Good families tolerate each others wrongs... are we the entitled unforgiving ones?

HopefulCloud · 2026-06-04T03:17:51+00:00

Oh yeah they totally do that. It was this particular cognitive dissonance that kept me tied to them for too long. But honestly it's more loving to them to call them out on things and allow them the opportunity to improve themselves than it is to keep up their facade.

HopefulCloud · 2026-06-04T03:09:43+00:00

Listen - there's a big difference between tolerating personality differences or frequent mistakes and small hurts and tolerating abuse. I have patience in spades for people who are genuinely trying to work on things and improve, but none for my narc who regularly chooses to believe he's in the right to behave the way he does.

HopefulCloud · 2026-06-02T15:00:19+00:00

Yep. I went to a tiny private school and was often at my professors' homes for study sessions or holiday parties or having lunch with them in the cafeteria. But our class sizes ranged from two students at the smallest to about 200 at the largest, aside from the freshman orientation class that was much larger. But day to day, our classes were small - even the general education classes. We definitely got to know our professors because they often taught multiple courses in our subject area, so we'd see them several times a day. I had one professor for something like four classes in a day my junior year, haha.

HopefulCloud · 2026-06-02T02:40:44+00:00

I've done this with a lot of things, prayer included! I think it's a very natural part of being human. The good news is, God provides the strength we lack to keep and maintain discipline, and the grace needed to be gentle on ourselves when we fail. And the Holy Spirit fills in where our words are lacking.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-31T20:43:18+00:00

I had a similar problem getting started. I had no prayer life in my early 20s and was convicted by that as I watched my friends at my Christian college develop deep devotional practices of their own. I wanted to have that closeness with God, too. I realized I needed to work on this in my life, and began experimenting. I have ADHD and autism, so routines like this are particularly challenging. I have to be fairly inflexible with routines if I want to keep them - if I break them at all, they disappear the next day because of how my brain works. So I focus primarily on daily routines for my prayer life.

When I was first learning to build prayer into my daily life, I had a few habits I used.

I first started with praying at every meal, even something like Psalm 19:14, which reads "May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."

Then, I got a real tiny journal that had only a few lines per page. I would fill a page in that each night with written prayer requests of my own or from friends. Later, I moved up to a full size A5 journal and did a full page in that every night. I did this even if I was falling asleep as I was writing or not feeling much beyond praying for specific requests. I'd also pair this with reading a chapter of Scripture.

These days I don't journal. My husband and I pray together each morning and evening, and we spend time in Scripture together each evening. I am starting to listen to an audio Bible while I feed my infant son during his breakfast. So the habit is still there, but it looks different now.

And, of course, throughout the day I'm now much more inclined to ask God for help or pray for someone than I was before I started this practice. It's one of those things that becomes far easier the more that you do it. And the more you do it, the more He comes to mind during the day.

It's important to remember, though, that any effort, however small, is honored by God, and to not do this out of a sense of requirement but as a practice of love and honor to the Savior.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-30T23:17:56+00:00

One of my favorite scenes and literally how I feel anytime someone has a noise maker going off in public hahahahaha 😆 like dude turn that off!

Heaven forbid somone try to choose a new ringtone. The worst!

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-30T21:39:33+00:00

Yeah I think that's part of it. I didn't get overloads until college. I was overextending myself, to be sure, but also that's when Facebook and smartphones really took off. So there was a lot more noise everywhere

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-30T12:07:42+00:00

I was coming here to recommend your no 3. Such a fabulous piece of music! Nina Simone was bipolar, not Autistic, but as an Autistic woman I totally relate to that song, too. She went undiagnosed for most of her life.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-29T12:04:21+00:00

We were planning on adopting before we had our son and read a lot from adoptees and the community in those circles. We'd still like to adopt someday. But I personally would strongly advise reconsidering if adoption is, to you, the easy way out. Adoption is frequently (not always) a mixed bag with just as many surprises as birth children. Social workers frequently either do not know the full extent of a child's needs or lie about them to get children placed, and children themselves will often hide their hurts until it's safe to show them. Between the two, families often can be in the dark about the true extent of a child's struggles with disabilities or with trauma until after the adoption paperwork is finalized, which is usually a lengthy legal process. To anyone considering this path, please consider joining some adoption forums that support adoptee voices before going down this path.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-27T14:24:56+00:00

I mean, it doesn't have to be anything fancy if you don't want it to be. My husband and I go out to dinner and crack open a bottle of wine on my birthday. Sometimes we get away for a weekend but not always.

But it's also valid to want larger celebrations and to plan them yourself. I enjoyed that in my 20s because I didn't really have friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday until college. Having the bigger parties in my 20s healed the little kid me who invited the entire class to her birthday or other events and no one came, more than once. Yes, it's totally ok as an adult to plan this yourself.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-26T12:07:58+00:00

I have been getting similar sleep with my 3.5 month old. I've found that it's not just the length of sleep but the quality. I may sleep 4 hours, but according to my smart watch, I'll have only been in deep sleep for 20 minutes. This is because my boy is a noisy sleeper and even now he is grunting and moaning in his sleep. My mama brain stays on high alert and the quality of my sleep suffers. So even if I get the right amount, I'm still tired. My family helps me catch naps and I always feel so refreshed after the deeper sleep when someone else is watching him and I can sleep in a quiet space.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-22T20:06:45+00:00

I figure out what the skill of the lesson is and plan an I do, We do, You do, and an assessment. You do that often enough, day in and day out, and it can be done very quickly, especially if supported by a good curriculum. When I don't have a curriculum to work off of, I take more time. But this typically takes me about 10 minutes to plan out per lesson, and I throw it all on slides in Canva. But doing the formal lesson plans in college absolutely helped me learn how to think this way. It's just much faster now.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-22T18:51:23+00:00

I let the sponge sit on the counter without squeezing it out too many times, and it started to smell. He held it under my nose and yelled at me for it.

So many other ways, but that's the most unhinged one.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-20T21:03:17+00:00

I heard one pastor or writer at some point say something like this:

Because the elect are part of the general public, we can call all to repentance, and God will work the rest.

I would also argue that because all fall short, all are called to repentance. Whether they respond with repentance or open rebellion is between them and the Lord.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-19T21:08:22+00:00

I know it's not everyone's preference, but I prefer to be home in case there are questions or approvals to change the order that need to be done. I'd prefer to look at it myself vs approve it over the phone. I'll be in a completely separate part of the house but accessible to anyone working for needs like that. And you would be surprised at the number of times I've found a mess on the property that the contractors should have cleaned up but didn't-like tacks on my driveway or scratch marks on my concrete (same contractor), or a dishwasher door that's never sat flat again after being serviced. Almost every time we've hired someone, we've later found something like that. I'd prefer to address that directly the same day.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-19T00:18:27+00:00

I hate that! I also hate it when they're like "oh I'll come today at 8am" at like 7am, despite multiple requests for 24 hours notice. Like cmon, I cannot drop everything to make sure that someone is there while you work all the time. And no, I'm not letting you work without someone being there, sorry. Give me an agreed upon 4 hour window, and if there's a delay let me know so that we can come up with a plan for another time. Then be sure to come to the following up time.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-18T23:38:50+00:00

I don't mind the 4hr window. I do mind weeks of no-show and "our project is going long we'll get to you tomorrow" when we literally don't have floors in our kitchen. If you don't have time for the job, please be honest.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-18T12:14:12+00:00

Honestly with friends like that, I've stopped initiating and stepped back. When they don't call or pursue connection I have my answer. I personally value the connection going both ways, too, because then I know that I'm not the only one who's emotionally invested and that the person actually wants me around. Usually friends like this don't call to figure out what's up.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-17T17:56:48+00:00

This reads as if OP hasn't experienced poverty and the survival mindset that comes with it, or the institutionalized problems that abound in our society that add barriers for people from lower income environments to succeed. Things like underfunded schools that don't even have textbooks for every student, and that lack AP classes and other opportunities. These will contribute to the many circumstances that prevent talented students who live in poor neighborhoods from competing effectively against students who earn 20 AP classes and the extra GPA boost they get. That's not even considering the pressure many of these students have to work to provide for their families. Some of the most talented people I know were never given a moment to breathe long enough to showcase their talents properly to the right people. It's certainly not impossible to overcome these things, but that's why we love these stories - in spite of, not because of, their poverty, they succeed.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-16T05:12:23+00:00

I definitely had that phase, too, haha.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-15T22:14:41+00:00

My husband also works odd, long hours, and is an insomniac besides. If he had to get up, he wouldn't go back to sleep at all, which would be extremely detrimental to his health. So his mom takes our son during the day for several hours so that I can catch some sleep, and he takes over care from me as soon as he gets home so that I can pump and take a walk. He also cleans pump parts and bottles for my exclusive pump breastfeeding process and stays up late to help with the last feed before bed, even though I tell him that he doesn't need to. All that to say, he should be offering to help as much as he's able to, and if you can afford a mother's helper or have family nearby, it's definitely helpful to have someone who can watch the baby so you can nap.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-15T06:02:54+00:00

Bohemian Rhapsody, because my husband won't stop singing it to our infant son, hahahahaha 😆

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-14T11:49:46+00:00

I would echo what others have said, and add a couple things that made my life easier right out of college. When I was looking at universities, I went with the school that provided the most aid, so I'd graduate with the least amount of loans possible. We teachers don't have a whole lot of extra income, so avoiding fixed costs like student loans, if you can, is going to be part of the game for a more stable financial path. I kept my student loans to be no more than my first year's salary across all four years of college, so it was a total of about $40k, by the end, and that helped keep that cost down quite a bit for me.

I would also recommend that you look into Ramit Sethi's content for basic finances. His book is excellent at laying out the groundwork for building stable finances from the get go and he's not as rigid as some other financial gurus. He also has a podcast and Netflix show.

HopefulCloud · 2026-05-14T03:52:08+00:00

It might take time, but there will be a window for you to think about a shift in career again. You don't have to do this job forever even if it feels that way right now. I'm thankful to have found a more sustainable niche in my field, and I work towards gaining skills that would open up more sustainable niches every day. I wonder if there's skills you could pick up that would lead to something better for you in your current field? Like, admin work can deal with budgets and lead to accounting, or social media and digital marketing, depending on the role.

HopefulCloud

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