In May my spouse and I are going away together for a few days without the kids for the first time in a decade.

The tulip and daffodil leaves are emerging in our gardens and soon we will have flowers.

Our church is starting up again this week & I love choir.

French’s ketchup is made from tomatoes grown in Leamington, ON. It was a huge deal when Heinz pulled out from their plant there & then French’s bought it.

The username might be a clue here.

I wish my grocery stocked it. I buy Earth’s Own oat milk though.

It’s hard but even small efforts help. For me the hierarchy kinda goes like this:

• Canadian company
• Non-Canadian, non-US company
• US company franchised/operating in Canada
• US company operating in the US

I aim for number one, try to avoid number four, and the two inner ones are a little more loosey-goosey for me and will depend mostly on the individual product. There are some things we just don’t produce here so… I just do what I can, where I can, and don’t feel guilty if there’s an American product I can’t replace (ever/yet).

I use an app called ReadEra which I like very much. I use the free version but it looks like the premium version does what you’re looking for: it can sync via Google drive and you can upload your own fonts. (Premium is a one-time $20 payment, not a subscription.)

https://readera.org/

Cozey.ca for things like couches and ottomans – founded & made in Canada, and free Canada-wide shipping! We bought a couch from them earlier this year & it’s fantastic. (It’s all modular which makes it easy to get places like down the basement stairs, and very easy to assemble.)

How old is your sibling?

Making squares into a blanket is a great way to do it :) And the squares themselves can be very satisfying just because they go from casting on to finished so quickly. It’s nice to have something that works up fast, especially if you’ve got bigger things also on the go.

Here’s a close-up of part of the underside:

And you can see a little more detail here (the flowers are the centre parts of big squares for the border that I’m working on adding):

Well, I’ve made about a zillion baby blankets, so making a really big one didn’t seem like too much of a step. Clothes, though, that’s something I’ve yet to attempt!

Very nice! Is that bernat blanket yarn? How did you find it to work with?

I threw up during pregnancy once when I had just had OJ and brussel sprouts. It was years before I could take even a sip of orange juice without feeling nauseated all over again.

OP seems to be in Europe, so I’m not sure how much of your second point applies.

Cute! I saw that you used RH self-striping yarn – what is the colourway?

Just three stitches! Well, technically, four, but the last one is just a very simple variation on double crochet (going around the post instead of on top of the stitch).

I’ve done it in a couple of different yarn weights & blends and it’s a very forgiving pattern as long as your hook is suitable to the yarn. I recommend a single-colour yarn or one with a very long gradient to show off the stitching; shorter gradients will look a bit mottled.

Here’s the first one I did, in a 2-weight 100% cotton:

And a rectangular version in progress which is 100% merino and probably about a 4-weight:

I don’t see them with boost.

Aw dude, no, flip it around: I can’t imagine having a sexual relationship with someone I’m not romantically entwined with. Real intimacy is about so much more than sex – sex is part of it, but it’s also about trust and openness and what you’ve lived through together… It’s a whole package and you’re focusing on one small aspect & not even looking at the rest.

I’ve been married 13 years. We’re aging. I birthed three kids and my stomach looks bizarre now. We’ve got grey hair, we’ve both had a variety of body shapes and sizes over the years… our love has only grown and the sex has never been better. Don’t take your friend’s anecdote as something that happens to everyone. It doesn’t. (You should talk to someone who works in a senior’s home sometime; people our grandparents’ age are still sexually active despite being pretty far from the bloom of youth!)

I agree with a lot of the other commenters that people in their 20s are nice to look and and can be fun to talk to but also seem like children to me at this point. I couldn’t even imagine pursuing someone so much younger than me; mentally and in terms of experience we’re way too far apart.

Ps. Don’t look at who you’re most physically attracted to & assume everyone feels the same way. I’ve always thought that men hit their peak around age 55.

I love it!

I’m currently working on an afghan for our queen bed. It’s mostly finished – it’s 5x5 feet right now so big enough to use – but I’m working on cranking out the border. That’s going to be 24 12x12" squares that will be sewn round the edges for a final size of 7x7 feet! Wish me luck haha.

I love all of those things! Whenever I hit up a thrift store, the media section is my first stop. I’ve gotten so many great CDs and movies for next to nothing that way.