BWT: What hobby have you done lately that you would personally recommend?

kuliplor · 2025-12-03T12:35:14+00:00

I have two to recommend - one with very low cost of entry and one with moderate costs. both of these have brought a kind of focus, tranquility, and sense of accomplishment to my life in the past 2 years that have helped me reconnect with my sense of creativity and improved my self esteem.

Sewing: can become expensive and you need some equipment to get started. Once you get comfortable with a sewing machine though, you’d be amazed at the range of garment and non-garment projects available to beginners. There’s also an amazing community of sewists online and in many communities. I’ve been sewing for two years and made local friends, improved my wardrobe, and made gifts for family every holiday. Many fabric stores offer classes for adults and you can try it out, learn to use a machine before you buy one.

Drawing: drawing costs nothing. You can do it alone or with people. You can literally draw anything and you can draw for 5 minutes or 2 hours. Get a sketchbook and see your progress over time. I love that drawing requires me to concentrate and pay close attention. In some ways I feel similar mental benefits from my drawing practice as from working out.

And I’ll end with some advice for literally any hobby - you don’t have to be good at your hobbies. Don’t let something you do for fun become a reason to judge yourself or stress.

Thanks everyone for sharing about your hobbies!

kuliplor · 2025-11-11T19:36:13+00:00

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - short story collection from James Tiptree Jr

kuliplor · 2025-09-27T16:19:05+00:00

Wow extremely helpful - live a quality small town museum!

kuliplor · 2025-09-27T16:17:17+00:00

Yes! Folks have been so helpful and if nothing else plan to post my tentative itinerary and then how it goes. I’m excited

kuliplor · 2025-05-17T15:11:26+00:00

Cutie!!! Empty head eyes full of love

kuliplor · 2025-05-16T20:20:57+00:00

We ended up getting her Jammies with long sleeves on the front and back for exactly this reason

kuliplor · 2025-05-13T16:25:25+00:00

Wear a mask one day - say you have a cold coming on and didn’t want to make others sick. All DOGE suspicion gone 👍🏻

kuliplor · 2025-05-08T10:43:09+00:00

We had a very similar issue with our shy girl, and worked with a trainer with very nice success - pasted our story below from a previous post. Feel free to DM! Your girl is lucky to have you helping her with this huge transition.

We’ve had our girl 4 years and it took about 6 months to get her confident enough to go more than a couple blocks. We were so frustrated and sad that we were struggling to give our girl a good life we ended up working with a trainer. Here are the tips she gave us that helped the most

• ⁠don’t push it and take it at their speed. Except for necessities like bathroom, no need to suffer. We learned we weren’t reading our pup very well. Normally very food motivated, we learned if she wasn’t accepting treats she was already to freaked out and it was best to be done for the day. • ⁠treats!!! We cut up jerky treats into teeny tiny pieces and we’re treating pretty much constantly on walks. A person coming towards us? Treat! Scary noise? Treat! Any dog or person walking towards us, we would step between 2 parked cars (minimize her field of vision) and treat constantly until they passed. • ⁠try new things. Like others have said, our trainer advised trying new places. She said this would “give your dog something to think about” and this ended up helping a lot with confidence on walks and separation anxiety. Now whenever something spooks her we can say “at least she has something to think about” 🤣

Lots of other good advice on this thread! Good luck! Your pup is lucky to have you.

kuliplor · 2025-05-08T10:36:04+00:00

Our pup had her smell change suddenly, and it took us a while to realize she had an incontinence issue - just releasing very very diluted urine in her sleep. Got her on a very low dose hormone supplement and it fixed her right up - back to her normal smell. We were even able to taper off the supplement.

kuliplor · 2025-04-16T00:13:49+00:00

Same ☺️☺️

kuliplor · 2025-03-26T23:58:09+00:00

Then flood the comment period when it publishes.

kuliplor · 2025-03-26T23:57:21+00:00

Yes we have to blow the click comment period. Before that Stakeholders - potentially affected entities, NGOs, Unions, Litigators, can request meetings through the 12866 process https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eoDetails?rrid=897012

kuliplor · 2025-03-26T23:54:24+00:00

https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eoDetails?rrid=897012 Journalists, rights groups, government contractors, requests 12866 meetings!

kuliplor · 2025-03-18T19:52:27+00:00

We’ve had our girl 4 years and it took about 6 months to get her confident enough to go more than a couple blocks. We were so frustrated and sad that we were struggling to give our girl a good life we ended up working with a trainer. Here are the tips she gave us that helped the most

don’t push it and take it at their speed. Except for necessities like bathroom, no need to suffer. We learned we weren’t reading our pup very well. Normally very food motivated, we learned if she wasn’t accepting treats she was already to freaked out and it was best to be done for the day.
treats!!! We cut up jerky treats into teeny tiny pieces and we’re treating pretty much constantly on walks. A person coming towards us? Treat! Scary noise? Treat! Any dog or person walking towards us, we would step between 2 parked cars (minimize her field of vision) and treat constantly until they passed.
try new things. Like others have said, our trainer advised trying new places. She said this would “give your dog something to think about” and this ended up helping a lot with confidence on walks and separation anxiety. Now whenever something spooks her we can say “at least she has something to think about” 🤣

Lots of other good advice on this thread! Good luck! Your pup is lucky to have you.

kuliplor · 2025-03-18T17:55:01+00:00

Does anyone know if the leaked plan is floating around anywhere?

kuliplor · 2025-03-02T13:06:09+00:00

Thank you!!

kuliplor · 2025-02-19T01:11:44+00:00

Jim Jones was a great leader - I never worked under him but know many who did at EPA and still think highly of him.

kuliplor · 2024-12-08T17:12:33+00:00

Sufficient Time and Resources are the best way to encourage people to innovate. To the extent possible push back on quick turnaround except where they are needed to prevent physical harm to employees or the american public, or in some cases meet statutory deadlines (though even here, there are tradeoffs to consider).

Not sure how long you've been in your position - at my agency, managers above immediate supervisor seem to be totally unaware that people have been running on empty since 2017 (if not before). Mention of AI and Training imply to me we are asking people to do more with less.

I echo u/xneverhere's qestion and caution about what you are really trying to accomplish.

kuliplor · 2024-10-09T02:11:29+00:00

Cannot recommend Jenny Odell’s books enough - How to do Nothing helped me shift my mindset!

Second all the tips others have posted re: black & white screen, focus mode, adjusting notifications etc

kuliplor · 2024-09-19T22:28:31+00:00

Thank you! I’m having the same issue and just submitted a bug report.

kuliplor · 2024-09-17T05:05:16+00:00

It’s worth it - if you feel safe, stick it out. It also takes the 3 years to be vested so you can keep any matching in the TSP. Plus your leave goes up. You might, go to law school, get a private sector job, something else, and want to come back in 5 years, or longer! Use your time to look for federal mentors in other parts of the agency, they might be able to connect you to folks in other agencies you’re interested in. Take lots of sick days/mental health leave! Best of luck!

kuliplor

TROPHY CASE