My kids ranked me as neutral good; you can tear my cafe con leche from my cold dead hands, but never drank milk on it’s own. It’s a fantastic ingredient though.

It’s hot & humid here in the subtropics but even so I love this season the most. I was born here and grew up without AC so adapted I guess. Being still in the shade with a breeze I am comfortable up to a pretty high temp but here the summer has afternoon storms that cool it a little so the evening, while hot, is usually 25-27 not 40.

Our indoor AC is set to 26. That feels cool enough in the summer, so evening is comfortable.

I cannot get comfortable in the cold, no amount of clothing seems to work, I just don’t generate that much heat.

Riding home on the bike is MUCH safer in the daylight too.

I love it, for real. Short winter days suck, especially after going back to standard time. Having light in the evening is wonderful.

What the actual fuck? When this first came around, my eyes saw white and gold, in this post it looks like overexposed brown and blue, and looking at this graphic is fucking with my head! Brains are wee photo editors, aren’t they?

Fennel too- I always thought the white part was below the earth, like an onion. But no, the whole fennel sits on the earth, on a tippy root that’s underground.

This happens to us - if I cook dinner for everyone, two of us eat, if I cook dinner for two of us, everyone wants to eat. If I make enough for leftovers, nobody takes them to lunch. If I don’t make enough, they ask why there is not enough for lunch.

Things that help on your question though -

Canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned coconut milk, canned pumpkin, jarred spaghetti sauce, spices - a lot of our staples are not perishable.

Do you live where you can stop by the store on the way home? Then don’t buy perishables for the week, buy them for the meal you are making.

Some foods and meals freeze pretty well, freeze them and keep a list of what’s in the freezer so you remember to eat it.

I hate meal planning but it helps a lot. I sometimes put a note on the fridge “we have food for dal with spinach, chicken & cabbage, sheet pan gnocchi with sausage and broccoli, eggs and potatoes” or whatever we have the food to make, and cross them off as they are made.

Some foods make other foods. So if I make a hunk of pork, it’s pork, rice and beans then enchiladas then burritos, and so on.

Mine is “You have reached my phone but not me, I don’t really check voicemail, if you need to reach me, text.” I still get voicemail.

Some voicemail the phone will transcribe, those I read but really don’t listen to them.

It goes straight into the fridge, been doing this for over 30 years with no problem. I don’t save half eaten pasta, just split it after it’s cooked.

Cook it all. Save what you don’t eat in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Cooked noodles are so useful. Fry them with chili paste, yum yum! Make peanut sauce and eat them cold. Even just tossed with sesame oil and salt they are pretty good.

Yeah, I run into this. One vegan daughter, one girlfriend -of another daughter who has a nut allergy. It is often a one or the other choice, I have to warn one of them not to eat something. It is hard to juggle both those restrictions.

Well, in my family of now just 4 we do have 2 cars because my husband and I each had one when we married. Nowadays this is the commute.

Mornings:

I take the bike

College kid takes my car, drops off high school kid then drives to her school

Husband takes his car to work

There is actually a direct city bus from our neighborhood to both the University and the high school, but because both are farther than my work and they run so infrequent it makes them need to leave so early, so I let the kids use the car.

(When there was one car it was a bigger loop sometimes, or sometimes there is a school bus available, so the kids can take that. Or the school was sometimes only a mile or two (3k or so) then the kids walk.)

Evenings:

I take the bike

Husband drives

College kid drives

High school kids gets a ride from a friend or takes the city bus BUT that bus comes only once an hour so if he misses it, he will walk, about 4 miles.

In my city, there are buses, but because there’s sprawl to the edges of the huge county, and all the people in the suburbs drive and don’t want buses, and the county (not the city) is in charge of transportation, it’s starved to the point of near impossible inconvenience.

There are plenty of people living inside the city now, we’ve got a nice downtown, with people living there, but at this point it’s all set up to favor automobiles. Like I intentionally live in a short walk distance to bus stops that could get me anywhere the buses go, but I use the electric bike and can get anywhere faster than the bus. Transfers are so bad because the buses are so infrequent.

I would be happy to never see a PDF again, can we not have something better?

I always think it’s like complaining that nobody under a certain age can use the card catalog, microfiche or whatever. Technology changes. I have so many leftover now useless skills; please God may the ones related to Adobe rot on that same pile soon.

I don’t do it anymore, but running or any cardio first thing in the morning does actually work to give you more energy in the day. I did it out of desperation - 0500 was the only time I had to myself and running is nearly free. I need exercise to manage my mood. So while my kids were asleep, I ran and honestly seeing the sun rise was such a beautiful hopeful feeling.

Now do am in a better situation I sleep later and exercise after work, but that early running saw me through a pretty hard time.

Oh I am still tech support for some of my kids (and definitely for my husband). But yelling at my phone to “turn on the flashlight!” and leaving bluetooth on are the things I think drive the kids batty. “Mom! Just drag down from the top!”

At my work we jokingly dismiss each other, someone will stand up and say to someone else “hey, John, you can go home now” as though they are the boss, and then that person will say to someone else “hey, Jane, you can go home” and so on. Until we are all dismissed for the day.

I read books to read what’s inside them, not to save them forever as objects. So chaotic evil it is. Unless there is a receipt handy.

Garlic toast! Yes that’s usually on white bread here, I use a baguette to make it.

Just make it. I don’t buy bread and haven’t in years. It’s not saving me any money but flour, salt, and water are the only ingredients in most of my breads and they are as good as the fanciest bakery rustic sourdough. And easy as heck to make, sourdough is so forgiving.

Oh hell no. Nonstick pans have to be babied - plastic spatulas, gentle sponges, and they get worse with time. Cast iron you almost cannot destroy, and gets better and better with use. Scrub away with chainmail, scrape with a metal spatula, it doesn’t care. Too hot? Doesn’t care.