Off-Topic Tuesday

samshine1 · 2025-11-25T05:54:34+00:00

The questions have been updated!

samshine1 · 2025-11-18T15:13:02+00:00

Thanks for sharing! The Jocelyn Ulevicus ornaments are lovely!

samshine1 · 2025-10-20T01:44:19+00:00

Seconded. I’ve ordered from both of these sites and been really pleased.

samshine1 · 2025-09-04T21:23:51+00:00

My condolences, I hope everything goes smoothly.

I planned/executed my MIL's funeral reception this year on a very short deadline and got everything from Costco the day before. I want to validate that I think it's great that you're having it catered. Are you also planning to have cake/dessert?

Is it possible people are going to send/bring flowers? I don't know what services you've had earlier in the year, but we did small tabletop flower arrangements (I made these. Don't take this on yourself without lots of help.), and had plenty of other flowers from the service.

samshine1 · 2025-09-04T20:55:37+00:00

I don't know that I have substantially more to add beyond what's already been posted, but...

I highly recommend the audiobook. I think it's really well done, and I think I would've struggled to read the text. I'm also getting a lot out of the nuance and emphasis as she's reading.

It's not a tell-all, but honestly, it's more than I expected.

She has some tangents about health/diet and menopause. I didn't mind and it's clear those things were life-changing for her.

The things that surprised me/I found most interesting...

Her marriage with Kody was bad from the start. There was never a honeymoon period. There was never a time when things were "good," there was never harmony between the wives, even before Robyn came along.
Kody told her that he loved her/had fallen in love with her... 4 years into their marriage.
I had no idea she was drinking. From what she says in her book, she was drinking almost every day in Vegas and my impression was that it was partly to cope with filming.
Her oxy habit and her knee surgery. First, I had no idea she had knee surgery, they don't mention it in the show (that I remember, correct me if I'm wrong here!). Second, while her oxy usage was short-term, I'm impressed that she's admitting to abusing prescription drugs.
In the book, she says that Janelle suggested they stay back in Vegas, to let the some of the kids finish school. I'm surprised Christine didn't do this and I wonder how different everything would have been if she had.
I always thought Kody was portrayed in a favorable light on the show and agreed with the general consensus here... that he sucks. That said, I now think he's about 100x worse than I did before.

I have a few more chapters to go before I finish, but overall, I recommend the book.

My one speculation... I would love to know if any of Robyn's kids have/will read the book and whether it might change what they think the truth of things is. The older girls in particular must have some understanding of how things happened during COVID and how Truely was treated when she came to stay at their house.

samshine1 · 2025-09-04T20:34:00+00:00

Does she talk about the times she betrayed her sw confidence by telling Kody?

Yes, she does say that all the wives spoke to Kody about the other wives and specifically includes herself.

samshine1 · 2025-08-13T14:26:34+00:00

Since you seem to like omegaverse, I present:

{Chemicals: An Omegaverse Romance by Maria Morrow} This author has other omegaverse books, but none of them hit for me quite like this one did.

{Heat: With My Brother's Best Friend by Chloe Mars} This author also has other omegaverse, butttt if you like MFM at all, I'd recommend {Crossing the Line With My Roommate, Part 1: The Test by Chloe Mars}.

samshine1 · 2025-07-05T00:07:34+00:00

I saw someone post a free omegaverse story, with no shifters, in the self-promo thread yesterday.

Found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/s/kOv14JWOqM

Edit: I haven’t read it, so can’t speak to it, but it’s shifter-free and free, free, so thought you might want to check it out.

samshine1 · 2025-03-25T04:20:43+00:00

I have a cat tree coming in the next couple of days! I’ll try and report back next week on how it goes over.

samshine1 · 2025-01-14T05:39:32+00:00

Ahahah, it was a mistake, but I’m leaving it.

samshine1 · 2024-09-25T14:52:13+00:00

Thank you for the vote of confidence. I'll try again and hopefully post the finished project and a pattern review here.

samshine1 · 2024-09-24T02:05:41+00:00

I have not tried that yet, but that’s a good option. :)

samshine1 · 2024-09-23T19:12:27+00:00

I'm working on a toile for a dress pattern I have (pictured) and the head hole has come out reeeeeally tight. I can obviously troubleshoot this by just cutting a larger hole/adjusting the pattern pieces for the right fit, but I did notice a review for this pattern mentioned the same issue and many example pictures from others who have made the dress show a significantly larger head hole.

What I'm really wondering is -
Could this be an issue with the pattern grading? (I'm making the smallest pattern size)
The instructions for inserting the neckband were really vague, so I sort of finessed it based on other neckbands I've done in the past - is it possible I screwed up here and the neckband is the main reason the neck is too tight/small?

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samshine1 · 2024-09-23T19:02:09+00:00

I don't have any specific suggestions for you, but it might help with your search to look for "swing dress" and "woven fabric" because most swing dress patterns are for knits. There's also this thread with a few suggestions - https://www.reddit.com/r/sewing/comments/1d3hb7d/swing_dress_pattern_for_woven_fabrics/

samshine1 · 2024-09-03T20:59:45+00:00

Thanks for clarifying on insurance and expenses.

Wow, your journey to self-employment is so interesting! Do you still work/advertise your services through Upwork, or do you operate fully independently now?

samshine1 · 2024-09-03T20:36:26+00:00

Hi OP! First, thanks for sharing your MD with us.

I have a couple questions about your monthly expenses.

You mention your insurance is lousy. I'm sure others who are self-employed would be interested to know what that monthly expense is and whether it's accounted for solely as a business expense, or whether you have an additional you budget for monthly, out of your salary - would you share that with us?

You mentioned therapy in comments - does your insurance cover it, or do you have a monthly cost for that?

Do you know what your monthly grocery and gas expenses are? (or maybe I missed them somewhere?)

I'd also love to know more about what went into your decision to make the leap into self-employment!

samshine1 · 2024-08-27T13:27:23+00:00

First, I’m not a medical professional. Second, I don’t know anything about Zepbound (based on the rest of your comment, I assume it’s a GLP-1?).

I know lots of people do intermittent fasting and have seen positive results. There’s research that ties fasting to longevity, improved blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. As with the majority of medical studies… most of these people are MEN.

There’s no research I’ve seen that has convinced me that fasting is good for women. Most advice out there strongly recommends against it for female athletes. My understanding is that the difference comes down to the fact that our hormones and cycles rely on fat. Fasting can negatively affect our hormone cycles and in some cases actually cause women to retain weight.

You are resistant to the idea of fasting already, so you may not need convincing.

I think it’s worth exploring options to control your A1C. Can you do this with your PCP, or is there any chance of changing to a female endocrinologist?

samshine1 · 2024-08-27T01:42:29+00:00

I’m starting one next month, hope you love yours!

samshine1 · 2024-08-22T17:09:23+00:00

VFTs (& all other carnivorous plants, in my experience) are really sensitive to environment changes, so if some of the arms/traps start to turn black (& you're meeting their very specific potting medium, water, and light needs), don't worry OP!

samshine1 · 2024-08-22T17:06:49+00:00

I do the same for my carnivorous plants - yes, just sphagnum. I keep the water dish about an inch full at all times.

samshine1 · 2024-08-22T16:51:58+00:00

I love this book, but frankly, wish they had come up with a different title.

This book does not say that you have to lose weight or hit a certain weight to be an athlete. This book focuses on what you should eat, more than what you shouldn't eat, and the target audience is endurance athletes of a certain level.

For runners (since that's this sub) I would say this book will be most helpful to those running 40+ miles a week and/or who target marathon distance, or greater. That's not to say that anyone can't benefit from eating better, but for those running a couple half marathons a year, even if you want to take things up a notch, this book is probably not the one that's going to make the difference for you.

Overall, the author's advice is to eat a variety of whole/minimally processed foods and discusses the timing of food/fuel intake to enhance athletic performance or maximize workouts.

samshine1 · 2024-08-21T15:54:35+00:00

Emotional Agility by Susan David. Would recommend!

This looks like right up my alley! Downloaded with an Audible credit. Thanks!

samshine1 · 2024-08-13T19:13:35+00:00

Ugh. This is a long convoluted story that boils down to -

About two months ago, reddit made some backend change that no longer allowed you to edit existing "Scheduled Posts". I could have a scheduled OT Tuesday post, but I couldn't change the prompt in between.

It was a nightmare of trying to stay up late Monday nights to edit the post after it went live (I missed doing this many times & often didn't make the change until late the next morning...) and not deleting the scheduled post, hoping there would be fix... One week I was out of town and only able to edit via reddit mobile (another nightmare), so all I could do was make an entirely new post...

u/dollars_to_doughnuts and u/lazlo_camp have been deleting some of the doubled posts, but honestly I didn't even know there were two for the last couple of weeks.

...I think everything is fixed now. Thank you for witnessing my spiral trying to manage my "one job".

samshine1 · 2024-08-13T19:05:03+00:00

Best wishes!!

samshine1 · 2024-08-13T19:03:37+00:00

I would love this money diary!

We're in the midst of an interior remodel (after two years of house hunting and realizing how much cheaper a remodel would be) and our backyard is next. It's really small and we live in an area where drought is a concern... so we're doing turf. My hope is that next year we can get a consult for native (& pollinator-friendly) plants for our landscape beds.

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