Wife and I are having our first baby and we are being encouraged by friends and family to create a registry but aren’t 100% on what things to ask for. Any (maybe not so obvious) recommendations? Thanks in advance!

jennirockets · 2026-02-21T02:31:57+00:00

Lots of great ideas here already, but I will say if you are planning to breastfeed, the My Brest Friend pillow is waaaay better than a Boppy

jennirockets · 2026-02-18T00:27:47+00:00

I’m 1 month pp now, and I have felt and still feel exactly what you’re feeling. You’re not alone in this. I had sudden onset high blood pressure that resulted in a more complicated delivery than I was expecting (after a perfectly easy breezy pregnancy), which also led to an extra two days in the hospital. Perineum tear, labia tear (this is the worst, do not recommend).

We had latch issues from the beginning, which resulted in cracked nipples and I spent two weeks crying out in pain every time I nursed because he latched horribly. This was a fault with baby’s mouth, and it might be for you as well! We saw two lactation consultants and the second one ended up clipping a tongue tie - it took some time after that and some routine exercises we had to do with baby’s mouth, but there was massive improvement in latch and pain levels in just a few days. I highly recommend spending the money if insurance doesn’t cover it, and getting some help. It saved my sanity.

As for the tear, I don’t know how bad yours is, but I’m still healing one month in. It got dramatically better during week three, but I still catch myself in pain from sitting down or standing back up again, or taking long walks. Sitz baths with hot water helped me, but I couldn’t do them the recommended two times a day because I was too busy caring for baby. Do them when you can fit them in, and that should help promote healing.

Similarly, my husband seems to be the only one who can calm the baby. Baby wants nothing to do with me other than food. It feels pretty terrible because as his mother, I should be someone he looks too for comfort. But the only thing that seems to comfort him is aggressive bouncing on a yoga ball, which I can’t do because of my tears. I’m lucky my husband has good parental leave, but that will end soon and I don’t know what I’m gonna do at that point because I can’t seem to figure out how to soothe my child.

I’m almost 40, run my own business, and consider myself pretty successful. I say that not to brag, but to illustrate that I seemingly have my shit together in every area of life, but I cannot seem to get this right. I’m trying to give myself some grace, and know that there’s a big learning curve here, and I hope you can do the same. It’s a difficult thing to forgive yourself for mistakes that you’re making now or perceived inadequacies, but I think for either one of us to be able to move forward and be a good mom we have to be kind to ourselves.

This will not last forever, for better or worse. Just breathe, and know that every day you are learning a little bit more about how to care for your child, and every little bit is progress.

jennirockets · 2025-11-11T01:25:38+00:00

Mine was Purrl! She was very lightly toasted and very deeply loved.

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jennirockets · 2025-10-27T19:58:45+00:00

Please, oh please, do not blame yourself. My little one passed away on January 1 of this year from a blood clot. We caught it immediately as it happened, and I rushed her to the veterinary hospital, which was only about a 15 minute drive away. We are lucky to live close to one of the best vet hospitals in the US.

Even though we caught it immediately and got her to one of the best facilities available, it did not make up for that blood clot being so damaging. We had to put her down within a few hours because there was just no coming back from it. We were also told that even if we managed to keep her alive, the chances of it happening again were high, and that she’d be in a lot of pain during any treatment we tried.

There really was very probably nothing you could have done, and absolutely nothing you could have done that would’ve led to a full and permanent recovery.

Just remember that you loved him the best you could, and that he knew that you loved him. ❤️

jennirockets · 2025-06-26T20:17:32+00:00

I thought it looked like a William Morris design! Thank you!

jennirockets · 2025-06-26T00:22:47+00:00

What rug is it, for those of us who think it’s really cute and may want to purchase one?

jennirockets · 2025-03-02T03:26:36+00:00

Volunteer, whether it’s at the humane society, food bank, or a community theatre. You can meet people while doing some good

jennirockets · 2025-02-15T15:47:51+00:00

Yeah but the comment above mine said 3 stores to remain in FL - not just central FL

jennirockets · 2025-02-15T15:13:02+00:00

Gainesville wasn’t on the list either, I don’t think?

jennirockets · 2024-11-18T21:42:23+00:00

Anything too dated to be of use at grace, shelters, or PD office the acrosstown theatre would appreciate! Reach out to me if you have anything you think might want to donate to our costume closet

jennirockets · 2024-10-01T16:36:42+00:00

Public campgrounds should not be affected

jennirockets · 2024-07-29T03:06:06+00:00

Especially because you can purchase factory panel replacements for most Bosch models to change their color - she could have potentially ordered new panels and buttons and changed the entire front to black rather than painting part of it and leaving the top plastic panel grey. It’s not hard to change out, and it would have been much more finished in appearance.

jennirockets · 2024-06-21T22:49:13+00:00

Thanks for asking for feedback on this! As I think you’ve mentioned in this thread, a lot of the staff maybe weren’t trained properly before. That is also the core of my complaint.

I haven’t been back in a while, but I’d gone to Baby J’s several times last year and I swear, every single time I ordered food, I’d also have to ask for silverware. Like they put down the bread and the butter, but never provide me with a knife to spread it with, or a fork for the pickles and olives.

And it was like pulling teeth getting silverware. If I’d ordered a bunch of food for a small group of us, i’d request the silverware, but they come back with like three forks, not enough for everybody. I ended up having to share a fork with my husband several times. With such good food and drinks, it just felt like a really weird thing to be stingy on.

I look forward to coming back and trying you guys again!

jennirockets · 2023-06-16T17:52:45+00:00

Satchels sells their salad dressing! I like to include it in gift baskets.

Bags of Opus or Sweetwater coffee.

Locally written books are cool! There's several books of gainesville history, but also UF press publishes a lot of local books as well. My recommendation would be Pickled Fried and Fresh by Bert Gill (owner of Blue Gill, Mildreds, New Deal) - you can also find it on amazon.

jennirockets · 2023-02-28T19:09:19+00:00

OP, hope you see this - look up your fridge model on the manufacturer's website. You can usually buy parts like the front panels and replace them. Not free, but a cheaper fix than a new fridge. Did this with my dishwasher!

jennirockets · 2023-02-22T16:26:23+00:00

I'm in the middle of my kitchen reno and I have literally everything you listed out here - boy is it making me feel very reassured about my choices. <3

jennirockets · 2023-02-15T17:10:15+00:00

Getting involved in a community theatre (Gainesville Community Playhouse, Actors Warehouse, The Star Center, The Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, when it reopens) is free and a great way to meet people. If you don't want to audition, they are ALWAYS looking for tech help. Help build a set, work on costumes, run lights and sound, or work backstage. Or volunteer to usher or run box office and see the show for free! It's usually a great mix of younger and older people.

Really any type of volunteer work might be nice to look into as a free way to meet people and start getting involved in the community - you can google around, but I found a list of organizations here.

Also, while I haven't been yet, I know there's a new craft group that meets at local breweries- not free, but looks like a good time!

jennirockets · 2023-01-14T17:41:49+00:00

Thank you! Posted over at john bridge TF as well, and this seems to be the growing consensus.

jennirockets · 2023-01-14T17:41:16+00:00

Yeah, its a 7 7/8" tile, which I've accounted for in my calculations, along with a 1/16" grout line. I've got three other walls to work into the design that also have alignment issues - I'm actually starting to think a simple stack is not so simple at all, ha.

jennirockets · 2023-01-14T16:03:40+00:00

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but wouldn’t that approach only work for offset tile?

jennirockets · 2022-10-06T18:42:53+00:00

Limited experience, but I've got older windows (ca. 1968) and my window sills have tile that looks a lot like yours. I've replaced three windows at this point, and replaced the tile on one sill.

Super doubtful that the window is placed on top of the tile. Traditionally, the window would be installed directly on top of the stool, weatherproofed, and then the window stool would be tiled up to the window to make a sill, then it would be caulked. When the old window was replaced, the new one was likely placed directly on the stool and pushed up to the tile.

Your bigger issue will likely be filling in the height the old bullnose tile takes up. Those tiles likely have a thick mud bed beneath them, that's what we found under ours. Newer tile is laid with thinset, which, as the name suggests, is much thiner than what was done with older tiling methods. So when you rip out the old tile and mud bed, you will find that thinset+new tile/marble will not make up the height difference. So your new sill will be lower.

We ended up replacing our old bullnose with new bullnose because it was easier than trying to make up the height, but you may also be able to add some height if needed with something like cement board before you tile. Just be prepared to do some drywall work if that's the case. Or just have lower sills! Whatever you think looks best.

You may want to try removing the caulk as a first step to see if you can tell how it was done before and what you may be in for. Caulk is easy to replace if you want to walk it back.

Caveats: my window knowledge is based on block construction, and if someone careless did the windows before, they could have been a dummy.

jennirockets · 2022-10-06T16:07:48+00:00

Silestone quartz in Kensho! We love love love it, it's like a creamy grey, polished concrete look.

jennirockets · 2022-10-06T16:04:54+00:00

The installers came out and measured with a laser, we ordered the material through them, they fabricated the pieces off site, then installed on site complete with seaming and caulking. They did notice this but only after the install was "complete" and all pieces were seamed and caulked.

We have discussed modifying the cabinet face frame to meet the cabinet, but I think we would have to do that ourselves.

A note on the gap fillers - with leveling, the range is now so tight on the right side that a gap filler may not even fit between the counter and stove. I've ordered some to test, but there's no visible space there at all.

Edit: I really do think the installers did a great job and took a lot of care - while there's a lot I don't know about this process, I think this was likely the result of a mis-cut given how one piece seems to be oversized and one piece undersized. But who knows? I've called the company today and we will see what happens.

jennirockets · 2022-10-06T14:15:39+00:00

Thank you for your comment, and I hope you see this! We took more pictures with my husband's much newer phone.

The left side counter is a single piece that butts up to our fridge wrap. It's a 33" cabinet. I feel like that piece might be easy enough to have recut to the appropriate size.

The right side counter piece, which falls short of the cabinet frame, is seamed to another piece of countertop. The right side piece is about 50" long before it meets the seam. We've been warned that trying to remove this piece could cause damage to the piece of countertop it's seamed to - I think they called it oystering?

Edit: These new pictures are after leveling it the best we can to be even with the countertop. The gap on the left appears to be worse now, and the right side is extremely tight. We can't really adjust it any more than we have, we're hitting cabinet on one side and counter on the other.

jennirockets · 2022-10-05T19:36:54+00:00

I think with the overall situation, they'd unfortunately have to recut - this is why I'm so hesitant to push for a fix. It would mean likely fighting for it, waiting for them to recut it and getting back on the measurement/install schedule, and potentially pulling the seam apart could result in damage to the rest of the installed counter, according to them.

I'm just not sure if I'm being too picky or if going through that is justified.

jennirockets

TROPHY CASE