I went with my son to his friends house a few years ago, about 9. Me and his mom were hanging out while the kids gamed. Her son played roblox. I never liked the game, and know there are thousands of other games to play that aren’t so predatory, so my kid was never introduced to it. Anyway, his friend was playing so I let my son play too for this day.

After a time, her son asked for $10 for Roblox. Mom said not today and the child had a full meltdown. It hurt my ears he was screeching so loud. My son just froze and stared at his friend. It looked similar to a panic attack crossed with a toddler temper tantrum. Once he calmed down, she let him back on the game, but we went home.

Certain games turn smaller children into addicts. Roblox is definitely one of those games, it seems.

I’ve had these same thoughts, my biggest fear. I did end up having one kid, unplanned. The first few years, I absolutely made mistakes. I still cannot believe how quick my temper could be in that time. I had to face that very thought, “am I turning into my mother?” Especially those first few years. So much was brought up from my own childhood, especially in the first 5 years of the kid’s life, but it still happens today occasionally. I had a panic attack when he entered middle school, I had to work out it’s because that’s the age I was when my home life went from bad to worse and I stopped being cared for. I had panic attack a full month until I figured out why.

I now, and have been, going to therapy nearly every week (for years) to support myself in being a mother so the same mistakes don’t happen. I heard often when I was new to being a parent, “the fact you’re asking if you’re good enough,or doing well enough as a mom, shows that you care, and are on the right path”. Basically framing the self doubt in this area as a positive trait. Caring enough to do the introspection into your parenting skill, is more than what I bet many of our (abusive) parents did. If you want to do better, you will. I’m not endorsing children one way or the other, but push to shove, you’d probably do the right thing if your able to ask yourself these types of questions.

To note, apologizing to your children for mistakes (and backing it up with changed behavior) goes a very long way, establishing trust is vital from my experience anyway. Seeing how easy it was to love my child proper, was absolutely the last staw before I cut my mother off completely. None of her choices made sense to me once I had a child of my own.

I didn’t want children because I didn’t have good parents growing up and was abused severely. The world is fucked up, I remember being so angry my parents brought me into the world just to abandon me in my earliest years. Even the adult who became my guardian was shit. I never saw healthy love as a kid, and again, even if I had something to give, the world is so fucked, there’s so much pain and suffering from our own human hands, we don’t need more people. I didn’t want to pass my suffering on, and I’ve always known I’d never be anything but working poor to top it off.

Anyhoo, history repeats, and I found my self in a DV situation in my mid 20s. Three years and a (forced) baby to get out. I raised him on my own from birth to 6, when I met my life partner and we’ve been a healthy family since. I don’t regret having my son, I do regret giving his father my phone number that day, but we can’t change this. I’ve dedicated my life to making sure my one child will be willed enough, strong enough, and supported enough to get through whatever may come. I don’t live for me anymore, it’s own challenge some days, but I live to secure my son as a stable adult human who feels supported, humble yet confident, curious and empathetic. Among other values. I’m trying to give him what my child hood lacked. I’m pretty proud of my son these days. He’s many mental health afflictions (the main reason I wasn’t supposed to have children), no different the the rest of our bloodlines, but with early intervention, I think he’s a fighting chance to have the capability to find joy amongst the misery that is being human.

I’ve been doing this with 1670 (Polish). Though, I’m not serious about learning, just dabbling in learning about the language. It’s surprisingly a very helpful tool!

Cost is an issue for me, I buy the import stuff when it goes on sale. The semolina/flour is different. Imported, good pasta, is white, American pastas/cheap stuff is yellow.

The flour is different over there. I buy imported pasta because I like it better, and in southern New England, we’ve many descendants from Italian immigrants. Providence has like a hundred Italian specialty stores, I have three Italian bakeries within 10 miles, it’s huge business here.

We found some carolina reaper powder. It’s like cayenne pepper but for calorina reapers. Also ran into hatch green chili pepper for the first time. That’s cool you can get dried whole reapers though, little jealous

That’s similar to the shaping/baking technique used here, but this dough does contain some baking powder. I just love how nearly all humans have had some sort if culinary “stuff it into pastry” type dish.

For empanadas, you’re to roll out the dough into a circle, and place the filling inside, closing them up by folding them in half, and pinching the edges down, then to be fried or baked. My dough was not able to be rolled so this worked. This woman inspires me often, she made a proper dessert empanada here, if you’re interested in learning Mexican cooking: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IzLr6wBQzC8

I understand a small amount of spanish, not enough to communicate, but her skills are solid and easy to learn from.

Oh thats fun to learn about! Blending different regional cuisines is sort of my signature round here, love this, they look tasty!

Don’t look half bad out of the oven! I’d have it! Looks seasoned well

Yes and No, it’s general cleaner/disinfectant. It’s called Pinesol because there is pine oil in it. The name brand stuff no longer has real pine oil, it’s not that sustainable at scale, but the store brand I get does. Here’s the label

“Pine oil is a disinfectant that is mildly antiseptic” Wikipedia

When I moved into my husband’s house, I noticed he only used pinesol. I thought it fucking weird. 6 years later, I only use pinesol.

I clean relatively often. I’ll use bleach in the bathroom once a year maybe, the rest of the time it’s Pinesol. We have a litter box in our bathroom, that I clean 3 times a week, and usually just clean the whole bathroom down at the same time. It’s clean in there.

I was in a waiting room a few months ago, where a lady was doing this, full volume tiktok. I pulled up Thy Art is Murder (Deathcore) and starting playing them at medium volume, staring straight at her dead eyed. She pulled headphones out her bag a few seconds later, and I turned off my music.

Ah, thank you. I never use Amazon and I was just curious what kind of things would only be available there. A computer part makes sense.

It’s not like you’d buy a CPU part constantly, but I’m kind of bummed that we don’t have more seller options for things like this.

What’s an example of something you would need that you can only get on Amazon? I’m just curious

Im not buying shit from anyone. Even my son’s gift’s this year will be sourced second hand and from small retailers. They made my vote woth nothing, I’m not buying their garbage landfill trash!

Oh this is perfect, thank you so much for sharing :D

How do you make red rice? This looks great, and I’m into whatever red rice is.

Naw fuck that, I’d rather be a sloppy mess human than whatever the fuck “normal” standard addition humans are doing. Yeah, it’s difficult, but have you met folks who don’t have mental health issues? There’s like a whole three of them and they’re dead behind the eyes.

Never call it a good day while the sun is still up.