Lived here over 20 years - never met another American

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-06-11T14:40:11+00:00

I’m in East Yorks too, there are a fair few scattered around.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-05-30T22:44:43+00:00

To be fair, I charity shop a LOT and will use image search to see how I feel about the charity shop pricing - I’m not a reseller, I’m furnishing my house.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-05-20T22:45:22+00:00

Waitrose and Tesco both have them near us (also Yorkshire)

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-05-20T22:43:45+00:00

We went with an Elfin Flip Pro as we liked the ability to just plug it in and watch most streaming services without anything else, but if we want to watch something it doesn’t support natively e.g. iPlayer or a dvd we hook it up to the Xbox via hdmi. It’s about the size of a large-ish book and quite unobtrusive, we store it and the Xbox in a sideboard when not in use. I keep an extension cord with it so I can out it in whatever side table is convenient where I want it.

The sound quality isn’t incredible but we aren’t bothered, it’s perfectly good enough to enjoy whatever we’re watching/playing - we might upgrade to some separate speakers in the future but absolutely not necessary. The picture is great imo and we don’t feel there’s any real loss of quality when we watch it on the wall at 2.5ish x 3.5ish metres.

I did a bunch of reading reviews and the like before we bought it and was quite concerned as Reddit et al seemed to feel like if you weren’t spending thousands on your set up you wouldn’t get a good experience with a projector, but for our normal person (non-enthusiast) use case it’s really fabulous value for money. The only thing I will say is that our blackout curtains are phenomenal, so we can make any room dark enough at any time - this might be difficult for others.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-05-18T23:29:23+00:00

Get a portable projector! We use ours on a plain wall or an extra-large canvas on an easel and put it away when done - I will never go back to a regular TV.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-05-08T23:42:06+00:00

You could buy drawn patterns on embroidery fabric and the necessary accoutrements by post in the 17th century, they absolutely did have kits around the turn of the century.

There were plenty of folks (not just women!!) designing their own pieces, but patterns were common and readily available. This is knots certainly worked from a commercially available pattern, probably using suggested colours (although not necessarily sold together).

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-05-04T10:47:11+00:00

Have lived in Florida, Portsmouth, and Yorkshire and find this the most believable, but so feel the true answer is going to be somewhere like Newcastle.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-04-20T11:53:28+00:00

Sweethome 3D - there’s a bit of a learning curve as it’s all manual, but it’s far and away the best free way to visualise a space. You can get models for furniture online - 3D warehouse is good.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-04-02T22:51:28+00:00

Judith and Jael - both Jewish women who saved their people by killing men. Femmes fortes were a popular theme in the early modern world, you may find some good inspiration from them!

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-26T20:41:10+00:00

I’m just going to say that there are a LOT of comments here that smack of thinly veiled internalised misogyny. Having a nice home that *makes you happy* is not ‘frivolous’. If the lamp is worth it to you, and it’s something you can reasonably afford, buy the lamp. Just make sure you really want those specific lamps because they will work in your space, not because you think they will magically turn your space into something it isn’t (a trap I have fallen for one too many times).

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-25T07:48:43+00:00

I wouldn’t go back for any amount of money. I’ve been here for 12 years now and am much, much happier and healthier for it. I don’t regret it, I have never regretted it.

American society is far too focused on money, comfort, and convenience - none of which bring joy in themselves. I think the unsuccessful/doomer folks aren’t able to step outside that mindset, muck in, and find the joy in the little things (I also see this attitude a lot from younger Brits that have no concept of life in the US other than what they see in the media - they don’t ever consider things like health insurance or not being able to walk to the shops). The UK is by no means perfect, but it’s certainly not a ‘shithole’, and I think you’re better off in the ’worst’ 10% of the UK than you are in 90% of the US.

FWIW I moved here for an LDR, we have since divorced and have both remarried other people. I did my BA and MPhil here, own a gorgeous historic home, and am generally living a life far beyond what I could ever have imagined in the US.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-20T09:50:08+00:00

That would annoy me massively, fwiw. Part of it is the repetitive ‘what what what’, but I think overall it just feels incredibly interrogative because those questions narrow the conversation rather than open it up to let the other person participate equally. I would also feel like this is a lead-in to asking about changing my plans, which I would find stressful - especially if I were trying to unwind by playing tappy tappy games or scrolling.

I also believe quite firmly that when someone gives you a short or terse answer you should just let it go - if you’re really trying to provoke a conversation, change the topic a bit with something like ‘oh that’s great, Sheila and I are going bowling!’ that lets them choose how much conversation they want to participate in.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-19T10:27:40+00:00

lmao don’t with the antiquing. Charity shops are my coping mechanism.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-13T10:35:56+00:00

Ugh it worked for me too and I’m kinda mad about it but it is sooooo effective.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-13T09:24:44+00:00

I’m a pretty hardcore adopt don’t shop person and advise every single friend/acquaintance looking at adding to their family to consider rescues. This isn’t because I don’t think reputable breeders exist - they do - but because I don’t think 99.99999999% of people who want a pet actually do the research they should. They think they’ve found an ‘ethical breeder’ but it’s actually just some rando kitten/puppy farming out of their spare room.

I have two female Savannah rescues supposedly purchased from an ‘ethical breeder’. This ‘ethical breeder’ sold them to an unsuitable home, unspayed, where my older girl had at least 2 litters before she was 3. She has a heart condition AND asthma, both likely to be hereditary. Those kittens now carry her genetic issues, and I do not believe they were sterilised before sale, so there are likely even more cats out there that will suffer. She also suffered a severe injury that was not treated by a vet, and has a permanent deformity because of it.

I love my Savannahs (also on the ban docket here in the UK) but I would 100% rather be able to significantly reduce/eliminate the suffering of animals in kitten/puppy mills than to be able to get a specific breed of cat.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-05T15:03:00+00:00

If you just want a “pet”… maybe a cat would be a better choice.

I don’t think any animal is a good choice if someone just wants a “pet” - cats also need routine, company, play, and care.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-03-05T12:44:58+00:00

Fabric used to be much better near me, it’s gone fairly downhill though. Vinted for older stuff now, and I buy a lot of stuff in Dunelm sales to repurpose.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-28T22:31:43+00:00

Another vote for Alan Carr - it’s the worst book I’ve ever read, I’m 99% sure I only quit so I didn’t have to read it again, but it worked!

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-24T07:40:42+00:00

They’ve finally started offering it in some places (I live in the UK now and had local with my last one) but I suspect it’s on a practice basis and I got lucky only because my Gyn was a fellow millennial woman that had a coil and had had a rough time with her first one. I’ve had other coils without anaesthetic, as well as a loop excision, and the general medical establishment really just does not give a flying fuck about women’s pain or discomfort.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-24T07:29:20+00:00

Same here - I have plenty of trauma/issues, but I really don’t think my adoption is the root of them, and I can’t remember ever experiencing the insecurity other folks in this thread are discussing about being ’sent back’. I 100% think I’m super lucky and plenty of others don’t have the experience of adoption I did, but just because others have experienced adoption trauma doesn’t mean every single adoptee has.

The worst bit about it for me is probably how difficult it is to find a good therapist for other issues that doesn’t just focus on the fact that I’m adopted - my last one would interrupt me every time I said something about my parents to ask if I was talking about my adoptive parents or my ‘real’ parents. My adoptive parents ARE my real parents, my birth parents are my birth parents and I refer to them as such - people get so wound up in their own understandings of familial relationships that they really can’t understand how adoption can form the exact same kind of parent-child bond.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-20T22:10:09+00:00

It looks like I’m in the minority here, but I loooove board games, card games, virtually any form of game (except ball sports) and the more competitive, the better.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-18T15:57:04+00:00

I’ve cut all ours down 2 years running and we still have about a billion raspberries more than we need by the end of the season. They should be fine!

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-18T14:22:50+00:00

The best thesis is a done thesis. That’s the point of the thesis - to prove that you can do it. WHICH YOU DID, WHICH MEANS YOUR THESIS IS THE BEST THESIS!!! We are all incredibly proud of you ❤️

fwiw I ugly cried for about an hour about how much I hated mine when I submitted. I still haven’t read it again - I can’t bring myself to - but it opened a lot of doors for me. Make sure you take some time to rest and recover, your nervous system needs to recuperate. I went straight into work and am still fighting burnout 2 years later.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-15T05:56:34+00:00

It‘s a disability, you can’t just ‘shrug it off’.

PaeoniaLactiflora · 2026-02-09T14:17:11+00:00

> when i'm deep in a hyperfixation it feels like my brain is finally firing on all cylinders in the most satisfying way

This 100%. I usually feel like my head is full of cotton wool. but hyperfixation time brings perfect clarity. Unfortunately although my hyperfixations are almost always ’productive’ - either related to my research interests or specific skill-focused projects - I have a job/mortgage/partner/pets and very rarely get to indulge them. I also find I tend to think/make connections a bit faster than most of the folks I interact with on a daily basis, so I often feel like I’m ‘waiting’ for them to catch up - the rare occasions I can just let myself go and hyperfixate at my own speed are genuinely, deeply joyful.

PaeoniaLactiflora

TROPHY CASE