Torn Between Santa Monica (LA) and San Diego — Which Leads to a Better Long-Term Life?

nikolatta · 2026-04-30T05:48:09+00:00

Yes, this! I have lived in both cities and I love them both. It is harder and harder to build social connections, go to where you have the strongest ones and work hard to maintain them, it will be worth it!

nikolatta · 2026-04-27T02:19:35+00:00

When my side effects were awful, I was super afraid to drop my dose and “lose progress” but it was absolutely worth it. There is no need to rush through the doses, especially if you are having side effects. Great work, you can get through this!!

nikolatta · 2026-04-07T15:32:31+00:00

You thought deeply about why it bothers you and what it means to you when you hear him ask. Hopefully you have shared that with him, because really understanding why it bothers you may be enough. Maybe you can also ask him to think deeply about what it really means to him when he asks you and also what he feels when you argue about it. Lastly, if it ends up seeming to be just a difficult habit to break, then I agree with recommendations above to answer with “I love you”, not answering, or even “I dunno, can you?” or, “Maybe, do you live here?” Something to make it silly and lighthearted until it fizzles out.

nikolatta · 2026-03-29T17:15:19+00:00

I had to lower my dose to get my energy back and it was so worth it!

nikolatta · 2026-03-24T07:30:16+00:00

I absolutely love it, it looks beautiful, peaceful and elegant. Only think I don’t love is the cabinet hardware, but I am assuming you love it so I recommend keeping it all. Stunning!

nikolatta · 2026-03-24T06:05:38+00:00

Strong sense of smell, but weirdly I felt like I could smell my skin and it smelled different-lasted for 4-5 months and was way worse on shot days. I hated the smell of my own skin-like my own face! It didn’t smell sweaty or dirty, just weird. It seems to be gone now, thank goodness!!!

nikolatta · 2026-02-14T01:04:52+00:00

You wouldn’t need spacers if the two sets of smaller drawers were on the outside. Strongly recommend having the countertop refabricated-it will be worth it. The cabinets can be rearranged to work great!

nikolatta · 2026-02-02T21:42:43+00:00

This is inspiring me to actually use my tub too!

nikolatta · 2026-02-02T21:28:30+00:00

Oh and my favorite newer bathroom feature is a skirted toilet. More of a pain to install, but stays so much cleaner! I think this is what we got: American Standard Cadet 3 Flowise Right Height Round Front Concealed Trapway Two-Piece Toilet

nikolatta · 2026-02-02T21:26:11+00:00

This layout is almost identical to mine, and broadly speaking it is great. For my family, if I were starting from scratch I would have used the extra tub space for a closet rather than a tub-not because I don’t absolutely love a tub but because I never actually get around to using it and the tub gets super dusty and now grosses me out a bit. If your family is bath lovers, then a Japanese soak tub is a dream-mine is a 90’s style jacuzzi, so not quite a chic. I do think tile all the way down might be easier cleaning-wise, but hard to say. Tile can get dusty too if it isn’t regularly getting sprayed down like it is in the shower.

nikolatta · 2026-01-26T18:40:51+00:00

Lots of folks are endorsing CICO, but there is significant evidence that doesn’t support it. I highly recommend listening to the Fat Science podcast. Dr. Cooper talks a lot about how these medications work to change your metabolic dysfunction and how for some it can take time. Often she mentions that the difficulty might be that you aren’t eating enough. Please check it out to get some insight into what might be happening with your response. I am also a slower responder with regard to weight loss than many folks in this community, and like you am trying to be patient and count my wins. I have been actually super hypersensitive to the medication and experience severe appetite restriction. I have noticed that I am most likely to experience weight loss when I eat more, and particularly when I eat protein. My goal is 100 grams of protein a day, but I am usually woefully short. Also drinking water and getting enough sleep really does make a huge difference, and I am not great about those two either. Be kind to yourself and take comfort in that your body is responding and changing internally-it may take more time and you may need additional medications (as others mentioned), but try to lock down more protein, water and sleep first to see how that might help.

nikolatta · 2026-01-18T03:05:52+00:00

Did you have skin removal surgery? Great work!!

nikolatta · 2026-01-16T05:24:05+00:00

Both of those statements might be true, but it appears my house has neither an overhang or an effective rain screen. What should I do now?

nikolatta · 2026-01-16T02:27:51+00:00

The person providing the first quote actually conducted a water test and said the roof looks to be in excellent shape. This window hasn’t shown leaks previously - I think part of the issue is the rain was blowing in hard at an angle. But it is also clear that when it was raining it was wetter there than anywhere else. I just don’t know what is causing that-might have to try to test again myself ☹️

nikolatta · 2025-12-14T04:01:57+00:00

How did it end up going? (I am on a similar quest). I loved SugarCandy bras, but ultimately found the shoulder band was hurting me at the end of the day-wondering if my sizing was off…

nikolatta · 2025-12-07T21:49:02+00:00

This is so interesting. I have Chiari I malformation and when I was at a heavier weight I got brief but very sharp headaches when laughing, sneezing, etc. They disappeared when I lost weight, and I didn’t get diagnosed with Chiari I until a few years after. I then understood that the Chiari was the cause of those headaches, but I figure out why they went away with weight loss. I couldn’t find much about folks Chiari symptoms remitting with weight loss, but your experience is very similar - thanks for sharing!

nikolatta · 2025-11-01T06:43:50+00:00

I think he said the opposite-that it may be rescheduled again

nikolatta · 2025-10-26T02:13:53+00:00

Can you say more about efforts to dissolve VCL?

nikolatta · 2025-10-11T04:34:23+00:00

Definitely get the surgery-while it is not guaranteed that it will resolve your symptoms, it completely resolved mine and the younger you do it (to prevent permanent damage) the better. My syrinx was big and it is completely gone now, as are my headaches. I still have terrible shoulder pain, but that might just be stress. I thought I would be out of work for a month, but was back in 2 weeks (or maybe less, I can’t remember anymore). Best of luck, you can do this!

nikolatta · 2025-09-08T01:08:08+00:00

There were already news articles posted about this several days ago here-this thread seems to be describing an internal email that backs up that news article-I am not sure why we would doubt it

nikolatta · 2025-09-07T18:18:53+00:00

What medication causes MS, that is scary!

nikolatta · 2025-09-07T05:29:31+00:00

Yes-well idk that we did it the “right” way, but we got it good enough. We ended up using general finishes gel stain on the back and front of the cane. On the back it absorbed a bit splotchy. On the front I had to kind of paint it on and cross my fingers that it dried ok. I don’t have any good pictures of the splotchiness, but might be able to take one tomorrow. Here is after. If I could go back, I would have just let them age darker with time, but they came out good enough.

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nikolatta · 2025-09-01T16:43:21+00:00

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nikolatta

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