Yeah, around dinner time my dog whines and tries to lead you to where we keep his food. But he gets fed after the people eat and some times “around dinner time” is actually a few hours beforehand so his theatrics often go without getting what he wants straight away.

Doesnt deter him though he just tries harder to make himself clearer. He must think we are so dense. How do we not understand? Hes being so clear! He would be very upset to find out we knew exactly what he was trying to say but were ignoring his pleas on purpose.

When my brother and I were around 14 we were killing time waiting for our mum while she was shopping. The main street was old so the storefronts opened out onto the street and the foot path was undercover. Every store had a sign hanging out the front. We were running along and jumping to touch every sign.

We came across one that was too high. I gave up but my brother was jumping for all he was worth and I was laughing at his failure to touch it. Because thats what siblings do.

My brother stopped to catch his breath and this really tall adult man wearing professional bright white chef clothing flies past, jumps really high and touches the sign. He shoots us a wide toothy grin mid air, lands on the ground, then casually continues on down the street. It was so unexpected, such a high jump from such a fancy looking man. We were extremely impressed and talked about it for months.

I bought an old box full of used cast iron cookware from a mostly boarded up corner store that smelled weird. I had spent the day looking through yard sales trying to find some and we needed to buy a drink, it was the only shop for a while.

The door was open but the lights were off in the middle of the day, so it was really dark in there except from the glow of the drink fridge at the back. Really unsettling. There was an old lady at the counter but she didnt look up when we passed her. We went through to get to the drinks, the food on the shelves was dusty and looked like it had been there a while. Then crammed into the back corner was a small collection of second hand junk, including a box of cast iron cookware. Exactly what I had been looking for. $10 for the lot. Great deal. Paid the uninterested lady and got the hell out of there.

They got busted for distributing drugs and shut down not long after. Which answered pretty much all the questions I had about that experience in general.

At this point its probably better to try and work through it on your own, at least for a while. Emotions run high during wedding planning. Theres a chance that it will blow up and it would suck to lose a friend over this. Have you already booked flights? Will you still be going for a visit in November?

Theres still lots of wedding stuff that will need to be done and I doubt she did this to hurt you. Its just her mum was there and it worked out that way. Mums rank higher than friends in these sorts of things.

If you think shes a chill kind of person you could let her know once your feelings arent quite so raw. But it depends on what you are hoping to get out of telling her, do you just want an apology? She may have already said sorry, will another make you feel better? Do you kind of want her to take the dress back and redo it in November? Probably not going to happen, that horse has bolted. Just to vent to someone? Then shes not the person for that right now.

Ultimately you know her and your relationship with her better than an internet stranger. But telling her while your emotions are raw and shes in the middle of wedding planning with frazzled emotions of her own seems like a good mix for a big argument.

I was gifted a phone without a headphone jack after my last one died a few years back. I miss it all the time, remembering to charge bluetooth headphones and not losing bluetooth buds is tricky for me. So a lot of the time I just dont play music anymore. Very annoying.

Yeah, I want to be a part of the solution but I never feel like I have anything of value to add to the discussion.

Pokemon go, since they upped the price of remote raids and made waaay harder for people like me out in a remote town to fully participate I’ve not been back. Which sucks because I really liked collecting pokemon with it. But I kept getting the feeling that the company hated me. Well it doesnt seem to like any of its users, but it especially didn’t like the ones in locations like mine. So I left and refuse to go back.

Also a local art shop , the owner was really snobby and said I couldnt afford the paint I was after. She was correct but still, not nice to make me feel bad about it.

Whenever I think of the future I get it bad. Disabled, poor, parents are my carers, couldn’t afford to live on my own even if I could. And every year the bushfires get bigger and closer to home. If I let it it constant dread would become my default state, but I am aware of this and try to focus on the now.

Not to say I don’t do my best to safe guard the future, have plans in place for if I ever need to navigate the things that scare me most. But I try not to dwell on it. Someday my parents will die, failing some sort of miracle I will end up in a care home without my pets. But I might also drop dead tomorrow in which case all my worrying will have been for nothing.

Right now at this very moment things are going ok and the number one thing that makes it not ok is worrying about a time in the future when its entirely not ok. But why meet it in the middle? I can’t change the rivers current, best I can do is try to steer on the odd occasion where the path splits.

When I was small and the loud storms scared me my mother told me that thunder was the man on the moon either bowling or throwing things down the stairs. It wasnt presented as fact, but it was a funny little thought to distract from the scary storms.

I was also told there was a tiny man living in the fridge who operated the light. All fun and game until your toddler’s letting all the cold air out while they are trying to catch the little man in action.

Oh and the triangle hazard light button in the car was actually the ejector seat button.

For people who arent super into baking they are a cheap, fun activity for an afternoon. Just add water and maybe some oil mix it with a spoon and bake it for the time stated on the box. No need to store or buy excess cocoa, flour, sugar, eggs and so on.

Thats really sad.

I’m more twitchy about forced online and them trying to make it “social”. Or subscription based. Ew.

First hit being free to try and lure new people in isn’t entirely new. It will be bare bones but the base game usually is.

If the ground is nice soil (not too hard, rocky, sandy, or filled with builders rubbish) then its really personal preference. Raised beds are good if you have a bad back and people are less likely to walk through them leading to compacted dirt. But straight into the ground is also fine, you dont need to source dirt to fill it, and I find turning the soil over is easier when its straight in the ground.

Y

The gardenate website is a good start, it explains which areas are temperate, arid and so on, then you input the area you are in and it will tell you what is good to plant by month. Its main focus is vegetables.

I love stores like that. Go in looking for a particular colour string and leave with bags of all kinds of fun things I didnt know I wanted until then.

Thats a very cool duck.

Y

Thats really cool, I love it.

Sims can find seeds laying on the ground. So if insects, gems, and small animals are still spawning then gardenings still doable. If they have access to water then so is fishing. With a fire they can roast things. Thats food sorted. Socialising is doable if they befriend a wild horse. Not sure how theyd get clean, so theyd be stinky and cranky about that. But theres a few options for sims to entertain themselves without items. Come winter theyd die without shelter.