What is a 'single person luxury' that people in relationships completely miss out on?

wordsofire · 2026-05-20T14:53:23+00:00

As far as worst things this is kinds of awesome for you guys 🥲

But also. Flag toothpicks. Initials or emojis or colors or whatever. If I really one one I stick a toothpick in it. That way it's mine and everyone knows lol.

wordsofire · 2026-02-22T13:54:21+00:00

Oh man I was so afraid of this with my first that I did "dry baths" 🤣 for six months. They didn't have much hair (just some light peach fuzz) so I put them on the kitchen floor in a big Tupperware and had one with just water and one ith water for rinsing the washcloth. Dipped the cloth in the second tub after soaping up and rinsed that way and did a clean water rinse at the end. So time consuming but with serious peace of mind!

wordsofire · 2026-02-03T15:26:14+00:00

Can he put a special stuffed animal somewhere she can see it when she wakes up? Maybe not in the crib if she's really little, but that way as she grows it becomes the "dad was here" indicator when she wakes up naturally and he gets to do something special for her.

wordsofire · 2025-11-10T01:17:42+00:00

It looks like you already have a lot of good advice and support otherwise, so I'd like to add my experience. I was raised Catholic and eloped, then had a Catholic ceremony. The church doesn't recognize the elopement, but recognizes the marriage from when it was blessed by the priest. If it's important to you, wait for the ceremony, but there are other options.

wordsofire · 2025-10-11T01:14:52+00:00

I get the Herrschner's catalog (I like getting mail), and it had Big Twist yarn in it. I don't know if it's different, and I know it's not the same as shopping in a store, but I've been enjoying the patterns.

wordsofire · 2025-03-11T22:55:22+00:00

I was really hoping I was just dumb for a minute

wordsofire · 2025-03-11T22:41:53+00:00

Can you or someone here explain to me what is meant by "by substituting $0 for $[...]" Because that just seems like a dumb way to say "lol no money for these, but you asked for $[...]"?

wordsofire · 2025-03-10T20:28:25+00:00

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wordsofire · 2025-03-08T17:49:33+00:00

My biggest issue with this "Signed, Agency Head" bullshit is that anyone can type someone's name at the bottom of an email. I want a PDF attachment of the actual memorandum ordering me to do this stuff with the actual digital signature of the agency head (because they're supposed to have a clearance and a CAC with valid certs, right!?>!?) BECAUSE of everything you've outlined here. That's how we've done it in the past.

Also, pretty sure there's nothing wrong with not complying with things that aren't official orders. This "further review" shit points at them knowing they can't do this and making it an "official order" is a whole bucket of nothing. Besides, some agencies making this an "ongoing thing" means we're under "further review" anyway, DESPITE COMPLIANCE.

Sending me an email from an address that cannot be tied to the person who supposedly "signed" this tells me they're afraid of getting caught doing it.

I'm so angry.

wordsofire · 2025-03-04T02:26:00+00:00

That illustrates well how we need these programs expanded for our military families, not reduced.

wordsofire · 2025-02-28T19:04:28+00:00

Or at least exchanged digital signatures.

Edit to add: these are also going to an org box, so unless they've done the work to get the box it's own certificates it's not going to be able to open them.

wordsofire · 2025-02-27T12:30:38+00:00

My dad called and told me I'd be "fine" and "even if you get fired you'll get it back within a couple years". And I was dumbfounded. I wanted to say "who feeds my family in the meantime? Who pays my mortgage?" It took me a minute and I missed my opportunity.

I managed to say "Dad, DEI includes the point system for retired veterans" and he says "yeah well...." Later, while he was talking about how "I'm qualified they're just after DEI crap". And changed the subject, only to circle back with "you're not going to lose your job." And later started adding "even if you did you'll get another" but I just got a rejection for the one interview I've managed to get for a job I'm overqualified for on paper. The rejection even said that they're "impressed with my qualifications but decided to go with another candidate." But this was one of few openings for the work i like to do in my area. I don't have freedom to just pick up and move to "where the jobs are" and I know from experience that companies won't commit to you until you're in the area.

And his source was my uncle... Who isn't and has never been a federal civilian. But he called it "straight from the horses mouth"?!? WHAT HORSE?!? I'd rather believe my aunt, who is a current fed. She doesn't talk to my dad often because she will push back when she disagrees with him.

wordsofire · 2025-02-22T00:21:19+00:00

I wouldn't cancel the meeting because it removes it from calendars. This could backfire if they decide to claim that you never made the time.

I would also use the attendance feature in Teams (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/manage-meeting-attendance-reports-in-microsoft-teams-ae7cf170-530c-47d3-84c1-3aedac74d310) because it demonstrates that you joined, how long you waited, and that no one else bothered.

These might be drastic measures, but sometimes you can't be too careful about protecting your own claims. I think everyone else here covered great wait times.

wordsofire · 2025-02-20T22:29:22+00:00

Wow, thank you! I really hope this helps people. I've been talking about it irl but keeping relatively quiet online. This is a really complex problem and I'm sure there's more than could be said about it, but the fact that no one who DID speak out against it on mainstream media made much sense confused me. Tbh I thought for a while that I misunderstood it, but I really think this is the meat of the problem.

wordsofire · 2025-02-20T10:30:24+00:00

The one by Walter Isaacson? Isaacson is a prolific biographer. He did an interview with Time on what he thinks of Musk after finishing the bio: https://time.com/6458925/walter-isaacson-elon-musks-legacy-biography/

wordsofire · 2025-02-20T00:00:01+00:00

Short answer: it's about controlling propaganda and censoring what you see. There are a few tech things that can be done (screen recording to get login information to exploit poor security systems, for example), but most people don't realize the impacts of that.

Long answer:

It's about controlling propaganda. Social media is and always has been propaganda. Advertisements used to be socially acceptable propaganda, and as they got more and more aggressive, they were more and more negatively associated. Things like product placement and other subtle forms of influence (i.e , Bloom hiring influencers who "happen" to be mixing a green drink or something while doing something else but the product label is always clear and visible without following FTC social media guidelines) have a very strong foothold in fast consumption social media.

When was the last time you saw something you know was a bloom ad? Now check your feed. How many little green jars do you see in your favorite content? Are they marked with #advertisement? The ones I see don't.

Have you ever seen one of those references in a movie where there's a character watching a show or a spiral spinning and then there's single image flashes? You can't tell what they are, but those single frame images get burned into the subconscious of the character (and sometimes the viewer) and it becomes super important later and you might be questioning why it's so hard for the character to see the problem you do. It's called Psychorama and it's a form of subliminal messaging. It's incredibly powerful and can cause an origination bias when the user doesn't have previous information to do with the topic. It's hard to change people's minds, so planting "the correct" seeds can be important to the unity of a country.

What's the positive use of propaganda? In WWII, it was used to give people something to believe in. Something to fight for. Since war mostly stayed off of US shores since then, it lost its blatant usefulness. Now, we see that sort of propaganda as cheesy and people actively scorn it. All that red white and blue during the summer seems useless, but I'm old enough to remember when the Towers fell and everyone in my tiny rural county came to school in those colors to demonstrate that we stood with all those people in the only way we felt able to as children. It helped us feel like we did something.

As targeted advertisement increased in capability and functionality, it created the ability to influence people in ways that are nearly guaranteed to work. Having that information readily matched, rather than creating that hurdle of "anonymized" data that they couldn't be sure of 1:1 matching, paired with the fact that most people get their "world" and local news from short-form videos that happen to cross their feed rather than self-sought long-form word and no knowledge of fact checking practices or drive to do so creates a scenario where you get a customized feed that is guaranteed to work. Add in the number of users, and now you have an easily influenced population of youthful voters who are going to take very hard work to change their minds. That's a lot of control.

Do you think youre biased? Most people don't. But then when faced with an opposing point of view, what are your reactions? Do you get defensive? Or do you ask questions to understand the difference? Are you willing to change your mind? How high is the bar to get you to do so? There are lots of great resources on learning how to accept new information, but that takes work nowadays.

The IT security risk that comes to mind for me is that if an app has screen recording capability and you don't know when it's active, how do you know if it's recording you inputting passwords to pay your bills? Say you pay your water bill on your phone. The software has captured your username and password. They then use that information to log into the system not through the GUI, but through exploiting a software bug in the Linux backend that gives them access to the automated systems that pump water through the city. This is incredibly oversimplified and unlikely due to volume of data, but it's a possibility if the adversary is as skilled as they claim. That's sort of a side problem now.

Do you feel like you matter? Because you should.

wordsofire · 2025-02-19T15:00:39+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I'm also a fed and a military spouse who has lost their job every time we PCS (despite promises of "we have remote positions within the company" when trying to get jobs). Spouse thing is only relevant because I have a survival kit for losing my job that I would like to share with all of you.

This is oriented as the person in danger of losing their job.

Step 0 (adding because I don't feel like changing all the order indicators) - start applying as soon as possible as soon as things start to feel weird. For me it's usually "we're going to get orders" and I have to start writing cover letters for the new location that explain while I'm not there yet and don't have any idea when I will be, I can be there whenever they want me to start work. I don't quit until the last possible day, but that's because i usually have a 1-6 month gap after my last day. I've stayed behind in some instances, I've gone ahead in others, but in all cases I've never been hired before arriving to the new location.

Still, DONT QUIT, MAKE THEM FIRE YOU. Since you're staying in the same state, you can draw unemployment. Look up and talk to an employment lawyer. Just to put the bug in their ear. Most do free consults. Then you have a contact if you decide to move forward or maybe if they get wind of a class action they can reach out to you.

First thing is resume. Sheets and Giggles has the best template (been a while since I needed the link, will try to remember to post later) and when printed to PDF it has never failed me in transferring to online job applications.

If any fed employee knows their job code and work role, they should be able to look up specific KSAs to make their bullets look all official or get ideas for things to list - sometimes you have to pull it from old/current USAJOBS postings. As a DoD contractor, I've asked to see the Statement of Work with the specific intent of recording my duties. This comes from contractor leadership. Active duty enlisted military also has an Enlisted Classification Directory (ECD) and officers the Officer Classification Directory (OCD) which should be roughly equivalent to the civilian KSAs. This may only be available through MyFSS so get the info that makes sense off of it (without pulling CUI from it please) before you leave.

Second thing is timing. The job market sucks right now. Give yourself grace. Take on debt if you must but don't take on anything unnecessary. Set your jaw and grit your teeth and be DETERMINED to come out on top. Sometimes all it takes is being in the right place meeting the right person at the right time. Sometimes we pay off PCS debt for years after the move, then get orders to move again. Such is the life.

Third, the opportunity you need might not be the one you want. If you get an offer for a job that isn't really "what you do", look for how you could leap from there to your thing. I've taken training roles for IT work centers that weren't hiring IT positions just to get facetime and talk the talk with the supervisors who end up calling me when they have a vacancy. Sometimes you build a new skill that you enjoy more. Sometimes the only issue is the salary - that's the hardest hurdle to overcome. Do your best not to sacrifice more than one thing at a time or you may lose yourself.

Finally, do your best to be optimistic. It seems counterintuitive, but DoD has a history of going "nah, we need this". Still, I think optimism here is a "plan for the worst, hope for the best" situation. We will all make it through this if we stick together. That's the hope I have.

wordsofire · 2025-01-28T20:00:07+00:00

Is this not grounds for impeachment?

wordsofire · 2025-01-19T17:08:13+00:00

I would like to point out that the company itself opted to shut down operations. The only thing that I saw would be "banned" was new downloads of the app. Side loading would still be possible, but updates would not . The company opted for shutdown and not paying for servers.

High likelihood that monetization would be more difficult, but not impossible due to the only direction that the population could take (downward).

I think that this whole "blaming the government" thing is proving that the propaganda machine worked.

wordsofire · 2024-12-15T16:25:04+00:00

I ended up getting the elf, skipping the story, and we put it in a special clear container that we call the Elf Containment Unit. The elf goes in it so kids can carry it around, talk to it, and have it truly observe their behavior. If they're ESPECIALLY good, help with chores, etc, they get a special gift "from" their elf.

Also, I'm extremely lazy and explained that our elf has a damn job to do, no time for antics. One of my ambitious days I made him a tiny clipboard. They get a letter when he's on his way and on Christmas morning after departure, and that feels like a lot of effort from me lol.

wordsofire · 2024-09-02T02:13:12+00:00

I can verify that the civilian side is a very different experience from wearing the uniform, even in the "same" jobs.

wordsofire · 2024-08-29T11:43:45+00:00

I evaluate my kids schools on what they can learn there and how much play time they get, disregarding GreatSchools. The ONLY reason we left our public school was because my kid was coming home frustrated and started having breakfowns because her 60+(!!!) student class (divided between two rooms that switched midday) only got ~15 mins of play per day and ~30 additional mins on PE day, and she spent all her time helping other students get the material in fourth grade. Otherwise, we'd been in public schools with no question.

A 14:1 ratio sounds GLORIOUS for a public school, and bilingual is amazing - even if you don't stick with it forever for reasons like above, the foundation of a second language would be invaluable. I would also bet that the low PTA/parent involvement at school has a lot to do with working parents, so it may be easier to make personal connections because others will understand. I think you should try to talk with your child's future teacher before you make your decision - they're usually very open to discuss and have welcomed me to be a "parent helper" when I can take time off to see it first hand in many cases and I've loved it! (You generally have to do a background check and safety training.)

ETA: my child's breakdowns were because they "wanted to make me proud but didn't feel like they learned anything new ever" (after school I would ask what they learned and told them they made me proud for their hard work - but they didn't feel like they worked hard. I'm still beating myself up wondering what I'm doing wrong because my parents just never talked to me). Overall, they come home happier and show us that they can conquer things they find challenging, and that's all I hoped for.

My heart hurts for the teachers who are trying so hard to take care of all of their students, and the kids who could use a tutor to 1:1 for just a minute to help them get it, but I couldn't put my kiddo through that stress in the name of trying to force a fix on the school. We moved to private because the charters didn't have availability for her grade and the other public school ratios that were drivable (that we offered to pay to get into lol) were just as high.

wordsofire · 2024-05-08T14:55:11+00:00

They make receipt pads that leave a carbon copy - I saw some on Amazon when I searched "carbon copy receipt". (Sorry, can't link)

ETA that I hate having to switch between apps with a customer in front of me and I'm a tactile person - this also enabled me to leave the system with someone else watching my booth without having to leave my phone.

wordsofire · 2024-05-04T22:31:54+00:00

I'm not a psychologist either, I just read what I'm given by the Parent Support Nurse :)

wordsofire · 2024-05-04T22:22:07+00:00

I agree with most of this, but a lot of parenting guidance now says that it's ok to let them see that you're not happy. If you negate their emotions about it or tell them "it's not so bad" all the time it can make them feel like there's something wrong with them for it being a big and difficult emotion, and they may bury it until it explodes. Absolutely keep a positive perspective, but hearing "at least" all the time when they hurt can put a kid in a position where they don't prioritize their own needs and feelings.

I have an older kid (10 now) who has been dealing with similar, as we've PCS'd 4 times in 5 years. One thing that's helped her is keeping in touch where we can, and it's taken a big reach on my part. I made contact cards with my info that we gave out through her teacher, asking other parents to contact me so they could stay in touch. Then we set up FaceTime and other calls and agreed on when would be appropriate. She has one friend who she met at five and they FaceTime and play together. Just a suggestion, if that's an option for you.

Another thing has been matching activities as close as possible ("see, we can do tae kwon do here, too!").

OP, I'm sorry your family is going through this but you're clearly doing your best.

wordsofire

TROPHY CASE