30 minute elementary music lesson plan

I have a 6.5-year-old private student who takes "general music" lessons from me as part of her homeschool education. I've been working with her since last September on music basics like beat, rhythm, pitch, etc, using fun percussion and games, etc. We started on ukulele as a supplement to that, and she has done much better than I thought. To be honest I thought she hated it at, like, would refuse to even pick up her instrument, etc, and even still continues to fight it sometimes. But I can often trick her into picking it up and trying, either by using play along YouTube videos or kind of egging her on by saying things like "I bet I can play this chord faster than you."
Then her mom asked if we could also do piano, so now we do a combo of all three things: general, uke, and piano. (I see her 2-3 times a week!) She also seems to hate piano, but I cannot figure out how to get her more engaged. I don't try to make her sit on the bench for more than a few minutes at a time, and I have tons of games and manipulatives and she rejects it most of the time. BUT, She brought up her brothers getting their belts in jiu jitsu, and my general music teacher ears perked up lol. I floated the idea to her about earning "belts" for piano, and she lit up.
Anyway, I'm wondering how to structure this "belt" system for piano, especially since she's really struggling with basics. I'm not keen on investing in a whole new curriculum, so i figured I'd map something out that would help her grow in confidence. Does anyone out there do anything like this with private students, especially really young ones like this? I'd appreciate tips and tricks!

So I know it’s an old car but it’s holding on and had regular maintenance. But the past few years the AC only blows cold for like 30 minutes and the car must warm up for about 20 minutes before it would blow cold.
Recently however it only blows cold for like 5 minutes. It’s never had a boost of Freon, so I hope that’s the issue and not the compressor.
Would a compressor issue cause the air to only blow cold for a couple minutes? Any thoughts would be appreciated. I plan to get it diagnosed but I want to go into knowing an idea of what it be.

These are the things I learned about residency that I wish I could tell myself as a July intern on wards service. I know many of y’all here will disagree with a few, but this is how I see it. There’s definitely quite a few missing, so y’all fill in what I forgot.

• You earned the right to be here. You’ve proven you can do it so don’t doubt yourself.
• You’re not expected to know everything on day 1. Your job is to show up with a good attitude and ready to work hard.
• Listen to the nurses. Some of these critical care nurses, especially. Ask for their input and don’t brush them off as mere nurses.
• Write things down. Print a list and make check boxes by each patient for what needs to get done that day. There are interns who forget things and interns who write things down.
• The first thing you need to learn is to tell sick from not sick, and that can be tricky at times. Later on you refine that until you see a whole spectrum of how sick a patient is.
• Don’t waste too much time pre-rounding. Brief pertinent exam, ask patient about changes in symptoms, but the highest yield is asking the nurses.
• Call consults before noon if you can. It’s a courtesy to the consultant/their team plus they’re far more likely to be seen that day, avoiding a delay in workup for the patient.
• Your note doesn’t have to be an essay. Keep things simple and don’t get bogged down in eloquent explanations.
• However, document your reasoning well. Especially in tough cases, drop a paragraph about why you’re doing what you’re doing and the patient agrees.
• Auto text or whatever your EMR uses. Make an arsenal of these. Use them for everything. If you have a kind of case you see a lot, template out a note so you make sure you’re documenting all the important stuff in an efficient manner.
• Be cool to your co-interns. Y’all are about to spend the next few years together. Don’t leave them in a lurch or punt to others all the time.
• Call the seniofellow/attending, especially at first. Even if they give you attitude, it’s ultimately their responsibility and they should know that.
• Try to update families daily if you can, especially for your ICU folks.
• Never, ever lie. Even once will destroy your credibility.
• Have a good attitude in a way that refuses to be bullied - don’t take that shit.
• Read all your own images. Then when rads drops a report, read that and see if you can find what they’re describing for every notes finding. It’ll make you a better doctor.
• Get to your new city as early as possible. Do things like car inspection, dentist appointment, vet appointment, etc. before July kicks off.
• Our profession has a high rate of substance abuse. Do what that what you will.
• Sit down with your family and SO and let them know what to expect and try to explain how intense this job is. When there’s a difference between expectation and reality, you have problems. Either way, it’ll strain your relationships.
• Because of this, be deliberate on spending time with your SO/friends/family even if you’re dead tired.
• Wear comfortable shoes
• Scour the hospital for the best restroom. Sometimes having a proper relaxed shit can turn a day around.
• Get to know your chiefs. Go to them with problems earlier rather than later.
• Use every minute of PTO
• Step outside the hospital for a few minute a day when you can. See the sunshine.
• Make friends with the cafeteria staff and they’ll hook you up to no end.
• Make friends with the transporters and techs - they will save you.
• Appreciate the hell out of what PT/OT/SLP do.
• Know how to tell a patient no.
• Pharmacy is your friend - they know things
• If something is emergent, keep calling to follow up. If your crashing patient needs abx, it’s not like some doctor video game where you put the order in STAT and everyone goes rushing. Call down and check the status, let them know it’s needed now.
• Don’t order everything STAT
• Calling people in general gets so much more done and avoids so many headaches.
• You’re going to lose your first patient. Remember how you feel, and make sure you never forget it. You’ll need it later.
• Hang out outside of work, invite the nurses as well.
• Election ‘24 is coming up in November so work is a great place to talk candidly about politics and try to change others’ beliefs /s
• If you’re struggling, reach out to someone.
• Try to get outside on your days off
• It’s not uncommon to end up on an SSRI
• Take the stairs places as much as you can. Cardio and a nice lower body workout.
• Answer pages as they come in. Anything STAT call back the moment you see it. Aim to get back to everyone within 5 minutes if you can.
• Day to night nurse shift change. Wait 30-45 minutes, then go around and talk to the nurse for all your patients. Let them get report and see if they have questions. Explain the plan, agree on when to call you, make sure orders all look good and make sense. We even used to bring candy from the physicians lounge to pass out for this.
• Put the diet order in
• Keep your presentations short and to the point unless someone wants them longer. Know the details, but you don’t have to recite them. You don’t have to say all the exam findings that were normal and not related to the patient’s disease
• Always be prepared to dodge a punch when near a geriatric patient
• Even a 5-10 minute phone call with your loved ones on a frequent basis can do wonders
• Some people are just assholes and you can’t take things personally
• Other people are mad at something else and want to take it out on you.
• Be cool to the med students
• Get good at delivering bad news
• Celebrate delivering good news
• Fuck prior authorizations man
• When calling a consult, have a specific clinical question you need help answering. Know the patient well. Keep the call centered around what you need from them but be ready to provide details if needed. “Dr. X wants you on board” is resident code for “I know it’s bullshit but my attending made me call.”
• Delirium and sundowning are real af. The trick is to get them home.
• Benzos aren’t just “settle down” drugs. It’s like a whisky shot through the vein in the sense that it can also disinhibit people and make wildness worse
• Get to know 1 thing about each patient other than what’s in their chart. What job did they have? What’s their favorite team? Do they have pets? You’ll remember them better when the list is large and it can make the job more rewarding
• If the nurse is worried ALWAYS go to bedside
• If you feel the urge to get a tattoo, do it
• Read everyone’s note each day on your patients
• Case managers and social workers are heroes. Get to know them and work together to get patients proper dispo
• Don’t wear your damn shoes in the call room bed
• Sit down in patient rooms if you can. It shows you’re listening, it’s less intimidating for them, and they’ll tell you more.
• Talk louder to older patients
• Sternal rub like you mean it
• Sit done one day, caffeinate, and do all those stupid compliance modules in a single bolus.
• Never make the same mistake twice
• If things don’t add up, your math is wrong
• Some patients don’t care about their health and won’t look after it after all you do. That’s just the gig.
• If something adverse for residents goes into place on a “temporary” basis, it never goes back the other way. Fight for your rights.
• You’re not crazy - the patient always tells the attending something completely different or remembers some important detail. We get it.
• Have a good comfort show to stream when you come home half dead.
• Trust but verify (that’s actually a Russian proverb Reagan borrowed when speaking about the USSR)
• Remember to love it more than you hate it. Find a way to make it fun. They say it’s the best time you never want to have again. You get to save and improve human lives. There’s no greater calling in the world than that.

To give some backstory, we (me 24f and my husband 24m) have been renting a house from my aunt and uncle for the past year. They are traveling full time and need someone to live in their house while they are gone. Throughout the whole process of us figuring out how the rental would work they were very specific about how if their plans changed they would let us know at least 30 days before so that we could figure out a new place to live and that the same went for us if our plans changed. We understood this as it is their house and traveling full time isn’t a very predictable way to live. Now, we have been living here for a year and the area we live is finally going down in rent prices, we have been looking to move somewhere else. I have not enjoyed living in the house for a multitude of reasons but the main one is it is about 30 minutes away from our family who we do stuff with sometimes four times a week. I know for most people 30 minutes is not very far away at all, but the amount we see them is still a lot of gas money, and I also miss living in my hometown a lot. We wanted to move earlier but felt bad moving in less than a year. Now that we have hit that year mark, we have been looking in earnest for a new place. We decided it would also be good to let my aunt and uncle know since we wanted to give them as much warning as possible. We said we were planning to move out in about three months, that we would be happy to help tour the house, take pictures, and clean to do whatever we could to help find a new tenant since they are obviously not in state. My aunt began berating us for being irresponsible and told us that we would be responsible for rent until they get home if a new tenant is not secured. This completely blindsided us because of all of our previous conversations. She reminded us of our rental agreement we signed that said that was the case, and it does say that but it also says 12-24 months as the lease length. We kept apologizing for the misunderstanding but reminded them that one to two years was the expectation we had set from the beginning, and talked about how we said we would do 30 days notice if either of our plans changed. She texted “We did say we would work with you (and you with us) if something changed. I imagined it would be you guys taking a job out of state or something bigger than moving 20 minutes away for us to take on the massive work of finding a new tenant from the road.” We again offered to help how we could and apologized for complicating things for them. She responded “Complicate is a huge understatement. It seems you guys don't really understand what a big deal this is for us and I'm so disappointed that you seem to be approaching the situation so casually”
I am not sure what to do going forward and I am starting to doubt myself. So am I the asshole?

Race Information

• Name: Colfax Marathon
• Date: May 19, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Denver, CO
• Website: https://www.runcolfax.org/
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11448438544
• Time: 2:38:18

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Sub 2:30	No
B	Sub 2:35	No
C	Finish!	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	5:37
2	5:36
3	5:37
4	5:41
5	5:45
6	5:45
7	5:52
8	5:45
9	5:35
10	5:39
11	5:38
12	5:42
13	5:38
14	5:35
15	5:44
16	5:34
17	5:26
18	5:26
19	5:23
20	5:26
21	5:42
22	5:41
23	6:17
24	11:11
25	7:30
26	6:28

Background

After years of racing on the track I transitioned to the pavement and ran my first HM at the end of 2022. In the ~1.5 years since then, I’ve trained almost exclusively for the HM running one in May and December of last year.
Since college, I’ve mostly hovered around 50-60 mpw never really drifting higher than 80. I’ve always been hesitant to run more than that due to a stress fracture I got junior year when I was pushing 90+ weeks. But last summer I raced in the Denver iteration of the Tracksmith 5000 twilight meet and realized the main difference in my training compared to everyone faster than me was their higher mileage. Volume is king.
That has been the goal of my training since then – increasing my mileage and getting comfortable with 100 mile weeks. Before the 5k I was averaging about 55 mpw per 12-week cycle, and since then I’ve averaged 78 mpw per cycle with a few 100 mi weeks sprinkled in.
My original plan for 2024 was to keep running HMs, but my friend convinced me to run my first marathon this year. He was entered into Chicago, so I applied and got in via the lottery. I wanted to run an HM this spring, but everyone I talked to said I should get a marathon under my belt, so I could have things really dialed in for Chicago. Enter Denver's Colfax Marathon.

Training

I have had good success following the Pfitz HM plans so I stuck with him and roughly followed his 12/85+ plan. For the most part I felt ok with this plan, but I feel like there wasn't enough quality work. For example, one week is 105 total miles with the only real workout being 7 mi @ LT. Maybe that's just the formula some weeks for marathon training but it felt like too much easy running. I ended up tweaking some weeks and swapping an easy day for an additional threshold workout.
I had a few rough weeks where I had trouble holding MP for even a mile or two. Before you ask, no - I don't think it was from these additional workouts I sprinkled in, but poor nutrition and not eating enough. Once I upped the carb and protein intake for a few weeks my energy levels started to come back.
The last few weeks of training things finally started to click and wrapped up the block with a 10k PR, 32:20 (31:35ish? altitude conversion). Previous PR was a 32:59 split during a HM. I don’t put too much stock into conversions, but it was a big confidence boost and sign I was trending in the right direction. I followed that up a week later with my best workout of the block, a 23-miler with 13.1 mi @ 5:38 avg.
Unfortunately, I caught a stomach bug during the taper and spent 4-days unable to keep any food down. I barely ran, but focused on recovery with a few runs to keep the legs from feeling too stale.

Pre-race

Nothing earth shattering here. 6AM race. Woke up at 3 for two pop tarts and half a bagel and went back to sleep for a bit. Ate half of a Clif bar at 5 AM before a short 1.5 mi warmup and drills at 5:30. It was going to be 60-65 degrees for most of the race so I made an effort to get a lot of fluids down.

Race

The course is conveniently broken down into 5 sections so I'll break down the race by those.
Section 1: 0 - 6.5 mi
The course starts with a long gradual downhill through downtown. The marathon relay starts at the same time so we went out a little hot. I wanted to start the first half of the race running 5:50s, but the front relay runners went out at 5:00 pace and I got pulled into 5:35’s. I scanned the pack for people without batons and found 2 other non-relay runners nearby. They were shooting for ~2:40 so we were all able to slow things down as a pack and settled into 5:45s. Took my first gel at mile 5 going into Mile High.
Section 2: 6.5 - 9.2 mi
Big uphill out of the stadium before lapping Sloan’s Lake. We started to catch back up to some relay teams at this point and it gets nice and flat around the lake. Our little pack picked up the pace and we clicked off a few 5:35s. Second gel a little earlier than I wanted at mile 9, but I wanted to take advantage of the water station shortly after.
Section 3: 9.2 -15.2 mi
My least favorite part of the course. It’s mostly a gradual uphill into a hilly little neighborhood with a lot of turns sprinkled in. Our pack was all alone at this point, in no man's land between the faster relay teams and everyone else. We went through the halfway mark a tad under 1:15 and one of the lead guys (who I later found out was 2:11 marathoner Fernando Cabada) started wondering if we could hit the Colorado state masters marathon record of 2:28. I wanted to slow things down during this hilly section, but hmm maybe? We kept pushing. 3^rd gel at mile 15.
Section 4: 15.2 – 19.2 mi
At this point, the 3rd guy dropped so it was just me and Fernando. This section of the course is long, straight, and back down the gradual uphill we made our way up earlier. Again, he asked, “2:28”? Sure, might as well try. I knew we still had a long way left, but I was feeling good and feeling greedy. We took advantage of the downhill and clicked off a few miles at 5:25. Fourth and final gel going back into the stadium at mile 19.
Section 5: 19.2 – 26.2 mi
I knew this section would be tough. It’s a few miles of flat, before a few miles of gradual uphill through downtown and back into the park. There’s a tight hairpin turn from the bike path up into the streets of downtown and it was here that I felt a quick little spasm in my hamstring. I slowed things down a little hoping to stave off anything more, but both hamstrings and quads completely cramped up right before mile 23. I couldn’t take a step without my legs cramping up again so I stood there for a few minutes debating the DNF. Even my toes started cramping!
After a few painful minutes, I was finally able to move my legs so I decided I would at least walk it in and get a finishing time even if I had to crawl across the line. The last 3 miles were at a slow jog to prevent more cramping, but I ran into a few friends spectating so spirits remained somewhat high through the finish.

Post-race

I’m proud of myself for finishing the race even if it wasn’t the outcome I wanted. I can officially call myself a marathoner. I went for it. I failed, but that's running. My legs had been feeling tight since being sick so maybe that played a part, but I definitely should have increased fluid intake throughout the race. A lot of woulda coulda shouldas, but it was a huge learning experience which was the main point of signing up for this race in the first place.
I'm feeling extra motivated and ready to rip at Chicago. Hope to see some of y’all there!
Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.

i'm curious to learn how you've successfully pitched guests to be on your podcast? what worked? what didn't work? what did you learn? i plan to pitch a few executives, so brevity is critical. i think i need to address whats in it for them first, right? and then outline the commitment (30 minutes, 4-5 questions)... am I thinking about this correctly? What am i missing?

So I’ve got a gig lined up in the city centre which I really want to go to as it’s a band I think are quite good. I had asked friends but no was available or wanted to go. I love going to gigs but never been alone as of yet so I wanted to ask is it really a bad idea to go alone? I’m a young woman which is why I’m slightly hesitant- thankfully the venue is a 5 minute walk from the nearest train station but I know that I’d likely head out a little early just to make sure I get the train home on time. (Do not plan on staying in the city after 10pm so would likely leave the gig at 9:30-9:45 ish) there isn’t a set time for the acts to go on but neither have massive discographies so not anticipating a long setlist and I’d rather leave early and be safe than get a really late train.

So I know it’s an old car but it’s holding on and had regular maintenance. But the past few years the AC only blows cold for like 30 minutes and the car must warm up for about 20 minutes before it would blow cold.
Recently however it only blows cold for like 5 minutes. It’s never had a boost of Freon, so I hope that’s the issue and not the compressor.
Would a compressor issue cause the air to only blow cold for a couple minutes? Any thoughts would be appreciated. I plan to get it diagnosed but I want to go into knowing an idea of what it be.

Alright, so… I (18F) kinda made this reddit account just to get some feedback about this situation, since I’m too ashamed to ask my parents. The girl in question is 16, and is probably one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met…
(TLDR: This girl I was pretending to be friends with in High School obsessively fantasized about murdering someone for an entire semester, is overbearing as a person, interrogates people on a daily basis and is nosy, injects herself into drama that isn’t her own, throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, constantly touches people and makes unwarranted comments about girl’s bodies, asked me to draw CP for her, and MADE FUN OF HER SUICIDAL BROTHER. And I wrote a hate-letter telling her that all of this stuff is a problem, but now I feel bad about it because I think she might actually have mental issues. It’s a really wild ride and a long story, so if you choose to read it, you should expect to be here for a while. And it’s High School drama, so I’ll try to discard the boring details.)
At the beginning of this year, I ended up in a small Sports Medicine class with literally 8 students total in it. That made things quiet, which gave us some room to start talking and getting to know each other after the teacher was done with the lesson and we had our small hands-on tests and assignments out of the way. (The classes took about 20 minutes every day. Really quick and easy. Laid back. It met curriculum requirements actually, because there wasn’t constant bullshit from other students making the lesson longer.). There’s this girl, who… I’ll call her Storm. You’ll find out why. Storm quickly became the most annoying person in the class. Any time she talked, she didn’t have anything interesting to say, but just kept going on and on and on endlessly. It was annoying, but we just kinda played along to be nice. Well… Around a month into school, Storme started opening up and became comfortable talking about personal topics. She told us this story about how one of her other friends (I’ll call her Katie) “betrayed” her the previous year, and then went on to talk about how much she hated Katie and didn’t care if she lived or died. (Honestly, Katie’s offense was miniscule. At most, she replaced Storm with someone else as her best friend. You know… Regular High School drama that wasn’t that deep. I honestly forgot all of what Katie did because it was just so miniscule.) Then Storme started saying ludicrous stuff like “I hope she falls into a volcano”, or “I hope she gets eaten by sharks falling from the sky. Like Sharknado.”. But like… She kept saying it constantly, out loud in class. She ranted about how she wanted Katie to get kidnapped by the Mafia, be flown up to the moon, and be dropped into a black hole to become “Katie-spaghetti”. It was honestly really funny at first, so me and a few other people in the class joined in a little bit and added our own stupid, childlike scenarios. (Katie has a reputation for being… A slut. That’s why it was funny at first.) But then after this schtick got old, Storm just kept going and going and going… She ranted about Katie until it physically hurt to hear her talk anymore. She was back to being annoying and boring again, but it was worse this time because it was obvious that she was trying to re-kindle our intrigue without realizing that she should move on to something else. Instead of assessing herself, she just kept yapping until everyone rolled their eyes every time she opened her mouth, because we knew she would just keep going on and on about all of the stupid ways she wanted Katie to die. Even the damn teacher told her to stop doing that, but she never listened and the teacher eventually just gave up telling her off (And honestly, I think the teacher started zoning her out.). Katie then gradually started to get more morbid with the things she was saying, to the point where I genuinely considered calling the cops and getting this girl some grippy socks. She talked until she became red-faced, started tweaking, and laughed in a neurotic, nervous angry way while she started wringing out her trembling hands. She genuinely looked and sounded unhinged, and what didn’t help was that she started saying stuff like “There aren’t metal detectors in this school, right?”, and “I wish I wasn’t such a good person, because if I wasn’t, I’d be acting on my impulse to cave her skull in the next time I see her. One of these days I’m going to snap and then just do it..” …Yeah, so I was genuinely considering getting the police involved in this because of those two sentences. Thankfully Katie is safe and sound to this day and Storm never acted on these “impulses”. I’m so glad it worked out that I didn’t have to call the cops, but I was seriously worried for a minute… One of my other friends in that class, (I’ll call him Mark), eventually kinda snapped and called her out for being the annoying piece of crap she is. Quickly, Storm and Mark started getting into arguments just about every day and started throwing things like wads of wrapping-tape at each other, and I was becoming worried that they were going to start actually full-on fighting. It doesn’t sound logical in hindsight, but I ended up taking it upon myself to step in and start acting friendly toward her and listening to her (or pretending to listen to her) just to draw her attention away from him. Pretty soon she started talking mostly to me, and this was intentionally done on my part so that the other people in the class could relax a little bit and start doing whatever on their phones and zone her out instead of having to pretend to listen in agony. Ultimately, it was an exchange that benefited everyone, because after Storme got that angry energy out of her, she shut up for the day. She continued to talk about Katie, but mostly to me. She talked about this topic endlessly, her words getting increasingly violent until Christmas break. Yeah… 5 months. She ranted about the ways she wanted Katie to die for 5 whole months. Months. But then when she was done ranting, she finally shut up. …Oh God, the silence sounded like angels singing. I didn’t even really retain any of the information she spewed onto me, but holy crap, when it was over it was like heaven on Earth. So that’s what I did – I acted like the “lightning rod” for this Storm of a person until it passed (kinda). She wrote a note to Katie explaining “You hurt me really badly, but I’m a Christian so I forgive you and I hope you the best”... As if she didn’t rant about her for 5 months straight. Make it make sense. But enough about that. Here’s where my fuck ups began. I gave Storm my number and we quickly started saying that we were friends, though I didn’t actually like her at all and just wanted to keep the peace. We had a few things in common, but I still didn’t like her whatsoever. She continued to rant to me nonstop about Katie, even over text, and I was burnt out listening after a while. So… To dampen the impact of this girl’s obsessive ramblings, I started sending her pictures of my drawings. (I’m an artist). I had characters that I liked to draw that are ocs of an anime fandom (all of which are underage), and she seemed to calm down a bit and hyper-focus on them. She even has a folder in her phone’s gallery completely dedicated to storing my artwork. That’s great and all, but… One day, the topic of Wattpad came up in one of our conversations. I, myself, was one of those cringy Wattpad 12 year olds who made the most illiterate fanfictions ever to be conceived by a human being (They’ve long since been deleted. Thank God, those were awful.) Then… The topic of “Wattpad smut” came up, because I admitted that I used to read those because of the awful grammar and I thought it was funny. I still do sometimes, actually. The way people on Wattpad can’t write to save their lives is just hilarious. Like the stupid “Shrek x Donald Trump” ones are the ones that make me wheeze. I don’t take them seriously, and I love it when the author doesn’t take it seriously either. It’s hilarious. …But then this asshole said: “I don’t like to read bad grammar, it makes me mad. But I do like to read that type of content… For a different reason”. So uhh… That’s… Weird. But then she asked: “Have you found any… Good ones? Do you have any recommendations? Asking for a friend.” …FUCK NO. No thank you. Nope, I’m done. No jerkoff material for you, ma’am. Nope. You’re done. Seriously, I put down my phone for a little bit and went outside to go stare at some birds at the bird feeder until my sickness went away. I fell nauseous because of that (though in hindsight, that seems like an overreaction). When I came back, I didn’t answer that question and kinda skated past it, and that seemed to be the end of it. …But there is NEVER an end with Storm. She DID forget about the resolution to that conversation, but since we talked about smut to begin with, she started asking me some questions about my art. She asked if I had ever drawn p0rn in my life. Of course, I didn’t really admit to anything. I skated past it too, but then she said: “I think (character 1) and (character 2) are really cute together… Like… Really, really cute together.”. That’s great, she likes my characters… Cool, cool. And then my worst nightmare: “Have you ever drawn p0rn of them?” …Of course I didn’t, because that would be CP… Plus I’ve never thought of those characters as being “sexual”... They’re literally 14 and 15 years old. Then basically, she made an indirect “suggestion” for me to draw them together. I said fuck no. Hell fucking no. She tried to convince me to draw them “aged up”, but again I refused. She eventually dropped it, but since then, she passively talked about things of that nature… Like if she saw a guy she thought was cute, she’d tell me she thought he’s cute or hot or gorgeous or whatever and allude to -other- awkward desires that I didn’t want to know about. She put me off from drawing those characters ever again. I haven’t drawn them since and I don’t take my sketchbook to school anymore because I don’t want her to see my drawings and be reminded of that BS.
But enough about that… Storm is a church-going girl, and so she has a few church-going friends. (This also makes everything I’ve said before all the more ironic.). One day when I was transitioning from my 5th to 6th period, I saw her talking angrily to one of her church friends (I’ll call her Isabelle) outside the school building. Storm was accusing Isabelle of lying about smoking weed/vaping and drinking, and she seemed to be so interested in it that you’d think it had an impact on her personally. Isabelle denied doing that, and they eventually parted ways to go to class. I walked with Storm to 6th period (the Sports Medicine period), and I asked her why she was so damn interested in Isabelle’s habits. Know what she said? Storm said “I just don’t like liars.”... So let me get this straight: She thought she had the right to interrogate someone half to death because she just “doesn’t like liars”? Make that make sense. I’ve heard many stories about how Storm interrogates other people, too. If she sees a guy/girl’s name pop up on the screen of someone she knows, she’ll pester them until they give her one of two answers: either “I’ll tell you later”, or the actual answer. She’s done that to me too, in front of everyone in class. The thing that upsets me about this is that she claims to be “nosy”, but thinks it’s a positive attribute rather than an annoying one. She brags about being “nosy” sometimes.
And the sexual assault… Since we were in a sports medicine class, our projects involved a lot of hands-on things. That didn’t bother me by itself, but with Storm, it was a nightmare. This girl, in the process of strapping an ice bag to my thigh, called my thighs “small”, and said that I have a “beautiful body”. We also did shoulder stretching stuff the next week, and I happened to fall under her care while she stared into my eyes and made weird faces at me, all the while she made sound effects and made the process much more uncomfortable than it needed to be. One week, we ended up as partners again and she ended up wrapping my shoulder. This shoulder-wrap wasn’t an issue for me, but having her as a partner made it an issue. As expected, she made sound effects, but this time she stated the obvious as if it was new information that nobody would have ever suspected: “Wow, this is squishing your boobies huh?”... Emphasis on the word “boobies”. Jesus Fucking Christ, it was already awkward as hell before she even brought that up, why would she say something like that?? I didn’t even realize that until she brought it up. In fear of being subjected to her uncomfortable BS again and feeling violated, I texted her and told her that she’s been making me feel uncomfortable, and to please stop being so…. Weird. I get it’s an awkward thing to wrap up your classmate’s thigh, but that’s a moment to keep comments to yourself. Her response? “I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY-” Just… Stop it. I didn’t introduce the topic as a big deal and told her not to worry about it, but she kept apologizing for it nonstop. Just endlessly, like everything else. Even when I tried to change the subject to something else, she just kept apologizing for it practically until she went to bed. (She has a bedtime at 9:30… At 16 years old.) All of this stuff contributed to my overall hatred toward her. I don’t like her at all, and it’s a wonder I didn’t explode and insult her entire personality and deplorable behavior to her face (Meg Griffin style). Things are just so awkward and awful whenever she opens her mouth, and it just doesn't ever stop. But because of all of this, when it came time for my Senior prom, I decided to secretly invite one of my friends from that class as a plus one, and NOT Storm. I was worried that if I told her that to her face, I would all of a sudden be the new “Katie” in her conversations, because the infraction Katie did was so miniscule that it seemed to be less like a “betrayal” than what I did. (In hindsight, it was probably the other way around.) So… I just kept the whole thing to myself and so did the friend I took to prom (I’ll call her Beyonce. Because… She loves Beyonce.).

If this wasn’t bad enough, strap in because not even three weeks ago, Beyonce was doing her usual schtick of making fun of random things. She once made fun of cool whip and the entire state of Texas at the same time and somehow made it make perfect sense. She should really have a comedy show, I swear. But this time, Beyonce was making fun of the name “Gage”, saying “Why would anyone name their kid after a 12-gage shotgun?” and “People named Gage seem untrustworthy. I wouldn’t want to be near one in a zombie apocalypse, because he’d just feed me to those fuckers.”. Funny stuff. Storm then said “My brother’s name is Gage”, and in order to preserve the flow of the conversation (and also to tick her off a little, I’m ngl), Beyonce asked her: “Is your brother untrustworthy?” And then without a single millisecond wasted, she said, in a Disney Channel comedy fashion: “Welll… We can’t trust him with his own life, sooo…”.. And then she laughed as if it was funny. Like.. Rib-stitches type of laughing. ….So then the others (understandably) went quiet, which left only me and her talking for a moment after her laughter quieted down. She complained about how confused she is that nobody finds her joke funny, and said that her joke had the “perfect timing and everything”... So then my idiot ass decided to say what I was thinking at that moment: “You don’t seem to be taking it seriously. That’s your brother, but you don’t sound sympathetic at all.” She tried to “defend” herself, but Mark interjected into the conversation and changed the course of it entirely, which just left her to sit there in silence, pouting. I felt bad for that statement, so I apologized for it over text when I got home from school. Quickly, we erupted into an argument, (with me holding back), and she ended up saying “What does it matter to you? He’s not your brother. If Beyonce said that about her brother, you’d laugh. But when I do, it’s bad.”. Beyonce’s brother is 8 years old…. So no, that would be even worse. …So then I had to explain to her how human decency works, and how making fun of your s*icidal siblings isn’t funny whatsoever and how that joke could be considered to be in very poor taste, even for people who like dark humor. When me, Beyonce or Mark made “suicide” jokes, it was about OURSELVES and it was usually in a statement like “I don’t want to take a test next period, I’m gonna kms.”... …Storm ended up getting so mad that we weren’t having a conversation anymore; we were just throwing shit around. I told her that if she was being livestreamed at that moment, she’d be bashed on the whole internet for a week or so and be called “evil” for that joke. In hindsight I shouldn’t have said that, but my goal was just to tell her how insensitive others might perceive her comment to be. She said that it wasn’t my business to tell her how to feel about her own brother, but I wasn’t doing that at all, that wasn’t my angle whatsoever – I was just explaining what people find funny. I even said repeatedly that I wasn’t trying to tell her how to feel, and that I know comedy can help lighten situations, but somehow she forgot about that part. And then she went on this whole thing about ending every massive text block with “Not that it’s YOUR business, or anything” to snap at me, despite me being in the room at the time of the joke... So I ended the conversation right then and there because it was pointless to keep going and I really didn’t want to spend any more energy on her. The next day, I apologized to her again. I retracted my statements and told her that I was sorry for talking out of line. She accepted the apology, and things went back to “normal”. She forgot about it, but I didn’t. …So here are the reasons why I feel bad, before I delve into the contents of the “hate letter” I wrote to her. Here’s a list of my crimes: 

I pretended to be her friend for an entire school year. - I hid the fact that I was going to prom with Beyonce from her, and then lied to her face repeatedly whenever she asked if I went to prom or not. - I got into business that wasn’t my own and criticized her. - I wrote a hate-letter to her that I directed her to read at home on the last day of school.
…Here’s why I feel bad: Storm doesn’t seem to be emotionally intelligent and is unable to control her mouth whenever she feels strong emotions. She talks nonstop about her second cousin’s friend’s pet hamster’s wife’s sister’s drama, hoping we’ll find something funny or interesting or impressive, while seeming unable to understand that she needs to change her tune. All she wants is to be listened to and understood, but nobody can and nobody truly wants to. She feigns confidence and goes overboard with compliments in the hopes of catching the attention of people who want to be friends with her. She’s not used to change and is very naive, to the point where (just yesterday) she quit her job at a fast food restaurant after only the first day of working there. For the longest time she didn’t have access to the internet, so she doesn’t really have a means to connect with other people through sharing videos or memes or whatever. …I feel like a bad person because I knowingly, intentionally played into all of this just for the pathetic reason of making her shut up in class. It’s despicable what I did, and I’m beating myself up for it every day. I was just originally going to leave the school, block her and never talk to her ever again in my life, but when she made that joke about her brother, I decided (stupidly) to take it upon myself to be the bearer of bad news. I gave her a letter. Within the “hate letter”, it isn’t actually hate, per se. It’s more like… A report on the behavior she needs to fix, as well as an admission to my lies over the course of this whole year. I told her the awful truth. I told her about everything I mentioned in this post and tried to keep it “professional”, though I did end up going as far as to say “you have all of the attributes of an obnoxious piece of stale bread”........... And what’s worse is… I told her to read it on the last day of school, and my reasoning is pathetic at best. I told her to read it on the last day of school because I didn’t want her to burden the class with her nonstop ranting about me, since she, Mark and Beyonce are sophomores and I’m the only senior in the “friend group”, which means that I left the school an entire week earlier than them. I’ve been intentionally delaying her pain and still talking to her over text acting like things are “normal” so that she doesn’t read it early, knowing damn well that on that last day of school, my words are going to hurt her so badly that she might not be able to recover for a while. In the letter, I told her that by the time she reads it, I would have already blocked her because I don’t want any more conversation with her due to me feeling so bad and having nothing more to say. If the plan goes right, she’ll read it on May 23rd, and on that day I will block her.

I feel awful for all of this. I feel like a monster for this. It’s painful knowing that I’m going to cause her pain and that I planned when it’s going to happen, but at the same time I feel like she deserves it. But at the same time, I know damn well that it wasn’t my place to do that. I should have left everything alone. Nobody I can talk to irl would even hear me out; they’d just stop at the words “hate letter”, which means my only option is to seek advice from people on Reddit. Do my motives for doing things make sense? Am I actually a bad person for this? Am I the asshole? Does she deserve what she’s getting? 

Edit 1: I removed some asterisks (they're annoying).

I'm an INFP guy in my 30's, and am currently living with my parents temporarily while i get a new place... my dad is an ISTJ.
My dad has never been emotionally available, encouraging, supportive.. we never have had meaningful conversations literally ever... he has mellowed out *a little* since retiring, but still overall seems insensitive a lot.
A little backstory, the past few years have easily been the toughest of my life, some very traumatic and painful things I've been going through... my dad involuntarily and unjustly sent me to a psych ward because he was concerned that i was depressed... he spent tons of money to convince a judge that he had good intentions and as a grown adult, police forced me away for 5 days, which ruined trust issues with my parents and caused lots of mental problems for me in the seven years since...
my parents apologized after the incident and admitted they misjudged me and made a mistake in thinking i was depressed. stupid fucking move if you ask me.
Anyways, this past year has been incredibly painful, dififcult for many reasons... I'm just trying to move forward in life and turn things around... and it was just easier for me to move back in with my family during this time, which they allowed...
Most recently, my dad has been wanting me to move out very soon and he is very aware that this is the toughest, most pivotal, delicate, painful time of my life by far... i've told him to just be patient and not force me to move out...
Two days ago he calmly asked me if we could meet at the park to talk about my living situation, how he came up with a time frame on me moving out and that he wants to discuss it... which couldn't have been worse timing, as i just recently began working a new job and aside from this stressful job, i have a ton of very difficult things going on,
and instantly when i began talking about how i have a lot going on, he cuts me off and doesn't even allow me to talk... i ask him to stop cutting me off, and soon after as i'm calmly talking, he gets angry..
i then calmly asked him to stop being insensitive, and to be understanding that i don't know when we'll meet... and he said it has to be less than two weeks, and during the toughest time of my life, and with work and the countless other very painful and difficult things i'm working through, i just couldn't agree to a time,
and i said to please be patient, and starts threatening me saying "if we don't meet, i'm just going to make a decision and you won't like it", meaning he'll kick me out,
and i begin asking him to be gentle and sensitive, how i've been asking him this for years, how he's always been insensitive since forever, and he begins turning up his TV volume loud to drown me out, and i get more hurt and begin crying a bit, and he is just cold and insensitive,
and gets angry and/or shuts me out by turning up the tv volume...
the confusing part is, he has a four year old grandson, a sweet boy that is my sisters son... i'm the uncle.. and my as the grandfather, my dad is always gentle and kind towards him,
and here's me, a child at heart who always stayed true to himself and the little boy within him.. .i remained a gentle childlike soul who still loves the same things i did as a boy... climbing trees and playing outside, art and music... i'm true to the boy i was...
and then i began saying how i'm a child at heart and how he's kind to his grandson and so why not me? and he began turning up the tv volume again and not responding..
i then asked him to just be gentle, and i was very hurt and talking a bit loud and as a petty defense mechanism my dad goes "oh, you're being gentle?", because i was emotional and expressing my feelings a bit loudly.
i walked away into a different room in heavy tears, about 30 minutes later wrote a note about how i'm going through the most painful time of my life, to please stop adding pressure into my life, and how i'm a gentle child at heart...
and soon after i heard a very loud bang noise from the kitchen, and i walked in and saw my piece of paper i poured my heart into, and it was taken off the counter i placed it on with tape, and placed to the side on this desk in the kitchen...
so he got mad and banged the fridge or something, and took the paper and cast it aside, like me and my feelings...
i don't understand why he would be so harsh and cold towards me his son, who he says he loves, but gentle and kind towards his grandson.
tl;dr yep

Hello everyone. I have been having an ongoing issue that I’ve been too busy to resolve as it isn’t normally a major problem. Basically, when I first wake up my G14 2021, it will freeze typically around 1-3 minutes. During this time, most apps do not function correctly, and many don’t work at all (chrome and discord are just a couple that I’ve observed). Pressing the windows key doesn’t work, and neither does clicking most icons on the toolbar. My keyboards lighting turns off as well. I’m sure there’s other symptoms I haven’t noticed. After it’s done doing that, any clicks I made on chrome during the freeze will all catch up (ie, if it was frozen and i clicked on a new tab, once it is unfrozen it will update and go to that tab). The page I was on at the time of freezing will also say “connection interrupted; your computer went to sleep” sometimes. BTW - apps do not hafe a "_______ is not responding" message.
I’ve had this issue for a 2 or 3 months now, and I thought it resolved itself as it didn’t do they for the past week or two. Unfortunately, it started back up again. It happens if I am plugged in, not plugged in, any power plan. I’m not sure what causes it, but 99% of the time it’ll freeze a couple times in the first 5 or so minutes of being woken up and then won’t do it again for some time.
Does anyone have any idea what could cause this? It may be worth noting that I have G14 Control V2 downloaded, though I didn’t mess with any settings that correlated with the start of this issue.
Here's my machine's information: ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401QM Device name LAPTOP-SQHS5KRD Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS with Radeon Graphics 3.30 GHz Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.4 GB usable) Device ID FE03D86F-5CFF-4946-A138-93BF9F63B569 Product ID 00325-80000-00000-AAOEM System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

I live in Bergen Aan Zee due to the housing crisis me and my wife had found a nice house that we rent for about 1200 euros per month. The first job I got which i started about a year and a half ago is with Thuisbezorgd as a hub driver in Amsterdam (you show up to their sloterdjyk hub, they give you an e Bike and you start your shift) My main issue atm is the effort required to do this job while living in Bergen /Alkmaar.. I basically have to cycle 30 plus minutes to Alkmaar station with a flooding bike then commute via NS to Sloterdjyk every damn day (which is heel duur).. this commute is physically exhausting and both existentially, after a long hard day doing deliveries in the rain, i still have to travel so long to get back, and most usually my shifts go overtime.. this is also affecting my marriage as by the time im home im physically exhausted to even consider time with my wife.. the only reason i do it like this is because its the first job ive had in this country and im so scared to even consider another option due to how expensive it is to live here without having a solid plan b.. should i try transfer to alkmaar ? I'd have to rent my own bike as there is no hub in Alkmaar .. thank you in advance for the help

I'm planning a photoshoot for my boss and I'm looking for a location within 30 minutes of Glastonbury. We're taking the first set of photos in her office so ideally I'd like the second location to be outside.
This is for next Thursday so I'm hoping the weather will continue to be nice. She's a motivational speaker, author & podcast host. I don't want the photos to look sterile.
I'd love any ideas. Thoughts?!

I read this sub pretty religiously for about a month before my procedure. I wasn't planning on writing anything post-op, but I decided to because I think most men who have things go well often won't follow up on this sub again. I saw a lot of horror stories posted here because that group is more likely to engage post-op to share their experiences. I certainly don't mean to come off as dismissive regarding anyone else's experience, and everyone should go into this knowing the risks.
Anyway, I'm just about to hit 24-hours post-procedure. The procedure itself was easier than a dental appointment. I certainly had some stress and anxiety going into wondering if I was making the right decision and how painful the procedure might be. I opted for the valium, which my doc gives via injection - no luck on that; he couldn't get a good vein, so I ended up going without. Getting stuck by the needle in my arm and then removing the tape from my arm hair was the most painful part of the procedure. Otherwise, in the actual procedure, I felt essentially nothing then, maybe a 1 or 2 out of 10 sensations during the snip and initial no-scalpel entry. Literally, everyday day life with balls is more painful when you sit on them the wrong way or something. No pulling sensations or anything else. All in the procedure lasted probably 15-20 minutes, and I just chatted with the doctor through the whole thing. He threw in a single dissolvable stitch to close the no-scalpel entry point. I think the doctor you chose makes a difference, I went with a urologist who also does microsurgery reversals. The procedure for me was closed on both ends and cauterized, btw.
He sent me home with a course of antibiotics and underwear full of gauze. I had some slight blood spotting into the gauze for a few hours, and the tiniest of amount this morning when I woke up. I've had zero bruising so far (still early, could develop, I suppose), and I had almost zero swelling. Maybe a little fit directly at the inflamed incision site, but that's it. I started on my previous script for meloxicam and took a healthy dose of Tylenol last night. Pain was about a 2/10, with a flicked in the left nut sensation. I have a similar feeling today, maybe closer to 1.5/10 now, and I'm not taking any pain meds. I've just been laid up on the couch, icing as much as possible to stay ahead of the swelling, and taking it easy.
That's it. So far, so good; hopefully, this continues, and I plan to keep taking it easier to avoid any complications. I think many guys do too much too soon and end up with some serious bleeding or swelling that significantly delays their healing. I'm a very active early 30-year-old guy, but I'm just trying to temper my expectations and probably won't return to the gym until I hit the two-week mark to play it safe.

Okay. So here is the deal. I’m 25f and I’m burnt out as hell. I just finished a three month backpacking trip and I’m not ready to go back to a job as a horticulturist/botanist. When I left all I knew was that when I came back I wanted to live in New Orleans, I got a job lined up and was ready to full send but when I got back the company pulled some unprofessional shit and gave the position away to someone else. Wild. I think I dodged a bullet. Now I’m hiding out in Tennessee. But I have an apartment lined up in New Orleans- super cheap rent, but no job. I have a potential job offer in Philadelphia- no apartment yet but probably expensive, the job would keep me at the same level career wise. Third option is in St. Louis- I dread going back to the Midwest but the job advances me career wise in a really positive way.
I would ask my aunt and uncle, but god love them, they live in the middle of Tennessee 30 minutes away from civilization for a reason, so their advice is a bit skewed.
I think what led me to such burn out was always prioritizing my work over my mental health. I was at the top of my game before I left my old city, in the highest paying position with the coolest professional development and I left under duress and emotionally snapping from PTSD. I’ve learned I need to eliminate as many stresses as possible and money has always been a stressor for me, being financial stable and able to take care of my self so I would never have to rely on my family has been my sole focus for years. My family has money, but I refuse to take from them because they are rather abusive and can’t comprehend it. I want to eventually move back to Europe and not be in America anymore and trying to solidify a path to do that but I need to make some decisions in the moment before I can make that plan a reality.
So to break it down,
Do I suffer career wise in New Orleans but be happy in my living environment? Do I suffer in my living environment but gain career development in St. Louis? Do I suffer financially and stay stagnant in career development in Philadelphia?
Any advice would be great.

Was on a frozen planet for a bounty, had 80 in my Thermal protection. Only got about 10-15 minutes before my health bar was half orange. And most of this time was spent inside a cave.
I can understand when there's a storm happening or you're stood next to a corrosive gas vent it ticks down quickly. But just ambient levels killing you in about 20 minutes is too quick, especially when there's no way to mitigate it other than "Just sit in your space ship for 5 minutes every 10 minutes". I know a lot of things are done for gameplay over logic, but it seems weird that... no one has made suits better? Workers can't be outside for 10 minutes before getting hypothermia and no company has gone "This is costing us lots of time and resources".
Some suggestions on making this easier:

• Ambient temperatures, radiation, etc should tick down a LOT slower. Could also slow down how often the damn tick noise happens.
• Ways to temporary buff your protections. I know NMS has a meter you can recharge, but this gets tedious quickly. Just add consumables that buffs a single protection by 50 for an hour or 100 for 30 mins.
• Easier ways to change/increase the protection stats of armor. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I don't know if any mods increase this. I know there's the pre-fixes you can get that give +25 to something. Just have mod slots on armor and helms that allow you to give small amounts of protection. For example, with no ranks you can add +5 to one type. Rank 1, two types get +5, etc, to Rank 4 you can have all types get +5 or two get +10. This (and consumables) let you plan ahead or negate some of the RNG of equipment stats by letting you modify them slightly.
• POIs should have ways that negate these when you're near. For example, on frozen planets the POIs should have industrial outdoor heaters to keep people who are there (originally workers, now raiders) alive. Or have more POIs that have "protection domes" over them that half the severity of ambient/weather effects.

Also a side grievance; you don't need to keep telling me I have orange health bar damage. I'm aware!

Hi I hope it’s okay to ask this here. So I went to EDC this weekend, I had a flight leaving at 8:00pm yesterday. Tbh I am kind of a heavy drinker. I barely drank during the festival though. I got to the airport at 3:00pm had a bloody marry at 3:30, had a glass of white wine at 5:30 then a second at 6:30. I was eating during this time as well. Around 7:30 right before my flight leaves I decide I’ll do one more glass of wine to be kind of toasty drunk on the plane, not going crazy, and please know I am a heavy drinker and I had these drinks hours apart from each other. The third glass of wine is when things get hazy, for some reason I texted my ex to pick me up from the airport I was arriving at, when that was never my plan at all, I was going to just Uber to my house. I have NO MEMORY of my flight, how I got to my seat, nothing. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and waking up (while I’m standing) in the middle of the SeaTac airport. The girl I sat next to on the plane (again no memory of this) was helping me and trying to ask me how I was getting home. I told her I was going to call my ex, and she told me not to do that. Again, I have no clue why I wanted to have my ex get me, and he would have said no anyway, I was always going to get an Uber. She told me she didn’t want me in a Uber in my state and drove me home. So ya, I had a staggered helping of 3 1/2 drinks over a 5 hour stretch and then lost 3 hours of my memory. I’m still confused right now even. And I did weird things when I got home. Could this also just be sleep deprivation? I’m also not the kind of person that blacks out. Also weirdly when I got home, I didn’t realize that I had no memory of my flight for hours, and suddenly I realized that isn’t right. What do you think?
P.s. I’m asking in here because some people may not have realized this but the airport was a bit of a party in some areas, particularly the bar area/ gate I was sitting in. They were playing edm music and stuff. Also as I get my memory I’m realizing there was this raver guy hanging around me right around the time things for fuzzy for me. I’m trying to ask all my friends and even my parents and NO ONE is taking me seriously. Everyone just thinks I got fucked up, or that I didn’t take care of myself at the festival. But I have never fully lost 3 hours of my memory ever.

Long time lurker; first-time poster.
I’m sharing my story in the hopes that there are others who can relate.
In retrospect, I drank heavily throughout my 20s. I never flagged it as a serious issue, as it was just the city life that everyone around me was also partaking in. I grappled with intermittent anxiety and panic attacks, but never connected the dots.
I shudder when I think about the compromising situations I put myself in while dating; the risky behaviour and questionable choices I made.
I escaped relatively unscathed and continued to drink socially into my 30s. The only elongated stretch of total sobriety occurred when I had my daughter.
As soon as she popped out, I began to drink again. Only this time, mixing alcohol with the newfound stress of first-time parenthood didn’t go down as smoothly.
I began to connect the dots.
The 30-minute buzz turned into 3-day hangovers. The quantities I was drinking were not extreme - and quite frankly irrelevant - as any amount of alcohol began affecting the days directly after.
I took some breaks. I felt better. As soon as I started feeling better, I figured “Why not? One drink won’t hurt.”
But it always does.
One drink makes me a less present parent the next day. It also usually leads to a second drink, which makes me an emotional and confrontational partner. A third drink derails me from my plans; healthy eating goes out the window, moving my body feels impossible.
I’ve had frequent stretches of prolonged sobriety over the last year. A month here. A few weeks there.
I always feel so good.
Last weekend, after a night of a few drinks, the next morning I found myself being short with my toddler. I could feel my anxiety boiling up as she just bounced around doing normal toddler shit. I lost that precious morning with her to my hangover. I was only there in body; my mind was elsewhere.
But this time I realized I really have had enough. It doesn’t matter if I don’t drink copious amounts or actually get drunk anymore. Any amount of drinking makes me feel like I’m living life on hard mode unnecessarily.
And this is why I’m coming out of lurking to share my story. I’m ready to do this.
IWNDWYT

At the time of this post 145 thousand people are still without power going on almost 6 days without power. Tornado wiped out our power grid in select areas throughout Texas (I believe the number was about 800 thousand people got hit without power). Here's some things I learned and a situation report of my experience living with a very large family of mixed ages.
Context: We had been getting hit with some pretty gnarly weather however business as usual in Texas. I didn't think much of it usually when our grids down they're pretty quick to respond minus the snow storm years back. So when I heard there was a storm brewing I didn't even flinch I always keep some very very basics, battery's, lights, water, 2 weeks minimum of non perishable foods, self defense protection, and ammo, etc. But I hardly consider myself a prepper anymore, but I know some people don't even have that.
I use to be really on top of my preps overtime, however my stockpile had dwindled, as did my thirst for knowledge and hands on experience/training. I just honestly wasn't on top of my game anymore, and quit taking this as serious years ago. This tornado really brought me back to reality, so this post is mostly for entry level preppers looking at some practical advice from a 5 day experience, I fully regret the fact I quit taking this serious years ago.
First Day: Around 6pm, emergency alert on phone stating tornado in your area, seek shelter immediately. Thought ok let's shelter in the master bedroom closet. Wind rocked the house pretty good, could hear limbs from tree's falling, within about 10 minutes the power shuts off, and glancing outside within a hour the streets flooded. The storm had died down, as did the flooding, and it was time to asses the damage in the immediate area. Got in the car, power had blown out pretty much every store/house within a several mile zone. Found one square zone with a few places that had power, got some fast food but waited about 30 minutes because everyone went there.
What I wish I had on day one/ and general notes:
Rain boots: The streets had not only flooded but was blocked by limbs in the roadway. Luckily our flooding wasn't too severe but had it been I wish I did have rainboots so normal shoes didn't get soaked, or some type of beach sandals, etc.
Chainsaw, electric saw, axes, regular saw: Would of come in handy if the limbs in our area blocking the road were any bigger.
Higher up vehicles: Some vehicles couldn't make it through the flood due to being so low to the ground, so take into account your vehicles.
More variety of quality flashlights: Electric Lanterns came in clutch, but wish I had more handhelds, head mounted, and higher end lanterns.
Battery Inventory checks: Wish I had not only more batteries cause you really do burn through these quick, but wish I had checked all my lights battery condition, and stored new batteries in waterproof containers.
Alternative sources to battery's: Not a huge fan of candles due to fire risk, but some not scented beeswax or soy based candles would of came in handy to help ration battery supply. Maybe glass lanterns as well for safety and ease of transport. Glowsticks would of been great option too.
Car chargers: Believe it or not some of us didn't have car chargers for our cell phones cause we mostly charge our phones at home, although we were able to share, wish we had this on day one for all our phones.
Fully charged portable battery bank, or portable phone chargers: If we had this we wouldn't of been out in our cars late at night charging stuff putting us at more risk for being possible victims to crime.
Quality of cell phone, and cellphone provider: Have a POS phone but keep putting off upgrading it? Don't. Luckily mine was good but some of our cellphone providers carriers had better signal then others, some of are phones were in bad shape and it was noted we wish we didn't put off upgrading it sooner. You can't predict how well your provider will do but maybe do your research, unsure how this works but now I can do my research and learn from it. I had 0 issues with boost mobile but other family members weren't so lucky.
Cash: This is obvious but due to us moving towards a cashless society its pretty uncommon, but this would of came in handy due to how many places didn't have power. You can do so much with cash.
Battery powered or rechargeable camping fans: I did have one of these, it even had a light but wish I had more.
Larger ice chest: Now we had a few, but they were smaller. We lost everything in our fridge/freezer besides canned drinks, I mean everything. We had just bought grocery's too, lesson learned.
OTC sleeping medication: We had melatonin, and Tylenol pm, but it was so quiet you could hear a mouse sneeze a block over, until the generators turned on. First two are OK options but given its only going to be cool at night, and we knew tomorrow would be hot, we took kratom to sleep. Check your area some states it's illegal, not recommending it but it's what we used. I wish I had stockpiled more kratom, I took it when I got the flu on top of C word to relieve body aches and found out it really helped me sleep and ease pain/stress. Usually cycle this 3 days on max, one day off to prevent habit forming.
(This is really for day two + but ill post this here cause I noticed it on day one)
Backup supply of my personal vices or quitting personal vices: I know this may sound stupid but I am fully addicted to caffeine, and nicotine. I picked my poison and know what I signed up for. Caffeine really? yeah really not sure if you know this but for some people caffeine withdrawal can make you really suffer, and I mean really suffer check out decaf. I was in the process of lowering my caff intake to 1 cup of tea a day, and quit soda. Was one month off soda before the storm came in, but had to relapse due to us not carrying high caff tea on supply.
But yeah stock up on your vices so you aren't going through withdrawals during an emergency. Was on 3mg per ml of nicotine and had to dish out 30$ for a disposable vape thats 50mg per ml at a gas station on day two to prevent withdrawals. So I was on way higher dose of nic then usual due to only being able to purchase what I could find, for reference 50mg per ml if you use that in 10 days thats about a pack of ciggs worth of nic per day. So yeah either quit your vice or stock up, I don't advocate hard drugs at all so this isn't for that but this is mainly aimed at coffee/caff use, etc. Instant coffee packs may be great for some people.
Battery powered radio: Can't stress enough how mentally taxing silence can be long term. We had one, but the battery port crapped out. Lesson learned, test your preps.
Backup food for your pet friends: Luckily I was pretty good on pet food but imagine if I wasn't, and this was more severe.
Water situation: Had a decent amount of drinking water, we had running water. If we didn't I would say I wish I had filled up the giant jugs I bought for flushing the toilet/doing dishes or running through a berkey water filter if we ran out of drinking water. I had bought 5 gallon blue jugs specifically for this years back. However I cleaned them out, and didn't refill, Lesson learned.
2nd Day: We were able to cook some stuff on a gas stove, luckily. People at gas stations were stocking up on ice, filling their gas cans up for their generators, and shelves were getting empty at stores with power only on some things though wasn't too bad cause the power outage was scattered some had power, others didn't. Mostly a waiting game at this point, most of the preps I wish I had on this day were the same as day one, but ill toss in some stuff I wish I had. Obtained a portable battery powered radio, the morale boost was real for everyone, even the dogs.
What I wish I had on day two/ and general notes:
BBQ style lighters to light gas stove: We had two but recently tossed em out due to being empty. Realized I had no bics, and only had one box of matches, feels bad man.
Entertainment: Board games like checkers, board games for kids, chess, basic poker set, etc. These would of been awesome and a great way to keep the kids entertained and the adults, the boredom was real. We hit local goodwill's that had power to look for radios, and cheap prep supplies and games, but no luck.
Third day: By then reality set in for most people, neighbors who could afford to do so booked hotels or bugged out to places with power. The generators really started up by day three, everyone was buying gas for them and you could hear them in almost every direction. Pretty sure some people had it from the start but noticed them more by day three. A lot of people were sitting outside the front of their homes trying to escape the heat. Ice from most places were completely sold out, so you had to really shop around to find any.
Finding news about the power outage day 1-3 was kind of hit and miss, KHOU news updates were pretty short and it took us some time to know how severe the storms damage actually was, cause we were focused on trying to get stuff done around the house and conserving battery. I believe at one point CenterPoint's actual website went down. Mostly resulted to local news channels, and nextdoor app. We couldn't watch live news and had to rely on when KHOU posted youtube videos.
Private security company's hired guards and they started patrolling certain stores that could afford the security, obviously to deter looters. Traffic everywhere was insane in every which direction during peak hours more then usual, PD presence was pretty high, more then usual.
What I wish I had on day three/ and general notes:
Generator: Pretty obvious why, had no experience with them but wish I did, and wish I bought one pre-blackout when I was more into prepping and took time to learn about them and how to use and maintain them properly.
Ham radio: Or something to pick up on local freqs to monitor radio comms for information regarding the storm and local activity if any. I think this may of been better then waiting on local news to post videos.
Day Four: Buddy had power so he dropped off his generator and gave me quick instructions on how to run it, how far away to place them, etc. By day four the temps really ramped up, and this thing definitely kept us cool. When you think of bartering you think of some post apocalypse stuff, but no. In reality you can barter during any emergency, buddy dropped it off free of charge but was able to offer some booze as a thank you. So even if you don't drink stock up on booze/ciggs to barter, never know what you might trade it for. Times are tough in this economy and I honestly didn't have much money to spare, family had to pool our funds together to get last minute preps to survive this, cause we didn't know how long this would really last. In certain areas they said it could be weeks. However the alcohol was a small thank you that I could afford and he was happy so all worked out.
Gas cans were sold out, and extension cord supply's were looking extremely low at local hardware store. From what I overheard they also completely sold out of generators. Honestly wish I knew more about electrical stuff but my buddy gave me a small crash course in wiring everything. You can't just plug it in and pray for the best. Bought the best gauge extensions cords I could afford for our needs, and the distance and hooked it up.
We ran one bedroom AC unit, fans for the dogs, wired a light, and a charging station. Also don't cheap out on gas cans it's not worth blowing your face off or starting a fire, or having it leak. If you get a generator do your research on how to properly run it, and safely fill it. Crime in this area can be fairly high we've had a few drive by shootings and other not so good police involved things. Read this book along time ago about post collapse security, so I blacked out our windows so when we turned lights on no one knew we had power. You may hear the generator, but from the street we look like we don't have anything going for us. My biggest fear was looters from people who were less fortunate or really down bad. We near a common site for homeless people as well so they foot traffic the area.
Generators are very loud, between that and listening to the radio 12 hours a day, I was beginning to audio hallucinate lyrics that weren't there with the radio off, and suffered from heat exhaustion. That and the fact we had homeless in our area and tweekers who might loot I was running off adrenaline a bit. 24 hours almost that night without sleep, and didn't even feel tired. Slept near my firearm until my family woke up at daylight and when daylight hit I knew we were in the clear and I passed out.
What I wish I had on day fou and general notes:
Knowledge of generators.
Knowledge about electricity/wiring them safely.
Security: Some type of physical alarm bell to put on the door like metal door knob alarm bells so it jingles if anyone enters to alert the dogs, had to keep the door slightly cracked so the wires hooked up to the generator would fit. So we couldn't lock the door, which is probably where my anxiety of tweekers coming in came from.
Day Five: Same shit different day, power came on that evening.
Conclusion: Just cause it doesn't look like societal collapse or WW3 prep your shit for emergency's native to your area or go beyond, idc but prep. They ain't coming to help for awhile, or at all if it's very severe...so it's up to you and your community to pull through. This was a wake up call, thanks for coming to my prep talk.