u/dunkinteach

For context, the bride is already not a favorite person of mine, so this is definitely a somewhat biased account of this wedding. I got married last year and this bride's wedding is in a few weeks. She already made it clear she didn't like me when I'd met her the few previous times and through the grapevine, for reasons unbeknownst to me. Then, she shows up in a white dress, white shoes, white shawl and white purse to my wedding (the dress was white with a print so not solid but still). And I am NOT one to be a huge bridezilla about the no white dresses/close to white dresses (I'd never do it at someone else's wedding but wasn't planning to make a fuss if it happened at mine), but knowing this girl already hates me and did this I knew it was 100% intentional.

Now, we're invited back to her wedding (my husband/the groom remain friends). I've been looking at their registry the past few months and it has only had luxury-priced items on it. They have a cash fund on their wedding site as well as two external registries. The least expensive item they had available was a $150 simon pearce piece, the most expensive being $3000 furniture pieces.

I don't think it's a crime to put expensive items on your registry (I probably wouldn't have done the furniture), but not having any kind of range of affordable items for all of your guests is crass IMO. And to ask for a cash fund on top of all of those items is odd. I assume they have some wealthy guests coming who can afford to buy them those kinds of things, but genuinely not sure what I'm going to get this tw*t lol. Probably an envelope of a modest amount of cash it is.

Hello, neighbors! We moved to RWC ~6 months ago now and have always had the same trash pickup situation from recology: we place our bins out on the street/curbside the evening before, and take them in ASAP when they're emptied. Normally, there's curb space right in front of our home where we place our bins.

Today, there was no curb space at all anywhere in front of our property because of several cars parked there. I saw online that official guidance from Recology is to place bins in your driveway if there is no curb space. Unfortunately, we share a driveway with our neighbors, so that's not an option for us because we can't limit their access to and from their unit and they do come and go pretty frequently. I ended up placing the bins in front of my next door neighbors' home, but I feel like I've broken some neighborly cardinal rule. I know it's not ideal to put the bins in front of another home, but I'm genuinely not sure what else to do.

Any tips on what to do? I of course plan to peek outside and see if car in front of my house has moved this evening so I can move my bins, but since it's already evening I doubt that will be a possibility. My area is very densely populated and a ton of people rely on street parking, so I feel badly taking up someone's parking spot with my bins but not sure what else to do. Street parking is open in my neighborhood, no permit required (at least from what I know/there's no signs near me) so it's not someone's official parking spot, but people tend to park in the same place every day on our block since driveway space is so limited.

I successfully transitioned out of elementary teaching this past Feb. It took me five full months of hardcore applying, networking, and praying to get this job but I did and I'm happy in my new role. I work fully remote at a tech startup and, while it does feel like a lot of work, it pales in comparison to the stress of teaching and pay is way better.

My only struggle in my new role has been my own imposter syndrome. I recognize some of this is my own emotional/mental health struggle but it has been TOUGH. I had a really toxic principal my last three years in the classroom and it ruined all confidence I had in myself professionally. I know I was a good teacher (not that I love standardized tests but my kids consistently had the highest test scores in my grade level, had good reports from parents/other teachers/etc.) but I was always granted under-performing or minimum competency on my evals. This principal was also so angry when I left that she screamed at me at 7am on the second to last day of school saying I didn't do enough to prepare the teacher who'd be taking my place (she asked me, with just two days left in the school year, to prepare a folder of ALL my lesson slides and team emails from the entire year to pass down to the new teacher. I said that would take HOURS of work and wouldn't be possible with this little notice, I basically laughed in her face and said no. She did NOT like that.)

My current team is only 3 other people and have been SO kind to me. I've been very forthcoming that I'm a transitioning teacher and while I'm a super hard worker I may have skill gaps, but that I'm willing to learn whatever hard skills necessary. I have got mostly positive feedback on my work or at worst minimally constructive/kind guidance on things I may not have nailed the first time, but I always feel like I'm underperforming and not doing enough. That feels like a leftover learned instinct from teaching that I'm trying REAL hard to unlearn but it's an uphill battle for sure.

Anyway, all these feels are coming up because I have my 2 month eval with my manager tomorrow and my only previous experience with progress evals from my past principal have been negative and disheartening. My current manager has given me no reason to believe she'll be giving harsh feedback in this eval meeting, and in fact has said to me that she thinks I'm exceeding expectations and the only areas I'm not performing in yet are just because she hasn't had time to train me on those skills yet, but I'm still feeling incredibly nervous about it.

TL;DR: how do you unlearn the voice in your head that tells you you're not good enough after years of teaching? Being guilted into doing unpaid labor for years will do a NUMBER on anyone's confidence professionally and otherwise. I think I'm just questioning my situation because I have actual work/life balance now and normal-ish hours and am actually appreciated for my work which is incredibly unfamiliar to me.

Throughout my life during childhood/when I was still financially dependent on nparents, they would demand I come visit them for every holiday/birthday no matter how inconvenient it was. If I already had plans, I was told to cancel them. I needed money for college so I went along with this until I no longer had to.

It hit me today that my nmom never actually INVITES me anywhere or demonstrates that she wants me there, she just makes demanding statements. “We’re doing your dad’s birthday on x date.” or “Your grandma’s birthday party is on x date.” All with usually less than 2 weeks’ notice by the way, and I live across the country from them. I’ve started straight up saying no, sometimes offering a genuine conflict if I have one. She’ll say “you put all your FRIENDS and the IN LAWS before ME” and “I shouldn’t have to give my own daughter six months’ notice just to spend time together.”

More context: my husband and I moved for his job almost 8 months ago. We’ve flown back to see my family 3 times already for birthdays/holidays. She has not come to visit us once. She’ll say things like “CHILDREN are supposed to visit PARENTS, not the other way around.” Even though they have no friends and rarely any weekend plans, which is not a bad thing, just saying they have a way more flexible schedule than us. My husband and I are in our late twenties and in that era where every weekend is either filled with friends’ weddings or baby showers. We genuinely do have to schedule things months out these days because stuff keeps piling up. But noooo, I’m disrespecting my elders just by having a life and a busy schedule.

It’s been months of this and I really thought setting hard boundaries about planning get togethers in advance would have gotten through to her by now (naive of me, I know). I just don’t know when she’s finally going to get it through her thick fucking skull that demanding your adult children fly across the country for a mediocre awkward family dinner with less than two weeks’ notice just isn’t going to work anymore.