u/Helpmeeff

I got my braces off five years ago and have been wearing my clear retainer every night since. I finally have a crack in it and need a new one. I still have the mold of my teeth that they sent me home with to get new ones made but I don't live near my orthodontist anymore.

Do I just get a new retainer my regular dentist using the original mold? Do I have to go to an orthodontist? Who handles making me new retainers from now on?

My husband and I are both dx and medicated for ADHD. In the past year or so, he finally acknowledged how unmanaged his ADHD is and upped his dose and started seeing a therapist. He's apologized for big issues his ADHD caused like how he didn't finish his master's degree on time and had to pay thousands of dollars for an extra year because he mismanaged his time.

One of the things I'm struggling with most is that he never seems to think he's mismanaging his time WHILE it's happening. He apologizes in retrospect and says he wants to focus and be more diligent. But when I see it happening all over again and I try to prompt him to consider if he's focusing and managing his time by doing things like watching movies or hanging out with friends when he has a tight deadline looking he always says "well I can't just work ALL THE TIME of course I'm going to need to take breaks" and then he misses the deadline. And then months later hell apologize and say how sorry he is for mismanaging his time and how I was right he wasn't focusing or being diligent.

When I try to point out this pattern he just says that I'm doing black and white thinking and that he's managing his ADHD fine and that there is more to life than just labor.

Do other people struggle to get their medicated, diagnosed and responsive spouse to actually acknowledge and stop the ADHD behavior while it's happening? Any suggestions that he or I or his therapist can do to help with this to break out of the hindsight is 20/20 pattern?

Thanks!

I went to school to be a vet tech and while I pivoted to a white collar job and didn't get my certification I still really enjoyed the medical care side of my years on school and internships.

I live in a rural area and often find injured wildlife but it's over a two hour drive to my closest licensed rehabber. I'm happy to make that drive for an animal in need but I'm not able to volunteer there on a regular basis because of the commute.

I have a dream of being a licensed rehabber myself since I have a large property with a satellite building (correctly used for fostering animals through my local shelter) but from what I understand you have to have 100 hours of hands on experience before you can get your license.

For folks who became rehabbers without any rehabber nearby, how did you do it? Are there other ways to get certified I haven't explored? I'm happy to pay for classes or volunteer somewhere on a regular basis as long as it's close enough to drive to while I work full time!

Thanks so much!

I drink a dark chocolate OWYN carton every morning and love the taste, so I'd like to try the protein powder to start making my own drinks but want to know how it compares to the ready made carton drinks.

Can I just add the powder to some soy milk and replicate the container drinks? Or is it a completely different taste. If so how would you compare them so I can decide if I want to spend $40 on the powder. Thanks!

ETA: I have some nutricost organic unflavored pea protein powder that I think tastes absolutely nasty, so I hope it's not like that

After gaining weight it's been a slow journey of self love and self acceptance about my new body.

A huge breakthrough for me was when I realized that I was feeling and looking miserable trying to fit into my old clothes and that once I bought clothes that fit and suited my new shape, I actually barely minded being fat at all! Following plus size fashion IGs and consuming a lot of body positive content really helped turn my attitude around.

BUT what I still really struggle with is loving and accepting how my face looks now. I feel like I have a pretty good playbook and role models for loving my body. Buying cute outfits that fit me well and flatter my curves. But I don't know what to do to be happier about my fatter face.

I feel like plus size communities have a lot of resources for body positivity, what do y'all do to love your faces more? Hairstyle, makeup, affirmations, accounts to follow etc all welcome!

I've tried several different meds for the depression and irritability I get during my severe PMDD window (lamictal, gabapentin, buspirone, three types of birth controls). But this month I finally think what I'm trying helped?

I normally take 5mg of lexapro a day for OCD and general anxiety and 5mg of focalin XR for ADHD. This month my doctor recommended upping both medications starting 10 days before my period, continuing to 3 days after my period starts. So I took 10mg lexapro and 10 mg focalin XR daily and I finally felt a dramatic difference!

I normally get very short tempered with my coworkers and my husband and I feel crushing depression.

This month I felt a lot more even keeled, able to shake things off, and just "moody" rather than rage and hopelessness that made me want to blow up my life.

Here's hoping this keeps working!

I have several hundred dollars in "points" at my local nursery and they only allow you to spend your points in July. I guess because it's a slow month for them?

I'm in zone 7 and I want to buy a few fruit trees, most likely dwarf peach, or some kind of apple or pear. I know it's highly inadvisable to plant a tree in summer heat but since I can't spend my points any other time I don't really have a choice.

Any advice on ensuring my poor transplant trees survive the heat?

Should I buy them and just wait to plant them until September or something? I worry about keeping them in pots that long.

Thanks!

Looking for a really well written anime in any genre, though I have a soft spot for slice of life, that features a queer or lesbian female characters. Im not looking for something sexualized, I'm more interested in genuine relationship and communication. (I'm a queer woman so I'm not just trying to watch some softcore here, I'm trying to find something that feels authentic to my experience)

They don't even have to be dating, it just has to be definitely gay none of this "read between the lines maybe they're just good friends" stuff.

I absolutely loved the writing in Skip and Loafer and enjoyed Nana as well. I like anime that focuses on character development and growth. I really don't have much tolerance for poor writing or over the top acting so I'm a bit lost on what to watch!

What is the absolute best written wlw series or movie you can recommend?

Thanks!

I have $20,000 in student loans at 4.1% interest. I have no other debt besides my mortgage, I pay into an IRA and a 401k every month and I have $100k in a HYSA with 3.8% interest.

I can technically afford to pay off all my student loans in full but it's scary to think about dropping $20k out of savings for anything.

Is there anything I'm not thinking of here? Is there any reason I shouldn't pay off my student loans in full?

Thanks!

I've seen people have great luck keeping their cats from climbing over a fence by adding that inward-tilted overhang to the top (the kind they have in wild animal enclosures) so they can't get further than that.

But I usually see it on fences that are already quite tall like over 6'.

We have a 5' tall fence that our cat could currently jump to the top of and slither over so I worry that adding the overhang she might be able to still somehow clear it? Wr already have a catio but I'd like to give her more space and cat proof our small backyard.

Does anyone have any experience with those cat proof overhangs on a shorter fence like 5'?

We have a semi feral barn cat we've been caring for, she will sometimes let us pet her so I've been taking that opportunity to dose her with Frontline plus flea and tick meds on her neck once a month. But it's clearly not working because she's still scratching like crazy and I keep seeing fleas even after three months of consistent dosing.

Is there a stronger flea control that works well for outdoor only cats who are in constant risk of recontacting fleas?

I'm not a big fan of most anime series, I don't gel well with ones that are really silly or involve yelling and over the top reactions. I'm much more a studio ghibli girl who likes quiet slice of life stories.

I just finished season 1 of Skip and Loafer and it's probably new new favorite anime. No yelling or over the top acting, no sexist depictions of women, great character development and positive trans representation. Great writing and realistically flawed and relatable characters. I also liked the art style. More subtle and realistic not so much giant sparkly eyes.

But now I'm hungry for more until we get season 2! What else should I watch?

Some things I liked:

-Nana, Jujutsu Kaisen (mostly the relationships not so much the action and fighting), original Sailor Moon, Girl Who Leapt Through Time, all Ghibli movies but esp the quieter ones like Only Yesterday

Some things I didn't click with:

-A Silent Voice, Your Name, Fruits Basket, The melancholy of haruhi suzumiya

I LOVED a clip I saw of Nichijou where a cop accidentally finds her fanfic drawings but I tried watching the show and I just didn't click with the humor I guess it was too surreal for me?

I have an actual tumbler composter but we've also been piling up yard scraps in a heap on the property (grass clippings, branches, rotting firewood etc) that is starting to break down into dirt. The only problem is it has tons of grape vines growing out of it. I pulled up all the vines and covered the pipe with a big black tarp weighed down at the corners.

My question is, is this enough to smother anything growing in there and let it turn into a second compost?

I have a bucket of homemade weed-based fertilizer that's been cooking for a couple weeks, should I sprinkle some of that under the tarp to help the organisms grow? I assume I should stir it every few days right?

I planted some nine bearing strawberry starts last month and have been waiting eagerly and watching one of the plants grow a big fat red berry. I put it in a little organza drawstring bag to protect it and today it finally looked red all over so I picked it. Only afterwards I saw the tip of it was still a bit green and when I bit into it, it was hard and had very little taste.

I know there will be more in the future but I'm crushed that my first berry was such a dud because I picked it too early 😔

I tried to log into the account ive had for years and suddenly was told I needed to provide a phone number or link my account to my Google account. Absolutely not, why would they think this is a good idea. Looking for Glassdoor alternatives that are actually ethically run, any recs?

I downloaded season 1 of a show all at the same time and all the files play fine on my desktop. Moved all of them (as Mp4s) onto a hard drive and opened it on my PS5. All the files show up except episode one.

They are all named with the same naming convention, all the same container and file type. How come only one is not showing up?

I've been getting into growing my own food on my acre of full sun property in zone 7. When choosing what to plant one of the main things I've been considering is "does this make more sense to grow than to buy?"

Things like asparagus are quite expensive in grocery stores near me so even though it takes a few years to harvest I planted a bed of it so I'll be able to eat it for decades for free.

Grocery store strawberries have been bred to be large and rather tasteless these days so I'm growing my own strawberries to be able to enjoy sweet fresh berries again.

Raspberries are also wildly expensive in stores so I planted a few varieties of bushes.

On the other hand things like corn, watermelon and broccoli seem like they'd take more effort and space than the actual harvest is worth. Those seem better to just get in grocery stores.

What else would you consider food that makes more sense to be grown than bought and why?

Zone 7. This spring I bought two established raspberry plants from a nursery. A Fall Gold and a Prelude Red.

I believe the prelude red fruits on second year canes and the fall gold fruits on primocanes.

What I can't seem to get a clear answer on is what I do with each of them at the end of the season. Do I cut them both down to the ground? Do I only cut off the floricanes of the prelude? Do I leave them alone?

Thanks!

A few months ago a feral cat with a tipped ear showed up on our property and since we were having bad weather and live by a busy road we gradually got her to start living in the large two story barn on our property.

At first everything was fine, she stopped going near the road, slept in the barn over night and even let me start petting her when she's feeling brave. But she's started killing a TON of animals on the property. Birds, chipmunks, baby bunnies, nearly every day I clean up or rescue her prey.

I know it's in her nature and she's not doing anything wrong but I put a lot of work into making our property a safe habitat for birds and beasties and it's getting to be unbearable to keep seeing her kill them.

After much patience I finally got a breakaway collar with two bells on it but it didn't make any difference.

We already have three cats and a dog that she doesn't get along with so I can't bring her in the house and I feel bad keeping her inside the barn all day even though it's heated and furnished and we put in a cat tree and lots of toys and beds.

I'm feeling really stuck, I can't in good conscience keep letting her out if she's going to kill other animals and I can't in good conscience keep her in all day because I only go down to the barn twice a day and she's alone otherwise.

I'm hoping folks here can help me think of a solution I haven't already considered. Right now I'm looking at big outdoor catios or dog kennels to maybe attach to the barn.