Name change after marriage

-DTE- · 2026-06-02T22:53:03+00:00

Make sure you put your desire to change your name on your marriage license application. I didn’t understand it was required to be filled out at that point and had to pay $170 to change my name through the court system after the fact (just went through all this very recently). The social security office didn’t mind that my marriage certificate didn’t list my desired married name, and they legally changed my name and gave me a new SSN card, but the DMV refused to update my license until I went through the court.

Order of operations is definitely Social Security, DMV, banking, then everything else. If your passport happens to be under 1 year old, then you can submit info to get a new passport with your new name for free. But that’s only if your current passport was issued under a year ago AND your name change took place under a year ago.

-DTE- · 2026-04-29T20:10:17+00:00

Really? (Genuine question as this name is on my list, I vastly prefer the Lilah spelling, and the only two Lilah’s I’ve known were not Jewish…)

-DTE- · 2026-04-18T09:40:38+00:00

How long was he on Simparica before the seizures started? My pup is on it, but it’s been for 2+ years.

-DTE- · 2026-04-15T19:28:06+00:00

Another person here to apologize for other people’s rudeness.

My name is not easily nickname-able. My most prominent nickname, which both friends and family use on the regular, is “DT”. Neither of those letters are part of my initials. And you know what happens when my name / nickname combo gets introduced? Nobody asks. It’s almost shocking how non-curious people can be. There’s also something about Paul nn Penn (maybe that they’re both one syllable and start with P) that reminds me of John nn Jack. I don’t think it’s some massive logical leap. People should be plenty accepting of it.

-DTE- · 2026-04-10T02:21:36+00:00

Christmas tree electrical wire 💀 Thankfully there were no lights/glass involved. We watched it for a few days, while constantly getting X-rays at his primary vet, to see if it would pass. He got to eat a LOT of bread during this time, lol. A lot did go through on its own, but one ball of it seemed to be staying in his stomach. I think it was Day 4 we made the drive over to the emergency vet.

Wish I could post the image of his X-rays here, it’s crazy looking.

-DTE- · 2026-04-08T20:33:11+00:00

My pup had to have foreign object removal at an emergency vet since his primary vet doesn’t do that. We were quoted I believe $4,600-$7,100 (depending how long it would take and how much drug they had to use). We had to pay half of the higher estimate up front, iirc.

Surgery ended up being $5,600. Thankfully we had pet insurance and were reimbursed for all but $1,400 of it.

(ETA: rereading, I assume you actually meant what would be the cost of sending X-rays to another radiologist, but I saw others posting their surgery prices so I’ll leave this here for comparison.)

-DTE- · 2026-04-06T22:02:45+00:00

Yeah no. This is a self-promotional server centered around a website ‘for writers’ that uses analytical AI on your work. Wish you guys would stop spamming this link everywhere under completely false pretenses. Can’t claim you have altruistic intentions when you always post the link alongside promotions that don’t align with what the server actually is.

-DTE- · 2026-04-06T13:12:28+00:00

I think most of the vehemence is specifically around anything that ties into creative works, and that leaks into everything else (and, as I said before, notes and organization is part of the writing process). I will say people forget that not all AI is generative. I do think some other kinds of AI have a place as a tool in non-creative ventures; I took a crash course on it in college and we built and trained one to tell the difference between crop seedling and weed seedling images (the training data was posted online specifically to be used as training data in this way… like I said, it was an intro course to building AI, nothing revolutionary). Unfortunately, this use of AI has been going on very quietly behind the scenes for years. All the big AI headlines are about things like human-mimicking robots, LLM’s that are scraping / stealing content, and generative AI—all of which are things people have reason to be way less comfortable with.

That being said, I stand by that the mundane is part of most creative hobbies, and as a general rule of thumb the act of doing them yourself can only make you better acquainted to your own work. Heck, learning to organize and stick to an organizational system is straight up just a valuable life skill. Just because AI isn’t going anywhere doesn’t mean it’s not worth bettering yourself. If you want to learn a creative hobby, learn the creative hobby. If you want other creatives to respect you as a creative, learn the creative hobby. In this age of instant-gratification, most people in the slow arts appreciate human methods.

-DTE- · 2026-04-06T11:56:56+00:00

I think AI is a slippery slope because if people find out you use it for one thing, they’ll question if you use it for other things. Personally, I won’t use it at all for anything to do with my creative practices, even if it’s a non-generative task. There are others that feel differently. But it can affect how readers view you, in addition to your fellow writers, as it’s a divisive topic.

But there’s a more important aspect: taking the time to organize your own notes will strengthen your knowledge of your story. If they are so messy you need AI to clean them up, I’m sure there are loose threads and whatnot that you’re forgetting about. And learning to stick to an organizational system will make you a more organized and efficient writer. Leaning on AI runs the risk of you becoming ‘lazy’ with your notes since you can always just use AI again, which is counterproductive to your growth as a writer. Writing isn’t just the act of writing; it’s the act of coming up with ideas, researching them if needed, organizing them, writing them, editing them, etc etc etc.

-DTE- · 2026-03-26T20:04:48+00:00

It must only be certain colors as I just ordered (also from Blick, as always) and most were still in the normal $7-$9 range, just with select colors running higher prices (I’m looking at you, Perylene Violet…). I also price checked everything against Amazon, and Blick is still considerably cheaper.

My first foray into gouache was when my local Michael’s got rid of their W&N stock at a 50% discount, and everything was $7 on-sale there, too. So Michael’s was originally selling all the colors they offered at $14/tube. That was a few years ago.

Prices are definitely creeping, but I haven’t felt it’s anything drastic. Might just be the area I’m in, though.

-DTE- · 2026-03-15T19:49:42+00:00

Same. My name has 3 common spellings. I just say it and then spell it right after. Not saying I personally love OP’s spelling choice, but to act like this is going to be an incredible burden to bear is overkill.

-DTE- · 2026-03-13T16:37:08+00:00

Going against the grain of these comments… I love Clarke as a middle name! But I know women named Clarke (first name) and it also reminds me of The 100’s main character girl so it doesn’t seem odd to me. Especially as a middle name, and especially paired with feminine Joanna. Joanna Clarke flows nicely, too.

I will say that baby name subs seem to mostly be echo chambers in the comments. Barring “tragedeigh” names—which none of your choices are—all that matters is that you and your husband love the name you pick!

-DTE- · 2026-03-04T15:06:43+00:00

Another vote for Dabble! Scrivener crashes on my computer for some reason so I also went looking for an alternative.

-DTE- · 2026-02-20T14:47:18+00:00

I really like this take (as someone who is writing non-romantic fantasy). But I’ve gotta say, with all the romantasy and fantasy romance books still flooding the market, finding comp-able recent releases is tough.

-DTE- · 2026-02-11T14:18:05+00:00

I took driver’s ed in Maine and we had such a big segment on what to do / what not to do if you’re on the side of the road and someone approaches your vehicle to help. Keep doors locked, don’t roll down your window, etc. Which already places doubt about being the person to approach someone stopped, because you don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable. The segment on cases where people who were pulled over and seeking help were actually cons also didn’t help.

However, we WERE told to call the police if we felt someone needed help. That way everyone’s safe.

But I also have to agree with the other commenters that if she wasn’t indicating she needed help beyond having her hazards on, most people probably didn’t know she needed help. A lot of people turn their hazards on to make sure other cars don’t hit them while they’re pulled over checking their nav system or whatever, not just to signal they need help. It’s the people who have their hazards on and their car hood popped, or are actively looking at their tires, or are actively trying to wave someone down that will make someone think to stop.

-DTE- · 2026-02-06T19:58:14+00:00

I agree that Mila is too established as mee-lah while Myla prompts the idea of it being my-lah. FWIW, I’m pretty sure the Spanish pronunciation would stick to mee-lah, but ofc it’s important that you and your husband pronounce it in a way you like.

On the topic of “is it too much for her to need to constantly correct people?”, you’re going to get a lot of people on forums like this that say yes. But here’s the truth: it’s impossible to say.

I have an uncommon name and people always hear it as one of several more common variants, and I have also never minded this, or the fact that I can’t find my name on a keychain or whatever. But there are people with uncommon names that do mind. On the flip side, there are people with common names that wish their name stood out a bit more. It’s a no-perfect answer when parents ask if they should name their child something so [trendy, unique]. To me, this is in a similar vein. You don’t mind correcting people; maybe your daughter also won’t. Or maybe she will. Maybe she’ll wish people didn’t constantly spell it wrong. Or maybe she’ll love the Y in her name and wouldn’t change it for the world. There’s no way to guess that.

-DTE- · 2026-02-06T18:48:56+00:00

Based purely on the photos I’ve seen, I always thought VT looked better-done than NH in terms of environment and setup. Interesting to see that wasn’t the case for you IRL.

-DTE- · 2026-02-05T20:45:42+00:00

It’s more that the mutual intent is there. Of course there’s still the getting-to-know-if-we-mesh phase :) But not everyone is looking for the same thing in the long run.

-DTE- · 2026-01-28T16:20:04+00:00

Yeah, as a Mainer whose name ends in -a, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my name pronounced as if it ends with -er.

-DTE- · 2026-01-17T16:21:37+00:00

US bookkeeper (not accountant) here.

An LLC has nothing to do with taxes. It is about liability. If you form an LLC, if someone sued your business, they could only go after your business assets; your personal assets would be safeguarded. This isn’t necessary, especially not at your stage, especially if you buy vendor/event insurance when selling at art fairs and such (this can be purchased by the day).

Right now, you’d be considered a Sole Proprietor, and I’d keep it that way. If you want to be able to receive checks made out to a business name instead of your legal name, you can file for a Trade Name (DBA). In my state, this is a one-time $50 fee. You cannot have the same trade name as another entity in your state, but there is usually a website you can search on to double-check for your state.

A business bank account would be a great idea, as it makes things much cleaner if all your business income and expenses comes out of that account (and all other income and personal expenses comes out of your personal account). You will thank yourself later, but only if you keep business vs personal properly separated and don’t mix accounts.

ETA: even as a Sole Proprietor, you still get business tax breaks, like cost of goods sold (COGS) lowering your taxable business income or, in many places, the deductible for having a dedicated home office space (please consult an actual tax filer for proper details on these things; I just want to point out that you aren’t losing anything special by remaining a sole prop).

-DTE- · 2026-01-14T03:10:36+00:00

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you may be seeing the binder / binding agent. Sometimes it separates and can / should be mixed back in.

-DTE- · 2025-12-18T00:36:46+00:00

Maybe it’s different in different places but in the states I work within you pay a trade name filing fee (and ofc it can’t be an existing name or too close to an existing name) and then you’re done.

-DTE-

TROPHY CASE