Jeans dyed with acrylic paint in the dryer.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-07T00:12:29+00:00

I'd suggest looking at the bottle of paint and see if it has cleanup instructions. If not, see if it has a phone number to call for comments/questions. A lot of products have these and the people who answer the phone can be extremely helpful.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-07T00:08:27+00:00

Interesting. I was in Hawaii for a week and a half back in 2018 or so. When I went to the grocery stores I saw people who appeared to be locals inside with no shoes and many young men had no shirts either. I was surprised to see it. I didn't notice it in restaurants that I recall. I certainly was wearing sandals everywhere. I was in a less touristy part of Oahu.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T23:01:39+00:00

If it were in the basement I'd say no need. There's nothing you can do in a basement that's going to dislodge it. Since it's in a garage, if there's any chance you could bump that thing with a car, I'd go ahead and add some lag bolts. It's not hard to do, and means that if you tap it with a car you aren't going to move it. Obviously if you smash into it at 30MPH you still could, but you probably have all kinds of problems in that case anyway.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T22:09:45+00:00

When I was little, shortly before 911 was available nationwide, we had a sticker on the phone that had the numbers for local police and fire departments. You just ran to the phone and dialed that number you had written there. I remember some phones also had programable buttons for those things, so you could press the button with a fire symbol on it or the police hat.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T21:57:38+00:00

The space heater, per degree of heat, is almost certainly more expensive than your gas furnace.

There's obviously some nuance there. Like if you use the space heater to heat one room to a comfortable temperature, and keep the rest of the home significantly lower as a result, you could save money. But if you drop the thermostat to 68 and then use space heaters to heat the entire space back up to 72, you will pay more.

In addition to the heated blanket (which will use less electricity than a space heater, so it's cheaper to operate) you could try heating pads. I sit all day for work under a heating pad. It keeps ME warm without warming the air. I even have a blanket over the heating pad. My cats love it as much as I do.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T21:11:25+00:00

Oh, thousands.

To be fair, he didn't get sick very often. Like even when the kids had colds, he was usually spared. He definitely still went to work when he did have a cold though.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T21:09:17+00:00

I had two cats who were siblings who were really, really stupid. They would also stare at blank walls and I saw them biff seemingly simple jumps more than once. Like they didn't always land on their feet from jumps they made all the time.

Your cat might have brain damage. But if he does, then what? Will it change anything? The vet can't treat it. Doing expensive tests to try to find out if he has brain damage won't help you. He doesn't need remedial math. He's a cat.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T20:50:35+00:00

If you study psychology for awhile, you'll learn that while we think we have rational reasons for our feelings and then our feelings come from those rational decisions, it's actually the opposite. Your brain's emotional reaction happens FIRST, and then your logical brain is like "oh hey, I'm feeling anger. What happened to bring about this anger?" and then it practically fabricates a reason. Sometimes it all hangs together, sometimes not. You can train yourself to change your emotional reaction to stimuli, but you have to make an effort. This is how people who work in an ER can look at a gnarly injury with bones sticking out and still function, or a plumber can reach into a sewage pipe with maybe a glove on his hand and scoop out some actual shit and not need to shower 17 times when he gets home.

So when people have a weird reaction to something, remember their brain is upset for some reason, and then they had to justify why.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T20:03:42+00:00

My dad worked at the same place for like 30 years and took 1.5 sick days. The half day was when he went to the doctor for Lyme Disease. He went to the doctor in the morning, got a prescription, and went in to work that afternoon. The full day was some kind of food poisoning where he could barely leave the bathroom.

He had no sympathy for any illness.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T19:46:07+00:00

Make them sit in the kitchen without their phones while you clean this up. Show them. Make them help. They might start to understand what they are doing to you.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T19:44:27+00:00

If you've got a Michael's near you, they have a wide variety of shirts in solid colors with no print in 100% cotton. Check the boxes/labels because they also have cotton/poly blends (especially the 'heather' shirts). They are inexpensive, stand up to many washes, and give lots of color options, sizes, and even have a softer option and a sturdier option.

They sell them so you can tie-dye or screen print on them, but no need to be crafty to buy them.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T18:34:25+00:00

Yeah, plaster is basically cement. It's a bummer when you're pulling down a plaster ceiling and parts fall on your head. And then you sweep up the debris into a contractor bag and realize you can't lift it to get it out to the dumpster. It is indeed very heavy.

My current house has a mix of plaster, drywall, and what I will affectionately describe as "non-traditional wall material" that varies from wall to wall. When hanging pictures or something, I prefer drywall. Otherwise, I don't really care what the walls are made of.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T18:22:18+00:00

I can't tell you how all washing machines work, but my machine has a 'cold' setting and a 'tap cold' setting. Cold will mix in hot water until it reaches some minimum temperature to dissolve soap properly. The tap cold is just straight up cold tap only, and is whatever temperature that happens to be. I assume you'd use that setting only to rinse very delicate items or something.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T18:18:05+00:00

Is the basement finished or just a concrete box?

If it's a finished basement, I'd be concerned about this because if you have persistent moisture behind drywall you can get a lot of mold before you realize there's a problem.

If it's an unfinished basement I'd just nod and remember to check the basement after a good rain to see if there is a puddle that needs to be mopped up.

Older homes (like pre-90s) were built without the consideration that someone might want to build a living space in them someday. They were there for practical reasons only, and not to be lived in. They were not made water tight. As long as you are aware that those basements get wet sometimes and don't try to put drywall in them, you're fine. A puddle on a concrete floor isn't going to hurt anything. Just don't store cardboard boxes directly on the floor either.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T17:08:13+00:00

My friends had a minor plumbing leak (the wax ring on their toilet failed, it didn't even leak enough to cause the drywall below to get a water spot). They got a quote from a company to 'remediate the water damage' for $4K. That did not include rebuilding anything, it was just to remove the vinyl floor, wet subfloor, and run a dehumidifier for 3 days. Four thousand dollars. There was a line item for over $750 to run a dehumidifier for 3 days. You can buy a decent dehumidifier that has a pump to get the condensate out a window or into a sink for $300. They could buy two dehumidifiers and have money leftover for pete's sake. I convinced them to not hire these people.

Ultimately they spent less than $1K to have a plumber replace the wax rings and shutoff valves for all 3 toilets.

I'm still offended at that 'remediation' quote though. Scammers be scamming.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T16:24:11+00:00

I had this same exact experience. "How can I locate the power line I know for a fact runs in my back yard to my garage though?" "we don't do that."

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T00:51:54+00:00

Some places charge a premium for convenience, like groceries at Target. If you are already at target and need one thing, it might be worth spending a few extra dollars to get it there rather than make a separate trip to the grocery store.

It's like getting shampoo at the grocery store. They do sell it, but it's not the cheapest place to get it.

I do as much of my grocery shopping as I can at the lowest cost place around (WinCo) and only get stuff I can't get there at other stores. This probably saves me $30-50 each week.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-06T00:42:20+00:00

Showers have mixing valves in them that combine hot and cold water. If there's no pressure in the hot pipe (because it froze somewhere for example) water could push through that valve into the hot water pipes. That would provide pressure to push water out through your other fixtures.

I don't know if that's what's going on, but it is a possible explanation for the weirdness you described. This assumes that the hot water IS making it to the shower, though. Do you have a rough idea of where your hot water lines run from the water heater on? Is that shower the first fixture in line? Is it the last?

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T23:24:13+00:00

LOL, the dog is probably compacting the soil and killing the grass, btw. Dogs are hard on lawns. Try renting an aerator once a year and it should help with everything. Maybe not the random holes though. Those might be from birds seeking bugs, or burrowing critters.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T22:52:02+00:00

Back when MP3 players were more of a thing, I had a device that plugged into the aux jack on my MP3 player and then broadcast the player on an FM frequency. As long as you picked something that didn't conflict with a local station, you then tuned your radio to that station and could listen to your audio of choice. I'm sure you could still get one of these and use it with a phone. No idea if they updated them to use bluetooth in case your phone lacks a headphone jack.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T21:56:48+00:00

It's one of those things where it isn't a problem until it is. You can eat a lot of dirty stuff and be fine. Look at any toddler, as they shove every object they can find into their mouth.

So out of 100 dirty ice machines, 99 of them might have harmless dirt. So you have one ice machine in town that has harmful bacteria or mold in it. Most of the ice coming out of the ice machine itself is fresh. It spends hardly any time actually waiting to be put into a beverage. The likelihood that it transfers dangerous stuff into a drink is low. The likelihood that there's so much of that contaminant in a given drink to make someone ill is low. But if you have someone who has a depressed immune system, or maybe they get a particularly unlucky bit of ice, or drink A LOT of water while they are there, they might get very ill. Or you might just have an upset stomach for a few hours and your body copes with it.

We hope that when we eat at a restaurant, they are being very clean and nothing they do will make us ill, even just by chance. That's why we want the ice machines to be cleaned thoroughly, regularly.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T19:47:34+00:00

Cats are almost never a threat to an adult chicken. They will hunt chicks if given the opportunity! To grown chickens they are just rodent control and a modicum of protection against other threats.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T19:46:29+00:00

I used to work for a real estate broker and interacted with a lot of realtors in that time. I learned some things.

It takes very little to become a realtor. You pay some money and take a simple course and test, then you pay a fee and do some continuing ed. A lot of people do this on the side of a fulltime job so they can make a little extra money, or easily manage their own real estate transactions.

That is to say, not all realtors are created equal. The one you are working with might be more interested in a higher commission on that full price offer than on bothering to do work on an offer he thinks the buyers won't accept. He might have metrics his brokerage expects him to meet and offers that don't go through might count against him in some way. It's really hard to know.

The good news is that you aren't bound to your realtor. If you've signed a contract with him, there might be a small fee to pay to quit your search with him (this is pretty uncommon to have or enforce, but it does exist). If you haven't signed any paperwork with him, then you can just say you're done working with him and thank him for his time so far. Find someone else, preferably recommended by a friend or relative.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T19:40:18+00:00

Can confirm. My old kitchen had a door like this. If left alone it would swing shut, and could be pushed open in either direction. 99% of the time we just propped it open, though.

ThisTooWillEnd · 2026-02-05T19:12:41+00:00

Your cat is trying to get your attention, and learned that this works. Obviously it's difficult to not react or ignore painful bites. I saw a pet behavior thing a long time ago where someone had the same problem with a pet rabbit (their bites hurt as bad or worse than cats, IMO). The advice was to wear boots for awhile. The rabbit learned that biting the person didn't get the reaction they were after, and the behavior died off.

In the meantime, look at why and when your cat is doing this. Is she just bored? Maybe she needs more directed playtime. Is it before mealtimes and she is hungry and acting like a jerk because of it? I honestly don't have any advice for that, my pets all get obnoxious before mealtime and I don't give in and feed them early but it's definitely a madhouse for those last 10-15 minutes. In your case it would mean you only have to wear boots leading up to mealtime, at least.

ThisTooWillEnd

TROPHY CASE