u/raininggumleaves

I'm a newbie to HE and I absolutely love the idea. I've done many airbnb sits/ hosting , even early on when I was literally staying in someone's bedroom with their things however I do feel like if I had someone I don't know stay at my home, I'd practically want to pack up most of the home in order to feel comfortable with someone staying there while I'm not here, simply due to the amount of things I have....I probably wouldn't notice if something went missing for some time which would be stressful for me/ if I pack away thing that I don't want people to use, then I'd have to pack up as if I'm moving house and just leave an airbnb level of things out for use.

Maybe I'm not the right person to host but if you did feel this way and have enjoyed HE hosting, what made you go from " I have to move most of my life into the garage before they come" to " I'll make space for them and a few things may go AWOL but it's no big deal?

Edit: Examples of things: wine collection that's hefty to move, nick knacks, substantial jewellery collection and just things that occupy a space that the house guest would want to use such as wardrobe space.

My mum used to be an avid traveller. However the 24-hour news cycle has got her very nervous about being harmed or otherwise hurt while on an overseas vacation. I want to take her on a dream trip that she has been talking about for many years. However she is swaying between happy to go and excited and absolutely terrified of World War three starting in Europe while we're there.

I know that usually once she's on the plane and there she's fine. However I'm concerned about spending $25,000 on a trip and then her pulling out. Are there things that I should be talking to her PCP about to discuss this so that hopefully this is managed and she can enjoy the trip? It may be that she has generalised anxiety. She's never been diagnosed but this is a really common theme across the board in the way she manages her life and has stopped her from enjoying many things over time.

I have currently assured her that tour groups are used to managing safety and if the situation changes in any location, we can catch the next flight out from any airport if need be. We have travel insurance to cover anything and she'll be accompanied the entire time so she doesn't need to worry about getting lost or otherwise forgotten.

You know the one, a fresh bun, iceberg lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, bbq sauce, a homemade /style pattie, beetroot and of course crunchy chips covered in chicken salt. Preferably under $15 for the plain burger, no chips.

Maybe cheese, carrot, a fried egg and pineapple for those hungrier days!

Where can I find this? Too many American style burgers abound.

Hi DCPs, my husband and I are currently doing IVF and while we haven't yet conceived (& may not be able to), we do feel a great responsibility for our embryos. As part of this, we've been talking about what we may like to do if we end up having embryos in storage at the end of this process.

I understand that not being connected to your biological family is something that I will never truely understand and I'd love your take on this message I wrote to our embryos today. Would notes like this have helped you understand your place in your/your families world?

In my country it's known and altruistic donations only. We would like to be a part of any children's lives that were conceived via embryo donation but also understand that that is not a given.

Here's the note:

Hello wonderful you,

I hope this letter gets to you at a time that you are not questioning your worth. If you are, I want to share a little bit about your story before you became you.

My husband and I met pretty late in life and at the age of 40, almost 41, we decided to do IVF. He was 45 at the time and we weren't 100% sure about having children, which in some respects may seem a little bit crazy considering the cost, the emotions, the physical aspects of doing IVF. We did want to know whether we could conceive and we had hoped that the process might give us a little bit more clarity on how we felt about the situation.

In our first round in June/July 2026, I had six eggs. They came out and out of those six, two were fertilised. One of those was a shell, which wasn't viable. The other three unfortunately were lost due to contamination from bacteria. There were two. Due to a condition called adenomyosis before implanting any of the embryos, we decided to do another round of IVF. I will literally start that today and that's where I am right now.

Because of the adenomyosis I wanted to do another round first so that we can do a thing called down regulation that makes my uterus potentially more accepting of an embryo.

Now this all may seem a little bit impersonable right now. What I'm wanting to share is all the different factors that come into play with just how special your life is. Because of my age, because of my husband's age, because of the contamination, because of the adenomyosis, because of all of these things, along with the process that we haven't gone through yet (which is implantation, potential miscarriages, potential stillbirths, or all of those things), the fact that you exist is truly a miracle. Whether you were in our arms or in your parents' arms, you are truly special. 

Now right at this moment in July 2026, I'm not sure what will happen. Maybe we'll get lots of eggs. Maybe we'll have lots of embryos, so many we're not sure what to do with. I'm sharing this with you right now because I want you to know where you came from and that the fact that these little bunch of cells that became you are very precious, not only to myself and my husband but also to the people that raised you.

If we end up with so many little embryos that we can't raise ourselves or we realise that these embryos just can't find a safe home in my womb because of the adenomyosis, we wanted to give you, one of our embryos, the opportunity of becoming a child. It's not a guaranteed opportunity because even with an embryo, even in someone else's womb, it's not a guarantee that you would have continued to grow.

As I shared earlier, the fact that you exist is very special. While you may not be in our arms, it doesn't mean you were ever unwanted. Both my husband and I know deep down that had we met and got married earlier in life, we probably would have children by now. We may not even be going through this process of IVF, however life does things and you're with your wonderful parents. We hope that we're in contact with you. We hope that you're growing well. We hope that you're supported and loved. We hope that we get to see your smile and be involved in your life, whether that's near or far.

I think this is enough for now because I don't know that this is something that we're going to ever need to discuss. But if it is? Just know you're pretty damn special.

In a bit of shock after finding out that half the eggs that were collected failed to fertilise due to contamination. Respect to the lab for telling us early on, they do not know the source of contamination yet and will tell us once the investigation is completed.

I'm feeling quite shocked, it's such a blow as we already had small chances due to age etc. Husband is also deeply upset.

I'm wondering if anyone has experience in this?

We're in Australia if it's relevant.

Has anyone found having HRT fixed or reduced your CUTI issue?

Did you climb a glacier on a holiday and move internationally because it sucked you in? Did you dream and dream and train in some unusual ways before heading elsewhere to tackle a mountain?

Did you freeze your butt off ( not literally) several times until you learnt a good system to keep you warm but mobile?

Looking into renewing my policy and so many exceptions in some policies but the main thing I want is ease of coverage and claim if it comes down to it. So who were you with, what was your experience like? I had a great insurer but they've been eaten up by another mob and the coverage is no where near as good.

Piggybacking off a post here in Auscorp from a couple of years back about favourite colleagues, tell us about your most memorable workmates.

Someone I think of often is Ron who was one of our waste collection team, always jovial, always spreading happiness and always advocating to make sure you look after your heart by doing exercise. Every morning before work (which started at 6am for him), he'd be out walking at least 5km and he was probably 60+.

I can still remember the smile on his face the last time I saw him, having signed off his work permit before walking out the door with a spring in his step. Next morning at the team huddle, I was told he'd had a heart attack and passed away. May have walked out of that meeting to cry. The world lost someone special that day.

On a happier note, as a graduate there was a grad Dave, who used to draw me little animals on post its and leave them around my office to find. A different grad, L would see my very long list of things to do on my white board, sneak in when I was out of the office and add 'chillax' on my list of things to do, usually at the top. Those two always put a smile on my face as an overly stressy graduate!

Clear glass looks amazing when freshly cleaned but often has water marks, soap scum build up quickly. Frosted glass would make this less obvious, especially in hard water areas.

So ElI5, why isn't frosted glass more popular? I'm making the assumption that it is frosted on the side outside the shower and smooth on the shower side.

Did you consider it in your reno? Why didn't you use it?

I've found a lot of my favourite perfumes have 'white florals' as one of the top few notes...but so do some of the ones I hate the most. so what gives? Why is there such a difference and what exactly makes one 'white floral' so different to another?

Late diagnosed a few years ago and was put on IR Dex 5mg. Usually take 2 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon and drink 2 coffees in the morning. Seems okay but I've never tried anything else and Im not great at remembering to take the second dose or don't want to of I woke up later.

Now in Qld and I'm wondering if the GP can prescribe me a long release medication instead? I have a letter from my psych about what I've been previously prescribed.

What was your experience on trying different meds to find the right one? I just stuck with what I was originally prescribed as it made such a difference and life was so complicated that I didn't want to make life more complicated at the time.

Without looking it up, if someone says their name as Ms ABC (as opposed to Miss or Mrs ABC) what immediately comes to mind?

Is it nothing other than gender, similar to Mr? Is it something else?