By Droknar’s hammer, what a savings!

Been playing GW2 since beta, but haven’t been that active since I had my a baby. I’ve played thousands of hours, have over 40k AP, was even mildly famous in the community for a bit, but I just haven’t had the time for any games lately. It’s still my favorite though, I love the art, the music, the player centric design and how they really try to make a fun experience and not waste your time. I tried Star Trek Online because I heard they had screen writers from the shows writing some of the content, and had enough fun to max a couple of characters and upgrade a ship or two and then they raised the level cap on me and made it all obsolete. I quit. I have no patience to put up with that kind of crap. I’ve been spoiled by GW2’s design philosophy, and they’ve proved worthy of my trust and time. I recommend it to anyone looking for an MMO.

This absolutely tracks with my experience after having a kid. Suddenly I have little to no time to waste and so every hour I have to myself I feel that urgency and pressure to get as much done as possible. I’ve never had less free time or been so consistently productive as this last year. I think the demands are not so intense that I’m going to crash, but I do chafe against the limitations. I’m frustrated that I’m unable to excuse the time for my favorite leisure activities, and I miss video games. However I have gotten so many projects done, some things that have been sitting around for years, that I have to give myself a bit of credit for once.

You could take on some community volunteer work, get involved with a local group that’s doing work that aligns with your values and fill up your schedule with some hard commitments to do something worthwhile. I just volunteered for a committee in my town and it was way easier than I expected to get involved.

Your grandmother’s sister is your grandaunt, and you use grand and great the same way you do for mother/father but with aunt/uncle.

So I think your fourth cousin twice removed was on the Thresher but someone may correct me.

They use some rather consumer unfriendly chemicals, like formaldehyde as others said, but also things like flame retardants, pest deterrents, anti molding agents etc to preserve the clothes if they’re stored improperly. You should ALWAYS wash new clothes before wearing them, even ignoring the possibility of others having tried them on. Maybe consider another scent for your clothes.

Yes, I have these great shallow bowls that are like plates with a raised lip at the edge that I always use for cat food. My old man has gotten ridiculously picky in his old age, and some of the things I had to do were:

Change the style of bowls
Raise his bowl up so it was 1 1/2" off the ground
Separate his water away from his food
Find food with minimal vegetable matter (no pumpkin or pea even)
Swap exclusively to wet food
Vary flavors every feeding (not just day, feeding)

Little booger eats better than I do most days, but he’s no longer fur and bones and he’s gained over half a pound back after being at his skinniest. He’s got his energy back and is looking so much healthier, but seriously what a spoiled boyo.

Every kid is different, but if you’re not able to ask the parents then a safe bet is a duplo set. Bristle blocks are also great. My kid is currently 2 1/2 so these are what I know would be hits with him and his friends.

You could also get one of the following books:

Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site
Don’t Worry Little Crab
The Little Blue Truck (it’s a whole series, the Halloween one would be appropriate)
Bear Snores On or any other book in that series.

Do you use fabric softener with your towels? Fabric softener conditions fibers with oils making them less absorbent. A good quality, plush cotton towel that has never seen fabric softener can be extremely absorbent, and if you do the two towel method someone else mentioned I bet that would really cut your drying time. If you used two good, absorbent towels in your hair, then blow dried, I bet it would only take a minute or so which is a lot easier to sit through.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the longevity and all around toughness of my Dell Precision. I think it’s gotta be 12 years old now, it weighs a ton, been dropped multiple times, and while I replaced its disk and memory at some point it has never suffered a hardware failure. The thing is a tank, I love it.

I appreciate the shout out to Guild Wars there. Aside from the opaque learning curve it’s one of the most player friendly live service games going.

I had a therapist who specialized in working with ADHD adults and she was very good about calling me out on my “shoulds”. She would say “who told you that?” or “why do you feel that way?” or “where does that belief come from?” just about every time a “should” came out of my mouth. It was a really good practice in reframing, and making me realize I was feeling external pressures by comparing myself to others, or not giving myself the time and space I needed to accomplish the things that would satisy me. I’d encourage everyone in this thread to try getting to the bottom of your “shoulds”, it’s helped me understand and be kinder to myself.

Yeah Dreamfall was a much darker game in setting and themes, and I remember that while the protagonist tried some humor here and there it was just not as rewarding to interact with certain impractical things or be goofy like you could with April. April’s journal was also worth reading for some funny summaries of events, but Zoe’s was generally pretty dry and more pragmatic.

I still remember getting stuck on some underwater puzzle in Arcadia and dropping the game for a while before coming back and admitting defeat with a walkthrough guide. Definitely a game where you need to hang up your pride sometimes haha. I enjoyed both games, though Dreamfall was sadly missing some of the humor and silliness (it did try… a little). I have fond memories of the series though.

This is really well articulated and puts into words the reason I stopped playing. I was one of those non FPS players who really thrived on Sym and Moira and Mercy and I felt welcomed and appreciated when it first came out. I just had fun and that made me want to try to get better and kept me coming back. As they kept retooling things, especially with Sym 3.0, I felt they were deliberately pushing me and people like me out. Instead of having a fun, wild and playful team game for my friends to all have a good time in, it became just another FPS game.

Ear mites are also a thing, and they’re highly contagious. Kittens are especially susceptible to them so I would definitely read up on them if I were you.

This is a common misconception but it’s just not true. As you can see in this video mobility is hardly a problem. It certainly would be possible that a piece could be bent or damaged badly enough to hinder you, but a properly fit set is going to let you do whatever you need to do in a battle. You are certainly right that it was expensive though, full plate was similar to buying a luxury car. It was rare but not that rare, a sign of wealth and social class but not like only kings could wear it. And it certainly was not strictly ornamental.

Seconding 9 Parchments and the Trine series. They are both by the same studio and they are beautiful games, they make sure every new scene is a tableau worthy of a screenshot with hyper saturated fanciful environments. The gameplay is fun, polished and goes by fast, in a good way.

Thanks, I did feel guilty when my first cat passed, I was the most ignorant then and she had the worst diet and died the youngest. Since then I know I’ve done what I could with the money I could budget, and tried to educate myself so I could do better. Now I try to make up for it by spreading the word to other cat owners in my life and leading by example.

Yeah same, I like to get the paté cans because it’s easy to add water to get him better hydrated.