i love this idea. you are a great parent
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Sounds like you have the perfect cookbook then, filled with things you know he will like and eat!
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I hope you have titled it “the very picky vegan*” or something else silly.
*Except happy eggs
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You can self publish on Amazon and then buy a copy for him. And get royalties! Plus maybe someone else wants a cstcookbook full of nacho
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This is so cool, and also gave me an idea for a zine present. Favorite recipes of 2021, sent to friends! Would be so cute and useful especially paired with like an unfamiliar-to-them ingredient or commonly featured spice or something!
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I had forgotten to add cat photos. My bad. I’ll fix that now.
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How much should I tip a cat sitter? 20%? More, especially considering it is over Christmas which I know she celebrates?
She is from a small company so I know she’s not getting all of the amount I’m paying. They charge $25/visit plus a $20 premium for major holidays. My bill will be $120. She is supposed to feed the cat, refill water, scoop the litter box, and hang out for about a half hour and interact/play with the cat.
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$25 seems like a nice round figure to me.
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So I figure the answer has to be a No, but I thought I’d throw this into the wind just in case it takes me a long time to get into a new job. If my state has its own health insurance marketplace could I enroll in that to replace my pre tax health ins premiums through work? Feel free to PM me if you know how health insurance works and I’ll tell you the state. Just working late and don’t know if I’ll be able to reach the state ins customer service to ask. From what I understand it’s impossible to cancel pre tax employer insurance without a life status change but if there is any way in hell I can get back this significant portion of my paycheck. …
Edit; ok I know this is kind of an annoying question and I’m googling now and will come back to edit further but in the meantime if anyone has helpful links handy that would be awesome
Thanks! It always seems weird to me to leave a tip before the job was completed, but that’s the only way it works, practically.
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Possibly but likely not.
Some considerations:
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You’d probably need to do this during open enrollment for both your work plan (turn down coverage for the next year) and the state’s open enrollment
1a. If you lost coverage because you switched jobs that would be a qualifying event and you could enroll in the state plan even if it wasn’t open enrollment -
Federal insurance subsidies for state plans are based on whether you have other “affordable” options. (Google ACA affordability 2022 to find links). It looks like in 2022 that’s 8.5%. What that means is that your employer is mandated to offer plans that cost less than 8.5% of your income and if they do, you have to pay full price for the state plan. You can’t get subsidized prices or tax breaks from the government for marketplace plans then. This gets slightly more complicated for a family vs and individual.
ETA: moving zip codes is a qualifying event so if you change apartments but keep your job, that would be another opportunity to turn down employer coverage and get it from the marketplace instead.
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Winter Solstice is at 9:59 am on Tuesday, December 21. So, does the celebration connected to the longest night begin on Monday, December 20, and then Solstice occurs the next morning? Or is the celebration Tuesday night?
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Along the cookbook idea. I freeze food “modules,” that is, preportioned amounts of basic foods for us. That includes sauces (like salsa), meat blocks, etc. I am writing a cookbook to use this idea.
Tonight’s dinner, for example, is chili. Used: ground beef block, Mexican seasoning disk, 1 chopped onion, pre-frozen/chopped peppers, some quinoa, canned beans, etc. I’m low on salsa so I didn’t include it.
I can easily omit the meat for a vegetarian version.
Do I do the recipe with meat and then do the vegetarian version next to it? Under it? As a footnote? Or, the other way around so that the version using less stuff is first?
Any feedback will be appreciated!
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Tuesday night. Also during the shortest day. We embrace the togetherness of the long dark, and the coming return of the light.
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Technically, Monday night is the shortest, but Wednesday morning is when the new sun rises. So Tuesday night for the celebration, generally.
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Does anyone have any app suggestions for tracking mood?
I can kinda do it on my garmin app but I think there would be better options out there
On Tuesday My doctor put me on antidepressants and I wanted to track if things are improving.
Also she has referred me to a psychologist and I have no idea what I am suppose to talk about or do when I go (I can’t get an appointment for like 6 weeks unfortunately 
)
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I would have the meat option first and then the vegetarian version under or next to it.
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I use Exist, which is both an app and a website and can track lots of things besides mood and give you lots of statistics. It does cost money. I think I have a referral code if you’re interested.
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I personally like journaling a lot. Then, when I have an appointment with my therapist I reread my journal entries since the last session to make notes about both how things went and questions I want to talk about.
When I first started tackling my depression this way, I also created my own depression “scale” like the pain scale. I made it from 1 to 10 with an eye towards what emotional and physical symptoms I notice first, then what generally happens as they intensify. These days, though, I mainly note anxiety and depression as mild/moderate/severe, what thought loops I had, possible triggers, and whether I was having SI (either passive or active).
In my experience (and IIRC this is backed up by research), give it at least 4 weeks if not more like 2 months to judge whether the med is helping. Also, things may get worse before they get better, though depending on how much worse that could be an indication that this med isn’t a good choice for you.
For your first psych appointment, usually the focus is on what’s going on currently as well as life history.
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There was a website where you could create your own “thermometers” or graphical representations of getting multi-step things done. Does anyone know if such still exists and where? Personally, I really like noting my progress that way and haven’t found the site or capability.
They had them set up for months of pregnancy, various prenatal sorts of scales etc., but there was also a way to make custom ones.
Okay, they’re progress trackers. I’d forgotten the name of them. It’s been a while. Same question applies though. I’ve found this app with some, that app with some, but not what I’m looking for.
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