u/themop-f

Not sure if this is just me, but...

It's the weekend. My husband and I sleep in (usually until 7.30 am, as we don't have kids), then one of us gets up to feed the cats and make coffee. We go back to bed with our coffee and start our day slowly, scrolling through the phone, reading a book or talking.

Then it comes, invariably - my husband gets up. I get nervous. Does he just go to the bathroom? Or will he get dressed and go to get breakfast? So, invariably, I ask "What are you doing now?" Mostly it's the kind of getting up to go and get breakfast. Do I have to do something, too? Like showering or getting dressed? Laying out the table?

Mind you, we've been married for seven years by now, and my husband never asked me to do something while he's out getting breakfast. He has never indicated by word or look that he's annoyed or disappointed I haven't done anything other than staying in bed. He will gladly prepare breakfast by himself. I sometimes ask if that's alright by him, and he never says no. He would tell me if he wanted me to do something like that, I'm very, very certain - in this house, we don't play guessing games.

It's just... to good to be true, I think. Just laying in bed until I hear the 'ping' of the egg timer indicating that breakfast is almost ready. But still, I get nervous every morning when he gets up.

Does anyone else experience this? Or is that a 'me'-thing?

Today my phone rang at work, but I couldn't answer it so I just meant to let it go to voicemail, to deal with it later. No voicemail came, so I researched the number, found nothing and daringly called back. No answer...

Then my phone rang again, same number, and it was my wonderful coworker who had retired five years ago. We worked in the same room in a daycare, and I have since opened my own inhome daycare. She apologised profusely for not having deleted my number and told me she had meant to call her husband, whose name is right next to mine in her phone. We chatted for a bit and then decided not to delete any numbers but instead meet for coffee for a proper catch up!

It made me so happy to hear her voice - I have learned so much from her and think of her regularly. I'm just surprised she hasn't accidentally called me much earlier...

Edit: Thank you, anonymous friend, for the award! 💛

I WFH exclusively (inhome daycare), my husband has a 20 minute drive from his work. We often enjoy a cup of coffee together after work, so he texts me when he turns into a specific street about five minutes from home, so I can start making coffee.

He texts me via the car‘s speech-to-text system, and it has forever failed to get the name of that street right. Being the goofball he is, he tries to find the most hilarious ways to announce his arrival. At first, it was quite obvious (as in „the street that can not be named“ or similar), then he progressed to Spanish (at which the system failed even more miserably than the original name of the street), and now it’s movie quotes.

I bring you today’s gem: „A day may come when the courage of men fails - but it is not this day! A day may come when this wretched system will allow me to speak my mind - but it is not this day! For coffee!“

I know I don’t need express permission by anyone to throw away a houseplant that I bought with my own money, cared for in my own free time and have tended to with my own money in my own time.

But I had this monstera (for of course that’s what it is) for four years, rescued it from a discounter and watched it strive for quite some time. It got so big I couldn’t keep it on the window sill, so it moved onto my grand piano, swallowing quite a bit of sunlight from the living room. Repotting became more complicated, and please don’t mention fungus gnats. Once a whole colony lived in the moss pole. It had brown spots from being in a western window, but still, I kept it, because it had grown on me quite literally.

Last Saturday, I took it out on the porch to give it some sunlight and a „bath“ (place it in a kiddy pool to soak from the bottom) and realised it had thrips. So I put it into our greenhouse to treat it and left it there overnight - temperature was mild and I wanted it to be able to dry properly before taking it back in.

Sunday rolled around, we were busy, it was hot, and I completely forgot about the monstera in the greenhouse until late afternoon… which was too late. Most of the leaves had gone black, burned by the climate in the greenhouse. I took it out, cut off all the leaves that had suffered, and now only have about four leaves left - those all have brown spots from last year.

When I threw it onto our compost, I realised I’ve never been so relieved to have killed (or almost killed) a plant. I had come to hate that plant over time… It was the permission I needed to throw out a time consuming, place consuming, pest attracting thing I kept because I felt obliged to do so.

So thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Only temporary and not home-home, but instead of a five hour drive by car, it’ll be half an hour. She scored a temporary post in the vicinity and also, she’ll probably stay at her parents‘ most weekends which is about five minutes from my place.

I didn’t even realise I missed her so much as we text often enough and see each other at least once a year. This just made my entire week!

I'm not even sure if that's the correct term, but I've had some kind of "blue days" every year at the end of July. Three of my four pregnancies would have come to term around that time, and I'm very glad I can schedule my vacation days so I don't have to deal with work as well. We have stopped ttc three years ago after multiple losses and surgeries.

It was manageable the last two years, but this year's depressions are awful to say the least. There are a lot of factors contributing to that, most of all the fact that there are SO many newborns among my friends and family. One announcement is especially hard to stomach - I had always considered that friend to be my "last ally", the only one of my friends who faced infertility just like me (though we never spoke about it openly). Well, it turned out she wasn't and now she's a mom. Two other babies are actually brothers' daughters, and my third SIL announced her pregnancy not long ago.

To top it off, I got diagnosed with ADHD last year and just started Ritalin two months ago. I'm not sure if the medication makes my depression worse or actually helps with it, but having (undiagnosed) ADHD always made me feel like an outsider, desperately trying to fit in, never succeeding. I don't have anyone irl who can relate to being ADHD and IFCF; I feel so lonely. I had two major meltdowns in the last three weeks, and I feel I might shatter at any moment. My husband is my rock and my anchor, and he drops everything to be there for me. We're a great team, but we're on our little island without anyone who can relate.

We are scheduled to visit my younger brother on Wednesday - I have already met his baby, and I'm actually looking forward to it a bit. The next day, we will go on to visit my aunt and uncle for two days, and right now, I don't think I can stomach it. Which is weird, because that's the one place where there's no baby, though my aunt just welcomed her first greatgrandchild and that's probably going to be the topic of a lot of conversations.

At this point, I just want to curl up, have a good cry, smash some stuff and then start crying again. I absolutely cannot decide whether I want to go anywhere or just stay at home. I keep thinking how nice it would be to see everyone and spend some time together, because, after all, we never get to spend enough time with those we love. It's also really the best time for this short trip and it's all planned anyway. On the other hand, I just want to be this little ball of sadness and tiredness and keep hiding myself away until it all gets better.

It WILL get better, I know - it always has in the past. It's just that right now, all I can see is the inside of a hole with dark walls and a very, very faint opening very, very far above me. Thank you for bearing with me.

Trying to focus on doing my taxes and wondered if wizards would have to do those too. I mean, how else would aurors, healers etc get paid? Are there wizards working in the muggle fiscal system so wizards don't get exposed?

Also: How does the wizard healthcare system work? I mean, if it's a muggle born child, they would be in their parents' health insurance (at least in my country), so they would either have to change their insurance to a wizarding one or just never use theirs and just pay for it, which seems excessive.

(You can probably tell I'm really trying to avoid doing my taxes at this point.)

As the heatwave in Central Europe continues, my husband and I watched the football game with wide open windows at 10pm last night, lights out. Suddenly a glowbug flew in through the open window, circled the coffee table twice and flew back out.

I’ve only ever seen three of them in my entire life and now feel very blessed to now that at least a few seem to be living in our garden.

I work with toddlers, so whenever we get ready to go outside, I have to help them into their shoes and mud gear. They have to stand up and sit down again a few times throughout the process, so I frequently quote Lord Grantham: „All this bobbing up and down and crossing, it’s like a gymnastics display!“

What’s yours?

I recently joined a choir and I must say, this was the best decision I made in a few years. People are so nice, so welcoming, so cheerful, they take an interest in each other and it's really just a lovely way to spend an evening. We often go for drinks afterwards which is also a great way to get to know each other.

Tonight, we were accompanied by a new member; I don't know her well and don't have anything to do with her (I'm soprano, she's alto). The conversation shifted towards ADHD in a cheerful way and I finally felt comfortable enough to tell those around me that I have ADHD. To which the new member replied "I guess everyone has ADHD these days". I silently debated whether to say something or just keep quiet, and then felt that she wasn't worth my energy. There was an awkward pause instead (no one else said anything either), and I hope she got a feeling of "oops, that was a wrong thing to say, better not repeat it", but I highly doubt it.

What do you reply to something like that? I know I would have reacted very differently if it had been a close friend or family member, but are you able to let slide such an offhand comment?

I was wondering about the timeline on Carson being in service and being on stage. It always felt like he went into service at a very young age (maybe ten?), but the episode about the "Cheerful Charlies" feels like he would be at least 16 when he went tapdancing. I could never get those two things together, I mean he surely wouldn't have left service to go tapdancing, then come back again at a later point. I've always chalked it up to JF being inconsistent, but maybe others have a better idea?