u/glimmergirl1

I got an email that my ballot was mailed over a week ago. 2 of my household members received theirs in the mail a day later but the other 2 members including me have not received ours yet.

Its got me a little worried. Should I run over to the post office? Where can I request a replacement ballot if we never do receive ours?

Editing to add that we do have informed delivery. The two ballots showed up and arrived. The other two did not despite receiving an email the same day for all 4 that our ballots have been mailed.

This is mild but still annoying. I went to the pharmacy today and thought I got lucky, there was only one guy in front of me! Elderly, walking hunched over and shuffling along, you know the kind. I fall in line behind him. He tells the sole cashier his name and she looks him up. She says that insurance won't pay for another 10 days. He says that he is moving in 2 days and needs the prescription before he moves. She asks where he is moving to. He then launches into a 10 minute monologue about how and why he is moving. She smiles and waits to try to get a word in while glancing behind him at the now rapidly growing line behind me.

He finally stops for breath and she asks him again where he is moving. He says he won't have access to anything there. She says, oh, is it rural? He hems and haws and finally says San Diego. She says, oh, we can just move your prescriptions to a branch there. He then launches into how his church and his wife will all be doing missionary work in SD, because they need 7 more locations?? Missionaries in California, ok, whatever. I just want my darn prescription.

The coughs and throat clearing from the line finally catches his attention so he half turns and sees us. He actually says "oh, sorry, I'm holding up the line" someone behind me goes, "you can stop holding up the line anytime" He sort of chuckles then turns back to the poor cashier and starts all over with "I need my pills because I'm moving in 2 days", she patiently explains again. Finally, another cashier comes running over to help and I go to her to get my pills and no longer paid attention to him so I'm not sure how it ended but he left only a minute or so before I did.

At no point was there any awareness of what was going on around him or that he was not the only person in the world. He was not mean or rude or anything, just a total obliviot.

I have a small suburban yard with limited space. I planted garlic in a raised bed last fall and harvested just fine this year. I've planted carrots in the empty bed a few weeks ago. After I harvest the carrots, can I then plant garlic again this fall in the same bed? Its not like I have another bed to use. Will the carrots in between help? Garlic is the one thing I would like to do yearly.

Alternatively, if I put in another raised bed and plant my second favorite crop, onions, can I just go back and forth, swapping the onions and garlic beds each year? I could plant a winter cover crop and another crop like beets or carrots in the onion bed after harvesting the onions in preparation for garlic the following fall.

Im in Colorado front range zone 5b, high elevation.

I've been looking at lots of Nile River cruise websites and searching this sub but not really finding what I'm looking for. We are 56f/53m in decent shape, not athletic but capable of walking and light to medium hiking or exercise.

Questions:

1. We are thinking Fall 2027 either Sept or Oct, would that be too crowded or hot?

2. We dont care about seeing "the real Egypt" ie non-tourist areas, just the main attractions like the pyramids. Day trips off the boat are fine as long as they are guided, we dont want to find our own way.

3.10 days to 2 weeks in Egypt at most. We will also be spending a few days in Jordan at the end or beginning of the trip, not included in those days.

4. This is a once in a lifetime visit so we would rather spend a bit more to really enjoy ourselves and not be uncomfortable but we are not rich so will need to balance that with a budget.

5. We like our vaction days to start early-ish and be full of activity/sightseeing rather than relaxing but we are not night owls. Back to the boat for dinner and early to bed!

6. We are not super social so a mid size ship might be better than the small, intimate boats.

7. We have no food allergies/special diets. We are not foodies but are willing to experiment a bit. We drink lightly/rarely.

8. Any other considerations we are missing?

Edit: clarified we are looking for a Nile River cruise

New to investing here. We are 56F/53M middle class with a 3% mortgage we are only 5 years into and we live in a MHCOL area. We each have an IRA we started maxing out last year and both have 401k's thru work that we contribute to up to our employer match. 56F will also have a small pension after 65. Our investments are just now starting to get to a worthwile place - about 200k as of now and we do also have a 6 month emergency fund.

We were broke until about 10 years ago when we were finally able to start saving and investing towards retirement. so we have struggled to get what we currently have. However, we are limited in the years we have left before retirement so we are pretty worried about that nest egg. Also, Social Security in the US is not something we feel we can rely on so we are not planning on it and if it still exists when we qualify for retirement, that would be a bonus.

I heard that the stock market is inflated and we will probably have a crash. What is the best way to save that small nest egg we have built and not lose it? Do we move all our investments (most are with Fidelity) to overseas funds? Do more with Tech stocks or less (AI backlash is worrying me right now). We currently try to have a wide range of funds but most are in the "moderate" to "aggressive" categories seeing as we are down to 15-ish years before retirement which makes me nervous too. Should we move to safer funds? And which funds?

Everyone says invest and then just forget it until retirement and I was fine with that until just the last year and a half because of...current events in the US. Now I am losing sleep over this. I think we are in the worst spot to be in, not close enough to retirement to move out of risky investments but too close to retirement to just ignore it and let the market correct itself over a large period of time.