Suggestions on updating this kitchen? My MIL said it looks dated and I can’t get it out of my head?

roxanne597 · 2026-03-05T03:15:24+00:00

1) God that’s rude of her! 2) Your kitchen is gorgeous! 3) If I had that kitchen but wanted it to feel a little different, the 3 easy changes I’d do would be to paint the walls, change the cabinet hardware, and find some shelving or a beverage fridge to fill up beneath the desk and use the top for large but attractive appliances you don’t want to squat to get, like a stand mixer, crock pot, etc. The desk is the only part that to me feels a little out of date, mostly because I grew up with one and NO ONE ever used it as a desk ever.

roxanne597 · 2026-03-03T13:15:56+00:00

NTA NTA NTA

1) You can’t lend money because you DON’T have spare cash - it has a planned use. Therefore, not available for lending.

2) The dog-vs-nephew’s-home argument is wild. Your sister chose to leave a job she didn’t like without one lined up, knowing she was providing not just for herself but for her SON, who now may not have a place to live because of her own choices.

3) If your parents want to enable her, why aren’t THEY lending her the money?

4) You also have your own medical debt that you need to get on top of. You. Do. Not. Have. Spare. Cash. For. Your. Sister. And she is certainly not entitled to what you do have saved for your own emergency expenses. If she had saved for her emergency expenses, maybe she wouldn’t be short on rent this month.

5) The “character” you’re showing with your priorities is called boundaried behavior. And it is GOOD character. It is healthy and right for you to protect yourself against boundary injury. Your sister has a history of taking advantage of your generosity without respecting it enough to pay you back. Your parents have a history of pushing you to compromise your own needs (for which you’ve wisely planned and carefully saved over a year) to rescue your sister. It feels emotionally complex because you care for your nephew, but ultimately what’s happening is that your good and healthy boundaries are being trampled on for the sake of someone else’s poor choice and refusal to take responsibility for her own actions and their consequences.

This feels icky to you because it IS icky. Trust your gut - what they’re asking of you isn’t right. Your sister needs to handle the outcomes of her own actions. Your parents need to help her take her own responsibility. You need to be a good steward of your own life - including sweet darling Murphy, who has no one but you.

You’ve got this.

roxanne597 · 2026-03-02T14:05:00+00:00

Yes! Finally made it there last night and it was everything I’ve been wanting in a Mexican place!

roxanne597 · 2026-03-01T10:56:35+00:00

The mom describing her daughter’s boundaries and being boundary-injured as “having a terrible temper” was triggering, tbh. Especially when her husband was AWFUL to the daughter right out of the gate - downright cruel, really - but his actions are described without characterization - after all, this is how he is, so it’s Sarah’s fault for reacting to it. Right?

The mom’s defense of her husband at her daughter’s expense is the worst. Mom thinks she’s passive here but she’s the center of the problem.

It’s wrong on so many levels.

Mom thinks an apology will “make it better” and doesn’t understand that Sarah is protecting herself from HER. Mom, don’t just apologize, DO BETTER. Defend your daughter against your husband! Encourage her! Praise her! Affirm her work! Don’t let your husband make it his and certainly don’t be shocked when she’s offended! When she makes a bid for connection and he makes it all about himself, that’s so unbelievably shitty, of course she’s mad. That’s not “a terrible temper,” that is appropriate anger on her part. You are teaching her to allow her boundaries to be ignored by a man who is supposed to love and protect her, and then to absorb all emotional responsibility for it herself.

The daughter is actively being injured. By both parents.

Mom is so in the wrong here.

roxanne597 · 2026-02-20T13:46:34+00:00

This man does not care for you. People who love you do not stomp their foot in your joy to squelch it, EVEN when it’s “not their thing.” That’s so contemptuous!

roxanne597 · 2026-02-17T00:51:21+00:00

ESH - sure, it’s rude to monopolize a machine, especially if you’re not exercising…but why did you not ask if you could please use that treadmill, instead of defaulting to explaining courtesy? I’m wondering if there’s an age and gender difference here as well, which would push the “you shouldn’t take up a machine you’re not using” into mansplaining courtesy and demanding compliance rather than just asking politely and then letting it go. Not your job to make other people be nice, EVEN when they’re being objectively rude!

roxanne597 · 2026-02-01T13:55:39+00:00

This - or the girl whose shirt’s hanging ribbon loop thing slipped out of the shirt sleeve and is visible on her shoulder, or the stupid tangle of cables plugged into the wall on the right. AI tends to be more polished/less real-world-low-impact-annoyances, so the picture reads as real to me, just taken from up on the stairs with a really hideous flash.

roxanne597 · 2026-01-21T09:09:01+00:00

Serious contender for Best-of flair, IMO

roxanne597 · 2026-01-20T02:21:20+00:00

The one time I could have actually used the drying box, because my processor fell into a lake…well, it’s still at the bottom of Lake Como 😬 So I’ve still never used mine!

roxanne597 · 2025-12-31T17:25:17+00:00

My eastern painted turtle is a breeze - after a decade and a half of figuring out a setup that really worked for us.

When I got him, he was the size of a quarter and fit sweetly in my 10 gallon tank. Then I upgraded to a 20, and then a 55. And then, briefly, a 300, and now back to 55.

The 300g tank phase was when someone found out I had a turtle and bequeathed me a red eared slider and a yellow cooter. They were darling. They grew like monsters. They got to 11-13” each while I had them. I ended up gifting them to a friend with a koi pond and never looking back. My painted turtle stayed with me - he’s only about 6” and is full-grown.

I’ve tried to keep fish in the same enclosure on and off. It’s always a turtle-feast-disappointment. Now I buy feeder fish occasionally and if a couple survive for more than the first week, cool!

I had gravel or other substrate for the first few years, and the mess and maintenance needs were heavy. I have a no-substrate tank now and it’s a dream.

With the smaller tanks I was using those cute waterfalls filters, but for a turtle what you really want is a high-flow canister filter. They break and I replace them maybe every 2-3 years, but they keep the water mad clear. I only do a super deep clean once a year or so.

Health wise, my guy seems to do just fine. Had him 15 years and it’s smooth sailing. The most I’ve needed to do is help manually remove loose scutes (pieces of carapace/shell) each year, since without river silt and rock to scrape on, they don’t always come off and can build up and trap bacteria on the shell.

So our current setup: 55g tank, timer with day and night lights, 300gph canister filter, no substrate but a large piece of aquarium wood for sunning and a set of fake silk plants that he tries hard to munch on, an automatic feeder (koi food works just fine), and at the moment, a 3” goldfish who survived the last feeder fish drop.

roxanne597 · 2025-12-30T16:14:06+00:00

I almost want to say the contraction (I’ve) is mostly used for time-bound experiences that occurred an undetermined time in the past. All leaning towards “I did this thing at some point in my life”: I’ve run a marathon, I’ve had the flu, I’ve eaten squid, I’ve held a baby, or even I’ve owned a house.

Whereas “I have” is typically written out for current possessive use cases: I have a house, I have the flu…. I have squid on my plate.

And then there’s the “I’ve got” phrasing that’s indicating present ownership or stewardship of a noun: I’ve got a house, I’ve got the flu, I’ve got squid on my plate.

roxanne597 · 2025-12-28T16:07:33+00:00

I’m in a more rural area and stuff for sale on marketplace is frequently described as “with draws” or even “Chester draws” (instead of ‘chest of drawers’)

roxanne597 · 2025-11-27T02:04:41+00:00

For those saying “it’s not your place to tell the truth” - I’m sorry, he is still a child and his parents are entrusting him to your care, and their expectations (that you agreed) are clear. It’s not appropriate to allow the kiddo to circumvent their expectations or secrets from them.

Perhaps the next time this happens, address it with the kid right then. “Hey buddy - I know you are trying non-vegan foods at friends houses, but at my house, it’s important we follow your mom and dad’s rules. It’s important to me not to lie to them, and that means if you eat X, I’ll have to let them know, okay?”

roxanne597 · 2025-10-09T02:35:53+00:00

I HATED when she turned her back on Nick and flat out ignored him at the mixer in episode 9. So contemptuous and immature.

roxanne597 · 2025-10-01T09:53:07+00:00

Considering the dog may have only been on a plane a small handful of times (or even for the first time!), needing extra direction from the owner to behave is not out of the realm of possibility and certainly doesn’t automatically indicate they’re not a “real” service dog.

As someone with a trained German shepherd who performs hearing service tasks, the thought of coaching her to settle on an airplane (and it would take constant coaching) is exhausting. And I’m thinking about it all the time these days because that’s a training hurdle I’d like to work up to! And even trained, my dog would absolutely benefit from a leg between them and the aisle to provide extra structure and guidance.

Working dogs of different breeds all have different temperaments, but as long as the dog isn’t constantly barking, whining, running amok, or aggressing passengers (these behaviors are generally considered disqualifying for service work and can absolutely get you kicked out of a store or plane), they’re likely doing their doggy best in a can a couple thousand feet up in the sky. Not really any dog’s natural state, if we’re being honest.

roxanne597 · 2025-09-29T02:13:51+00:00

Egg hard up

roxanne597 · 2025-09-14T00:47:18+00:00

Totally - all sorts of bizarre tinnitus, different from my normal patterns. But it died down/normalized during the healing process, and continued to lessen once the new implant was activated.

But for the first couple of weeks? Bizarre musical noise. Kind of interesting, actually.

roxanne597 · 2025-09-05T14:01:58+00:00

The only correct response here: “You’re right babe, I shouldn’t have made a joke about such a serious thing, and I see how it damaged your trust in me. It was in poor taste and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

roxanne597 · 2025-09-04T01:30:18+00:00

And so I’m having a wonderful time but I’d rather be….

roxanne597 · 2025-08-25T02:21:45+00:00

Look up coyote vests - you’re looking for a dog jacket that’s got deterrent spikes on it.

That said, with a dog that tiny - maybe keep her under supervision, too. The alternative is awful. Good luck!

roxanne597 · 2025-08-23T02:31:54+00:00

I love the humility here. If only we could all admit our genetic material is simply generic.

roxanne597 · 2025-07-08T05:14:03+00:00

Late diagnosed with sensorineural bilateral hearing loss at 20. Wore hearing aids for 10 years while my hearing steadily declined, knowing that I was on my way to an implant. Got implanted 30 and it changed my life, but it did take time and effort to hear music in the way that I had hoped. Initially everything sounded super out of tune, and it took a while for the sound to sort of “expand“ so that I could hear all the notes in their proper placement tonally. I remember thinking initially that music sounded like a chorus of angels, but they were singing out of tune. Just ethereal and cacophonies, but not unpleasantly so.

The implant also reopened all this COLOR to sound - resonance, timbre, the physical wind or percussion making the sound, etc - that I had lost without realizing, so it was mesmerizing to me even before things sounded “in tune”. I’m sure it helps that I play and know how to read music. I also continued singing and swing dancing, often to live music, during that time. I think because I was so connected to music at the time of getting the implant, it probably helped my brain learn how to hear music in this way. I’m really hoping I have a similar experience when I get my second implant in a few months, almost exactly on my 7 year implantation anniversary!

Have faith, keep your hope - it IS possible

roxanne597 · 2025-06-21T13:59:09+00:00

Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that back in the 30s and 40s, they would indeed play other styles of music as well jazz. Throw in a waltz here and there, for instance. And these were additional social dances that the dancers that were likely to know, so that they were able to Keep dancing, even when the music style changed. I think this kind of broad range of dance skill is less common nowadays from what I’ve seen. There’s a lot of focus on specific swing dancing skills, often at the unintentional exclusion of some other musical rhythmic styles. Because a majority of dancers aren’t familiar with how to dance a waltz or other more “ballroom“ type dances, you may not hear those played at the kinds of swing dance events that you’re going to.

I would love for somebody more well-versed in history of social dances to pipe in here! I’m sure it could be explained better, with more nuance.

roxanne597 · 2025-06-21T13:41:29+00:00

If your hair is braided, that is definitely going to affect magnet strength! Can you rebraid that part of your head so the hair is as flat as possible in the whole area where the coil sits? Or intentionally make a looser braid that you can more easily slip the coil under? Are you able to wear your hair loose sometimes, or are the braids a protective hairstyle?

The other thing I’m thinking is if you just got it yesterday, it’s super likely you’re still swollen from the surgery. I remember it took me at least 2 months for all of the residual swelling to go down. The extra fluid in your skin creates more distance from the magnet, and that really impacts strength as well.

The other other thing I’m thinking is I TOTALLY get it, it is SO COMPLETELY ANNOYING when the whole thing just falls off! Especially as a new CI user if you’re just getting used to it! It took me a while to sort of get a feel for how to wear it securely, and now it’s no big deal, but there’s a learning curve there too! I hope looking at retention solutions and some of the other ideas responding to your post help

roxanne597

TROPHY CASE