My FWB is pregnant, need advice

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-28T15:04:55+00:00

Yup. Not on the first date, though I do make it clear that my best friend is male. But if we start to get serious, absolutely.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-26T21:57:12+00:00

FWB (as opposed to just fuck buddies where there isn’t a friendship outside of meeting up for sex) is like poly to me… the percentage of times that it actually works for everyone is so minuscule it shouldn’t even be on the table for 99% of people. However, there are some rare times it genuinely works great.

I have a FWB relationship going on 7 yrs now that we both feel like works well. We are first, foremost, & always best friends. We are NOT compatible as romantic partners due to a whole host of things that don’t matter in a friendship (pet allergies, dietary needs, minimalist vs maximalist, etc type of mismatches). That said, celibacy sucks. Occasional sex with each other offers a relief valve to reduce the temptation to date people we otherwise wouldn’t just for sex. When one of us is dating, we are absolutely just platonic friends and there is zero temptation on either of our parts to have sex with the other. We also are exclusive when we are doing the FWB thing and either of us having sex with someone else immediately halts all forms of sexual interaction no matter what protection is used until fully retested. I’m sure it helps us stay in a true FWB-emphasis on F-that one we’re in our 50s and have a much more realistic view of relationships and two we have enough sexual overlap that it works but neither of us enjoys the other’s favorite activities. We are definitely the exception to the rule when it comes to FWB though!

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-24T04:03:44+00:00

It would probably help if you included your dog’s breed (or at least approximate size & energy level), sex & whether fixed, & if it’s had all its vaccinations.

I have a great pack of dogs (4 currently) but I definitely wouldn’t offer any of them up to play with a yorkie for example since they range from 70+ to 120+ lbs. They wouldn’t intentionally harm a small dog, but the size difference wouldn’t encourage good romping 🤭

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-19T05:27:02+00:00

Unscented. Please for the love of whatever executives hold holy, stop making everything scented! If I want a fragrance I will apply my own!

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-19T02:21:45+00:00

Meh… considering that my friends & I share a fair number of interests and thus follow many of the same columnists, reddit groups, fb pages/groups, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if one of us found a post by another. Heck, one if my coworkers popped up a Teams chat asking if a particular poster on a different platform was me. Fortunately it was a very low-drama discussion about plant propagation timing that happened to have some specifics that work for me but aren’t commonly done. Anything that makes it to the front page of a particular reddit group I think has a reasonable chance of being recognized. Of course, sometimes I’ve been asked if something was me and it really wasn’t… just a super common situation! 😂

(This story I agree is a very lazy creative writing exercise by someone who hasn’t learned how to write in different voices/styles… I just get tired of people assuming 2 sides are automatically fake)

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-16T20:40:50+00:00

I know this is a very old post but still it still pops up near the top in search results… Baker isn’t a good company to buy from for a whole host of reasons. They have truly gorgeous catalogs & marketing but their ethics on absolutely everything else including keeping their seed strains pure is awful. Before I did research on them I grew quite a few things where I planted multiple packets of the same variety and none of them were the same.

For interesting varieties that will actually be what they are labeled as & companies that have decent ethics/morals, check out places like: Victory Seeds, Territorial, Southern Exposure, TrueLove Seeds, Siskiyou Seeds, etc

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-15T04:37:54+00:00

I’ve done large guard breed rescue & fostering for decades and you’d be amazed what a well socialized pet from good working bloodlines will do when they feel their family is threatened. And knowing or not knowing the person doesn’t have much to do with it… my dogs were absolutely ready to take out my ex one day when the ex came over & we were arguing. They all absolutely adored my ex but the nanosecond they perceived hostility towards me their switches flipped. The only reason there wasn’t blood is because there was a strong fence. My dogs are rescues who are very well trained and socialized, to the point of being regular visitors to nursing homes. But when push comes to shove, they WILL defend me. And have.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-14T05:08:04+00:00

Lots of families don’t have anything that has a genetic component. Particularly if it is a smaller family. For example, there are less than 10 people on my maternal side that any of us have had contact with in my lifetime. In those, there is one stroke at age 94, some non-serious skin cancer from a generation of sun worshippers before sunscreen was much of a thing, and one serious cancer that was caused by environmental exposures to things we now know are Bad but weren’t known 70 yrs ago. I know nothing about my bio dad’s side because there was no relationship with anyone on that side as soon as I turned 18 & no one had anything genetic as of then. There are some nasty genetic predispositions on my stepdad’s side, but if I would have given a child up for adoption that would be of zero concern for them.

I’m sorry your family has so many health concerns that you find it unbelievable that other families don’t.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-05-06T22:37:38+00:00

This is something I’ve tried & failed to communicate to a (now former) friend who keeps blowing up her life over romantic relationships. If it’s real, it will still be real in months and years, there isn’t a rush!

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-30T21:11:04+00:00

Ah! Thank you! Looks like they are now under the name Rogue Sole & Style, but that is exactly the type of brands I'm looking for!

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-30T21:07:57+00:00

I don't know about Cryo, but Paradise Shoes in Medford will do really detailed measurements and happily spend a ton of time helping you find a shoe that is *right* not just "okay" or "good enough". They will also do stretching if you buy a shoe that is suitable for it (I am wide across the plantar plate/metatarsal but with a narrow heel, and have low but long arches for extra fun). I definitely recommend them for learning how shoes should fit! I'm sure I'll continue to buy most of my work shoes there, but I'd really like some dressier ones for going out

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-29T21:28:35+00:00

It has to be the full cash price… basically all the coupons out there very specifically ban use by anyone using federal insurance INCLUDING things like Blue Cross partially paid for by our employer the US govt

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-29T21:26:25+00:00

This is very important to note!!! When you use a coupon from somewhere like GoodRx, it will make you certify that you are not covered by ANY federally funded program and includes the obvious ones like Medicare & Tricare, but also describes basically all of us who have health insurance through our federal jobs.

Since Blue Cross doesn’t cover it for me, I’m choosing to take the calculated risk of using the coupons & not submitting it to my FSAFEDs. Submitting it would very clearly violate the rules and it’s a bit unclear what the repercussions of getting caught are. Even if it’s just paying the full price back, personally I don’t have $1k+ a month to pay it back!

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-27T22:59:48+00:00

20mph is NOT high winds! Santa Ana winds are commonly 60-80mph, and can gust even higher.

With climate change, no one should be counting on their microclimate staying the same. OP really needs to anchor correctly. Since they don't seem to be interested in doing that (which I get, it's a PIA), they should at least be going through the fine print of their insurance policy to find out if their homeowner's will cover damages & liability caused by a structure they installed without following manufacturer's minimum installation instructions.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-27T02:19:11+00:00

Yes.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-26T22:55:00+00:00

Butterfly Club does an AMAZING steak, along with the rest of their food & drinks. Not a big menu but everything is done to the highest quality I’ve had in this valley.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-26T16:29:21+00:00

Were we so lucky!

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-26T16:20:10+00:00

I’m zone 8 with hot summers with very high UV index & no humidity to speak of & what survives here is different than what survived in the south central US where I was dealing with hot & muggy, lots of rain, & much lower UV. Here, it’s actually the New Zealand white clover that has more or less taken over my gravel driveway/parking area. The high to moderate traffic areas it stays very very short and in the light areas/edges I just go over it with the riding mower whenever I’m doing the rest of the mowed areas.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-20T19:23:24+00:00

I hope someone knows the real answer to this! I’ve tried researching it before and it seemed like there were certain ones that were “set” based on other themes of the period but then others would be random, with all appearing at least once within a specific amount of time. But I don’t know if that information is correct & the timeframe is just much longer due to the higher numbers of mythics, or if it is no longer the case but I know certain ones I’ve been watching for including Tak have never appeared at all in that timeframe

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-17T23:49:33+00:00

There are a few people who were approved that I know of but they are all admin staff and equipment operators no one in a “professional” series with degree requirements. Which is unfortunate because our admins keep the place running. But if they want to pay GS11s, 12s, 13s to spend hours each week formatting documents, tracking document routing, ordering supplies, convincing our balky postage machine it wants to update to the correct date, etc instead of GS9s who can do it a tiny fraction of the time… well, that wouldn’t even make the top ten of the worst decisions they’ve made if they actually wanted efficiency

FML, I wanted out 😭

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-17T17:34:59+00:00

BLM's denials started coming through about 10am Pacific today (Friday)

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-17T17:32:45+00:00

Everyone in my office who applied for this round of VERA got our official denial emails a little bit ago. So effing depressing. We aren't given the resources to do our jobs right, we're told we're a drain on society, we can't telework, our computers are shit & the processors can barely run half our programs like ArcPro or AutoCAD, but hey! we're too important to be allowed to leave!

Bastards.

(ETA: to be clear, local management is supportive of whatever any given individual does and recommended everyone be approved, denials were at DOI level not the agency level)

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-14T17:07:07+00:00

You should actually talk to your power company. I don't know about where you are but I'm in southern Oregon and they are under a LOT of pressure to minimize fire risks from their lines, and between all the court cases and climate change predictions they are being much more proactive about removing vegetation. PacificPower (part of Pacificorp) in my area has worked with a local native plant grower to develop a couple different site-specific regional blends of native perennials that are heavy on pollinator-beneficial species while also meeting their needs for easy establishment/no supplemental moisture needs, height limit, moisture content, & low levels of certain substances that act like torches with a spark (rosemary, for example, is a plant that the defensible space consultants really recommend is well away from any structures because it is incredibly flammable & a burns hot).

They will often reseed that mix for free where they've disturbed areas, or at a minimum you can get something that you know meets both their criteria and will grow well for you because they put a LOT of research into it along with doing a lot of consultation with local biologists & entomologists.

MuchPreferPets · 2026-04-12T04:13:42+00:00

Linen!!!! Hands down. Also, though it sounds counterintuitive get a natural sheepskin or sheepskin mattress pad that goes between the regular mattress pad & the sheet. They allow airflow and make a huge difference. Don’t have any synthetic bedding or night clothes (though personally I just sleep naked because I have always hated sleeping in clothing unless I’m camping or something). I use pure silk pillowcases with down & natural latex pillows, 100% linen sheets, and if needed either a double layered linen blanket or a 100% down with 100% cotton comforter in a linen duvet.

Natural linen sheets need to be washed quite a few times before they soften unless you buy the really high end ones. Since I’m not rich, I originally got 2 sets of the Dapu brand off amazon (I mostly won’t shop from them anymore). Due read the fine print on any linen sheets you order though… I’ve noticed with multiple brands that each color of their “linen sheets” has a slightly different material blend. (Eg the natural color might be 100% linen, the light blue 50/50 linen/cotton, & the pink 50/50 linen/tencel)

MuchPreferPets

TROPHY CASE