u/livin_la_vida_mama

I signed up last year and paid $2.5k for a year supply. Originally had only planned to do a year, and cancelled renewal.

Then decided actually i'd like to do at least 6 months more, so tried to reactivate my prescription. Was told since i was not doing a year, needed a new intake done oh and that means i count as a new customer therefore have to pay the BS $150 a month just to.... what? Use the app?

Anyway, looked at the pricing for getting 6 more months of semaglutide, and BEFORE adding in the extra $150 per month it was almost the same price as i paid for a year. Nein danke.

Well, after asking around, signed up with pomegranate this morning and was approved for tirzepatide. Including consultation, i paid $750 for 6 months which is basically half what hers wanted from me. For a typically more expensive medication than hers were offering.

While i don't go so far as to call hers a scam, they definitely aren't competitive on price and honestly i had times when i was talking to a "provider" and was 80% certain the responses were automated or AI. If not, the provider had a strict script to stick to for responses.

I've kind of been in a position for years where i know i need to take better care if my skin, but also really do not have the bandwidth for too-many-step routines, and especially in the morning.

Every time i've tried, i've found myself going down a rabbit hole of "oh i need this serum or this active" and before i know it i have like 5-6 products to use twice a day and i just burn out on it.

My skin is basically ok. Mild acne when my period is on the way, occasional random pimples that resolve quickly with a patch and my biggest issue: rosacea. I have a few wrinkles but im 44, im supposed to lol.

I have zero interest in tret, i used various retinol/ retinoid products and they either break me out like crazy or my rosacea goes mental. I briefly used a cream given to me by a derm (it was an antibiotic of some kind i think?) and while it did help, my skin HURT. Like stung every time i touched it, washing it was almost painful. In the end i decided that redness was better than decent looking skin that hurt when there was a breeze lol.

Anyway, enough about what didn't work, here's what is working:

AM: Cleanse face with a plain konjac sponge and warm water, no cleanser or soap etc.

Olay Super Cream (contains spf)

PM: Wash face in shower with Olay Total Effects Citrus Scrub (i rub it in my hands a bit to break down the bits/ make it less scrubby but it's already pretty gentle in terms of scrubs.

After shower, spray face and neck all over with Magic Molecule spray- this has been KEY for managing the rosacea and monthly acne. Allow to air dry.

Olay Super Serum

Neutrogena Hydro-Boost Night Pressed Serum.

While this is still a few steps (especially in the evening), it actually feels manageable and my skin feels amazing.

I did a year on Hers Semaglutide and would like to possibly either continue or switch to terzepatide. But, i really, really am not paying $150 a month BEFORE the cost of the meds, just for the "privilege" of using Hers.

So, im looking to switch, but im scared who is legit and who isn't.

So im looking for reccos!

Thank you 💖

My son's psychiatrist is great, normally. She has a system where when we need a med renewal, we text her and she puts it in for us. Normally works like clockwork.

We're leaving on vacation tomorrow. I texted her earlier in the week asking if she could renew his Ritalin. Nothing. I text again yesterday saying "hey, sorry to pester but he's fully out and we're going out of town".

Got a reply this morning, basically "yeah, sorry, im out of the office, email the nurse and she'll do it." Great. Thanks. Ya couldn't have had someone let patients know you were out of the office for a while? So i emailed. Nothing. I called, left a message since nobody answered the phone. Nothing. I finally got through to the front desk, she was like "uuhh, i can try to put you through to the nurse but i should warn you most of the department are out on fridays". Left a message since the nurse didn't pick up the phone. Nothing. Oh and they close in two hours.

Emailed again. Nothing.

At this point in an act of desperation, i have emailed his pediatrician to see if she can write a one-time script for him. Otherwise we're staring down a week at the beach (dysregulating for him on a good day) with a basically unmedicated kid.

Im annoyed because had i been told earlier this week that the psych was out of office i would have been able to get this resolved in a timely manner. Not rushing and panicking.

They dropped the ball, but somehow i'm left feeling like i was the one who did.

Seriously, dude..... my ND kid didn't go to bed until gone midnight because it was too loud for him, which ok whatever, it's one night and we all can suck it up.

But lighting fireworks at 4:30 am is a dick move, celebration or not. People do still need some sleep, and 4 hours of it is not enough time to justify starting the party back up.

..... and that was me channeling my Dad. Jesus, im old.

I'm on day 2 of a menstrual migraine, I want to eat everything and somehow also want to throw up until I turn into a flaccid wind-sock. My brain may or may not be leaking out of my right eye, I'm not sure. Every time I fart another layer of paint peels off the walls and all the neighborhood dogs start howling. Anemia is in full swing and I'm exhausted but my brain hurts too much to actually sleep. Every time I stand up it feels like my innards are trying to escape through my vagine.

Send help. Or Zofran and Bean-o. Or maybe just take me out behind the barn and end my misery.

I've been morbidly obese almost half my life. I have walked into clothes stores and had an associate actually tell me not to bother because they didn't carry any clothes that fit me. I couldn't buy anything one size fits all/ most, because i knew it wouldn't even come close to fitting me. Even some "plus size" clothes that should have fit me as they were my size, if they were cut smaller (for example, a lot of clothes imported from China you have to go up like 6 sizes to get one that fits. A 2X American size, in Chinese sizes would be a 7 or 8X. It was mortifying.) would not fit.

I chat to a lot of the mum's at the bus stop while we wait for our kids, and one of the ladies said she would make me an African batik dress. I thought she meant further down the line or something and just said i would like that. I should add, i've lost about 60lbs. Well she gave me the dress today and one to my other friend, and said we could decide between us which colour we wanted. Since my friend is absolutely tiny, i was worried that a "one size" kind of dress wouldn't fit me.

It not only fits, it's not tight or anything. I nearly cried.

I still have weight to lose, but this was a nice moment for me. And the dress is heckin beautiful!

I have 4 girls, they are quite skittish about being held, but we've noticed if we gently pet their heads with a finger they stop trying to run and kind of half-close their eyes, sometimes tip their heads back a bit.

I've only ever kept rattos before, and i know if i did something they liked because they'd brux and boggle like crazy. But i don't know if my girlypops are happy or just scared.

They have deep substrate, i hide treats like mealworms in it when i change the substrate so they can dig and find them, and i make their home as cluttered as possible, creating tunnels and hides and stuff out of things like loo roll tubes and cereal boxes. So i am pretty sure they're happy at home, i just want to make sure they aren't absolutely hating being handled.

Like if the first book is where the MC's meet and fall in love, then the next books follow them as they travel together (while building their relationship)?

Gonna try not to dox myself here lol.

I live in an urban area. There's a lot of families here and one particular intersection near my house is the designated bus stop for a few schools.

There is a small apartment building where the bus stop is, and we've had issues in the past with the downstairs tenant yelling at us for kids being loud. We told them not to yell, and if they do it again they have to come stand quietly with us until the bus comes. But even if they just talk, or run or laugh, this guy has been screaming out of his window at them.

Well now upstairs has decided to get in on it. Yesterday we caught one of them filming us (again, not being loud but also not silent statues either) and my friend yelled at them to stop. This morning as we arrived, i saw a phone propped in the window so they were clearly filming again. I took my kids out of the camera view and told them to just hang out with me. My friend yelled at them again, but i noticed after the bus left that there were now TWO phones in the window filming.

It's a big bus stop. Between the two that arrive between 7:15 and 7:30 you're talking about 20-ish kids. It's unreasonable to expect all of them to line up like the von trapp kids and stand in silence.

Nobody has done anything wrong. The kids aren't screaming, they're just giggling and running around playing tag or hide and seek. They're all Elementary school kids, too, so i think that needs to be taken into account.

I fucking hate this. I just want to walk my kids to the bus, see them off safely and that's it. I am constantly on their butts about noise levels, considering others and remembering folk may still be in bed, and for the most part I don't think they are badly behaved. They have their moments, sure, but they are KIDS. And now we can't even wait for the bus without being fucking filmed.

I'm also just in a shitty mood today. It would have been my brother's 57th birthday today (he died in 2021), my oldest doused me with water because i wouldn't give him my lunch for his breakfast, then proceeded to scream at me for like 20 minutes about how i was selfish, hoarding food etc (he's neurodivergent, sometimes it just be that way). Note, i didn't say he couldn't have ANY breakfast, i said he couldn't have my lunch for breakfast, and to please choose something else.

So to then find out that apparently we're going to be filmed at the bus stop every morning (and god knows what they're planning to do with the video??), that was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was my morning.

I have strong feelings about that person, and the fucking horse they rode in on.

Saying this right off the bat: I know I can find one on Reddit etc for free. I don't want to do that, for a few reasons but the main one is that I don't want my work stolen, so if I'm trusting someone with it I'd rather it be in a professional setting than just some rando from the internet. Call me an idiot or a snob all you want, I'm allowed to do things the way I'm comfortable with.

With that said, I wondered if anyone used a paid service that they would recommend, I don't really want to get a developmental edit at this stage because that's some serious $$, and I think this is a good option for me.

Thank you!!

They have a lot of clutter/ climbing stuff in their enclosure because i read they love to climb, plus deep substrate so they can burrow.

I freshened up their home today, replaced about 3/4 of the substrate and "rearranged the furniture" so to speak. All 4 of them are climbing to the top of anything they can and, im not kidding, diving off into the substrate. But then they go back and do it again? Are they just having a good time or should i change things so they can't do it anymore?