I’m someone who can eat multiple pounds of blueberries in one sitting. Next time, try spraying them thoroughly with vinegar and letting them soak for at least 5min, 10 or even 20 is better. Then rinse thoroughly with water. There are some tummy upsetting molds and bacterias that are neutralized by the vinegar. This works for any berries or easily spoilt produce. It’s majorly cut down on the “consequences” of my grape and berry binges.

I’ve always been one that tries to fix before we replace, and that’s lead me to a few things like soldering some loose connectors on electronics, or basic small engine repair like an oil change and installing a spark plug. I like making things so I’ve been slowly expanding my experience levels with various interesting power tools. I can install insulation, mud and sand drywall, stain and refinish furniture, that kind of thing.

However, if I think about things that are truly flipping the script on gender roles, probably the most masculine “skill” I have is the ability to assertively ask for what I want and delegate tasks to others. It seems almost foreign to other women outside of a business context.

This was particularly noticeable when I lived in the American south as a caretaker for a family member. Some of the conservative biddies we had over to visit sometimes would make little passive aggressive snarky comments and the exchange would go something like this.

“Oh, I didn’t know where to put my trash, the bin is just overflowing with garbage so I left it on the counter”
“You’re right, we usually put the trash in the bin in the garage, spare bags are under the sink, just make sure to close the lid when you’re done”
“Oh, uh…” (palpable confusion)
“Thanks for helping out!” (direct eye contact, pleasant smile)
(flustered acquiescence)

It would throw them for a loop so hard it was consistently hilarious. They clearly expected me to bashfully apologize or get all defensive or shamed at the state of the house in some pecking order power play. Lol. You brought it up, have fun getting it delegated to you.

Yes, humans used to live much closer to water sources. On a town level, if you didn’t have a creek or river or water somewhere nearby you just didn’t settle there. Available water was absolutely necessary for agriculture, domestic animals, cooking, washing, and of course drinking. On a personal level, you would go in the morning to a central well or water source and gather your water you would need for the day. Depending on the household needs it might be multiple trips with heavy, full vessels. You would put the water in to household water vessels, like a basin for cleaning or a ewer for washing or your cook pot. If you were thirsty at home, you would take a dipper (basically a ladle) and take some water from the household supply.

Where did you get the impression we didn’t used to have water bottles? They weren’t made of plastic or metal but humans have carried water with them for probably as long as we’ve used tools. You can carry water in drinking horns, in clay pots, wooden buckets, in dried out animal bladders or leather skeins, and there’s literally a type of gourd called a “bottle gourd” which has been dried out and used as a personal water bottle for milennia across any region that can grow them. Don’t underestimate human ingenuity, we didn’t always have access to the same technology and materials but we have always been able to problem solve.

Yes, he said he didn’t like feeling like a kid next to me 🤷‍♀️

Gratitude, even for little things. A purposeful and deliberate focus on things I’m happy to enjoy in my life and taking moments to really acknowledge them and soak in that feeling.

I’m proud of how I handled my anger over current events.

I got sick of just complaining on the internet and feeling powerless, so I volunteered for town government. It’s an unelected position, unpaid, but it’s in something I’m passionate about. It’s tedious and slow, but we’re making incremental changes to make things better. I have real influence now on my immediate area and it’s helping me keep my sanity(?).

It’s pretty common to want to be a woman and not have gender dysphoria. I’d bet something like half of all humans experience this.

I think the easiest thing to do is just look and see if it has a stamp on it. Very often it’ll just tell you. Look for “full grain leather” and be wary of “made with leather”. Another thing you can do is to really acquaint yourself with what a full grain leather belt looks and feels like and then you’ll have a feel for the weight, stiffness and finishing. You can also look for ones that look a bit worn, with slightly deformed holes, a little warping, scuffed edges or tooling etc. If it looks worn, it’s already withstood the test of time, and real leather can be re-dyed and reshaped. Obviously don’t buy something that looks like it’s falling apart though, cracking and rips aren’t worth the hassle if it’s not something sentimental. You won’t necessarily find a good leather belt every time you go to a thrift store, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye out for and you never know.

You can also always buy a bigger belt, because full grain leather can be cut and the edge finished with hobbyist crafting tools.

You can still find them for $5 in thrift shops, just need to be able to tell the difference between the good stuff and the crappy stuff.

Apparently black clothes, when worn loose with a big skirt like that, can create a chimney effect and increase airflow underneath

I used to have a very low opinion of the capabilities of kids younger than 5, and genuinely had no idea what they were really like. I remember having similar thoughts about parents grieving babies, because for milennia we as a species had to deal with children dying all the time, to the point of not even naming them before certain ages. I have a toddler now and boy did I underestimate them. Did you know some speak in full sentences by two and a half? We taught our kid sign language when he was 8 months old so he could tell us what he needed, and by ten months he was telling us he loved trucks, had a surprisingly high tolerance for hot sauce and was a major cuddle bug who had a different favorite color every day (but mostly yellow and blue). He’s three now and knows how to crack jokes, build block castles, can do forward and backward floor somersaults, and even can even do some basic rock climbing. I have parent friends with kids similar ages, one has their kid writing already, another has their kid riding a bicycle, all under 4 years old. They come out of the gate with very distinctive personalities, and every kid is different. I think if you actually knew a toddler well enough to get to know them, you’d realize just how quickly they become a fully realized person.

Chocolate, alcohol, video games, and expounding too much about my interests to anyone standing in front of me.

Also, explaining things on the internet…

Just ignore us. Consistent eye contact, staring, or obviously paying a lot of unwarranted attention to us is way more threatening than just being big or burly.

Guild Wars 2, it can be extremely cozy in places. Beautiful environments, it lets you run around and just stumble across something to do, and you can get in a groove doing a map meta with a series of events leading to a big boss fight with 50+ people all participating and then you can just run off later harvesting leeks or whatever. I can just zone out watching a show on my other monitor while working on a collection or an achievement or getting flax or something.

This exactly. It’s an easily recognizable legal shortcut to a bunch of systems, rules and privileges that apply to the situation of two people wanting to live their lives together. Doesn’t have to cost much, if anything, and doesn’t have to have anything at all to do with religion or rituals. Can be just two people showing up at the town hall if you want it to be.

Love ballroom dancing, and especially east coast swing is my jam. Unfortunately no regular social dances in my area but I go when there’s one available. It’s really fun and playful, great way to meet new people and good exercise. Equipment cost is basically a pair of shoes. I joke about dressing up in a dress and heels for my workouts.

Considering how famously hard to kill werewolves are, it would probably have to be a chocolate wrapped in silver and then eaten with the foil on to do any real harm.

Posted most of this in another thread but I’m glad to help share my tricks. I have managed to nearly eliminate Amazon entirely from our lives for the past two years. I usually find things by searching what I want to buy on DuckDuckGo and then adding “-amazon”, “-etsy”, “-walmart”, “-temu” and “-pinterest” as search modifiers.

A lot of little shops are perfectly legit, but watch out for:

Things being ridiculous bargains. Small shops will almost always be more expensive due to higher overheads and less bulk

Too much variety in product (unless they’re a marketplace with 3rd party vendors). A legit shop will have inventory that makes sense together in its theme. If they sell everything from bubblebath to uranium they’re either probably not actually selling it or drop shipping it.

Pictures that look like they come from lots of different sources, or no consistency in images. If they don’t have their own pictures of products or standards of presentation that’s suspicious

Some general recs:

For anything electronic or computer related: B&H Photo or Microcenter

For music stuff: Sweetwater, but there’s a lot of great small music stores, or you can use a marketplace like Reverb

For clothes: if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website. If you don’t, go to local secondhand shops and touch, handle and try on some clothes to see them in person. I’ve discovered some brands I like by finding something in a thrift store that was well made but not my size or preferred color.

For house repair and DIY stuff: we order from a local building supply store, but there’s also hardwareandtools.com, 1stoplighting, Waysource, Lightbulbs.com, Timothy’s Toolbox etc.

For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it’s a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites. There’s also Hive or GroveCo for some granola type B Corp goodness

For tea, coffee and spices, Adagio and its sister websites

For super fast, need it now shipping, Target has a lot of the same things Amazon does and even does same day delivery for an extra fee for certain items.

For something hard to find you can’t find another site for, try Ebay.

I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. These are sites that I’ve personally bought from but there are a lot of smaller sites just trying to make a place for themselves on the internet

I have never been, nor seem to be able to get motion sickness. No seasickness either. I can read books on all sorts of moving vehicles, and I love roller coasters. Whip me around upside down in pitch dark at 60mph and I’ll just call it a good time. My husband says I am squandering my powers because I can play as much of whatever motion intense VR game as I want, but I just end up playing Beat Saber most of the time.

Well, the nice thing is GW1 is still there. They decided to keep it going because the cost was minimal enough that it was worth it to them, so all of that content is still perfectly playable and there are still people running ATFH and Droks etc. It has a small dedicated following and is still a fun game in its own right. They’re different games but I enjoy both.