@GreenBeansi'm sorry ypu had such awful months, is good to hear you are about to be back to normal. I get what you say about having the chance to go outside if you so wish, I basically work from home (I just go in the house next to mine since we host a airbnb experience)  but there are days that I'm just happy to be outside with my dog and read or listening to an audiobook, while others even just going to do some grocery shopping is needed, if nothing else to see different people 😅!

I think Jessa may start to feel a little bit lonely and bored, her similar age sisters all have multple kids and can just leave their houses/spouse/kids to hang out whit her for a coffee or something, they are busy with their own houses and I bet that even for them is hard to just load the kids in the car to go playing with the cousins, so probably they often see each others at the big house or after having planned for a while. She is a mother of five now the novelty has come off, the show is ended and there is nothing new on the horizon, it has to be kinda boring right now, maybe in a few year when Spurge and Henry will be teens it will be better 

On 5/3/2024 at 5:38 PM, SassyPants said:

If we had a contest for homes with the funkiest architecture, mine would be right up there. I live on a hill, near the ocean (so think tight, narrow lots) and my home is tri-level but only has living space on 2 floors. From the front of the house one would take 2 short flights of stairs and would enter the house on the second level (where there is no living space) and onto a platform. From there, one could go down a 1/2 flight of stairs to a bedroom, BR and a garage. If you went up a 1/2 flight of stairs from the front door, you would get to the rest of the house.

These kinds of houses can cause major issues once people get older. While you’re still young, it’s just an inconvenience to have stairs everywhere, but once you get older it gets really tough to move around. I’ve seen it happen with friends and family. At some point, they either need to move into a more accessible space, or they end up only using only the ground floor (if it has all the essentials, i.e. kitchen and bathroom).

My husband and I only bought an apartment - partly because we wanted to keep living in the middle of the city and there are no individual houses, but partly also because it will be so much easier to live in and maintain once we are older. It’s fairly small (at least by US standards - open kitchen and living room, two bedrooms, one bathroom), but it has a shower with no step, an elevator up from the garage and it has no stairs, so we got a cleaning robot that not only hoovers, but also cleans with water. It’s so amazing! You leave the house, and when you get back all the floors are clean and shiny!

11 hours ago, HumbleJillyMuffin said:

People haven't donated because of social media algorithms. Yeah, that must be it. And can we please stop calling it fundraising and "meeting needs"? You aren't a charity. 

"Mutual aid"? Which part of this is mutual?

7 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

The problem of course comes in if one partner needs to be always going out and the other always staying in and they can’t work out a way to be comfortable with those differences. Or worse, you are a whole high energy do all the activities and sports and outside things family - but one child would rather stay home reading a book or playing a game.

I’m actually not super active or high energy. I love staying in, reading and not having to socialize and talk to people. But I still feel like I need to get out the house at least once per day. Living in a big city it’s not much of an effort either. Going to the supermarket or the bakery is like a 5 minute walk.

I’ve been sick for months between November last year and March this year. It started off as a cold that wouldn’t go away, the cough turned into bronchitis, it kept getting worse until I could hardly walk for 5 minutes and spiked a pretty bad fever for a week and ended up in hospital with pneumonia and broken ribs from all the coughing. 

I’m in my early 40s and have never really been sick apart from a cold, so this was a humbling experience. I am almost back to normal now thankfully, but these months really made me appreciate being able to do all the “normal” things. Just being able to go for a walk without having to worry whether I’ll be out of breath, having enough energy for full work days, being able to plan outings again without the thought of “not sure if I’ll be well enough to go” at the back of my mind, it feels so good!

So I guess that’s one reason why I try to get out the house every day - because it simply feels good that I CAN!

He's always said this stuff. He also just had a new book come out called "The War on Children" so I think this was probably a sales pitch. Like "Big Pharma" is coming for your children. He and Doug Wilson and others who were public about not closing during COVID seem to have realized there's a selling point for followers in that line of thinking.