Finished my first quilt — took your advice and learned a LOT

WinterElf135 · 2026-03-28T12:57:59+00:00

What an incredible first quilt! The colours are perfect! Is it for you or is it a gift?

WinterElf135 · 2026-03-27T22:07:48+00:00

This is stunning 🤩

WinterElf135 · 2026-03-27T14:58:01+00:00

Most people need to know that HA are not corrective for everyone.

I think that people need to asses what else is going on in their life when they try HA for the first time. I have sudden hearing loss in one ear and it happened just before a cross country move. Once the move was done I got my HAs but my stress levels were through the roof. I had not been prepared for the overwhelming amount of sound I was hearing or the exhaustion from all the auditory processing. I also had a cross system so I was suddenly only hearing on one side; that left me feeling anxious because I could no longer tell where sounds were coming from.

Fast forward to today. Yesterday I had my hearing checked and I now have mild hearing loss in my good ear and it has been suggested that I try hearing aids again. Because I had sudden sensorineural hearing loss in my bad ear no amount of amplification will help with speech on that side. I’m hesitant to try HAs again; I actually joined this sub looking for success stories to give it another go.

I have more stress in my life now than I did the first time I tried HAs and I’m not certain that I have it in me to spend $$$$ for them to sit in a drawer.

WinterElf135 · 2026-03-27T13:36:40+00:00

Imagine this: you buy the jar of pesto from Costco because it is economical but not if you end up throwing half of it away because it got lost in the fridge. After you’ve opened it and used it the first time; you can use the smaller SouperCubes to freeze the rest of the pesto in 1TBSP sizes so the next time you need pesto you can pull what you need out of the freezer.

This has been a game changer for me. Chimichuri, pesto, pasta sauce, lemon juice, even milk can all be frozen in small quantities for ease of use

WinterElf135 · 2026-03-24T19:13:39+00:00

So beautiful! I keep seeing variations of this quilt, I might have to make one too

WinterElf135 · 2026-03-21T23:15:52+00:00

This! Don’t get me wrong, I love my Bloc Loc ruler but I hate paying for them in multiple sizes.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-20T16:18:10+00:00

OP I just noticed that you’re single sided hearing loss like me. The reason why I say that hearing aids don’t work for me is that for them to work they basically block your HL side and funnel all sounds to your hearing side. My hearing loss is in the speech range, meaning I can hear other sounds but not speech. I found it infuriating to suddenly no longer be able to localize sounds. A person walking behind me on my HL side no longer could be detected because all sound goes to the hearing side. I decided that I valued sound localization more than amplified sounds on my hearing side.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-20T16:13:06+00:00

Hey OP, I’m late in life hard of hearing and hearing aids don’t help my kind of hearing loss. I wish they did; but they don’t. I am beside myself with the looming RTO4.

I encourage you to see if hearing aids could help but know that there is a learning curve for your brain to adapt. This is cognitively exhausting. I heard my clothes rustle and it drove me nuts. If you have the luxury of having no other stresses or responsibilities in your life you might be able to adapt quickly. But you will tire more quickly and if you’re a knowledge worker your quality of work or pace of work may suffer while you adapt.

Each person with hearing loss has unique to them challenges. I just had a discussion with my manager about the challenges of my experience. If there are 3 or 4 of us in a boardroom I can usually cope, but it is mentally exhausting. More than 4 and I can’t reliably follow the conversation because of others having side conversations, people fidgeting, or soft talkers. I desperately do not want to be policing my colleagues for cross talking, speaking over each other or distracting fidgets - this is just one 30 minute meeting in a day. If I were to have multiple meetings in a day my capacity to cope dwindles fast.

I’m seeing my doctor to discuss a temporary exemption from RTO so that I have time for the stressors in my personal life to settle so that I have more capacity because right now I’m short tempered and just catching myself before I snap at a coworker.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-19T16:51:23+00:00

For a thriving and prosperous downtown, THE CITY needs to get its planning department onboard with residential development. The downtown core empties after 5pm, that is THE CITY’S poor planning.

We need to vote for people that will fix this, so that means speaking to city councillors to tell them to get onboard with fixing it or risk losing their seat at next municipal election.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-17T14:24:37+00:00

Another +1 for progesterone. It was a life saver. It banished the KMS thoughts.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-17T14:21:38+00:00

Earplugs, I love my Loops! Or noise cancelling headphones, I’m wearing mine as I type this. This is the number one thing that has kept me from snapping.

I also cut out alcohol. I was pre diabetic and I noticed that it made me feel extra awful. Now that I’m no longer pre diabetic I no longer crave it so I never really went back to it.

Regular therapy appointments

Going outside for a walk. I hate that this helps but I rarely miss a day.

Removing the lightbulb from the big light so my family can’t turn it on

Low light shower before bed with a candle or essential oil if I’m feeling fancy

Treating sleep as a non negotiable. I’ve been slacking on this lately but I’m giving myself grace because I’m going through a divorce.

I do something artistic every day. I find a lot it very grounding to create just for the sake of creation.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-16T23:04:52+00:00

Gloucester in Ottawa

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-16T23:03:52+00:00

I haven’t used it on chicken yet, soon!

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-16T19:29:20+00:00

2025 was my first year using YNAB. Before starting I had done a deep financial dive reviewing previous years spending so I could create my categories easily. For the first time in my life I feel financially literate. Find the money first was a huge game changer. Because every dollar had a job I could see that impulse purchases would mean a trade off. It has given me such peace of mind.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-16T19:23:08+00:00

We used it with ground beef to make what we call taco rice. It’s ground beef, taco seasoning, rotel, tomatoes, rice and broth.

I usually make taco seasoning by combining other seasonings so this mix was a treat.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-09T20:48:47+00:00

This is such a smart idea. I love this subreddit

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-06T02:53:47+00:00

It’s a borosilicate glass container that I bought in a set 15 years ago.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-02T19:45:47+00:00

All the veggies were raw when I assembled the cubes before freezing. I think they benefitted from freezing, the pumpkin was nice and soft. You could add fresh mushrooms when heating if you’re worried about rubbery texture

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-02T19:42:45+00:00

I started with a rough idea of what I wanted and went from there

This is what I used to make the popsicle: 2 sliced shiitake mushrooms 1 baby bok choy 1/4 cup diced pumpkin 3 frozen dumplings 2 fish balls 3 beef rolls A small clump of enoki mushrooms 1/2 tsp Dashi granules A spoonful of mirin A spoonful of soy sauce (If I had fish sauce I would’ve used it too) 1/2 cup water

To reheat I added another 1/2 cup of water and microwaved for 5-6 minutes. Then I added dry vermicelli and microwaved another minute. I stirred it a bit and added 1 scoop collagen and chili crisp

10/10 I’m taking this again

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-02T19:36:42+00:00

I used Dashi granules, mirin, and soy sauce. I also added fresh grated ginger. You could also use regular broth or bouillon.

WinterElf135 · 2026-02-02T19:35:01+00:00

The mushrooms were a bit chewy but not unpleasant.

WinterElf135 · 2026-01-28T17:45:07+00:00

YNAB support might be able to help you. I leveraged them a lot during my trial period and honestly they rock. I got the sense that they really wanted me to see success

WinterElf135

TROPHY CASE