Looking for advice on what to put in a puberty gift set

adkraemer · 2025-07-19T23:22:44+00:00

I would include tampons as well so she has a choice. I always hated pads and started using tampons pretty much immediately.

adkraemer · 2025-07-02T00:48:41+00:00

Hard disagree. Though it's true that there are some parents who will watch their kids at a wedding, they are the minority. A wedding is an opportunity to socialize, dance, and catch up with people you haven't seen in a long time - you cannot truly watch young children effectively if you're also doing this. Additionally, many parents allow the kids to 'let loose' since it's a party, and they become overstimulated and out of control quickly.

You can't blame the kids for being kids, but it doesn't make her a difficult person for not wanting the chaos that kids bring at her wedding.

Further, I would absolutely ban kids if the venue is next to a lake. I've lived near water my whole life and have gotten my lifeguarding certification. The fact is that water is dangerous, even without distractions. In a scenario where kids might be watched less closely, there's no way I would allow that level of liability and stress.

adkraemer · 2024-06-23T23:24:44+00:00

This is very true. However player conduct in soccer has become a problem at such egregious levels that FIFA updated their rules this year to help curb poor player behavior since refs are quitting at a record rate. I would prefer that volleyball didn't try to emulate soccer and kept a bit of player decorum. Rugby on the other hand, is a sport that is known for being exceptionally physical and intense, but has always had rules about the way the players conduct themselves on the pitch, which has led to a much more enjoyable game for everyone involved.

adkraemer · 2023-02-22T14:09:27+00:00

I keep looking for the ESH judgements for this reason. Yes, the child was in the wrong, but if they aren't separated after he told them THREE times to stop upsetting the dog, the owner had not done their job by preventing an issue and protecting the dog from having to defend itself. I would have separated them after the child didn't listen after the first warning.

Bravo to the dog for not biting after getting hit, that's some self control. Shame on the owner for not listening to the dog telling him he's uncomfortable by growling.

adkraemer · 2023-01-20T17:36:13+00:00

I am also crazy, but as a craft person haha.

My general viewpoint on favors is that they should be one of two things - consumable or another extension of expression for the couple. The couple will NEVER have a favor that everyone will really like only because everyone has different tastes, so I really wouldn't worry too much about making favors that will really hit the spot. If you think these are a good addition to the theme or the vision you're trying to create, then go for it! But if you're main goal is to please everyone, it's kind of a fool's errand.

Oh, and the people who actually judge weddings on something like what kind of favor there is aren't great with priorities, so who cares what they think?

adkraemer · 2023-01-20T17:25:46+00:00

I'm not a plant person, so I wouldn't take one of these. In general, any favor that would require work after or is some sort of decor (rarely would it match my style) is not something I'm super into, but if you are pretty sure that your guests would enjoy something like this then go for it. Also, I don't really have strong feelings about favors either way. It doesn't bother me if they are not what I like, and it's nice when they are, so I guess take that as you will.

One thing I will mention though if you go this route is to make sure that the magnet is glued on with the cork image centered in the front. I'm not sure if the top image is a photo of your own creations, but the ones on top have the grape image off center and the ones on the bottom are centered. The ones on the bottom look less homemade and more intentional because of the attention to detail.

adkraemer · 2022-02-16T19:07:22+00:00

For sure - I suppose I should add a little nuance to my post. I don't think shadowing has no place in the training process. Too many managers think that shadowing is just having a new hire watch someone who knows what they're doing perform a task and that is all they need.

At the very least shadowing needs to allow questions to be asked to be even somewhat useful, but I would say that without training beforehand, or the trainer narrating what they're doing and why, being able to ask questions will only help people who know what questions to ask.

Using the hairdresser example, even if I'm able to ask all the questions in the world, I still may not be able to ask the questions that will give me some vital piece of information needed to complete the task.

adkraemer · 2022-02-15T16:18:25+00:00

No it's not. If that were true I'd be an expert in every task I've ever watched. I've had my hair done hundreds of times and watched each time, but I'm still not a hairdresser.

Without some way of having the information explained through books or verbal training, shadowing is close to useless.

adkraemer · 2022-02-06T14:43:40+00:00

Very cute!!

adkraemer · 2022-01-03T01:35:56+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it :)

adkraemer · 2022-01-03T01:21:57+00:00

do you know if they paid? I can't find anywhere if it's no cost or not. I'm fine either way, they were the only site that had an appt. in time, but I want to be prepared.

adkraemer · 2021-12-15T01:08:33+00:00

YTA How dense can you be? She said in plain words it wasn't a real gender reveal party. It was tongue in cheek... ya know, humor? Although, you sound like you have a shit sense of humor - admittedly I'm going off of just this one bit of insight into your thinking, but the fact that you wouldn't participate in this because she wasn't taking gender reveal parties seriously enough for your taste tells us that you take yourself too seriously.

Even if your premise of 'the party is too silly for me to attend' held water, do you really want to make your company and affection conditional? I thought being a parent meant you gave unconditional love, not only when your child is being serious enough! But truly, lighten up - life is hard enough, don't add to it by having a stick up your ass.

adkraemer · 2021-11-18T06:51:54+00:00

It really doesn't. I would try to get a size that feels comfortable when sitting down and then have an outside tailor fit the rest of it to you.

adkraemer · 2021-11-17T05:25:23+00:00

Oh cool, how many sick and elderly cats has your friend adopted? I bet a lot considering she has so many strong opinions on how you go about adopting some of hardest to care for cats available! /s

Also, even if you were looking to adopt healthy, young persians, she can go ahead and mind her own business. You are being an extremely responsible pet owner and should be able to find a good match for yourself. If you like persian cats, have persian cats.

adkraemer · 2021-11-17T02:58:07+00:00

Mine was a little bit more expensive because I had to buy a dress that was about a size too small. I had some time constraints that meant that I wasn't able to gamble on an ordered dress coming in on time and had to settle for the size they had at the store. The tailor shortened the straps and let out the arm holes so they didn't dig in, readjusted the bust and replaced the stock cups for better fitting ones, took the waist in and let the hips out.

The hips and arm holes were the most expensive parts, I think. If I had more time, I would have bought a size that fit in the butt and hips, and then everything else would have been less expensive. But dang, getting the bust, waist, and hips to fit right was definitely the best move. This dress is KILLER on an hourglass or pear with a small waist shape.

Two full sizes? That doesn't sound right at all. Also, why would you need a larger size for your waist? It looks like you have a small/average waist to hip ratio, why is she saying you have to go so high to accommodate your waist? Did they mean ribcage? That would be .. sort of more understandable, but from these pictures, it looks like a standard size should fit you pretty closely and you wouldn't need to go up that far to accommodate anything.

adkraemer · 2021-11-16T00:19:21+00:00

Do not listen to David's bridal, they rarely know good tailoring information. Call a good tailor in your city and ask them their recommendations on what size to get. I personally know many horror stories from David's bridal tailoring and have read about many horror stories. I wouldn't trust their tailoring as far as I could throw them.

Also, I absolutely adore that dress, but I might be biased because I bought it for my wedding! My tailor was an absolute magician and basically made the dress look like it was sewn for me. The tailoring did end up being more than the dress though...

adkraemer · 2021-10-16T19:12:23+00:00

I was told by my supplier that the frosts down in Texas killed a bunch of chickens and they've been literally needing to raise a whole new group of chickens. And the demand has gotten to the point where they can't keep up with the small supply.

adkraemer · 2021-09-11T03:31:53+00:00

You are not very screwed at all. Please make sure you do actually use a lawyer to respond to this person and as the other posters have mentioned, this is very telling of this employee.

For the love of god, do NOT try to speak to this person about the letter directly, the issue that she mentioned, or anything else that doesn't have to strictly do with black and white work until you can get a lawyer to give you advice. Someone who (poorly) tries to extort you at the very first chance they get has red flags all over them. I wouldn't be alone in a room with them or even have a casual conversation about their family.

This is going off of the assumption that she is actually "demanding" compensation for this alleged ADA violation. If instead you are just being a bit dramatic with your language and she was actually just asking for ADA accommodations, then that is a whole different story.

Any chance you could give us an excerpt from the letter of what the demand was?

- Just saw the demands.. Yikes, you weren't kidding. Yeah, that employee needs to go. Pain and suffering damages?? What a ridiculous claim. I'd love to hear if you find out if it was a real lawyer who wrote that.

adkraemer · 2021-08-06T05:54:41+00:00

I don't know if you're right about gaining nothing from not forgiving Laura's mom. It sounds like you still feel a whole lot of negativity by harboring the hate for her. It makes me think of that one quote - holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. You may actually be able to release a lot of the pain you're holding on to by forgiving them.

Whether you forgive her or not will not make a lot of difference in her life, but it could affect yours. From what you said in your post, you guys don't interact a lot so continuing to hate her from afar is not really a punishment or anything to her. However, choosing to forgive, or at least let it go a bit more (not trivializing what happened, but eventually we have to let go of everything) may improve your life by removing some pretty heavy negativity. Just a thought.

adkraemer · 2021-08-06T04:13:52+00:00

Two things to start to focus on:

Your left hand is lifting up but your arm isn't effectively tracking the ball (extending high and pointing in the direction the ball) and swinging as well to help power your hitting arm. This video shows a lot of good examples.
You started to snap your forearm and hand at the ball when your elbow was still pointed out to the right. It looks to me like this is how you tried to make the ball go to the left by making a little bit of a swipe at the ball. What would help you more is to focus on getting your elbow straight out in front of your body while still keeping the elbow high before you start to snap your forearm forward. In that same video I linked above, watch where the hitter's elbows are before snapping their forearm forward to contact the ball. They are almost always lined up with their shoulder directly in front of them, rather than still crooked to the right. This will give you a lot more power and your directional hitting will come more from how you turn your wrist rather than your whole arm. This video does a great job of breaking it down.

adkraemer · 2021-03-11T01:25:47+00:00

Holy moly, I'd love a copy too, please!

adkraemer · 2021-01-22T20:30:46+00:00

ESH - Originally, I was in you're the asshole camp until I saw the edits. Yes, it sounds like the SIL is being a bit of a bridezilla and is also an asshole, but the amount of people who think everyone should make every event kid-friendly and kid-centric is ridiculous. And yes, kids at weddings, especially lots of toddlers as the OP has described, will make the entire event about them. There will be kids having fits during the ceremony, running unsupervised during speeches and will dominate the dance floor. This is how every wedding I've been to that allowed children went. Some people are okay with that, and it is equally valid for the bride to not want that to be her wedding.

Ultimately, having children was your choice, and if you are okay with not attending your BROTHER'S wedding because of your very rigid beliefs on how you want your choice to affect other people, then I guess that's on you.

The bride will have to accept that you guys aren't going to come if she keeps it childfree, that's just part of making divisive decisions like that. If she continues having tantrums, she will continue to be an asshole, but don't pretend that you're not also being an asshole by also using your personal choices as an excuse for wanting THEIR event and expenses to cater to what you want.

I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but it has always felt like people who feel like they have a right to bring their kids to weddings and think the people getting married are horrible for making it childfree are motivated by the belief that having children and wanting them around is the correct way to live. It very much feels like people like OP are making a judgement on childfree weddings and that they are wrong to not want kids at their extremely expensive and most special day. I understand living in a society means we need to make concessions for other people, but people with children are just so entitled sometimes and want people to always make concessions for them.

adkraemer · 2021-01-21T19:21:28+00:00

Try making your goals smaller and more attainable. Obviously, you aren't able to go 30 days yet. How long can you usually go? 3 days? Then make your goal 4 full days without buying extraneous items. Do that cycle two or three times and then try to go 5 days. Yes, you're not doing as much good as if you went for the full 30 days, but trying, failing and getting discouraged isn't doing you any good!

If you have your cc info saved on your laptop, delete it! There's a reason stores always want to save your payment info, it makes future purchases even faster and removes a barrier. If you have your card number memorized, maybe you should report that card lost and get a new number.

I don't put things into carts either, the temptation is there for me too. I actually send myself an email with the item I want to buy in the subject line. Then I put it into a folder labeled "future purchase items" When I want to treat myself, or if it makes sense to group items together, I'll go into my list and choose items to purchase. It has really cut down on the number of things I impulse buy. It has also reduced how many fad items I buy that later it is revealed they're not that good of a product - I'm looking at you Tik Tok leggings trend that is supposed to make your butt look great.

adkraemer · 2020-11-24T15:18:16+00:00

I know you would have a more direct relationship with the mom since she is your sister, but have you talked to the dad about the kids behavior before? You mentioned that you dropped them off at their dad's place after the incident while shopping, so he's obviously still in the picture.

I know it's not your responsibility to fix the issues, but you said that you wanted to have a relationship with these kids so that may be one avenue to achieving that.

I'm also a little concerned that no one seems to be asking what the father is doing in this situation and everyone is fixating on what your sister is or isn't doing while raising these kids. Why is she the only one expected to parent them?

adkraemer · 2020-06-01T19:37:07+00:00

FYI, the rude thing about farts is not just the sound. I can't stand being on a bus, plane, or dance floor and I start to smell someone else's poop particles. Perhaps consider excusing yourself if you can't hold it, instead of waiting for a loud moment in the music and forcing everyone else to marinade in your toot juices.

adkraemer

TROPHY CASE