adrian_turtle

conuly posting in

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m 19 and in university. I recently broke up with my boyfriend, “Jason.” He’d been acting weird for a few weeks, but when I ended things, he completely flipped out.

It escalated to the point where he slipped into my family’s home, stole our cat, “Flibble,” and tried to hold him for ransom. We did get Flibble back, and Jason is now facing charges. I just want to put this all behind me.

My parents, however, are furious. They keep telling me I should “have better judgment” and promise I’m going to get an earful this Thanksgiving about “choosing appropriate partners.” I get it, this got bad. But Jason wasn’t showing signs of being unhinged when we first started dating, and I did break up with him as soon as he started acting erratically. Still, my parents chew me out every time we talk and have started calling two or three times a week specifically to lecture me.

It’s driving me crazy. I don’t want to block them or cut them out of my life, but I also don’t want to deal with this anymore. What can I do to get them to lay off?

—Stepped In It

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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Meghan: I have an 8-year-old daughter. She does not have a mother (my husband and I are both men). She doesn’t particularly like shopping for clothes, but she has a relative who keeps her very well stocked with jumpsuits, dresses and girly outfits of all kinds, which is the type of clothing she typically likes. In general, I let her decide for herself how to mix and match the various clothes she has each morning and will only step in if something is really inappropriate.

My mother, however, feels the need to criticize her clothing choices nearly every time she sees her. “Oh dear, you should never mix prints!” or “Why didn’t you wear a different shirt under that jumpsuit — it really doesn’t match at all!” My mother blames me for what she sees as my inability to teach a girl about girls’ fashion.

I told her that I had indeed talked about some of these rules, but I thought my daughter should also be able to make her own choices about how to dress. She then accused me of being a bad parent and suggested that I would also “give up” if faced with a child who stole or cheated on a test. Is it really so wrong to refuse to have a daily struggle because my daughter went to school with shorts that lightly clashed with her shirt?

— Grandma’s Criticisms

( Read more... )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Meghan: My sons (5 and 6 years old, both mildly autistic) tend to wake up in the morning and as fast as they can dive into my husband’s and my bed for cuddles. They seem to get a lot of sensory satisfaction and a lot of comfort from this ritual. Their preference would be to cuddle with me or both of us for about 15 minutes until they’re all the way awake, then run off and do their own thing. I don’t mind this at all — I enjoy it somewhat, and I find that (as primary caretaker) their days and thus mine go much smoother if they have this cuddle in bed to start the day.

The problem is that my husband says it ruins his day to have his kids in his bed at all.

I have tried to be a physical barrier between him and them — doesn’t work. I’ve tried to not let them in until he’s already up and showering — doesn’t work. I’ve tried to go to their beds and cuddle them there — doesn’t work. I’m out of ideas.

What should I do?

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minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: creative

oursin

This week's bread: the Collister/Blake My Favourite Loaf, strong white/wholemeal/wholemeal spelt, splosh of pumpkin seed oil, nice.

Friday night supper: ven pongal (South Indian khichchari). cashew perhaps a bit burnt, still pretty good.

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 strong white/mix of coarse and fine cornmeal, turned out v well.

Today's lunch: salmon fillets baked in foil with slices of lime, butter, dill and salt and pepper, served with La Ratte potatoes roasted in goose fat, Boston beans roasted in walnut oil with fennel seeds and splashed with gooseberry vinegar, and steamed asparagus with melted butter.

andrewducker

Gideon (5) just walked past me looking determined. I asked him if he was okay and he said "Yes, I'm going outside with the hammock."

"It's cold and wet out there," I replied.

So he found his boots and his jacket and the hammock, took them outside by himself, put the hammock together (also by himself), and is now happily playing Angry Birds in it.

No, I don't understand either.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

james_davis_nicoll

Mother's Benefits become the means by which British governments provide British women with the same benevolent management Britain once provided to India, Ireland, and Africa.

Benefits by Zoë Fairbairns

oursin

Happy birthday,

carenejeans!

andrewducker

1. The Uncertain Origins of Aspirin (a fascinating piece of history, neatly dividing myths from evidence): (tags:drugs history myths )
2. 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' takes on Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. Kinda: (tags:neilgaiman AmandaPalmer tv rape )

siderea

Saw this, blew my mind, thought I'd share. Behold, Lençóis Maranhenses:

Watch on YouTube

2025 Oct 28: PBS Terra [pbsterra on YT]: It Looks Like a Desert. But It Has Thousands of Lakes

When I heard in the video how big it was, I turned on satellite view in Google Maps and popped "Lençóis Maranhenses" into the search bar:

( Image below cut. Content advisory: trypophobes avoid )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

1. When I say goodbye to my mother-in-law, she frequently traps me in extended hugs. They often last longer than 15 seconds! During these hugs, she rattles off compliments that are probably well-meaning, but which I take as insults: She’s grateful that I’m a good cook for my husband, for instance, and that I keep our house so clean. My husband and I are both working professionals. We split the housework evenly, and I’m proud of that. My husband says that his mother’s comments are just her way of trying to connect with me. But is there a way to dodge her hugs? That’s when the so-called compliments begin.

DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

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****

2. Dear Carolyn: We are a very small family — just me, my older sister and my parents. Five years ago, my sister married into a very large family, and her in-laws host all the holidays. We’re always invited, but it’s never any fun for us. There are 20 of them together, talking and laughing, and me and my parents in the corner by ourselves.

I’ve honestly tried to join in, but they’re always talking among themselves about people I don’t know. I ask them about their lives, and they go on and on, but when it’s time for me to talk, I get either cut off or ignored. They try to be nice, but after the third or fourth attempt to answer a question, you can tell they don’t care about the answer.

So I’ve decided I’m not going for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. On Thanksgiving, some of my friends are meeting up for a hike in the morning, and then there’s a pub crawl later in the evening, and that’s enough holiday for me. I can order a pizza for dinner. For Christmas, I plan to have breakfast with my parents, open gifts and then kick back for the rest of the day while they go off to my sister’s in-laws’ house.

Even though my parents agree about the in-laws, they are telling me to suck it up and go for their sake. They and my sister are really upset with me, saying I’m going to ruin their holidays, hurt my brother-in-law’s feelings and not see my niece. I say there will be so many people around that my brother-in-law and niece won’t miss me, and I’ll see them both on Black Friday and then again on Christmas Eve, so it’s not like I’m missing out entirely.

Am I being selfish like they say? Don’t I have a right to enjoy my holidays, or do I have to suffer in silence?
— Anonymous

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*************

3. Dear Annie: My son got married about eight months ago, and while I truly do love his new wife, I admit I'm scratching my head over a few things. Maybe it's the times changing, or maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but it feels like I got a fourth child instead of a daughter-in-law.

When they come over for dinner, I do what I've always done: make a nice meal, fix everyone a plate and pass the rolls. I'll serve my husband, my boys and even the dog if he looks hungry enough. But my new daughter-in-law? She piles food on her own plate, sits down and tells my son to get it himself. My jaw nearly hit the mashed potatoes. He works all day to provide for her, and the least she could do is hand him a pork chop! Instead, I find myself jumping up to fix his plate while she's scrolling through her phone.

And the laundry, don't even get me started. Because they don't have a washer and dryer, she brings her clothes over, and somehow, I end up doing them. It's like my son got married, and I gained another load of towels.

Should I speak up, or just keep folding her laundry and praying she buys a washing machine? -- Lost For Words in Georgia

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**********

4. Dear Annie: Hoping you can offer some advice! My son has been married for six years to a beautiful girl who rarely speaks to us and acts as though we don't exist. Her distance has gotten much worse over time, and we have no idea why. We love her and are just as kind to her as we are to our other kids and their wives. My husband and I are so sad. This has broken our hearts.

We haven't said anything because we don't want to upset our son, but lately even he appears unhappy with her attitude toward us. When we've referred to her as our daughter -- as we do our other daughter-in-law, who loves the title -- she'll say, "No, thank you. I already have a mom and dad." We've always felt as parents ourselves that you can NEVER have too many people to love your child, so we were quite hurt by that.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. She's so cold and distant toward us that even our friends and family have noticed and commented. We are good people, we stay out of our kids' business and we keep our opinions to ourselves. Our motto is, "If you want our thoughts, you'll have to ask for them." We don't meddle or cause waves ever, yet she continues to find ways to fault us for things. It's completely unsubstantiated, but it persists!

It's to the point I have so much anxiety that I've considered seeking out a therapist. This DIL is so unapproachable, so to avoid conflict, we just sweep EVERYTHING under the rug to avoid causing our sweet son any grief.

Please let us know if you have any advice. Our hearts are broken! -- Boy Momma

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conuly

Everybody knows a hot dog is not a sandwich... it's a taco.

(Taken from the comments here.)

*********************************

( Read more... )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

My mother-in-law is always on a diet. Her house also happens to be where the family gathers monthly for meals. Lately, she has been serving lighter fare and no dessert so that she can eat more healthfully. We are fine with the lighter meals, but when we pushed back on dessert, she got upset and said we weren’t being supportive of her. These meals represent a tiny fraction of what she eats in a year, and I am frustrated that I have to compromise on dessert. (It doesn’t help that her diets are usually fads and not based in science.) Advice?

( Read more... )

kareina

This could be considered an odd event for me to attend, given that I am never hungry in the evenings, and so don'teat the feast. The focus is food, and the only scheduled activities are workshops to make food to be served at the feast, which isn't to be served until 18:00 at the earliest. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the day, with a morning of breakfast, sewing and chatting with people. Then I started helping Þórólfr cut out a new tunic from a pale lilac coloured wool.

Just after we got the body rectangle and neck hole cut lunch was served, so we took a break to eat, the put the body on him. Marked the waist and underarm points, and measured how wide to make the side rectangles, and how long the sleeves will need to be.

Then it was a simple matter to cut the side rectangles, sleeves and four triangles to put between the intersection of the body and side rectangles. Now he has a new tunic, some assembly required.

Soon after the tunic was cut he went to prepare for Court as her Majesty's herald, and I resumed sewing and chatting. Court was short and sweet, with a few well deserving people getting awards.

After court I switched to nålbindning https://trello.com/c/Ki2zfhTY, as I knew the feast hall would be lit by candlelight. I started a new psir of blue nålbinded short socks for me of a thick yarn.

This time I decided to start from the ankel and work down. I used whatever the variation of Finnish stitch where you have only one loop around the thumb at a time, but take the needle through both it and the previous loop, from front to back, twist them and pass the needle through what will become the new thumb loop.

I did this stitch all away atound the first pass around the ankle, working one sock left handed till it was long enough to fit, then did the other sock right handed to the same point, so I could be certain they were the same length.

I even picked out the first couple of stitches which are always a little wonky compared to the rest of the row, and tightened the beginning to a nice looking taper.

When I was happy with both starting rows, they were the correct length to fit me and they were the same (other than working direction), I started spiraling, but for this second row I switched to grabbing only the loop from the thumb for the twist, which makes for a more open texture pattern that I think will look nice as a pattern change.

After that row had come all the way back to the starting point I switched back to the first stitch, as the denser pattern will be better for the socks themselves.

By around 21:00 I had gotten the third row of both socks to the point where it opens up to leave room to later attach the heel spiral, taken one of them long enough to start attaching that row to the far side of the foot, and on the other sock about half of the distance before attaching it to the far side of the foot.

I put the project down because Keldor decided he was tired and was going to bed early. He said I could stay up longer, but this sounded like a good idea, so I was in bed by 21:40 and went straight to sleep.

conuly

Just picture it: Tres leches... confetti cake.

(It turns out I'm not the only person with this idea, which just shows how brilliant it is!)

************************

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conuly

The last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it.

**************

Link

conuly

Let's say, hypothetically I wanted to move a whole bunch of feeds I listen to en masse off of Spotify and onto something else, is there any way to do that other than manually looking at each feed, in alphabetical order, and searching it up elsewhere?

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend is still in regular contact with his ex-girlfriend. He is her confidant, and she admits she still loves him. He keeps her posted on our relationship, which is rocky because I am jealous of their relationship. I am not allowed to set any boundaries about this.

I want to ask him to stop being her confidant and to stop telling her about our relationship. They can remain friends, just not with such intimate conversations. He absolutely refuses any boundaries because “I am not going to let you pick my friends.”

Should I just exit this situation? For context, he and I are on and off because of this, and he usually dates her again when we are off.

— Jealous

( Read more... )

oursin

These people are AWFUL: Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world

(And I can't believe that there aren't women who didn't survive, particularly given the whole 'germs aren't a thing' ideology that's mixed up with it. Or at least pretty badly damaged.)

I've always been somewhat side-eyeing Grantly Dick Read and his gospel of 'natural childbirth' without fear and pain, because it was a bit vibes based on anecdotal stuff of his, but at least he was a trained medical professional, and he advocated antenatal classes teaching women what to expect when they went into labour, and giving them breathing exercises so that they could breathe through the contractions and so on and he did not suggest women giving birth alone without support.

This is also - like being anti-vaccine - coming from a very short period of historical time: in this case one in which maternal and infant mortality had plummeted and was no longer something people were more or less used to, or had at least heard cases of within their general circles.

These people are delusional.

Okay, there can be a lot wrong with modern obstetric practice - ?particularly in the USA, for reasons - but nature is so not your friend in this matter.

james_davis_nicoll

Three books new to me. All are fantasies, two are series.

Books Received, November 15 to November 21, 2025

Poll #33866 Books Received, November 15 to November 21, 2025

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 42

View Respondents

Which of these upcoming books look interesting?

View Answers

Mother of Death and Dawn by Carissa Broadbent (March 2026)
4 (9.5%)

Tides of Fortune by Lauryn Hamilton Murray (June 2026)
1 (2.4%)

Everybody’s Perfect by Jo Walton (June 2026)
31 (73.8%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
31 (73.8%)

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adrian_turtle

November 2025

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The waiting is the hardest part

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Benefits by Zoë Fairbairns

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Interesting Links for 23-11-2025

This is a real place [geog, surrealism]

Inlaws....

Well, this is a new solution to the sandwich conundrum...

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Gyllengrans event

I had the most amazing idea the other night

On Last Lines by Suzanne Buffam

So...

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Drown them in a pail of caudle

Books Received, November 15 to November 21, 2025

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November 2025

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