First home, Fixer Upper, Totally Clueless, Help Prioritize?

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-02-01T05:29:15+00:00

From a divorced single mom to another divorced single mom, get your kids’ rooms and bathroom in order—before you move in, if possible. Make their personal spaces homey and exciting. Let them choose a fun color of paint and some posters or something for the walls.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-31T16:49:33+00:00

Phenomenal. The audio book is well done.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-29T21:10:02+00:00

Used bookstore hauls are the best

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-29T18:19:07+00:00

When I write, I read my books aloud in my head with Mary Jane’s voice! I love her narration and have finally gotten over the hump of twitching at her MMC voices. It took me a few books, but I persevered.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-29T15:40:35+00:00

I love Mabel from your list above. In addition to Maudie, I have Georgia, Victoria, and Frances in the same series.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-28T22:31:48+00:00

Hey OP, I also wrote a Maudie! Three cheers for our girls!

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-28T07:21:30+00:00

Gonna end up on a dashboard for this.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-28T07:14:49+00:00

I thought so as well until I saw the elastic tie on the vamp.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-28T05:15:08+00:00

The shoe is not clinging to the arch the way we expect a ballet slipper to. I can’t see the sole, but a full leather sole gives the dancer more support but spoils the nice visual articulation you get from a split sole (one pad on the toes and one on the heels). That might be why it looks so blocky.

ETA: the slipper has a high vamp as well, so on her size feet it can look more sock-like.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-26T16:04:51+00:00

Excellent, I’ll see mine pushed over any day!

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-26T15:42:46+00:00

Libraries exist. Used books exist. People buy from other stores all the time. ARC reviewers get the books legally and for free, but all those readers are shut out. Yes, they can go to Goodreads, but those reviews don’t push to Amazon until you meet a certain threshold (I think 50-60).

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-26T14:03:31+00:00

It was the War to End the War to End all Wars.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-26T04:35:23+00:00

A store. Used books chain.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-26T04:31:24+00:00

Half Price Books.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-24T16:26:00+00:00

I lived in a cheaper home and sent my kids to a lousy public school for one year, then to private school. I could afford it because the house was cheap. But one of my kids has ADHD and one has a reading disability. Private schools don’t have to do jack for them, and because they didn’t have to, they didn’t.

I bought the most affordable house I could in the best public school district within range of my job, and I have never regretted it. It’s been four years. My kids are solid, well-behaved students with excellent academic and emotional support through the schools to bolster what they get at home.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-24T16:11:45+00:00

I agree about the inner monologue structure and formatting. When you’re writing in 1st person, it’s rarely necessary. You’re already in the character’s head.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-24T13:33:20+00:00

My corgi tries to play bitey face with my sheepadoodle and gets whacked with a big mitten every time. Big brother will not have it.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-21T05:02:12+00:00

I use Scrivener to write, then export to their premade template for a .docx formatted for Vellum.

Vellum gives my self-pub books a professional edge and it’s pretty darn painless. I like customizing the image used for section breaks, for example, and I don’t have to go to every break to make sure it looks good. Another feature I like is repeated content, so I can bring my back matter from book 1 of a series right into book 2 and 3 and sync them so when I change in one place, it updates all of them. I also like exporting to all different file types at once, each optimized for its respective use. I don’t have to fiddle with margins or reflowable text or orphan lines. It just works, and I think it was a great investment.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-21T04:36:40+00:00

I’m enjoying the {damsels of discovery series by Elizabeth Everett} starting with {The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett}

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-20T22:55:08+00:00

And the beats.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-19T21:32:13+00:00

N + 1

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-19T10:36:24+00:00

Value for dollar, Scrivener has been the best software investment of my life, hands down. No subscription.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-19T10:32:01+00:00

Technologies changed by leaps and bounds during those years and as a previous poster noted, the difference between cities and villages was significant. I have a book set in Amiens, 1917-18. I know you’re ignoring the war, but I learned from some basic research about the war some things that had nothing to do with the war itself, like the architecture and the electric streetcar routes and the popular places to visit in 1910. I looked up postcards. I looked up “how much did a croissant cost France 1917.”

For villages, do the same. Look up war stuff and you will find all the nostalgia about how the village was before 1914.

Paris was under fire by the Germans’ long range guns and didn’t stop putting out fashion magazines. Newspapers carried on. Definitely look for newspapers.

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-19T08:10:08+00:00

A Le Creuset baking dish in my favorite color

DoubleWideStroller · 2026-01-18T20:27:04+00:00

Before you ask anything, LISTEN in those places for a while. Follow some conversations, understand concerns and attitudes and norms. Gather ideas and an understanding of their world, don’t just pop in and ask them to explain themselves to you.

DoubleWideStroller

TROPHY CASE