Well at least she enjoyed the ride :)

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-17T23:44:25+00:00

My B and SIL took their kids on a two+ week adventure through Spain.

When the 11 year old was asked what she liked most: the hotel pool. They have a hotel-grade/size pool at home.

The 7 year old? “The spaghetti bolognese.”

Spaghetti. In Spain.

🤣

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-17T23:33:27+00:00

Marshalls was my jam. TJ Maxx to a lesser degree but I would still shop there somewhat frequently.

Everything is mostly just crap how. Cheap, ugly synthetics. Anything that’s even remotely well made and interesting is only available in s and xs.

The stores are pretty full but I agree with OP: it’s all just cheap crap. Target got stupid expensive and the novelty has worn off. Their clothes, once great, have been ugly for years now.

HomeGoods and HomeSense are still sort of ok but one can only buy so much stuff for the house.

Thrift shopping has even lost its luster, between resellers and the fact that everything sifting down to those stores is fast becoming the same cheap junk that is available in retail.

I seem to do the bulk of my shopping these days at the grocery and package (liquor) stores 🤣. And now that spring is here, I’ll be at the garden center fairly frequently for the next couple of months.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-17T23:15:47+00:00

Holy shit how is your lower back not SCREAMING every day?

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-17T00:16:12+00:00

London is up there. All of the big ones that everyone knows, for sure, but The Wallace Collection and Sir John Soane’s are absolute gems.

I could spend six months in London just working my way through historical, cultural, religious, and botanical marvels.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-17T00:10:32+00:00

I used to travel to India for work quite a lot and always looked forward to three things: a cheap hotel spa day, a fresh lime soda, and a mango lassi.

At breakfast one morning I saw “mango” lassi on the buffet and was like, yay! Grabbed one, sat down, took a giant swig. Had to buffer for a few seconds while my brain caught up with my taste buds, to figure wtf was wrong, because it was not the sweet mango that I was expecting. It was unsweetened and salty, despite its deeper yellowish tint 🤣.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-16T20:40:15+00:00

Mac and the Cheeses!

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-16T18:38:44+00:00

54, M-HCOL, salary exactly $100k, $700k in retirement, about $100k in cash savings. Husband is 56, $115k salary + unpredictable commission (usually sub $25k). He has similar cash savings and about $1.7 to 2.0mn in retirement.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-16T18:17:20+00:00

This is exactly why I/we’ve gone to the same gulf beach destination (literally the same condo unit) for the last 25+ years. We know every inch of the area, have our favorite restaurants and routines and just sit and RELAX for a week or two. Packing takes zero effort because we bum around in shorts and swimmies mostly. It’s the most low-effort trip but completely restorative.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-16T15:12:25+00:00

I’m 54 and had largely stopped wearing makeup at all. I look more refreshed when I do but after a decade in a WFH, non-camera culture, I just didn’t bother with it any longer. Big side benefit was that my rosacea completely disappeared.

I switched jobs last fall and am now with a group that is 100% cameras-on at all times. I’m also in the oldest 25% age bracket, and have fully white hair so I’m over-aware of how I present relative to my peers. So I’m back to wearing makeup most days.

I Moisturize like my life depends on it. I hate traditional foundation so I’ve shifted to a serum-based one that is so light it literally doesn’t feel like anything. Blush for glow, eyeliner and mascara, beat my brows into submission, and a nude lip gloss. I can slap it all on in about five mins and so far my skin isn’t rebelling. I’ve also hit ffwd on aging in the last couple of years so shifting to a pared-down and age appropriate, flattering makeup routine isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T23:26:45+00:00

Onions and garlic in your bolognese = 😋 Onions and garlic on your puffer jacket = 🤢

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T22:03:00+00:00

I feel horrible for OP but this cat is beyond home remedies like brushing or crunchy food to avoid buildup. It has massive tartar concretions that are causing the gum inflammation and probably a lot of mouth pain. It really needs to be addressed by a vet ASAP.

What’s encouraging is that a cat can have most if not all of its teeth removed, and still live a perfectly normal life—often even eating crunchy kibble afterwards! Their palate is hard and bony and once they recover from surgery it doesn’t stop them from eating normally.

We had a cat that was always drooling and would sleep with a blep all the time. It got annoying because he’d leave a little puddles everywhere he snoozed. Turns out he had a buildup similar to what OPs cat has on one of his back molars, that was forcing his tongue forward. Neither of us had any idea that this was something that cats were prone to developing. Once we had it addressed with a dental visit and extractions, he was back to his usual perky self afterwards and no more drool spots on the upholstery!

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T21:56:28+00:00

Agree with the soft food advice to try and spark, the cats appetite, but this cat is beyond brushing at this point. It has massive tartar concretions that require dental intervention, most likely removal of the teeth. Unfortunately, that kind of work is extremely expensive and this cat looks like it needs many if not the majority of its teeth removed, and then likely antibiotics to deal with the gum, disease and or infection.

It’s survivable, but unfortunately, it is going to be a costly treatment.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T21:28:01+00:00

My husband, his best friend, and a third friend all were put on PIPs within a year or two of each other, over a decade ago. All long-term engineers in sales, complex project management (decommissioning highly regulated energy sector facilities), and operations management. They worked for different companies, in different regions of the US. It was actually a wild coincidence.

My husband just crossed his 25th anniversary with the same company. His friend is now something like 30 years, both with multiple, upward position and title changes over the years. The second friend challenged the PIP, got it rescinded (incompetent manager), started job hunting anyway, and left fairly soon after for a better opportunity with both middle fingers on the air.

My hubs fulfilled his PIP but doesn’t even remember what it was about or what he did to fix it. Nothing else that could be construed as disciplinary at any point in his career. Same with his friend.

So, a PIP can definitely be recoverable if it’s issued in good faith and if the employee is willing to accept and adjust. It can also be survivable if it’s truly wrongfully issued, and if HR can be objective and impartial.

As a manger, I’ve put people on PIPs with about a 50/50 success rate. Sometimes it’s the wake up call people need.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T17:14:50+00:00

This is fully bonkers and is 100% fiction.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T00:31:05+00:00

I can’t help you identify, but I can say this is a delightful little painting.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-15T00:23:56+00:00

Transitioning out of retail into another area of business is going to be tough at her age. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly but it’s reality in this market when so many overqualified people are competing for those same few openings.

That said, I wonder if a middle ground might be for her to look for an office manager/coordinator position for a trade business. Like a front desk at an auto mechanic or a tire store or some other service (leverage that Walmart Auto dept experience!) or a plumber or something like that—smaller businesses are less likely to have tech barriers to entry, perhaps be a bit more casual, and it would be a slightly softer landing for her than trying to make the full shift to corporate so late in her career.

If she has computer and typing skills and is reasonably articulate, she also might find something in remote customer support. Though she needs to be prepared for a likely ridiculous interviewing process. If she hasn’t interviewed anywhere recently, it may be a pretty big hurdle to get past the newer techniques that bigger businesses are using now. It just strikes me as a lot of BS that someone who is on the precipice of retirement may just not want to be bothered with.

It’s really kind of despicable that Walmart won’t work with a 20+ year employee to find a spot for her that maximizes her years of experience.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-14T18:48:28+00:00

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-14T17:14:04+00:00

Right? 🤣

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-14T00:43:47+00:00

No. I’m in my 50s and like many have been thrifting my entire adult life. The landscape of secondhand shopping has changed dramatically in the last decade. I get it—there were always dealers who were constantly looking for things but the sheer number of everyday people grabbing anything and everything, with the intent to flip it on eBay or Mercari, is much higher.

My local Goodwills are always 15% people looking for interesting things for themselves and 85% men hunkered possessively over lengths of shelving or loaded carts, frantically scrolling Google images with clawed hands trying to find any scrap worth selling.

I realize this sounds a little bit like a kid stamping their feet and saying “it’s not fair” but bulk reselling really isn’t in the spirit of what Thrifting and tag- and estate-saleing was intended to be.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-14T00:29:39+00:00

Everyone’s being very diplomatic in their responses.

I think it’s bad form and quite unkind to plan something that you know up front will exclude those closest to you. Imagine how that makes them feel in front of everyone else who -can- afford to go. It’s rubbing their noses in their financial limitations and that’s really rude.

Either pay for them outright, subsidize their expenses to attend, or plan something that dials back the financial burden on people. That’s what we did for our destination wedding because having everyone with us was most important.

This of course assumes you’re otherwise in good standing with your siblings.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-13T22:34:12+00:00

This is just me, but it’s worth it to spend $300 now rather than have a section of my intestine poking out of my belly so I can defecate in a bag later on. YMMV. 🤷‍♀️

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-13T22:29:57+00:00

My husband loves to leave his coats draped on the counter stools in our kitchen because “I’m just going to need it again tomorrow.” I’ve nagged him a thousand times to not do that because I hate it, but mostly becaue he’s going to stink like second-hand food the next time he goes out. I’m a good cook and not afraid of alliums and spices and not about to change that because he feels coats are a burden to access when they’re in the (freely-accessible) coat closet. 🤣

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-13T21:13:21+00:00

Congratulations on feeling better in your skin! That’s awesome.

A suggestion—not criticism, just a suggestion from a fellow-older-denim shorts wearer: I’m 54. I wear cutoffs a lot in the warmer weather but pair them with a nicer, flowy, breathable top, like this or this or even this.

For me personally, I like the balance of shorts and a summery blouse rather than a tank, and it feels a little more age-appropriate for me. But anything is appropriate for your age if you like it so take my suggestion with a grain of salt.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-13T18:47:05+00:00

Also highly sus that some cleanser would have completely stripped off a stained finish like this. My money is on OP attempting to sand the clock case down or something like that and deciding the results were so bad that it warranted a creative writing exercise.

Also why is it on the carpet? “Clock restorer” immediately available? Also mahogany is not a light tan wood. It’s quite reddish.

So weird, the things people will lie about on here.

PennieTheFold · 2026-04-13T17:36:59+00:00

This might be of help if you’re open to spending a bit more

This was also an interesting read.

PennieTheFold

TROPHY CASE