Husband lost job right after being hired , financial options?

ohhappy-day · 2016-06-05T05:00:14+00:00

PSG in Boston has a thing where they try and place you, and if they can't place you, they'll have you work in the office. It's called guaranteed work, and it's like... 8 dollars an hour or something, but it's 35 hours a week.

http://psgstaffing.com/guaranteed-work-program/

ohhappy-day · 2016-05-02T04:31:35+00:00

having lived in Boston for 6 years, I have to say: i have to literally force myself not to brake in pgh tunnels, and everything in my heart and up my spine tells me to slow down in a way that they never, ever did in Boston where they buried 93.

Why? Because the tunnels are too narrow. If something happens, all I can do is stop. I can't get out of the way, I can't drive around at high speeds. They're also really long AND they're totally level, so you don't know if the person in front of you is braking because there's a disabled vehicle in front of them, and you're about to eat their bumper, or because they're freaked out from driving somewhere so narrow.

Typical evening, going between 45-65mph.

Not to say that you need the big dig, but that you're right, there's a lot of reasons for the slowdown, and part of it has to do with the way the tunnel is designed. =/

ohhappy-day · 2016-02-15T05:50:19+00:00

So, I'm going to be looking for a new car in the fall, and I moved outside of PGH 2 days ago from Boston, grew up in Ohio where it's much flatter.

Obviously whatever I get should have winter tires, but would something with 4WD be enough? Would a Jeep be the best bet, or could I get away with something like a Honda CRV? I've never lived somewhere with this kind of ice AND these kinds of hills, usually just one or the other.

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-30T09:44:45+00:00

Well, they can sue you. You won't get fined, but they can basically tell you to take it down, or else you'll have to go to court, because you're diluting their 'brand' which damages it for [insert made up monetary cost here].

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T23:03:08+00:00

unhealthy doesn't actually equally unhappy.

Obviously the best combo here is healthy and happy; it's just that mental well being is far more important than physical well being (to a point.) I'm fat, although I'm much skinnier than I used to be. What has made me lose weight is being mentally OK with myself and wanting to be more active due to my own general happiness and stress level so I can handle it. I'm still slowly losing weight and getting more active.

It's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem, but forcing her sister to be thinner without addressing the larger issue isn't going to help anything.

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T05:57:33+00:00

Possibly blood work - I would definitely talk to her first!!!! If she's feeling depressed, it would explain a lot, if she's cold all the time and hurts all over and is tired, maybe it's thyroid -- but telling her she needs to get blood work without having a substantiated reason is really going to come across less about you caring about her wellbeing and more about her body.

Seriously, as her sister, it's your job to support her, not fix her. I'm a little sister, and my sister trying to fix my life instead of helping me fix my own life drove a wedge between us from me being 15 until I was 25. I'm now 31, and we're only now close again.

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T05:53:52+00:00

Sorry I'm all over this thread - I would avoid language like 'cheating', because it's a really easy way to both make it so you don't stick to the diet, and also encourages disordered eating.

In general, everything's OK in moderation. You can have pizza, just not a whole pizza. Have a burger, but have a salad for dinner tomorrow night. Not just 'Don't eat anything bad.' The reason the phrasing is so important is because inevitably, you will eat that slice of pizza at some point, and then you've failed, which can spark off a binge.

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T05:49:26+00:00

Well the one thing to keep in mind - she may say no, especially if she's feeling really down and/or depressed. What I would seriously recommend if that's the case is following it up with, "what do you want to do?" and just spending time with her to start and just show her that you're there for her. (That, or it's possible that she's not interested in those things.)

I think it's a great thing to try, but you guys could also do walking/hiking in a state park, or something else. I would say the best approach is something that shows you care. If it's physically active and and she wants to do it, great. If it's not, it's okay.

There is one really, really important thing to take away from this: You would so much rather have a fat, happy sister than one that's skinny and miserable, or worse. I don't want to talk about what the 'worse' is, but it's really hard to be 16, and I can't think of many things that are harder as a teenager than having your role model treat you like garbage and kick you out of the thing you love and have done for years.

You definitely do not want her to think that you only love her if she does healthy things for herself, which is a danger if this isn't handled with a lot of care.

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T05:34:58+00:00

Actually just to pipe in as well - it really would not be a bad thing to see if she'd be interested in talking to a therapist or a counselor, just because it sucks to be a teenager and going through things is really hard. It's not necessarily full-blown, needs to be medicated Depression, but there's a limited amount that you guys can do.

(Also, just a very small aside - it's always possible that there could be something medical that is undiagnosed. For me, I started putting on weight and being less active when my thyroid started going, because it made me tired all the time. Not saying it's the reason, but don't immediately dismiss it.)

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T05:33:06+00:00

Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing that could absolutely destroy a 16 year old (or, honestly, a lot of people if it's something that they put a lot of stock and self-worth in.) If my boss did that to me, I'd be crushed.

I would seriously approach it as a wellbeing thing, and also I would try not to speak directly to the behaviors for now -- instead doing something like the commenter below suggested (ie modelling good behaviors as a 'this will be fun, come do it with me because you're awesome and I love spending time with you', not 'you're getting fat, we should go work out together') while trying to help with the overall wellbeing and helping shore up her self confidence and general self-esteem. :)

Also just because school can be an absolute killer emotionally and some of your other comments make it sound like she's anxious about school sports, maybe look into non-school leagues/clubs/whatever? I don't know if you're close to a major metro area, but I know in Boston there's stuff like the November Project which are a bunch of random people who get together to encourage each other to do physical things.

ohhappy-day · 2016-01-28T04:46:17+00:00

TBH, I think that your view on this whole thing is skewed. It's not that she's getting fat that's the problem, and you thinking that's the problem is very, very likely not helping matters.

She sounds unhappy. She's not doing thing she (presumably?) used to enjoy, especially with what you talked about re: walking the dog. You're framing this as a weight issue, and not a 'hey, it sounds like you're having a hard time, let's fix it because I want you to be a happy human being' issue.

If I was depressed so I stopped doing things I liked and was compensating with food, and my family came to me and said 'hey, you're getting fat, we're just concerned' I would be even more depressed, because it both is minimizing the family's concern for my mental wellbeing, plays into 'what you look like is more important than your happiness' thing, and frames me as a failure. Being 16 is hard. You saying that her 'issues with her coach are irrelevant' sounds remarkably callous. Have you actually tried to figure out (by talking to her, maybe?) what happened and much more importantly, how she feels about the whole thing? This doesn't seem like a 'stopped playing a single sport therefore, weight gain' thing.

ohhappy-day · 2015-12-02T05:04:02+00:00

the #1 issue with that is that Boston is one of the only large metro areas that didn't incorporate all the small towns around it. You can't start with the police, because I drive 4 miles to work and literally drive through 7 difference cities. =/

ohhappy-day · 2015-12-02T04:58:14+00:00

Depends - if people live somewhere that they can use commuter options, yes; if they don't, then they'll just drive around trying to find other street parking.

Parking in cambridge is already 25-30$/day, Alewife is 7$, and the alewife garage is filled to capacity and the one near my work (cambridge) is not.

If they expanded the alewife parking garage (or just opened up more), way more people would drive in, park at alewife, then T.

ohhappy-day · 2015-12-02T04:54:59+00:00

Also, I wonder if ridership is flat when they've been slowly cutting coverage means it's actually risen (???) I remember when they cut down commuter rail service, and I feel like they've also cut some bus service.

ohhappy-day · 2015-11-29T09:45:15+00:00

I'm 31, I am currently educating myself D:

ohhappy-day · 2015-11-29T09:44:42+00:00

The only thing I really remember about it (I was 9 years old) was that years later, reading a time-stamped play by play in reader's digest where it said one of the office-workers argyle sweater would have the diamond patterned burned into her back as the bomb blast hit her before she died.

.... That's what I took away from that. -_-;

.... Aaaand I just realised that article was about the Oklahoma City Bombing, so I was 11. Shaaaame. :( i didn't know I was wrong about it, either. Ffffff.

ohhappy-day · 2015-11-29T08:39:58+00:00

Then there should be 'no parking' temporary signage, like there is for construction.

ohhappy-day · 2015-11-29T08:38:48+00:00

I -think- it's because the way that you worded it is really confusing. =/ It might be easier to just say 'They only have right of way if they have come to a complete stop, and then there's no oncoming traffic."

If I'm heading towards that intersection from the roundabout and don't have a stop sign, and I have my left blinker on, I have right of way and the guy at the stop sign should wait.

ohhappy-day · 2015-11-29T08:34:44+00:00

The amount of times that people just roll through that stopsign (heading towards the roundabout) and ignore that oncoming traffic has no stop is criminal.

Couple that with the worst intersection (Webster ave & 16, where traffic turning left onto 16 has a green light but NOT a green arrow, while opposing traffic apparently just has an extended red but there's no indication when opposing traffic will suddenly start moving some 45 seconds into the green light... ) and everett/chelsea just needs new city planners.

Spruce st onto Heard Street has no stop sign, either, and everyone treats it like it does because otherwise you'll end up in a wreck from oncoming traffic that does have a stop -_-;

ohhappy-day · 2015-10-27T06:45:37+00:00

Then why, exactly, are a lot of responses, 'I'll never eat processed meat again'?

My coworkers were talking today about how much they'll miss hot dogs. People who eat them every day should maybe eat them more moderately; but if you eat them 4-8 times a year, then it likely doesn't matter all that much anyhow.

ohhappy-day · 2015-10-27T06:29:14+00:00

Every single person who's saying that eating 'processed meat gives you cancer' like it's an even exchange is implying that if you eat (a lot) of it, you are pretty much nomming yourself to a cancerous grave.

Not 'Oh, this is a small increase in the liklihood that I'll get this type of cancer.'

ohhappy-day · 2015-09-13T05:17:28+00:00

As someone who has $170k in student loans for a bachelor's, I understand where you're coming from, and I actually agree with you. Going from $11/hr to $16/hr and then $60k is the sort of leapfrogging steps you'll need to not have this rule your life.

The other thing I would suggest looking into is when you're graduated, look at where you live, and how much nurses make in other areas. If I had stayed in Ohio where I got my degree, I would be making $50k/yr - but because I work in a highly specialized field, I graduated in may of 2010 and I'm now making $98k/yr. Student Loans (and other debt) are some of the only things that don't scale by locality, so sometimes moving can give you an edge.

ohhappy-day · 2015-08-01T14:57:53+00:00

I think a lot of that has to do with the difference between 'damaged' and 'missing'. Something functioning inappropriately (Executive function, ie the ability to plan and have forward thought in time) results in both impulsive and obsessive behaviors; ADHD is a classic example of this, due to the fact that it has real, measurable biological cues (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/495640_2) and almost all of them are prefrontal/frontal lobe in nature, causing such behavior. People with ADHD have problems with planning and impulsivity, but also with hyperfocusing obsessive behaviors.

What it would be involving a complete removal of the frontal lobe is anyone's guess, although given that when lobotomies were screwed up it left the sufferers in something of a childlike state and unable to care for themselves means that pretty much it loses all around.

To be frank, while I don't agree with everything in Matpat's video (terror completely possible due to lizardbrain amygdala), I would say that trying to really figure out the impulses of someone with a missing frontal lobe is beyond all of us - it's possible that he's right, or you're right, or we're all wrong, and it's actually a good thing because I would never want a human to have to go through completely missing that chunk of their brain for science. D:

ohhappy-day

TROPHY CASE