I live in the US, and with the state of things I have decided to make my life more analog and disconnected this year, and for the foreseeable future. Instead of online games, I do puzzles and listen to audiobooks. Instead of doom scrolling for hours, I’ve decided I’m going to start backpacking. Instead of watching so much TV, I’ve been reading more.

All of these things are helping bring me peace. I’ve been pack training with my dog, which means doing longer day hikes with a heavy pack for each of us, and it’s just been so nice. I’m losing weight without trying (which is a good thing as I’m overweight), I’m seeing parts of my area I’ve never seen, and spending fantastic quality time with my dog. This weekend we’re doing a shakedown car camp to see how he does in my smaller backpacking tent and I am SO excited. In 3 weeks we go on our first backpacking trip with a friend, and I’m already dreaming of future trips. All of this is huge for us because I’m allergic to the sun (literally) and he (my dog) is very sensitive to heat, and allergic to wasps (we have to carry epipens for him) so deciding to spend time outdoors has taken a lot of consideration, determination and planning, but we’re doing it. I’m so excited for the adventures we’ll have, I can’t even put my emotions into words.

It’s all about who the most important prophet is, and anyone that disagrees is wrong and we hate them.

Religion is wild.

It’s about to get absolutely stupid. Like I know everyone thinks things are bonkers now, but up until this week vendors I work with, that supply electronic equipment either partially or entirely manufactured in China, were still honoring quotes created weeks ago. This week we’re being told that quotes we’ve had in the works for weeks or months are now likely going to be pulled and not honored, and that was BEFORE this additional increase. We’re talking large spend that’s likely going to be delayed indefinitely, which will almost certainly shrink the entire GDP and cause mass layoffs, and we’ll be in a depression before we know it. I wish I was being hyperbolic, but I’m watching multi million dollar spends planned for the better part of a year evaporate because quotes won’t be honored.

1 point - I’ve never sent a postcard lol

A lot of Europe is like this and I think part of the difference is social expectation with dogs. Because it’s more normal for dogs to go places, and less normal to have private yards at your home for your dog to spend time in, people in Europe tend to spend more time training their dogs to be good members of society because they basically have to. If you have to walk your dog multiple times a day for potty instead of letting it into the back yard, you’re probably more likely to make sure your dog is leash trained properly.

I also think the USA (and Canada to some extent as you’ve kind of adopted many of our values, for good or ill) are more individualistic than many European countries. In America we train our pets because WE want them trained, not because of societal expectations about dog ownership. It’s truly telling when you walk a dog that is properly leash trained and get compliments about how well trained your dog is. That a dog can walk on leash without pulling is the exception, not the norm. (This happened yesterday to me, just walking around a park path.) It’s depressing. American individualism insists, “I don’t need to train my dog, he’s perfect being the cute little terrorist that he is, and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem.” As a result, dogs aren’t allowed most places in the US because entitled dog owners are the norm, not the minority. I love dogs, and I love taking my dog places, but if I owned a business of any kind I wouldn’t allow dogs because it’s not worth the headache here.

Let me preface this by first saying I agree that dogs should generally not be allowed in food serving establishments because their hair goes everywhere and nobody likes eating dog hair.

With that said though, I have never once seen my dog lick his own butt. What on earth are other people’s dogs doing?! The closest my dog has gotten to licking his butt is licking around his genitalia, which I grant you is unclean as well, but he’s fluffy and keeps the hair between his legs clean and un-matted. But butt licking?!

Now here’s where I get down voted to hell, but I have to play devil’s advocate lol. I would argue that kids are a MUCH larger vector of bacteria and viruses that are of concern to the average adult human than any dog. Dogs are gross, sure, but I’ll take a lick from a strange dog over a strange toddler’s sticky hands on me!

We should keep dogs out of food places, but mostly cause hair and allergies - if we’re going to ban beings due to their gross factor though that list should be much longer (toddlers, homeless, anyone that didn’t wash their hands after using the restroom…)

Perhaps, but Russia is already busy with a war on their front door, I dunno that they’d want to stage one at the side door too. Sure, they’re interested, but realistically I don’t think they’ll stage a coup for it and try to force Norway out. That said, the world is upside down so who knows.

Fair. You asked where I would move to though lol. If it wasn’t for family and job tying me here in the US I would move to Longyearbyen in a heartbeat!

Svalbard

Correct

God this comment makes me feel old…

Realistically, it’s complicated. I work remotely for a small company based out of California. The owners are awesome, reasonable, and fair. Their goal in running the company is to create good jobs for their employees and a good service for their customers. I’ve worked for them for 3.5yrs now and genuinely cannot imagine a better situation for myself short of being independently wealthy. I’m also the only person at my job that does what I do, so if I don’t work, I’m bringing real stress to the company, not to mention not being paid myself. Neither of those prospects are palatable. I’ve worked crappy corpo jobs in the past and wouldn’t have batted an eye at causing them some grief, but when you have an employer as great as mine, it’s a lot harder to realistically consider harming them.

I’m sure there is a point at which I would make the choice, and it’s something I think about regularly, but it’s more complicated for me than missing paychecks or even being fired from a mediocre job. If you’d told me 20 years ago to describe my dream work situation, it would basically be what I have now. Throwing that away is a tough prospect.

My husband and I split things by % of income. First, we made a list of all household bills that we both benefit from - this includes everything from the mortgage to Netflix. Everything. We put it on a shared spreadsheet in Google Drive so we can both access it and update it. The sheet includes the bill description, the amount of it, the due date, and the frequency (weekly, monthly, annually), with another column to deduce the monthly cost of all bills based on frequency.

Next up we made a section for income, and totaled out what we each take home every month. This is AFTER taxes and insurance, what actually lands in the bank accounts. Then we take the total of all the bills and figure out what % it is of our total combined income. For instance if the combined income is 5000/mo and the total for all bills is 3500, then it’s 70%. Lastly, we then have a spot that determines what 70% of each of our monthly incomes are. So let’s say you bring home 3500 and she brings 1500 - in this scenario you would pay 70% of 3500, or 2450 monthly, and she would pay 1050. If you get paid twice in a month, divide that by 2 and you know what you each should contribute per pay period.

If you setup the sheet with proper formulas, you can just update the bills as needed, and change the income as needed, and it will update contributions automatically. This is the simplest version, but you can also include savings and stuff if you want as well. We opened a joint checking account separate from our main ones when we moved in together, and we transfer the money to it for bills each time we’re paid, and all bills come out of that account. Our personal accounts are kept separate and private, because anything left after bills and savings is our own money to spend or save however we like.

Personally I think this is the most equitable way of doing things. We ensure that all bills are paid and that we both have a bit of spending money. We’ve been together for 20 years, and have kept this system for most of it!

Oh man I loved Dragonheart as a kid! I haven’t seen it in ages! Guess I know what I’m watching tonight!

I don’t currently have one, because we ate the first loaf and the 2nd is in the freezer. It’ll come out this week and when we cut into it I’ll reply with the pic! Next time I’ll know to have the crumb pic ready to go lol

Aha! See! New to all this. I don’t have a crumb shot currently as the 2nd loaf is in the freezer and the first is nommed, but when we pull out the loaf this week and cut into it I’ll get one!

As for recipe, I followed this to the letter! I’m still learning what things should look, and feel like for sourdough so trying to not deviate from recipes until I have a better eye for things, ya know?

This is the boat I’m in. I still have 6 months left to not deal with it, so until then, as far as Windows is concerned there is no TPM chip and I can’t upgrade! I’m so very particular about how I like my computers setup and I’m dreading when windows 11 inevitably breaks everything. I just don’t want to deal with it until they REALLY make me. Besides the laziness, the settings menus in Win 10 are hot garbage enough, and I hear 11 is infinitely worse. Nah, I’m good until I have no other choice.

Your English is fantastic and you have no reason to apologize! I should apologize for assuming you were from the USA and not even bothering to state that my comments were. So sorry for that and the confusion caused! Sounds like both of our countries have confusing chicken standards though!

Gonna spend some time in the kitchen today. Tomorrow I’m making a homemade version of Flying Saucer’s Bratzels for dinner, so today I’ll be making the pretzel dough and freezing it so I can bake them tomorrow. I also have 4 bananas going brown so those need to become banana bread. Lastly, I’ve been saying I’ll make tiramisu for two weeks, so I think it’s probably time I get it made.

Other than that, I will probably play with my dog and take a nap. It’s a cold and cloudy Saturday here so we’re gonna enjoy the cozy time.

The terminology on the various bird conditions is frustrating and confusing. Cage free can effectively be exactly what you described - entirely indoors, crammed in and miserable, but not in cages. Free Range birds must have “access to the outdoors” but that can be as small as a hole they can stick their head out of but not go through. It’s honestly ridiculous.

If you buy grocery store eggs, I would recommend looking for the Certified Humane stamp on eggs and other farm products and meats. While the conditions they require are still far from idyllic, they are better than the general standards most livestock exist in. For chickens, pasture raised certified humane is a good option as birds must be let fully outside into the pasture, must have a minimum of 10 square meters per bird when out there, and must be allowed out for a minimum of 6 hours per day. At least in these conditions, they can reasonably be birds and touch grass. There are a lot of other requirements as well, including perches and dust baths. Ideally if you can afford the extra couple of dollars, these are good companies to support. (There are also other 3rd party companies that certify pasture raised eggs, the Certified Humane one is just most common in my area).