That’s a pretty healthy weight for that height. I agree you don’t want to lose though. And need energy for a physical job. Eat eat eat!

Anecdotally I have found the exact opposite to be true for my body. I got a job that required a short walk and stairs to get to and even that made a difference in how much I had to eat. Started jazzercise after my last kid and was confused because I thought I’d lost like 5 lb but I was having to buy new clothes because mine didn’t fit - I had dropped 25lb, and gotten underweight just from doing aerobic dance while my kids were in swim class a few times a week.

When I cannot work out, even if I control my diet I will gain, still inside a healthy weight but definitely gain.

It’s always activity that makes the difference for me.

House. But not in the suburbs. I’ve shared houses with lots of roommates, both rented and owned (well, with a mortgage) houses, in town not on the outskirts.

If the choice is apartment in the city or house in the suburbs, then apartment is the only choice because I don’t want to commute, want a lot of stuff around me not just miles of houses.

This is sort of what I saw in California - where I’m from, Hispanic people were “the white people”, and people descended from Africans were “the black people” and I wasn’t aware of any sort of prejudice against Asians, they got lumped under the big umbrella of “white” . But when I was in California it was more like black and white guys considered themselves Americans, all one thing, and discriminated against Mexicans and Asians.

It’s all made up, to keep people divided. Not to say there are no historical reasons reverberating still - institutional wealth comes from the past and slavery, so descendents of slaves have legitimate grievance- but the categories/rules of in groups and out groups and who is discriminated against are not the same all over the US.

For every one making millions, there are millions making near nothing.

People at the top of every industry DO make that much. Think about the UHC guy, you don’t think he was pulling that much?

Inequality is baked in.

I got some crazy genius IQ score when I was a kid because I was very good at taking tests and read a lot, good with language. Just happened to be good at what they were testing.

If you like to do programming, create things, are curious and interested in things, you ARE NOT STUPID. Not everyone’s intelligence runs to language or something tested by those tests. They are not really tests of potential, and the only reason my mom got us tested, the only reason I got two of my kids tested, was to get us into the better classes in school because they will only do it as an accommodation for a learning difference in.the public schools here. My other kids went to schools that promoted them based on their performance in class, which makes so much more sense.

Now - my friend had a legit genius boyfriend and he was a raging asshole, I think because he had nobody who thought like him, he was alienated. But the problem was that he was an asshole, not that he was a genius. So as long as your partner is nice and you can talk to each other, there is no problem, don’t borrow trouble and don’t think of yourself as stupid.

The second time I made a starter it “took”. Just regular unbleached all purpose flour and water. From there it was smooth sailing, it’s a lot easier than yeasted bread for me. Main things that help:

Always refresh the starter at least twice before making bread with it (so if you want to bake Saturday, refresh Friday morning then make the big starter on Friday night with some of that refreshed starter.)

Refrigerate the dough after it’s shaped. Untill it’s cold or even overnight. This does two things. Makes it possible to do the scoring, and cold dough into a hot closed cast iron pot will create steam that helps it rise.

Which leads to - bake it in a closed hot heavy pot. Commercial ovens can do things home ovens can’t. I do all sorts of baking with the starter but for “the sourdough” as the kids call it, the one that comes out like a $12 Artisan Loaf, baking it enclosed by the hot pan is the trick. I tip the cold dough out onto parchment, score it then use the parchment to carefully move it into the hot pot.

There is a sourdough community on Lemmy, they are a nice group and I’m sure would have more tips but those are mine.

I bake fancy sourdough, grow vegetables, do landscaping (but not mowing) make great cocktails for people, ferment foods and drinks. Occasionally draw things for decorations.

On the other hand, we pay someone to mow, and also to clean the house every other week.

Ah the b’root! We have a heavy vertical axe that is shaped just like that and it is awkward to use but does something no other hand tool seems to be able to do. Stab stab stab and pry. The weight of it does help.

I had the original and now the 5. My kid got the same (5) and the battery was swelling. But the process to get a new one was smooth as silk, I had bought the insurance because that kid is hard on phones (they bought the phone but I am covering the insurance).

What was funny to me was we said “the battery is slowly exploding” and they said “mail it back in the packaging the new one arrives in” which was just a cardboard box. That can’t possibly be safe!

Universal diffuser for hotel hair dryer.

My bulking food was always Triscuits and hummus. A lot of calories in a small package and not really unhealthy. Walnuts are also good for you and calorie dense.

Chili, as everyone is saying.

Gumbo, and also oxtail stew, I won’t even serve them the first day, they are so much better after a rest in the fridge.

Not cooking but any time we get pizza hut pizza I get a pan pizza to reheat - all that extra fat in the crust crisps up, it is so good reheated and not good the first day.

Any big hunk of meat is good because the first day it can be meat, rice, and beans, then tacos, then nachos or soup/chili or enchiladas.

Also if you don’t like cooking (I do but have competing priorities) a big Tupperware of salad made in the weekend can help throughout the week.

Not me but my friend was at a wedding and when they did the “does anyone here have a reason these two should not be wed” part, the crowd broke out in laughter.

Kind of? My dad died before he was my age and my mom told me “he died and I’d never had that much money in my life and all I wanted was him.”

So financially I’m worse off than my mom was, but in other (and probably more important) ways, better off. And certainly better off than my dad.

I agree with this. Don’t work off the clock, no. Absolutely no. But 5 minutes early with 5 minutes overtime is good not bad, (unless it really is impossible with your commute.) there is no way I would complain about that. Your coworkers are basically showing that the job costs more than management thinks it does, that they need the prep time to do the job.

I think my baseline for existence would be continuous pain and immobility so as long as I’m doing better than that I’m in the + column for remaining alive and embodied. I can walk, read, eat and drink, fuck, work, hear, see (kind of), touch things, listen to music, dance… Not gonna be able to do any of that without a body. So in the selfish way, I want to be alive to enjoy all that, it’s well worth the pain of existence to me.

In the unselfish way, I know the difference between losing an old relative to old age, and a younger relative to suicide. The former doesn’t hurt, you know they got a good run, can celebrate their life. The latter can really shatter the lives of everyone close to you, in a way that causes grief so lasting and physically and emotionally damaging. I wouldn’t do that to anyone.

I’d take the job, if I know it will not be forever, just a short time. Not enough money to be unemployed, that is terrifying.

If money was not an issue? I can certainly stay busy without paid employment. I work for money, that is the whole reason I have a job.

It sounds like you handled it perfectly.

I want to live here in the US in Florida, but in the timeline where Al Gore actually got all the votes counted and won. We are in “uptown” of a mid size city and it’s awesome, I don’t like living in the country but having a yard and garden is nice, and I don’t need to drive much as we are close to many amenities.

City would be my second choice, I do enjoy living in a city, walking to bar or grocery, everything right there and so much to do.