My husband was a fool. He can't afford to divorce me now! bwahahaha! (evil cackle.)
No, we don't have a prenup. We've been together for 27 years and married for 16. When we met we were both poor, though he had the opportunity and education to do well. (He'd graduated law school the year prior.) I had kids (now grown) and a decidedly less rosy future as a newly divorced and not as educated single parent. Didn't have one in my first since we were both young and stupid.
I rather like the guy I'm married to, and he's of the opinion that we'll be together until death do us part, so I think we're good even without it. It's worked out so far.
She's not just an outstanding basketball player (and spelling wizard); she holds three Guinness Book of World Records for basketball spinning/juggling.
Relative did a Zillow estimate for pre-sale when was moving from GA. One of those "we'll buy your house and sell one in your new location" type things. A realtor suggested a reasonable sale price, and she ended up listing a bit below. Zillow dropped her estimate within hours by something like $25K. The reason she had listed it low in the first place was to get it to move since they were in a time crunch. (Short notice relocation for new military position.)
I just checked Trulia, Zillow and Redfin for my house. Both Trulia and Zillow have it at $907K, which is about $50K over last month's overly high estimate. Redfin has us in the $820 range, which I think is more reasonable for my street. A smaller house on a smaller lot sold for $750 with a listing of $725. But a friend's house a few blocks away sold within a week for almost $100K over asking. Mine would be in the mid-range of our area of suburban tract homes on small lots. We don't have an HOA, which apparently a lot of people can appreciate. We're one of a very few streets that aren't in an HOA. But almost a million for our house? I don't think that's in the realm of possiblity.
It's totally ridiculous. We shouldn't be sitting anywhere above $600-650K in the absolutely most normal market imaginable. (Which is about where we were a year ago according to all estimates.)
But then, holy shit! I just checked the house the ex and I bought in the early '90s for $85K and sold in '97 for a whopping $87K. It climbed to $220K in '05 when we moved out here then down to $160 after the market crashed. The 800 s.f. 3/1 house built in 1959, not even on sewer (I remember having to have the septic pumped when the ex didn't do it and ew...) and no garage, etc. and certainly not well maintained, sold in December for $320K. (!!!!!) The estimate for the little dump is now sitting at somewhere around $387K.
While I do think that when you live in a city, you need to expect to see some weird stuff - I think the flip is also true. When you live in a city - or any situation where you live in close proximity to your neighbors - you need to be aware of it and behave respectfully. I do not think it's respectful of your neighbor to be doing this stuff in front of an open window, especially if children are in the home but even if they weren't.
We live in a townhouse and our kitchen windows look right out onto the sidewalk. I like to have the curtains open during the day because it's the only natural light on that side of the house, but if my H insists on walking around in his underwear (which he often does, lol), we will shut them. And he's not even doing anything sexual. I just think it would be weird for us to have him on display like that for the whole neighborhood. He's perfectly allowed to walk around like that in our house, but we don't have to show it to everyone.
I hope the neighbors keep their curtains closed! I guess another option would be to wave at them through your windows next time you see them doing this. If you make eye contact and give a pointed look, I bet they will be embarrassed and close the windows.
Agree.
And also, this brings up a thought I've had all along - TOP DOWN BLINDS!! When we lived in the city and could easily see from our bedroom into the homes across the street, we invested in top down blinds. I could put them 1/2 way down and get lots of natural light and not feel like people across the street, or even walking down the street, could look into my bedroom.
It was lovely!
Amen. I had a TD/BU in my bathroom in the old house. We just went with quick and easy here and I so, so regret it. The hubs was "I want to be able to open and close and control the light" and so, 2" fake woods it was. And now we have big barky dog who sticks his nose through the slats, too. Big regrets, HUGE. (said in my best Julia Roberts voice.) I highly recommend TD/BU if you want privacy...for whatever reason.
And to add to the fun, when we lived in OH, there was a neighbor in the townhomes in our development who lived in an end unit with a large window in her bedroom that faced the street. My husband and son were out for a walk with the wife walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom and gave my barely teenage son a full frontal. (This was *not* in a tight all townhomes area. Suburban homes in a community development, and her place was pretty much across from the community center.) That was fun.
It was phenomenal this morning about 4:30-5:00. I took the dog out for a walk while it was cool. I ended up putting on jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt and was still comfortable.
I don't know what's going on but WTForecast and Alexa are all giving me temperatures about ten degrees lower than the car and the actual Alexa device are giving me. They *say* it's 76 when the car and Show are showing 86. It's funny to SEE 86 on the screen of the Show, right beside our rear slider where you can *see* the heat, and then ask it and get a response of "Currently it's 76 Degrees in..." and when it's so temperate I can't get a funny forecast from WTF. Unfair! And having taken the dog to the park just an hour or so ago, it's definitely not 76. It's more like 86 so I'm going to trust the screens not the voices.
Progressive Insurance is based in Mayfield Village, OH just outside Cleveland. It's a bit more purple than union-strong Cleveland but Peter Lewis, the founder of the company (died back in 2013) was a donor to the ACLU, the Democratic party and held fundraisers for Dem candidates on the regular. I don't know the current politics, but if that matters to you, I'll throw that out there.
I have State Farm and have been reasonably happy with them. Our policy is actually older than I am (so it's about sixty years old now, lol.) It used to be the mother-in-law's, who put the husband on in high school, then she married and for some reason the policy just rolled over. We got a really cheap pen for our fiftieth anniversary with them. :sad trombone
I would not recommend Allstate, after having worked with a personal injury attorney against them and also for them. The Ohio Bar Association used to have actual continuing legal education classes on how to deal with them and their computer based estimations. A computer decides if the plaintiff required as much medical as the doctors who actually treated the patients, and very often it low-balled by alot alot alot. I remember distinctly one case where Allstate wouldn't pay out To Their Own Insured because they required certain coding, which Kaiser, the client's medical insurance, didn't provide in their system as they were an insurance and medical provider so billing wasn't coded similarly to a standard ER or physician follow up. It took almost TWO YEARS to get the two insurance companies to come to some sort of terms to get THEIR OWN CLIENT paid for a medical payments claim. They were (both) an absolute pain in the ass to deal with. At least that was the case fifteen years ago, lol.
GEICO (it's actually an acronym so all caps) used to be Government Employees Insurance COmpany, and had an excellent reputation back in the day, that held up for many years after they converted to a public company that anyone could join.
Sad about USAA but not surprised. Because they're military supportive. I wanted to join for many years, and suggested to my daughter that they join. I've stopped suggesting them over the past couple of years.
We lost power and it got to 100 inside out house. I gave up and cried, lol. It's on for right not so hopefully we can just get through tonight. My poor kitties.
It's currently 89 degrees outside, north of Seattle (Snohomish County) and steadily falling. Rumor is that it will get down into the 60s, then highs tomorrow around a rather balmy 90 degrees.
We were *very* fortunate to have an a/c installed a couple years ago. It was "we're really only going to need it a couple weeks a year. Is it worth doing? It'll be nice for those couple of weeks at least." We try to do one major update per year on the house and that was what we decided that year.
@@@the a/c has been cooling the downstairs but doesn't seem to be getting circulation into the grands' bedrooms and pretty much upstairs. the grands have been "camping" in a tent in the back yard because it's actually been cooler in the tent when that corner's shaded at night than it's been in their bedrooms. Right beside the a/c unit. Which we were told would be quiet because it's near our neighbors' houses as that's the best location for it. It's.Not.Quiet.
The grocery stores out here in my town just north of Seattle (SnoCo. picksthemusic lives near me as well and may have seen this) have been shutting down. We've had breakdowns at Central Market, Safeway, Costco, Albertson's, Fred Meyer... If the temps in the freezer hit 60, alarms go off. The condensers in the units just can't handle the heat; they're not made to be heavy duty enough. People have been posting locations of freezer shutdowns across our community pages on FB. They're either losing all the food in the freezers if they don't have backup in the rear of the stores where the food can be moved before it gets too hot. Store workers have been hustling like crazy to get food out of the freezers and either into the back or into dumpsters outside.
On the topic of smart infrastructure, I heard this story on the radio the other day and thought it was interesting.
South Bend, IN had a flooding problem in their sewers. Pipes would back up and feed into the St. Joseph's River. They were finally court-ordered to deal with the situation to prevent further backups and other issues. They now have a "smart" sewer system with sensors throughout the system that can read water levels. If the pressure in one pipe is reaching capacity, the sensor will read and relay the information, and other pipes will open to divert water into available pipes. The prior flooding issues have been reduced to almost nil.
A lot of up-front money but the savings at the back end are worth it.
My MIL apparently has COVID again. Her husband got vaccinated. Her Q-Anon sister (a nurse but definitely of the Trumper conspiracy theorist variety) got vaccinated. She still refuses to. And so she's sick AGAIN. She was in the hospital over Christmas with COVID. You'd think that a woman with a Master's would be educated enough to research and Get The Damn Shot. But newp.
@@@@@ A friend posted that there were anti-vax protesters at the Children's Hospital in Seattle. Where I need to take Kidlet for testing next week. I certainly hope I don't have to drive through a phalanx of idiots to get where we need to be.
I’ve been without a debit card since mine expired in March. I just went last week to order the third card, as the first two were lost in the mail and never arrived. The most recent one I ordered was supposed to take 4-7 days to arrive. Today is day 10. Not really sure how to get a permanent debit card at this point.
ETA: for those wondering, I have a temporary card from the bank but that is only good for ATM withdrawals. To use it as a debit card, it has to be a permanent card that has my name printed on it which is the one that comes in the mail.
My credit union prints permanent cards (with CHIPS!) on-site. Maybe there's one somewhere around you that does the same that you can transfer funds to?
Late to the game but... This happened to me a few months ago. Off a freeway onto a country road that connects one burb to another. Speed limit on the country road is 35. I'd barely turned and got pulled over for doing 55. I hadn't checked my speedometer so didn't know my speed but there were cars in front of me and I'd turned on a red after allowing cars to turn and I was keeping up with them so...wtf-ever. I would swear the max I'd gone was 45-ish when looking down after seeing the flashy lights but it is what it is. Since I *was* speeding when told it was 35, there really was no use fighting it.
It was my first ticket in over a decade. (I know this because my last ticket was the first time I visited Kiddo after we had to send her back to her mother. I had to pull over in a parking lot to break down after I got pulled over because it was just one more pile on a huge pile of crap that day. She's in 11th grade now and that was back in kindergarten so I did the math.)
Options were listed on the back of the ticket. One was a mitigation option. I pay $139 ($30 less than the ticket) and if I'm ticket free for the next however long, then the ticket is expunged, like it never happened. My insurance isn't even notified that I'd received a ticket unless I get pulled over again. The county gets its dollars and I just have to drive like my normal granny self for the next while.
So that's an option beyond pay it or challenge it.
Post from a criminal defense attorney: Courts are closed today. My clients, ALL OF WHOM ARE BLACK, (emphasis mine) will have to spend the weekend in jail instead of having bond hearings today.
My initial reaction was good - now do more. And now I hear many Black voices saying this is a form of gaslighting that has been going on for ages. I can’t (and don’t) disagree.
And who really benefits? The Black people in my life who celebrate were already celebrating (and I know everyone has a different opinion on this). It was already a holiday in 45 states.
It seems like this becomes white-centered again - makes white lawmakers look good, educates white people, gives people (I imagine mostly non-Black corporate people, and perhaps a more diverse federal population) the day off? All while CRT and voting rights are being eviscerated by the right and not supported enough by the left.
Ugh.
Thank you for pointing this out. I've been seeing quite a bit of white-centeredness in Black spaces, and Blacks commenting on it as well. The majority who will benefit from this as a holiday are white, and it will be, for many, just another day to have a picnic with their families, and won't be asking why all the Black families are and what the celebrations are about. That is, if they even *see* any Black families out on June 19.
Ally Henny on FB has a couple good threads/discussions on it. One poster said she was texting for Black Voters Matter through Movement Labs movementlabs.com/ (something she's already doing but will be putting in extra time on Saturday.) There were a couple others who had ideas such as donating pay to Racial Justice organizations. One suggestion was Black employees get the day off, paid, and white employees work for the day, with their salaries going to Racial Justice organizations. It would be interesting to see if employers would take this up (or let the employees who want to donate do so, with a company match.) There were also several posters who said it was a good thing for the day to be for everyone, so it's not divisive and allies could celebrate alongside them. So, there are multiple different trains of thought on how to celebrate (or acknowledge) it.
Also, it's performative. It's an acknowledgement without teeth. States can still refuse to teach the 1619 project. It does nothing to expand voter rights, decriminalize drugs or anything else that actually *works* to bridge the gaps and fix what's broken.
I did a board-and-train with a dog trainer for $1400 for two weeks. Someone coming to my house? I'd probably be comfortable with $400-500 for the week. They're driving to your house, so that's wear-and-tear on their vehicle, taking time out of their day to care for your pet(s) and doing you a huge favor (even if they *are* getting paid for it.) But, they're not trained and the dog is at your house not a facility getting specialized training (and other rationalizations for being reasonable but possibly on the cheap-ish side.)
I have a friend who's a travel agent so I use her when I can so she's not seeing me/us vacationing without at least talking to her first. I don't use her all the time because often my trips aren't necessarily something that would make her money (going to visit family and spending a day at Universal or Disneyworld, for example, so just VRBO a house and get a one-day pass isn't something that would be worth her time.) I've also used Costco travel for the Executive Member benefits and perks. My husband's firm has a travel agency service that we've used once or twice for our own travel plans, but they also arrange the big meet-and-greets every three years so we don't have to make arrangements for the hotels, food, entertainment. (That's probably cheating though.) They were helpful when we had a hitch in one of the arrangements in our travel plans; we just called them and they fixed whatever needed to be fixed to make our stay otherwise uneventful.
I've caught myself walking out from my car into places like the grocery store and having to stop halfway and turn back to get my mask. I've become a bit accustomed to going outside to play with the dog and do outside activities without it and so I've been having some "oops" moments again. I've also eaten *inside* restaurants twice in the past couple months. My husband was craving pancakes from his favorite pancake house last weekend so we went and ate in a booth. Surrounded by plexiglass. With masked servers. And didn't feel the least bit nervous about it. Quite a change from wanting to scrub myself down in a sanitary room and stay pretty much in the next county from another person.
I'm actually almost looking forward to flying to Florida in September. Quite a change from "I can't come to your wedding because COVID and planes and Florida..."
Being vaccinated isn't meaningless. You can still catch COVID, even vaccinated (no vaccination is 100% effective, particularly as there are new variants of the virus and this is a novel corona so...) With the vaccination, however, the symptoms will likely be less and the length of time you're affected shorter.
It could also just be allergies from hell or something not COVID.
Get tested and I hope it's just allergies or a miserable cold.
I have a Tesla (that I’m quite obsessed with) but I don’t think we’re ready to be a two-EV family just yet, especially if road trips are on the table.
The biggest downside with an EV has been planning charging stops when we’re away from home. (And we live in California, where EVs are everywhere.) I took a girls trip to northern (i.e. rural) Sonoma with DD and ended up swapping my car with H’s hybrid because there weren’t any convenient super-chargers near our AirBNB. It’s nice to have the option of a gas car, at least until the infrastructure improves.
So we usually take one 5 hr trip, and maybe one 14 hr trip (to the beach) per year. I just mapped it, and we'd need 5-6 stops to the beach (not awesome) with the long-range model Y. BUT....we do that once a year, if that. Otherwise the longest we drive is 4-5 hours up north, or about 3-4 hrs to grandparents. We could make it to my parents with no stop, but usually stop once on those trips anyways, and we could rent a minivan for the long drive once a year.
And we already have the garage wired for 2 electric cars...
You can tell I'm try to talk myself into this, lol.
For the long trip, you can always just rent a vehicle.
I'm glad to see this post because my daughter just had the same issue with her 2019 Pilot. It was sitting in her driveway running and then died. She was having some major issues and panic attacks since she just moved, doesn't know her neighbors yet well enough to ask for help/a ride and she needed to get her daughter from school. Apparently they can't just put her on a bus if she's a parent pick-up. Her husband has the Ridgeline so I'm wondering if that vehicle will have the same issues.
I rather like my Highlander and would at least consider a hybrid version of it or something similar.
I looked for a facility that trained dogs and at least around here, a good portion of them will also kennel. I would look up local training facilities and see who also boards and then look at the trainers reviews to make sure they are good. They won't train your dog but a training staff/owner should be able to handle/have tips and tricks to get the dog through it and maybe offer some advice.
I know around me (central PA) more and more kennels are popping up with trainers on staff or owned by.
I'd just google...dog training facilities in X town
Thanks. I would not have thought to look for trainers, but that makes a lot of sense.
That's a very good idea. When we went on cruise and had MIL here we did a board-and-train at a facility not far from us for two weeks. Our dog came out great at the end of it. Another time we had him do a couple overnights at our doggy day camp, which doesn't necessarily sound ideal if doggo doesn't have a regular place she goes and isn't familiar with the facility. OTOH, maybe she'll do better, be less nervous and clingy at a facility where she can run free with dogs rather than be with people, particularly on an individual basis, for periods of time, if she's not dog-reactive.
I'm sure at my last job I did, as it is a Fortune 100 company, but as a SAH not in my current profession. My doctor's (former) nurse is on the board. Another poster and I used to work in the same building (the job before that) and frequently chatted in the elevator.
He is *just now* fully vaccinated so I'd be more patient, honestly. I wouldn't want to be cutting his hair forever myself, but I don't think it's unreasonable for him to work his way up to getting his hair cut elsewhere. In the meantime, he can spend time searching for shops that follow safety protocols, start with other steps like going to the grocery store, etc.
Thank you for this. I do need to be more patient. I've been desensitized by how often I go out, so it's expected for him to be more anxious about it all than I am.
Searching for quality barbers that follow safety protocols is a good idea. Have him check out the barber shop at MCTC if they've remained open (Weldon Barbers.) They're an actual barber shop, small, clean and highly rated. He can likely go in and check things out even without getting his hair cut.
(Just to make life easy, do NOT even bother looking toward Snohomish and that anti-masker jerk for hair care, lol.)
It might also help to take walks with him. Ease him outside. Walk around the lake, or the paths through/behind MCTC or one of the parks (Tambark is convenient to me, as is Willis Tucker, and there are plenty of forested walks for exercise, fresh air and breathability around here.) There is little enough traffic (especially on the gray days) that he should be okay, and under the trees is beautiful and shady.
Many people have "invisible disabilities" which require them to use assistance programs. Many airports have wheelchair porters and electric carts to shuttle people with injuries from gate to gate.
You are not required to have an injury or disability to use the airport porter services. It's a convenience for those who need or simply want to use them. My mother has used porter services any number of times over the past couple decades when she had bad knees and needed to have them replaced.
Call your airline and arrange to be ported from the terminal/security to your gate. If you give them advance notice they should have someone there to help. Bring a cane to help you walk and navigate where needed, and to brace yourself while getting up/down to alleviate pressure on your hip (and also to quell any questions about why you're being shuttled by nosey busy-bodies.) You can purchase a folding travel cane relatively inexpensively.
Be sure to tip the porter well because in many airports they make minimum, and even SERVICE wages so their pay is often tip-dependent. (I didn't know this until Connie Schultz did an expose on this at the Cleveland airport a couple decades ago. I was appalled at myself for only giving a couple bucks for the service they provided, thinking they were paid at least minimum wage but it turns out they were making service wages at less than $3/hour at the time. It may have changed but they still work their keisters off for what they earn pushing people around the airports.)
I've had a couple core needle biopsies. They were so "memorable" that I don't even recall anything other than being numbed and then a slight pressure when the needle was inserted and a bit of a tug at removal. Ditto for the one with the clicking, though I did feel a bit of a pinch-and-snip there. I also had a lumpectomy. They gave me twilight anesthesia and I got to watch the whole thing. I was "cooooool. That's so neat." throughout. Some residual pain because they cute me open and cut out a piece of me but the meds were apparently good enough that most of what I remember was watching him perform the excision.
I'm sorry you have to worry about this. I hope the results are favorable.