u/LavenderAqua

Is this: Jill is horrible, but David is the real villain of the two.

The Rods believe in the whole “biblical marriage/family” thing where the man has authority over his wife and kids (🤮). Jill for all her horribleness probably isn’t a free woman in the way most adult women are. I think her behavior on social media may have to do with wanting to escape a life where she’s controlled, used to be constantly pregnant, and potentially abused/beaten by her husband.

Is she abusive to the kids too? Probably. Is she also being abused? I would be extremely shocked if she wasn’t. Tim is a grown ass man who is 1000% responsible for his own actions. But men who are abusive toward their partners are often repeating a cycle.

I also don’t think we should assume that Jill being loud and acting completely unhinged on social media means she “wears the pants” in the relationship, which is a take I’ve seen here a lot. Just because David isn’t constantly word-vomiting on social media doesn’t mean he’s just a quiet, doofy oaf. (Which is partly why everyone called him Shrek - it was funny af but I don’t feel right using it any more).

(Side note: I would bet money that David is one of those conservative men who is weirdly paranoid about being tracked or having his data sold. I could see him having a flip phone. I feel like social media is not somewhere he spends time.)

I keep thinking back to one post I saw on the sub a long time ago. It was a photo of the kids sitting in the RV listening to David preach. It was like 12am and everyone looked exhausted. I have some experience with narcissists, and that photo honestly gave me chills. I remember thinking this man is bad news. Keeping your entire family awake late at night so they can sit there and listen to you monologue at them just struck me as such a weird control/narc thing.

We’ve booked our flights and most of our accommodations for an Italy trip in early October!

Our itinerary so far is to spend the first 4 nights in Naples and the last 5 nights in Rome.

That leaves 4 nights in the middle (Oct 7-10) that we’re still trying to plan. We will be in full sightseeing mode in Naples and Rome so we’d like this middle part of the trip to be a bit slower and relaxing.

My husband loves the idea of staying at an agriturismo, taking a couple of cooking classes, and maybe having access to a spa lol. I like the agriturismo idea too, but I do not want to rent a car or have to rely on taxis or having to arrange transportation through the property.

My ideal situation would be a smaller town with a relaxed pace that’s easy to reach by train. Not too terribly far from Rome - like for example one place that stood out to me is Siena. We can wander into town, enjoy great food, maybe take a cooking class or two, and not feel stuck at the accommodation the entire time. We’d also prefer a quieter, more adult-oriented atmosphere vs “family resort with lots of kids” vibe.

We are not looking for the cheapest option possible (though a good value is important), but we also don’t need anything luxurious. We’d rather spend less on accommodations if it still gives us a great experience than pay for a fancy resort.

Does anyone have recommendations for towns or agriturismos/bnbs that fit what we’re looking for?

I was born and raised in DeKalb (mostly Decatur area), moved back after college, and I’ve been going to the DeKalb Farmers Market for my entire life. I have many fond memories of dropping off presorted recycling there with my dad - back before the county offered curbside recycling - and grabbing food in the cafeteria afterward (RIP). I still visit regularly.

Everyone I know in the area just calls it “the farmers market” or if we need to be specific, “DeKalb farmers market.” But on Reddit I constantly see people referring to it as “YDFM.” The first few times I saw that acronym, I had no idea what people were talking about, lol.

So now I’m curious: is “YDFM” mostly a Reddit/internet thing, or do people actually say that in conversation? What do you call it in real life? Maybe it’s an area specific thing?

Here’s an example from a post I saw in the subreddit for a town I used to live in.

“Hi, I am [some age between 25-35] and I live in [small town 1 hour away from this one]. I’d like to come to the arts festival downtown but I’ve never been to a downtown area before. Is downtown like an area with city blocks? Where do I park? Are there parking decks? I am so nervous to come but really want to! I saw the festival is from 3-8pm does that mean I need to get there a certain time?”

And so on.

I come across stuff like this quite a bit on here. These are people who aren’t teenagers driving by themselves for the first time. They are at the age where you’d expect them to have had certain life experiences, like going to an event in another town. But they obviously have not had these experiences.

They are also in the age range where you’d expect some level of research skills beyond Reddit. Yet the questions asked are so Googleable and/or bizarre. And there’s a veil of extreme anxiety wrapped around the entire thing.

I’ve never met anyone like this out in the world. How do these people come to be? This site makes me think about the human condition so much tbh.

We are helping my father in law clean up and purge some stuff after my mother in laws passing. We are from out of town so not very familiar with the area.

My MIL liked to buy lots of duplicates especially kitchen items - think 10 of each utensil, 5x the amount of pots and pans than one family would use, etc.

Of course we can take everything to goodwill, but it may inundate them and not everything may be sold as easily. A lot of this stuff has tons of life left, and I know there are folks out there in need who could use the extras to help furnish their kitchens.

Anyone have any recommendations for charities that would be a good fit for lots of kitchen equipment? Or specific Goodwill locations that get a lot of traffic?

I tend to have a very strong BS detector, so I’m trying to get some perspective on a situation that set off some alarm bells.

My husband has an old work acquaintance, “Jim.” They haven’t worked together in years and only text occasionally. Out of the blue, Jim texted yesterday offering him a job.

Some background: after Jim left the job where he worked with my husband, he started his own company - a capital firm I’ll call “Jimcorp”. Apparently Jimcorp is buying another company and needs someone for a role my husband actually fits well.

This “job offer” he sent yesterday was very casual, and honestly strange. His first text was basically “Want this job in this random place? I’ll pay you 200k.” When my husband asked for a job posting or more details, Jim got vague and said he’d only share more if he was serious. His texts kind of read like a drunk college kid who’d watched Wolf of Wall Street one too many times.

That raised some red flags to me, so I looked into Jimcorp. The website looks polished at first glance, but it’s just stock photos and ChatGPT copy. There’s a “download more info” button, but I’m not clicking that lol. Beyond that, I can’t find any online presence or reviews. A website called pitchbook shows Jimcorp as having zero acquisitions. I even looked them up on SEC.gov and…nothing. Maybe that’s normal for VCs/finance, I’m not sure.

This is a low stakes scenario, since my husband wouldn’t take the job anyway due to the location. But he mentioned Jim made a similar offer a few years ago - a similar position at another Jimcorp “acquisition”.

My husband tends to trust people he’s worked with, and I’m worried he’s overlooking some weirdness. At the same time, I could just be being paranoid. He values Jim as part of his network, but I’m not sure if he should. Am I crazy?

Edit: I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and things are weird. The company is registered to an address in Sheridan WY. According to the website the company is based in our city… and we are not in Wyoming, lol. LLC creation date is about six months ago which matches the domain creation date on Whois.com. The company is listed on Jim’s LinkedIn profile and his photo is on the site so pretty sure it’s him and not a scammer who got access to all his stuff.