much if our home falls into an earthquake created abyss.
You Could Have Today. Instead You Choose Tomorrow: It’s a hugeprivilege to be able to choose this life this way. I worked my nalgas off to get to choose like this and even then a huge degree of luck came into play to make that happen.
I have been thanked for my work as a manager in the past but those were both quite unexpected and very unsolicited thanks. I have always said that it’s a totally thankless task, particularly if you’re doing it right (advocating for your people, supporting them without micromanaging, rewarding them as appropriate for their situations and needs). Frankly, I do it for the management money, not thanks. I can’t imagine going into it seeking that kind of validation from my employees. Generally it’s not going to happen.
