Small Talk: The Prayer Closet

[lookeyloo]

15 minutes ago, Jeeves said:

Bringing this over from the Jinger topic. That's an interesting comment, @lookeyloo. I want to be as sensible as you, when I grow up.

I started reading Kondo's book way back when it was first a big splash. I got so friggin' irritated early on with the "apologize to your socks for folding them wrong" stuff that if it had been a paper copy I would have thrown it against a wall. But since it was on my iPad's Kindle app I just deleted it from my device and moved on.

I never got past the animism, or her obsession with handling and thinking about the physical objects in her life. Sure, in her case she related that her obsession took the form of constantly tidying up her room as a child and her space in general whatever it was. IMO that's just the other end of the spectrum from so many of the hoarders we've seen on TV. I got interested enough to read some books about hoarding. I came to understand that many hoarders think of each item they encounter as having significance, and even feelings. I still remember the account of a woman talking about the foil lid of a yogurt container, when asked about throwing it away. She described thinking of how lonely and abandoned it would feel as it fell into the trash, and eventually was in a bag sliding down a trash chute and then on a truck going to the landfill. 

Just, no. I have my own kinds of crazy going here, and I do NOT need add to it by having conversations with my frigging socks. Or the extra roll of duct tape, or the potato peeler. 

When it comes to physical objects, my joy is sparked by my camera gear. Well, except the tripods; they are a PITA but necessary. Years ago I had just a bit of that gear, and it was kept nicely on a couple of shelves in a hall closet. Over time I got more, and it sprawled out in that closet and across different places in my condo. It was out of control, and annoying, and inconvenient, and I knew that Something Must Be Done. In the meantime, I really need the shelves in that front hall closet for kitchen stuff (small condo kitchen, can't leave a ton of nonsense cluttering the counters). 

I started in my home office, with a big paper scanning/tossing/shredding festival that cleared out two of the four drawers in my lateral file cabinet, and a book-purging project that cleared out a double bookcase. I migrated lots of camera stuff onto the shelves but it was a mass of ugly plastic boxes and unruly piles, and camera gear was still in the hall closet - and I couldn't find a set of extension tubes I KNEW I had purchased. Aargh!

Finally, last week I got 'er done. Used a lot of two-dollar "photo storage" boxes from Michael's which are a great size for a few items each of most camera gear. Even my big 70-200mm f4 lens fits in one of them. All the camera gear is either neatly stashed in those boxes on the shelves or tidied away in plastic boxes in one of the nice deep drawers in the file cabinet. All of it is now protected from dust, there are little desiccant pouches in the boxes, and all the boxes are labeled. And, I found the extension tubes. The hall closet shelves have been reclaimed to house kitchen stuff. No more clutter on top of the fridge. It all feels good.

Of course I just shared TMI. If your eyes haven't glazed over yet, I'm posting a snapshot - view from my desk - of the bookcase shelves with boxes, and the reclaimed closet shelves. I bought all the black boxes I could find at Michael's and then another six assorted brown and white ones. There are also a few boxes there that I already owned which contain photos to be, someday, scanned. It's not House Beautiful and the labels are temporary post-its, but it's tidy. And I'm calm about where to find things.

Before I pop the photo in here, my best wishes for all of you being slammed by that polar vortex or whatever fancy word they are using for the insane cold temperatures. We got just brushed by that stuff with the snow on Monday and have been spared the deep freeze temps. I hope you and yours will be safe and warm till the craziness is over.

 

Those closets look great!!!  As for joy sparking, it came at the end when everything was done.  Another thing I did was roll the towels in the linen closet.  And, that doesn't take long and there is more room.  I really don't understand why with the folding and standing things up in drawers and rolling towels why the same amount of things takes up less room.

[Barb23]

@lookeyloo & @Jeeves & any other cleaners/reorganizers out there: Congrats on your endeavors & they look & sound great.  I did a thorough cleaning up & cleaning out of our house years ago while I was between jobs.   I found things I never knew I had, like a mini vac. (Still don't remember where it came from.) I've only heard of Marie Kondo recently from my home nurse. I saw on the news that Goodwill & other thrift stores are being inundated with donations from people following Kondo but they love it. 

My sister & I have both decided our houses need a thorough cleaning out after dealing with cleaning out my mother's house since she's gone to assisted living.  Mom saved everything including a newspaper article about our old dentist & his mother getting arrested in Wyoming for stealing gold artifacts from a wilderness type museum.  Yes, it was a real story  & interesting at the time, about 35 years ago, but not newsworthy enough to cut out & save. 

Happy cleaning & reorganizing everyone!

[doodlebug]

-2 in Cleveland with wind chills to -20 or so.  I am working because my employer says so.  I had 12 appointments scheduled for this morning, all but 2 have canceled and I will be referring both of them to psych.  4 of 12 remaining for this afternoon so I am dabbling online and cutting out a quilt at my desk.

Weird fundie encounter: Yesterday, I was working at an inner city clinic run by my employer.  It was about 15F out and bitter.  Our clinic is in a shopping center and at lunchtime I crossed the lot to the local fast food joint.  As I was trudging over there, 2 young guys on bikes (15 degrees and windy, people!) stopped me dead in my tracks.  They were clean-cut, very Caucasian and both wore jackets with some sort of Jesus ministry logo on them I'd never seen before.  They wanted to know if they could talk to me about Jesus, right there, in the center of a parking lot, in the dead of winter.  I asked why and they said they wanted to see if I knew about Him.  I told them that, as a practicing Catholic, I felt pretty good about my Jesus knowledge and kept walking. They seemed surprised that I didn't want to chat with them and then, strangely enough, asked me if I happened to know anyone who would like to talk to them about Jesus.  I pointed out that, if I did, I already knew where to send such people and they then asked why not send these people to them.  Huh!  So, I kinda lit into them a bit, told them that a. it was too cold to have this convo right there, b. I'll bet that they don't consider me, a Catholic, to be a Christian (blank, open mouthed stares but didn't disagree) and c.  I'll bet their version of Jesus says that homosexuals are going to hell and was probably not very tolerant of others who are not like them.  They rode away without saying anything further.  Weird, it was like a movie or something, I was looking for the camera.

[Scarlett45]

Im baking blueberry bread! Enjoying not being at work -17 in Chicago right now. I am toasty warm, loving my new windows. 

[Zella]

Hope all our Midwestern Duggar snarkers stay warm and safe today! Talking to one of my former bosses/teachers who now lives in Northern Missouri. She said the wind chill there today was forecast to be -45. Yikes!

[Minivanessa]

1 hour ago, Barb23 said:

My sister & I have both decided our houses need a thorough cleaning out after dealing with cleaning out my mother's house since she's gone to assisted living.  Mom saved everything including a newspaper article about our old dentist & his mother getting arrested in Wyoming for stealing gold artifacts from a wilderness type museum.  Yes, it was a real story  & interesting at the time, about 35 years ago, but not newsworthy enough to cut out & save. 

Happy cleaning & reorganizing everyone!

Thanks, @Barb23. I know what you mean about having had to clear out your mother's house and how it affects your view of your own home.

I've seen that up close, with friends/cousins who have had to deal with parents' homes after they died. It's kind of become a joke between my cousin and me. When I go on a "big trip" (i.e., another country), I will tease her and ask what kind of souvenirs I should bring her. She throws up her hands and repeats her "No more stuff - please!" mantra. She went through a long hard slog when her father in law died; he left a large house full of nice stuff that her husband and his brother (and their wives) spent quite a while clearing out and getting ready to sell. They were both working back then, and it seemed they spent every weekend for months driving 3 hour round trip up there to work on the house. It wasn't a cluttered mess but he had a lot of stuff. He'd been there a long time. She told me they went through everything and, for example, found more than a dozen nail clippers, and cans and boxes in the pantry that had sell-by dates of long long ago. More recently she had to deal with her parents' house, but it was close to home and she had her whole crew of adult kids and their spouses to help. 

My mom died after having lived in an apartment for several years, and clearing out her stuff was a job that with two of us didn't take very long. In the wake of her sudden death that was a blessing.

I live alone and long ago downsized into this condo. But I periodically purge the excess and clean up what remains. I really like the concept of Swedish Death Cleaning. I read the book and haven't yet gotten down to brass tacks on some of the ideas. However, I posted above that last year I disposed of 2.5 big file drawers' worth of paper, and a double bookcase's volume of books. Also, I recently hauled a big load of mostly clothes to a charity shop, and have a big box of stuff ready to go to Goodwill when the weather improves. 

TBH, I'm feeling disgustingly happy with myself today, because I've prepared my 2018 income tax returns as of last night. I have *never* been that early with them and in the past I have been known to file that extension form on April 15. Just saying. 

[MargeGunderson]

@Jeeves, I love the idea of Swedish Death Cleaning and found that book so interesting! I'm generally pretty on top of purging stuff I don't want and organizing; I try to go through every room twice a year. I'm spectacularly unsentimental which helps when you're trying to get rid of things. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, could use a little help with cleaning out her stuff. It's not that she cares about the stuff, she's just not interested in getting rid of things (even the stuff that she doesn't care about). She's said that my husband and I will just have to deal with it when she's dead. We're renting a dumpster and throwing out 99% of her stuff. For now, we take everything she wants to give us, even if we turn around and take it right to Goodwill when we get home.

I hope everyone experiencing the polar vortex can stay inside and warm, and that your pipes don't freeze!

[lookeyloo]

3 hours ago, doodlebug said:

-2 in Cleveland with wind chills to -20 or so.  I am working because my employer says so.  I had 12 appointments scheduled for this morning, all but 2 have canceled and I will be referring both of them to psych.  4 of 12 remaining for this afternoon so I am dabbling online and cutting out a quilt at my desk.

Weird fundie encounter: Yesterday, I was working at an inner city clinic run by my employer.  It was about 15F out and bitter.  Our clinic is in a shopping center and at lunchtime I crossed the lot to the local fast food joint.  As I was trudging over there, 2 young guys on bikes (15 degrees and windy, people!) stopped me dead in my tracks.  They were clean-cut, very Caucasian and both wore jackets with some sort of Jesus ministry logo on them I'd never seen before.  They wanted to know if they could talk to me about Jesus, right there, in the center of a parking lot, in the dead of winter.  I asked why and they said they wanted to see if I knew about Him.  I told them that, as a practicing Catholic, I felt pretty good about my Jesus knowledge and kept walking. They seemed surprised that I didn't want to chat with them and then, strangely enough, asked me if I happened to know anyone who would like to talk to them about Jesus.  I pointed out that, if I did, I already knew where to send such people and they then asked why not send these people to them.  Huh!  So, I kinda lit into them a bit, told them that a. it was too cold to have this convo right there, b. I'll bet that they don't consider me, a Catholic, to be a Christian (blank, open mouthed stares but didn't disagree) and c.  I'll bet their version of Jesus says that homosexuals are going to hell and was probably not very tolerant of others who are not like them.  They rode away without saying anything further.  Weird, it was like a movie or something, I was looking for the camera.

Good for you @doodlebug.  I am a quilter too.  

[Westiepeach]

NE Ohio here. I chose to stay home from work today (I have my own graphic design business). I was planning to remote in to one of my clients. I finished about 75% of the project and they lost their internet and phones. Can’t do anything until next week because my contact will be out until Tuesday. They know, they are fine with it, and I am now sitting back watching Food Network and eyeing the wine in my refrigerator. 

It is way freaking cold outside! Wind is horrible!

[galaxychaser]

I’m staying home Tom guess I will be cleaning 😇😇😇😇😇😇

[Jynnan tonnix]

I need to do a bunch of cleaning once we get back from our vacation. For one thing, our Christmas decorations (including two trees) are still up...We meant to do them before we left, but I caught a cold and was dragging for a couple of days, so just didn't get around to it, and it didn't seem that vital in the major scheme of things. For another, the upstairs is still a bit of a wreck since we moved a bunch of the furniture around after Mr Jyn moved back home from his two year job in Georgia and we decided to keep the king size bedroom set he had in his apartment there, plus the guest room set (since we didn't have one to speak of - just a plain bed and a couple of tiny pieces in which the drawers barely worked), and to move our queen size bedroom downstairs into the the other spare bedroom to make an inlaw suite for my mom for when she moves in...so right now, there is a sh!t-ton of crap, including piles of whole sheets of matboard (for framing all those paintings I never got around to doing) which don't really fit under the new beds because they have those extra supports under the mattresses rather than box springs. So my studio closet, which is huge, is still crammed to where you can barely walk into it, much less actually reach anything you might be looking for.

So there's a whole lot of re-organizing to be done!

[Christina87]

I'm staying in all day too, but because I am sick! It's nothing terrible...at this point day four...and my symptoms are generally getting better except for the fatigue. My God, it's awful! I emptied the dishwasher last night, and it was the worst torture ever, like doing manual labor for like 10 hours. lol! My energy is too zapped to do anything, but at least the other symptoms are improving. I've spent most of the day taking cute pics of my birdies. Gotta do something to entertain yourself! 

5 hours ago, doodlebug said:

-2 in Cleveland with wind chills to -20 or so.  I am working because my employer says so.  I had 12 appointments scheduled for this morning, all but 2 have canceled and I will be referring both of them to psych.  4 of 12 remaining for this afternoon so I am dabbling online and cutting out a quilt at my desk.

Weird fundie encounter: Yesterday, I was working at an inner city clinic run by my employer.  It was about 15F out and bitter.  Our clinic is in a shopping center and at lunchtime I crossed the lot to the local fast food joint.  As I was trudging over there, 2 young guys on bikes (15 degrees and windy, people!) stopped me dead in my tracks.  They were clean-cut, very Caucasian and both wore jackets with some sort of Jesus ministry logo on them I'd never seen before.  They wanted to know if they could talk to me about Jesus, right there, in the center of a parking lot, in the dead of winter.  I asked why and they said they wanted to see if I knew about Him.  I told them that, as a practicing Catholic, I felt pretty good about my Jesus knowledge and kept walking. They seemed surprised that I didn't want to chat with them and then, strangely enough, asked me if I happened to know anyone who would like to talk to them about Jesus.  I pointed out that, if I did, I already knew where to send such people and they then asked why not send these people to them.  Huh!  So, I kinda lit into them a bit, told them that a. it was too cold to have this convo right there, b. I'll bet that they don't consider me, a Catholic, to be a Christian (blank, open mouthed stares but didn't disagree) and c.  I'll bet their version of Jesus says that homosexuals are going to hell and was probably not very tolerant of others who are not like them.  They rode away without saying anything further.  Weird, it was like a movie or something, I was looking for the camera.

Omg that is crazy!!! I'm so glad you had the courage to say what you wanted to. I bet they were not expecting to hear that response! LOL!

[Natalie68]

On 1/29/2019 at 11:23 AM, Zella said:

I know it made me sound like a bitch, but I always told them, "A failure to plan on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine." 

Life lessons!  I used to advise students at this UC and you really do hear a ton of really lame stories and whining.  Its sad no one has taught them these skills before they reach university.  One set of students about 20 years ago pushed out a really nice lecturer who had one of the most popular classes.  He would bring food/beverages to class, they could call him with questions, and was really there for students.  This one particular quarter they were just beasts to him.  One particular whiner was disputing her grade because while the answer was wrong it had all the letters in it!  He never taught classes for us again.  He was very sad as were we.  He was a pleasure to work with and really good in his field.

[Scarlett45]

We got word work is open tomorrow but I am debating going. I take public transit home (always and to work sometimes) and with the windchill I am concerned if things break down (like the bus or the el). 

[ChiCricket]

7 hours ago, doodlebug said:

  I had 12 appointments scheduled for this morning, all but 2 have canceled and I will be referring both of them to psych.

As well you should. 

54 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

We got word work is open tomorrow but I am debating going. I take public transit home (always and to work sometimes) and with the windchill I am concerned if things break down (like the bus or the el). 

Did you see they're setting fire to the tracks to keep them from freezing?!

Oh! And a local friend just sent me this:

Edited January 30, 2019 by ChiCricket

[Scarlett45]

16 minutes ago, ChiCricket said:

As well you should. 

Did you see they're setting fire to the tracks to keep them from freezing?!

Oh! And a local friend just sent me this:

@ChiCricket on my way home yesterday on the el there were these mechanical units next to the conductor (where people normally sit) to prevent the tracks from freezing!

[galaxychaser]

NYC schools are open tomorrow. I predict 50% will stay home.

[galaxychaser]

Justin Bieber clothing line looks like prison inmate uniform. And it sold out.

 

https://thehouseofdrew.com/

[ginger90]

Tomorrow will be day 3 of schools being closed. (PA)

Had a squall today that gave me white knuckles on the way home from work. 

Right now it’s 2°. Saturday the forecast is for 37°.  

[ChiCricket]

I thought of all you lonely/singletons here when I read this article.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rejected-everyday-month-161200169.html

Being Rejected Could Be the Key to Happiness

"I had spent the last four hours staring at the man in my coffee shop, nursing cold coffees and pretending to work while trying to get the courage to talk to him. Beardy, scruffy and intellectual-looking, he was scribbling in a notepad and I imagined he was writing a brilliant book or an equally-brilliant screenplay. Sometimes he’d catch me looking at him; I’d panic and look away, cheeks burning.

I texted my flatmate for advice. "Go up and say hello to him," she texted back.

"I can’t, I’m scared," I replied.

She commanded me to just "Shut up and do it." And so, I took my caffeinated heart and shaky limbs and walked right up to his table. He looked at me and I looked at him. For a second the world stopped. I prepared to be rejected. Horribly, humiliatingly rejected. And that was the point."

 <snip>

"After a few seconds of stunned silence, Mr. Beardy smiled and asked if I’d like to sit down. I said yes."

{after the coffee house closed, he asked her out for some wine }

 He said:

"I was stunned when you came up to me. My heart was beating like crazy," he confessed. I was surprised-he’d seemed so calm. I figured he did this kind of thing all the time.

He laughed when I told him this. "No, not at all. This is the loveliest thing to happen to me in a long time," he said.

I wondered then whether everything I thought about men-and life-was wrong. I had this story that I was not the kind of woman that men liked, but maybe that wasn’t true? I realized that for all my fear of rejection, I’d hardly ever actually been rejected because I’d spent years avoiding it; with work, with friends, with love. I saw that the person who had rejected me most in life was myself-and that had to stop.

After our wine, he walked me back to my train, kissed me, and asked if I wanted to meet up again. I discovered that life can change the moment you stop making excuses and do the things that scare you. Even if that’s just saying "hello".

Edited January 31, 2019 by ChiCricket

[ChiCricket]

37 minutes ago, galaxychaser said:

Justin Bieber clothing line looks like prison inmate uniform. And it sold out.

https://thehouseofdrew.com/

Yuck. Are the models from the walking dead?

Edited January 31, 2019 by ChiCricket

[galaxychaser]

Well to be a model you have to weigh like a 8 year old refugee and survive on 2 carrot sticks, 4 tic tacs and half a pound crack cocain a day diet...

[Catfin]

Tomorrow will be Day 4 of no school. My son is savoring it, sleeping until noon and playing video games into the wee hours. I planned on working from home all week anyway as my boss is out. 

In terms of cleaning post-parents, we did a good purge when my Dad died and Mom  moved to a senior apartment. Mostly old records of Dad’s sales career and paid utility bills going back to the early 60’s. My MIL is a hoarder and compulsive shopper. She is quirky. I’ll leave it at that. It will take years to settle their situation. Multiple properties, multiple states and storage units filled to the brim. Oh, they haven’t filed taxes since 1992 either. Sigh. Thecrazyruns deep. 

[awaken]

Sounds a lot like my parents!  They’re actually accumulating stuff purposely (over decades) because they cherish the idea of my brother and I going through all of it when they die. Believe me, it’s not going to be the happy familial scene of sentimentally sorting through memorabilia they envision!  

[Steff]

Along the clearing out stuff lines...

Typically, thru the year after I paid bills, I would file the bill away.  January of each year, I would clean out the files, but I had never bothered to buy a paper shredder.  So I would rubber band the years bills together & put them in a big plastic tub & then shove it back into a seldom used closet.  This year when I went to pull out the tub, it was just ridiculous how full it was & how many YEARS of paper I had built up.  So I bought a shredder. 

I spent the entire afternoon shredding 9, yes NINE years of bills and 19 years of tax returns.  My kid is gonna be pissed when he gets home from work & has to take out the trash.  I filled 4 large garbage bags today with nothing but shredded paper. 

[jcbrown]

My sister, my husband, and I had to clean out Dad's house a year and a half ago after we moved him into a memory care facility. We ended up coming into town like five days before we told him we were there so we could have a few days of privacy and productivity going through stuff. The man had ATM receipts from the 80s. Thank goodness we had hired a downsizing company so "all" we had to do was sort and make mountains of shred, trash, and sell, plus molehills of keep. It was sad, in some ways, seeing the accumulation of my parent's nearly 50-year marriage amount to so little. And also a little infuriating because of years of hearing Dad say that going through all his crap was our problem and he wasn't about to do it. And he still has moments of, "oh, you know, I'd really like to have X [random thing]. What did you do with that?" Parenting your parents is not so fun.

[jjane]

Okay, I know it's late but I'm so upset I have to vent. We have been totally supporting my niece and her daughter for the last year and a half. Before that my brother was helping by paying her utilities and cable for her daughter's online school. He also let them live in a trailer that he owned rent free. The he died and we took over since my niece has no intention of getting a job and we can't let her child go hungry or be homeless. I think she is bipolar but of course she denies it. He daughter has been having emotional problems and everyone else says it is because of her mother. My niece grew up with a neglectful mother who was more concerned with taking care of her friends and going out shopping and to eat than with her children. She is never happy or fulfilled, she always worries that someone else will get something she wants. She will take something she has  no interest in or use for just to have it. She will go into irrational rants and accuse other people of starting drama. She projects her behavior onto other people and never takes responsibility for anyone else. Into this shitshow she added a child that she conceived with someone who was just using her and that she had to chase. Her relationships consist of basically forcing herself men and then having to beg and browbeat them into being with her. She spends hours telling them what to do. How do I know? She has no problem with having these conversations in front of me. She now claims she can't work because her daughter is suicidal. She has her on Prozac and thorazine because she has had rage attacks where she does not appear to know what she is doing. They are on Medicaid and pediatric psychiatrists are hard to find. I found  one but  she didn't like her and insisted we would have to find another one. She blames me for everything but my husband is supporting her only because of me. Somewhere in her brain she knows she should be making and effort but choses not to and then blames us for everything that goes wrong. She has several medical certifications and keeps them up but she prefers to spend her days on facebook. She makes up ailments and expects everyone to be sorry for her.

I have spent the last two days adding her to my Verizon account and trying to get her an affordable phone. I got her one and of course it was defective.  Same thing with the second one. Texted me and said she hated the phone, would give it to her daughter, wanted a different one. So I spent most of today having to udo yesterday's work and finding a way to get the one she wanted. Guess what?  She called me all day to see if I had changed everything around. As the rep was ordering the phone she wanted she texted me that she didn't want that. She came to my house to get a package she had sent there and started a big fight about how we were always telling her what to do and stormed off, in the truck we provide and insure for her. Then she texted me that they were leaving in two weeks to live on some property some friends had. No idea where she will get money to move a trailer there, she has no job, my husband certainly won't be inclined to keep insurance on that truck for her, if he even lets her take it. These people have only seen her a few times but she is always telling them how everybody hates her and treats her badly and they don't know us or what we are doing for her. As far as people outside the family know, she works in the emergency room of a hospital. I've heard her tell the parents on her daughter's soccer team that they will be late because she was stuck at the hospital. Obviously she knows people would judge her for not working and letting relatives support her but it doesn't bother her enough to get a job. Anyway, she has abused everybody so much that she could disappear as far as I'm concerned but there is a thirteen year old child here and we do this to keep her near us so we know she is ok. If they move that far I won't be able to keep an eye on her. These people don't know she won't work and that we are paying her bills. They don't know the truck isn't hers and we pay for the insurance. They don't know that the only thing she contributes to her lifestyle is food stamps, She brags about her daughter being in soccer and archery but we pay for that. I'm afraid she will get up there and someone will expect her to pull her weight or piss her off in some way and show her true personality and get thrown out, then take off never to be heard from again. 

Ok, sorry for the book. This person keeps me so stressed I can't stand it sometime. Even when my husband was in the hospital recently she bombarded me with phone calls about her problems and when she did  not get the reaction she wanted she pretended to have been put in the hospital on an emergency basis. No one else in the family heard about it, she didn't aske anyone to watch her daughter and she appears to be fit as a fiddle. Just another way to get attention onto herself. Hard as this is to say there have been times I have wished she did not exist and we could raise her daughter in a calm, nurturing environment. If I thought we could I would try to take her away but I know she would take off with her at any inkling of that, so I hang in. She is a very good actress and can charm people to her way of thinking. 

I'm going now. Just getting this out helps a tiny. Good night and much love,

[Catfin]

@jjane I’m sorry. It sounds very similar to my stepdaughter. Boundaries were able to be maintained before she had two children in 13 months. Feel free to vent any time. Direct message me if you prefer.  ❤️❤️

[Minivanessa]

@jjane, that's an awful situation. You've got a full-out sociopathic narcissist on your hands. Worst thing ever. I understand your concern for her child, but the kid is now a teenager and in a few years will be an adult. I hope you can cut the cord at least at that time. 

I know this is just a detail and beside the main point, but. If she's going to move away and take the truck, and it's titled in your or your husband's name (or both), you may want to keep at least liability insurance on it to protect yourselves if she's such a loose cannon. Maybe someone who knows more about insurance can chime in or direct message you.

[allonsyalice]

11 hours ago, ChiCricket said:

I thought of all you lonely/singletons here when I read this article.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rejected-everyday-month-161200169.html

Being Rejected Could Be the Key to Happiness

"I had spent the last four hours staring at the man in my coffee shop, nursing cold coffees and pretending to work while trying to get the courage to talk to him. Beardy, scruffy and intellectual-looking, he was scribbling in a notepad and I imagined he was writing a brilliant book or an equally-brilliant screenplay. Sometimes he’d catch me looking at him; I’d panic and look away, cheeks burning.

I texted my flatmate for advice. "Go up and say hello to him," she texted back.

"I can’t, I’m scared," I replied.

She commanded me to just "Shut up and do it." And so, I took my caffeinated heart and shaky limbs and walked right up to his table. He looked at me and I looked at him. For a second the world stopped. I prepared to be rejected. Horribly, humiliatingly rejected. And that was the point."

 <snip>

"After a few seconds of stunned silence, Mr. Beardy smiled and asked if I’d like to sit down. I said yes."

{after the coffee house closed, he asked her out for some wine }

 He said:

"I was stunned when you came up to me. My heart was beating like crazy," he confessed. I was surprised-he’d seemed so calm. I figured he did this kind of thing all the time.

He laughed when I told him this. "No, not at all. This is the loveliest thing to happen to me in a long time," he said.

I wondered then whether everything I thought about men-and life-was wrong. I had this story that I was not the kind of woman that men liked, but maybe that wasn’t true? I realized that for all my fear of rejection, I’d hardly ever actually been rejected because I’d spent years avoiding it; with work, with friends, with love. I saw that the person who had rejected me most in life was myself-and that had to stop.

After our wine, he walked me back to my train, kissed me, and asked if I wanted to meet up again. I discovered that life can change the moment you stop making excuses and do the things that scare you. Even if that’s just saying "hello".

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this! For me, it’s not even a matter of being single, it’s a matter of being too scared to do anything!

(but I would like to say that I DID do something scary to me: querying my novel to literary agents, and it did end with the best result EVER: I. SIGNED. WITH. AN. AGENT!!! On the other hand, I did have an interview for an internship at a place i really wanted and they rejected me, deep sigh.)

I always thought I’d like to be the type of girl who wasn’t scared of anything, and maybe i’ll start with small rejections and move my way up. (Reminds me of that poem, One Art by Elizabeth Bishop: “The art of rejection isn’t hard to master.”)

Edited January 31, 2019 by allonsyalice

[lookeyloo]

9 hours ago, Steff said:

Along the clearing out stuff lines...

Typically, thru the year after I paid bills, I would file the bill away.  January of each year, I would clean out the files, but I had never bothered to buy a paper shredder.  So I would rubber band the years bills together & put them in a big plastic tub & then shove it back into a seldom used closet.  This year when I went to pull out the tub, it was just ridiculous how full it was & how many YEARS of paper I had built up.  So I bought a shredder. 

I spent the entire afternoon shredding 9, yes NINE years of bills and 19 years of tax returns.  My kid is gonna be pissed when he gets home from work & has to take out the trash.  I filled 4 large garbage bags today with nothing but shredded paper. 

If you don't mind spending a little extra $ and have one close by, a UPS store lets you put your stuff in a shred barrel and they charge by the pound.  I have a shredder but it takes so long that I take everything to the UPS store once a year.  Worth it.

[Scarlett45]

The polar vortex is ending but it was -22 (actual temperature, not windchill) when I was to get on the train to work. 

[Christina87]

14 hours ago, ChiCricket said:

I thought of all you lonely/singletons here when I read this article.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rejected-everyday-month-161200169.html

Being Rejected Could Be the Key to Happiness

"I had spent the last four hours staring at the man in my coffee shop, nursing cold coffees and pretending to work while trying to get the courage to talk to him. Beardy, scruffy and intellectual-looking, he was scribbling in a notepad and I imagined he was writing a brilliant book or an equally-brilliant screenplay. Sometimes he’d catch me looking at him; I’d panic and look away, cheeks burning.

I texted my flatmate for advice. "Go up and say hello to him," she texted back.

"I can’t, I’m scared," I replied.

She commanded me to just "Shut up and do it." And so, I took my caffeinated heart and shaky limbs and walked right up to his table. He looked at me and I looked at him. For a second the world stopped. I prepared to be rejected. Horribly, humiliatingly rejected. And that was the point."

 <snip>

"After a few seconds of stunned silence, Mr. Beardy smiled and asked if I’d like to sit down. I said yes."

{after the coffee house closed, he asked her out for some wine }

 He said:

"I was stunned when you came up to me. My heart was beating like crazy," he confessed. I was surprised-he’d seemed so calm. I figured he did this kind of thing all the time.

He laughed when I told him this. "No, not at all. This is the loveliest thing to happen to me in a long time," he said.

I wondered then whether everything I thought about men-and life-was wrong. I had this story that I was not the kind of woman that men liked, but maybe that wasn’t true? I realized that for all my fear of rejection, I’d hardly ever actually been rejected because I’d spent years avoiding it; with work, with friends, with love. I saw that the person who had rejected me most in life was myself-and that had to stop.

After our wine, he walked me back to my train, kissed me, and asked if I wanted to meet up again. I discovered that life can change the moment you stop making excuses and do the things that scare you. Even if that’s just saying "hello".

Awwwww I love it!!!! I remember going up and sitting with an attractive stranger at Subway once when I was in college, during one of my many breakups with my toxic boyfriend at the time. I felt so proud of myself! We had a great conversation, and it made me a lot more confident. I haven't done anything like that since, though. Maybe it's time!!!

[Christina87]

18 hours ago, Natalie68 said:

Life lessons!  I used to advise students at this UC and you really do hear a ton of really lame stories and whining.  Its sad no one has taught them these skills before they reach university.  One set of students about 20 years ago pushed out a really nice lecturer who had one of the most popular classes.  He would bring food/beverages to class, they could call him with questions, and was really there for students.  This one particular quarter they were just beasts to him.  One particular whiner was disputing her grade because while the answer was wrong it had all the letters in it!  He never taught classes for us again.  He was very sad as were we.  He was a pleasure to work with and really good in his field.

Ugh. I hear this completely. One of the things I liked about my middle school job is that I had the kids all three years as the chorus teacher, so we had a good relationship by the time they became moody eighth graders. Last year, I had this awful group that was impossible to control. They were just SO horrible to me! They stole from me, destroyed my classroom, had fights, didn't do any of their work, made a mockery of all their performances (I had them for drama), and made every day a living hell. They were just straight up disrespectful and mouthy if I even asked the simplest thing, like, "sit down in your seat." One third of the classroom was "I'm so popular and too cool for school kids," one third was ghetto kids (and it had nothing to do with race; they were all different races, but thought they were sooooo tough), and one third was goody two shoes kids who actually wanted to learn, and felt self-righteous towards the bad kids to the point where they would verbally attack them. I'd say something (like, "just a reminder, you're not allowed behind my desk. I had something stolen yesterday during this time period"), the two bad groups would make fun of me, and then the goody two shoes would lose it and defend me, and then everyone would be screaming. I was usually able to keep my classes under control, even ones with "bad" kids, but this class had the most toxic mixture of entitled students ever. Even the good kids had an axe to grind to "prove" that they were better than the bad ones. Every time we had a horrible incident, I'd make them have a notes only format for a month or so, which they hated. Then, we'd try having an interactive class again, and they'd resume their awful behavior. I finally just decided that all they could handle was notes, which I hated, because it wasn't fair to the few who wanted to learn. We didn't have a single good day in that class, ever, and there wasn't one day that I left thinking, "I got through to them!" It got to the point that every little thing I said had to be defended against all these accusations..."you told us we had to sit down because you're racist." "We shouldn't have to sit down; we're eighth graders!" "You hate us and we haven't even done anything wrong." And I went out of my way to be fair and encouraging to these kids, but I refused to encourage their "work" if they didn't even practice their script, and messed up and stumbled over words, when they had done well the year before. The good kids agreed with me that I had been fair and positive to them, and that punishing them when they deserved it was fair, but the bad kids said I was "mean" and that they shouldn't have to do work in a class like drama. I've never had a class that was so toxic before, where all of the kids hated each other to the point where seating charts didn't even work, and they fought me on every little thing. It was the worst semester ever!!! I missed the end of the semester for flu, and they gleefully thought they'd been able to get me fired. Right before I got the flu, I'd spent the last few days literally begging the popular kids to finish their work, because I knew they didn't want bad grades. They just made fun of me and told me to get off their backs, but then complained about their grades after not turning anything in. they even found out one of the good kids was allergic to Axe, and brought it in and spilled it on the floor purposefully, hoping to kill her. With kids like that, you don't have a chance at a positive classroom environment! Yet, my other five classes that semester were delightful. When I got my new eighth grade drama class second semester, I was super strict with them at first, but then realized I didn't have to, because they were the most lovely kids I had ever met. I also had allllll the school's bad kids in eighth grade chorus, and managed to have a positive and successful classroom climate with their respect. Sometimes you just get a group that is HORRIBLE, and maybe a really experienced teacher would have the tool to handle it better, but it was way beyond my abilities!

Edited January 31, 2019 by Christina87

[Natalie68]

4 hours ago, Christina87 said:

Ugh. I hear this completely. One of the things I liked about my middle school job is that I had the kids all three years as the chorus teacher, so we had a good relationship by the time they became moody eighth graders. Last year, I had this awful group that was impossible to control. They were just SO horrible to me! They stole from me, destroyed my classroom, had fights, didn't do any of their work, made a mockery of all their performances (I had them for drama), and made every day a living hell. They were just straight up disrespectful and mouthy if I even asked the simplest thing, like, "sit down in your seat." One third of the classroom was "I'm so popular and too cool for school kids," one third was ghetto kids (and it had nothing to do with race; they were all different races, but thought they were sooooo tough), and one third was goody two shoes kids who actually wanted to learn, and felt self-righteous towards the bad kids to the point where they would verbally attack them. I'd say something (like, "just a reminder, you're not allowed behind my desk. I had something stolen yesterday during this time period"), the two bad groups would make fun of me, and then the goody two shoes would lose it and defend me, and then everyone would be screaming. I was usually able to keep my classes under control, even ones with "bad" kids, but this class had the most toxic mixture of entitled students ever. Even the good kids had an axe to grind to "prove" that they were better than the bad ones. Every time we had a horrible incident, I'd make them have a notes only format for a month or so, which they hated. Then, we'd try having an interactive class again, and they'd resume their awful behavior. I finally just decided that all they could handle was notes, which I hated, because it wasn't fair to the few who wanted to learn. We didn't have a single good day in that class, ever, and there wasn't one day that I left thinking, "I got through to them!" It got to the point that every little thing I said had to be defended against all these accusations..."you told us we had to sit down because you're racist." "We shouldn't have to sit down; we're eighth graders!" "You hate us and we haven't even done anything wrong." And I went out of my way to be fair and encouraging to these kids, but I refused to encourage their "work" if they didn't even practice their script, and messed up and stumbled over words, when they had done well the year before. The good kids agreed with me that I had been fair and positive to them, and that punishing them when they deserved it was fair, but the bad kids said I was "mean" and that they shouldn't have to do work in a class like drama. I've never had a class that was so toxic before, where all of the kids hated each other to the point where seating charts didn't even work, and they fought me on every little thing. It was the worst semester ever!!! I missed the end of the semester for flu, and they gleefully thought they'd been able to get me fired. Right before I got the flu, I'd spent the last few days literally begging the popular kids to finish their work, because I knew they didn't want bad grades. They just made fun of me and told me to get off their backs, but then complained about their grades after not turning anything in. they even found out one of the good kids was allergic to Axe, and brought it in and spilled it on the floor purposefully, hoping to kill her. With kids like that, you don't have a chance at a positive classroom environment! Yet, my other five classes that semester were delightful. When I got my new eighth grade drama class second semester, I was super strict with them at first, but then realized I didn't have to, because they were the most lovely kids I had ever met. I also had allllll the school's bad kids in eighth grade chorus, and managed to have a positive and successful classroom climate with their respect. Sometimes you just get a group that is HORRIBLE, and maybe a really experienced teacher would have the tool to handle it better, but it was way beyond my abilities!

OH MAN!!!  That sounds simply awful.  Makes you wonder what kind of home life they had and wtf their parents were doing/not doing.  I get parents have to work.  Mine did at their business which means they were never home.  I never acted like these little assholes!  I have no idea how schools can find teachers.  They have to deal with extremely low pay, pay for things out of their own pocket, and deal with kids who are awful.  I gotta hand it to teachers.  You have your hands full and your work is not appreciated enough.  

[Steff]

8 hours ago, lookeyloo said:

If you don't mind spending a little extra $ and have one close by, a UPS store lets you put your stuff in a shred barrel and they charge by the pound.  I have a shredder but it takes so long that I take everything to the UPS store once a year.  Worth it.

I'm in a rural (small hick town) area and we don't have a UPS store nearby.  Plus I'm a SAHW, so I got nothing but time on my hands.  lol 

[Bayarea4]

Quote

I saw that the person who had rejected me most in life was myself-and that had to stop.

I need to hear this every single day. Thanks, ChiCricket.

[zoomama]

20 hours ago, jjane said:

Okay, I know it's late but I'm so upset I have to vent. We have been totally supporting my niece and her daughter for the last year and a half. Before that my brother was helping by paying her utilities and cable for her daughter's online school. He also let them live in a trailer that he owned rent free. The he died and we took over since my niece has no intention of getting a job and we can't let her child go hungry or be homeless. I think she is bipolar but of course she denies it. He daughter has been having emotional problems and everyone else says it is because of her mother. My niece grew up with a neglectful mother who was more concerned with taking care of her friends and going out shopping and to eat than with her children. She is never happy or fulfilled, she always worries that someone else will get something she wants. She will take something she has  no interest in or use for just to have it. She will go into irrational rants and accuse other people of starting drama. She projects her behavior onto other people and never takes responsibility for anyone else. Into this shitshow she added a child that she conceived with someone who was just using her and that she had to chase. Her relationships consist of basically forcing herself men and then having to beg and browbeat them into being with her. She spends hours telling them what to do. How do I know? She has no problem with having these conversations in front of me. She now claims she can't work because her daughter is suicidal. She has her on Prozac and thorazine because she has had rage attacks where she does not appear to know what she is doing. They are on Medicaid and pediatric psychiatrists are hard to find. I found  one but  she didn't like her and insisted we would have to find another one. She blames me for everything but my husband is supporting her only because of me. Somewhere in her brain she knows she should be making and effort but choses not to and then blames us for everything that goes wrong. She has several medical certifications and keeps them up but she prefers to spend her days on facebook. She makes up ailments and expects everyone to be sorry for her.

I have spent the last two days adding her to my Verizon account and trying to get her an affordable phone. I got her one and of course it was defective.  Same thing with the second one. Texted me and said she hated the phone, would give it to her daughter, wanted a different one. So I spent most of today having to udo yesterday's work and finding a way to get the one she wanted. Guess what?  She called me all day to see if I had changed everything around. As the rep was ordering the phone she wanted she texted me that she didn't want that. She came to my house to get a package she had sent there and started a big fight about how we were always telling her what to do and stormed off, in the truck we provide and insure for her. Then she texted me that they were leaving in two weeks to live on some property some friends had. No idea where she will get money to move a trailer there, she has no job, my husband certainly won't be inclined to keep insurance on that truck for her, if he even lets her take it. These people have only seen her a few times but she is always telling them how everybody hates her and treats her badly and they don't know us or what we are doing for her. As far as people outside the family know, she works in the emergency room of a hospital. I've heard her tell the parents on her daughter's soccer team that they will be late because she was stuck at the hospital. Obviously she knows people would judge her for not working and letting relatives support her but it doesn't bother her enough to get a job. Anyway, she has abused everybody so much that she could disappear as far as I'm concerned but there is a thirteen year old child here and we do this to keep her near us so we know she is ok. If they move that far I won't be able to keep an eye on her. These people don't know she won't work and that we are paying her bills. They don't know the truck isn't hers and we pay for the insurance. They don't know that the only thing she contributes to her lifestyle is food stamps, She brags about her daughter being in soccer and archery but we pay for that. I'm afraid she will get up there and someone will expect her to pull her weight or piss her off in some way and show her true personality and get thrown out, then take off never to be heard from again. 

Ok, sorry for the book. This person keeps me so stressed I can't stand it sometime. Even when my husband was in the hospital recently she bombarded me with phone calls about her problems and when she did  not get the reaction she wanted she pretended to have been put in the hospital on an emergency basis. No one else in the family heard about it, she didn't aske anyone to watch her daughter and she appears to be fit as a fiddle. Just another way to get attention onto herself. Hard as this is to say there have been times I have wished she did not exist and we could raise her daughter in a calm, nurturing environment. If I thought we could I would try to take her away but I know she would take off with her at any inkling of that, so I hang in. She is a very good actress and can charm people to her way of thinking. 

I'm going now. Just getting this out helps a tiny. Good night and much love,

one thing to keep in mind is that, at her age (i thought you said 13), she has a legal voice in court so IF you were to try to legally get custody of her, her wishes would be taken into consideration. if you could document that you support them 100% as you do, that may play into your favor.  i am raising a grandchild right now - its no piece of cake, let me tell you. but the reason i hang in is because of this boy. who else does he have to count on? it sounds like your niece is in similar straights. bless you and your hubby for the strength you both share in your concern for this child.

[latetotheparty]

Life in Minnesota: when -9 feels balmy. Not even joking. 

[PikaScrewChu]

On 1/30/2019 at 9:06 PM, awaken said:

Sounds a lot like my parents!  They’re actually accumulating stuff purposely (over decades) because they cherish the idea of my brother and I going through all of it when they die. Believe me, it’s not going to be the happy familial scene of sentimentally sorting through memorabilia they envision!  

Oh god, I have so much stuff I inherited from my grandparents that I don't know what I'm going to do. It is all stored at my parents' house because very little of it has been doled out to the recipients. There were things that were supposed to be split up among siblings and cousins but I'm doubtful it will ever happen. It'll come down to my sister and I sorting through it all a few decades down the road. A lot of it is to avoid family drama. One of my uncles was pestering about some furniture that he wanted and has been whining for several years about it. It was supposed to go to me. It was annoying to constantly hear that. My mom took it out of storage and gave it to him because my place is too small. I was annoyed that he disrespected his parents' wishes rather than the fact I didn't end up with the furniture.

I don't look forward to sorting through it all. Only my mom has the record of who was supposed to get what. I have a general idea but be damned if I know precisely who was supposed to get what. I'm just hoping by the time my sister and I get around to it that everyone has forgotten.

I don't follow Konmari method but I've been working to declutter. This weekend I'll be going through my closet on breaks from stuff. I have too many clothes I don't wear. I'm trying really hard to get through my book collection by reading them but I feel like I'm running out of hours in the day if I actually want to sleep.

[Christina87]

8 hours ago, Natalie68 said:

OH MAN!!!  That sounds simply awful.  Makes you wonder what kind of home life they had and wtf their parents were doing/not doing.  I get parents have to work.  Mine did at their business which means they were never home.  I never acted like these little assholes!  I have no idea how schools can find teachers.  They have to deal with extremely low pay, pay for things out of their own pocket, and deal with kids who are awful.  I gotta hand it to teachers.  You have your hands full and your work is not appreciated enough.  

THANK YOU!!!! Hugs. I haven't ruled out going back to teaching completely, but right now, I'm leaning away from it. I think I might like elementary better, because their attitude would be less nasty, but you even hear crazy things from kindergarten now! This really nice lady i know stopped subbing because a kindergartener called her a bitch! I would definitely imagine the parents of the students in that class being overly permissive, but many of them were upper crush country club parents! They never would have believed their little angels would behave that way. The other parents, I got the impression for the most part, straight up didn't care. Two of the little county club snots (and I wouldn't call them that if they weren't the absolute definition of "snot") got mad about their grades, and I was already collecting all their paperwork, ready for an inevitable conference with their angry parents. I was surprised when a few weeks went by without hearing anything, and then I found out the girls had started a rumor that I told them to "shut the hell up." I guess they knew they didn't have a case with the grades, so they tried to find another way to get me in trouble. They got several of their little friends to go in and complain too, and the principal took their side!!! He truly views school as a customer service business, where the student / parent is always right. My coworkers couldn't believe it, because while I curse a little in my everyday life, I am very professional and never, ever, ever uttered anything worse than "crap" inside school doors, even around adults. It's just crazy the lengths he would go to to make the parents happy. I also had two girls get in a verbal fight (who were both good girls, but hormonal), and I saw him unapologetically railroad the black girl with the uninvolved parent to please the white girl's mom, who brought the whole office chick fil a that morning. He also told the black girl lots of lies about awful things I'd said about her, which I couldn't believe! It was not even close to true! Yet he talks until he's blue in the face about being a SJW. Hahahaha it's late and I am rambling, but I truly don't think most people know just how bad things are in schools now. School is nothing like it was even a generation back. Kids are so disrespectful, which they're allowed to get away with because sooooo many kids are disruptive, and parents rule the roost. At the bottom of the hierarchy, the fall guy for everyone, is the teacher. And they wonder why there's a teacher shortage!

7 hours ago, Bayarea4 said:

I need to hear this every single day. Thanks, ChiCricket.

I agree @ChiCricket!!! I've been thinking about that today, and how I try to come up with reasons the guys I meet online won't like me. I need to give myself a chance first before I even let them give me a chance!

1 hour ago, latetotheparty said:

Life in Minnesota: when -9 feels balmy. Not even joking. 

It was 30 here today, and as I was shivering, I thought about you guys, and suddenly it seemed like a heat wave. Stay warm, my friends!!!

[Christina87]

Y'all, my dad had surgery this morning, and it went GREAT!!!! It was on his neck. I'm so glad he won't be in pain anymore, and I'm glad that I am able to be there to help out. He had a similar surgery before, but I couldn't get any days off work, so I'm glad to be able help my family this time! I am sooo relieved it went well. Hallelujah!

[Christina87]

My post posted twice 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Christina87

[Barb23]

1 hour ago, Christina87 said:

Y'all, my dad had surgery this morning, and it went GREAT!!!! It was on his neck. I'm so glad he won't be in pain anymore, and I'm glad that I am able to be there to help out. He had a similar surgery before, but I couldn't get any days off work, so I'm glad to be able help my family this time! I am sooo relieved it went well. Hallelujah!

That's great & wishing him a speedy recovery.   We needed some good news around here.

[Sew Sumi]

Good news: my Boo kitty is on the road to recovery. She went through a phase when she threw up everything she ate. Vet had no answers. As a result of her vomiting, she stopped eating for the most part. I tried everything to get her to eat. Nothing appealed to her. Last week, her breath smelled metallic, and I feared waking up to find her dead. I seriously thought about putting her to sleep. 😥

Little girl fought, and now she's eating everything in sight. I'm off on Fridays, and she has interrupted my typing of this post a couple of times. 😀 She's been following me around like a puppy for the last couple of days; her spirit is returning. 

I couldn't be a happier mommy. 😸

Edited February 1, 2019 by Sew Sumi

[Suzn]

26 minutes ago, Sew Sumi said:

Good news: my Boo kitty is on the road to recovery. She went through a phase when she threw up everything she ate. Vet had no answers. As a result of her vomiting, she stopped eating for the most part. I tried everything to get her to eat. Nothing appealed to her. Last week, her breath smelled metallic, and I feared waking up to find her dead. I seriously thought about putting her to sleep. 😥

Little girl fought, and now she's eating everything in sight. I'm off on Fridays, and she has interrupted my typing of this post a couple of times. 😀 She's been following me around like a puppy for the last couple of days; her spirit is returning. 

I couldn't be a happier mommy. 😸

Wonderful news!  Good luck to your kitty.

[galaxychaser]

Well to be a model you have to weigh like a 8 year old refugee and survive on 2 carrot sticks, 4 tic tacs and half a pound crack cocain a day diet...

[lookeyloo]

So here in Metro Atlanta today it is 63 and sunny.  Needed a/c in car.

[Westiepeach]

1 hour ago, lookeyloo said:

So here in Metro Atlanta today it is 63 and sunny.  Needed a/c in car.

NE Ohio here. Snow belt. Temps have been at or below zero. Today I left work and the temp was 18 degrees. I legit rolled down my window on the drive home. 

[McManda]

There were quite a few Backstreet Boys fans around here, if I remember, and I found their documentary streaming (for free!) on an app called PlutoTv if anyone is interested.

The app has "live" TV (it's interrupted by "commercials" at dumb times, but it feels like cable TV, but it also looks like most of the things are on demand, too. It's got an eclectic group of movie and some TV, but it's ultimately nothing super special. I downloaded it on my firestick, but there's an app and a website, too.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it I'd recommend it. It was filmed while they were recording In A World Like This and gives some insight into their history and rise to fame, their personal backgrounds, and how they initiated the lawsuits that brought down their former manager and boyband builder, Lou Perlman.

Thought I'd share if anyone was interested and missed it when it was released the first time!

Edited February 2, 2019 by McManda