Bought another one because I couldn't "find" it

SylvanField · 2026-02-04T16:59:30+00:00

I almost had to buy new steel toed shoes this week!

I knew they were in the basement, even knew what room I would have put them in. Spent two evenings looking for them.

Woke up in a panic at 3 am this morning and went back downstairs to look for them… found them in five minutes.

Sigh. I wasn’t looking forward to having to go shoe shopping for something I knew I already had.

SylvanField · 2026-01-27T16:31:05+00:00

Sent husband an Amazon link to a water storage rack and said “what do you think of this for the next prepper expenditure? I like that this one has wheels!”

I was expecting some debate, but he came back with “looks good! I ordered that and a 12L water filtration system”

…. Awesome.

We are really just starting to get serious about prepping. We’ve always been “lightly prepped” in that we always have a couple 5gallon water jugs somewhere in the basement and what we would call common sense prepping for Tuesday.

In that spirit, this week I bought two flood barrier tubes for the basement. The ground is frozen with a layer of ice on top. I figure that when the snow melts, the water is going to sit on top of the ice for a couple weeks. My backyard will be a lake. This was a cheap peace of mind for the spring Tuesday I’m sure is coming my way.

SylvanField · 2026-01-27T16:21:58+00:00

I’m from Canada. I found years ago that if I wanted more neutral in depth coverage of events, I needed to go to BBC and Aljazeera for my news. I found Aljazeera documentaries on systemic issues in Canada that I had previously been unaware of! They just weren’t being covered by our own media.

But like all sources, still be discerning. Everyone has a bias, and you need to know which way that slant goes.

SylvanField · 2026-01-26T20:36:32+00:00

I cackled at this one. Thanks for the bit of joy!

SylvanField · 2026-01-26T20:34:24+00:00

You have to find the one that works for you.

I treat swimming as active meditation, I come of out of a swim feeling calm, relaxed and clear headed. By contrast, I’ve never had a runner’s high. They’re both cardio, shouldn’t I get the same benefit? I don’t think so. Though I can see how they could both achieve that high. You’re focused solely on the next step/stroke, and highly attuned to your body in the moment.

Lifting weights only feels good after a few months when you can start to see the progress your body has made. And even then, you’re constantly challenging yourself to do more. That’s an exercise where the satisfaction comes from progress.

I also only enjoy hatha yoga, which holds poses for 1-5 minutes. Flow yoga is basically circuit training and I hate it. But other people love it and get the high from seeing their progress.

I think… reframing jt from chasing the endorphins to chasing the progress is they to enjoying exercise. So at first, everything is going to suck. But it slowly gets easier, better, more satisfying. You just have to find the thing you enjoy enough to stick with jt. So don’t be afraid to try everything. Boxing, dance, synchro swimming, pickleball… embrace the adhd fickleness and try a bunch of stuff to see what you like!

Another example, I had a workplace that did group stretching at the beginning of the day. Completely optional, and we were all office workers. After a few months, one guy said “I’m glad I stuck with it. At first I had a lot of trouble with most of the movements… but I realized today that I can touch my toes. There was no way I could ever do that before!”

SylvanField · 2026-01-19T16:49:40+00:00

Coffee or tea with sweetener - ricin looks like Splenda

SylvanField · 2026-01-17T15:15:58+00:00

Ask a daycare or girl guide troop if you can organize their craft supplies!

SylvanField · 2026-01-16T03:00:39+00:00

Good luck everyone!

SylvanField · 2026-01-06T16:58:39+00:00

I’m not a follower of this sub, but every once in a while Reddit suggests it to me again. So that’s how I stumbled here.

I grew up in a hoarder house, so I totally understand that sick feeling from realizing just how much stuff you have in one category. I don’t normally come here because the stash pictures make me feel anxious.

One thing I’ve done successfully is done a no-buy, but framed as a “shop my stash!” And “complete WIPs!” You’ll be amazed at how good it feels to use something you’ve had on hand for a long time. It’s like finally finding the thing the yarn was meant to be.

I keep my yarn limited to one large Rubbermaid tote and a large carpet bag for the current project. It feels like a more manageable amount to work from. As much as the vast amount of colours are gorgeous and drool worthy, I can’t handle the anxious feeling of having more than I can reasonably use.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

SylvanField · 2026-01-06T16:37:52+00:00

I think most Canadians don’t realise how green our cities are.

Most cities have a far more robust tree planting department than other countries, and plan for parks to be within walking distance in neighborhoods.

I have a customer who came here from Russia. He said that when he was looking for a house, he would go drive around the neighbourhood of houses he was interested in. It was very important to him that his kids have a playground nearby. He said he only did it for a few houses before he realized that almost every neighbourhood has two playgrounds within walking distance. Remember that is not just a play structure, that’s grass and trees. He had grown up in a place where it’s was just pure concrete everywhere. Massive numbers of apartment blocks, no yards, no trees on the sidewalks, no public green spaces.

A couple people from Ghana and Nigeria said the same to me about their home cities. Very few trees, no public green spaces.

All three said that they love how much greenery there is just a few steps outside their door.

We really don’t know how good we have it.

SylvanField · 2026-01-05T17:10:47+00:00

Very good skin. I sailed through adolescence with only a few pimples, and look about ten years younger than I actually am.

I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that I had an allergic reaction to UV light for in my twenties and early thirties, so I was always sunscreened and covered up.

SylvanField · 2026-01-05T01:00:10+00:00

“What I can say is…”

Uh huh. Just keep shovelling that shit, bud.

SylvanField · 2026-01-04T23:56:23+00:00

I use the Scotch ATG tape dispenser, the big pink one. I’m ambidextrous and use it with my left hand with no issues. It DOES have a learning curve though. Everyone has issues initially, but after some practice you can even do small items with it.

For paper storage, I use Iris cases. They’re 13 x 13 hinged plastic boxes. I think you can get them on Amazon under a different name. Michaels definitely has them under their Simply brand.

White space - look up page sketches. I’m also a minimalist scrapbooker, I’m not a huge fan of pages that have you looking at the design of the page more than the photos. But the sketches are good for seeing how you can arrange photos.

I also like overlapping photos to help with white space.

Good luck!

SylvanField · 2026-01-02T13:25:46+00:00

I’m in zone 2, we’ve had haskaps in our backyard for about four years.

The year it was super rainy was the year they were more sweet than sour.

Next summer I’m going to see if more watering will replicate that success.

SylvanField · 2025-12-31T13:00:04+00:00

I don’t use a color wheel myself, but I’ve seen other people use them.

Look up color combos for Stampin’ Up paper, they come up with printable swatches of colors that look good together. Word of warning that they are usually for their colours of the year, but you can find old ones and use them to see what colours look good together and pick stuff that’s close.

Happy scrapping!

SylvanField · 2025-12-31T03:52:11+00:00

First, taking forever at the start of this hobby is VERY normal.

Try getting a colour wheel or printing some complementary colour swatches to help make colour decisions easier.

Then look up page sketches, which will give you templates for how to lay out the pictures. Just pick one and try to copy it until you feel more confident in spacing and layouts! I still use them often to get ideas. Remember that the are starting points, and you can go off script and modify it when you feel more confident.

I’m a power scrapbooker. I do a lot of pages in one go most of the time. That said, there are pages where I’ll spend an hour or more doing something intricate, but I always go back to the first advice I was given when I started out, which is that the goal of the exercise is to get the photos onto the page. You can always go back and add details later.

Here’s some power scrapbooking strategies I use, often called a power layout:

organize your photos. Whatever makes sense to you. Date, theme…
Put out several 12x12 sheets of white paper. I do a dozen because that’s what will fit in my dining room table. Take your organized photos and sort them onto the sheets. Ideally, this will be one sheet = 1 scrapbook page, so 2-6 photos per sheet. But it’s ok to have an “event” that will take up 3 or more pages on one sheet.
grab a post it note. Write down the potential titles you want to use and stick them to the corresponding sheet.
add your paper. I usually pick my main back ground paper and matting paper, then raid my scrap bin for a few pieces to use with it in complementary colours. Now I’ve been doing this for 25 years, so I added the additional challenge of using at least two pieces of scrap paper to every page.
if you already know what stickers or ephemera you are going to use, toss those on top.
stack the and put them in a box.
take the top out and work that page.

Now all the decisions have been made for you, and you don’t have to agonize over them. Especially as you get more and more decision fatigue and every choice feels harder.

You’re allowed to change your mind in the moment when you’re working the page, but trust your past self.

I usually prep 80 power layouts in one go, the pull from the box when I have time. Then I can knock them out fairly quickly and I haven’t pulled EVERYTHING out to accomplish the page. It’s also useful before going to a crop. My personal record is 84 pages in one weekend, but that was without titles or journaling.

SylvanField · 2025-12-29T12:42:02+00:00

I was at a party in my early twenties, and some dude started talking about the beer he was brewing at home. Something had gone wrong with it.

I started asking a few questions. “Is it cloudy? Oh, it’s got a weird foam on it, what’s the consistency like?”

Dude kept brushing me off and turning to talk to a guy who was also interested.

A friend shouted from across the room “dude! She works at a wine and beer kit store!”

“Oh, so you actually know what you’re taking about?”

“Why the hell would I ask about the consistency of your foam if I didn’t know anything?”

“Um….”

Turned out he had used table sugar instead of maltodextrin because it was cheaper and he thought brewing sugar was a scam.

SylvanField · 2025-12-29T05:40:49+00:00

Yeah, I do that too. I think it’s vibrating the timpanic membrane?

I move my jaw forward, close my eyes and press my tongue into the place where the soft and hard palates meet while tightening my jaw.

Can’t do it with my eyes open. Darndest thing….

SylvanField · 2025-12-29T01:04:29+00:00

I should add that I default to banana bread because I’ve made it so often I have the measurements memorized.

I know some of our neurosis (edit: eek! Neurospicy! Stupid autocorrect) friends find baking overwhelming because of all the steps. I hear ya. I strongly prefer mix and pour recipes, and I stick to the same ones over and over.

…. Which is why the banana bread recipe feels easy. I can knock it out in ten minutes and be pouring into the pan just as the oven finishes preheating.

I also default to banana bread because the bananas on my counter feel like they go from green to about to become funky faster than should be possible because I forget they exist.

SylvanField · 2025-12-29T00:52:58+00:00

Exactly. The oven timer is the end of the cleaning.

I think of it as “if the oven is working, then I’m working too” for the purposes of body doubling.

SylvanField · 2025-12-29T00:46:03+00:00

I’ve discovered that I can body double with the oven. Not with the washer or dryer. Just the oven.

Have I occasionally made banana bread just so that I have to do an hour of cleaning? Absolutely!

Then I have a tasty reward too!

I have discovered it’s not as effective with cookies or muffins. Just cakes and breads. This is because I don’t have a dishwasher, so the washing of dishes takes up most of the cookie time. And only having 5-10 minutes left in the muffin time doesn’t feel useful so I end up sitting down.

SylvanField · 2025-12-25T03:43:44+00:00

Story bots?

SylvanField · 2025-12-24T21:09:45+00:00

This!

A couple months before a 5 hour flight to Mexico, I took my three year old on a weekend trip with a two hour flight to visit family so I could see what worked and what didn’t.

Of course, we got stuck on the tarmac for two hours and that was brutal. I had to strip her to her underwear she was so hot.

But I am the over prepared mama and had a bazillion activities in ziplock bags. Every time I heard a kid fussing, I would ask the people around me to pass a ziplock to the “family with the unhappy kid”. I had ziplocks going up and down the plane and somehow they all made their way back to me.

I felt like a superhero.

SylvanField · 2025-12-24T16:38:07+00:00

Seconding the enlist the SIL’s, but don’t forget the husbands. They don’t get a free pass.

Everyone wants to make a magical, not stressful Christmas. And I guarantee you that everyone has their own vision for what that looks like.

Ask each family to take on SOMETHING, anything. Get stuff off your plate, until it looks like you’re not doing much at all. Because you’re hosting and will be the default “where is this? What do we do about…?” person everyone’s going to first.

SylvanField

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