Talk to people in your local area and ask who is good. The good people are probably going to be really busy? The place my parents went to and love is also a B corp, which should cut down on scammy behavior. If you’re in New England I have recs for a few companies.
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Can you pm me the info too @darlingpants ? 
I don’t think I am a good candidate because of the extremely tall pines around (and there is no data available publicly for sun exposure at my rural location) but I am considering it for the future.
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Thank you! We are not in New England anymore, sadly.
@Sunflower and @meerkat thank you for the link and all the info to consider! This is exactly what I needed. We live in the opposite of California where companies are quite likely to take advantage to the extent possible and where we know very few people very well. Lots to think about, thank you!
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I received the bat signal! Haha. Yes, pill cutters will be less messy. IMHO knives and cutting boards will work just as well as pill cutters with the exception of teeny tiny pills. Little pills almost require a pill cutter, and even then they are sometimes turned to dust. For pills the size of the ones in your pic I would use a sharp chef’s knife. And then I would clean the cutting board so as not to dose my husband with opiate dusted carrots, or whatever. IDK ur life.
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I mean, maybe some arthritis meds would make the mashed potatoes better in our dinner tonight.
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It’s important to spice things up from time to time.
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Oh, and to help even more, you can further score the halfway mark on the pill. So saw at it lightly with the knife to make it deeper, then cut it in one motion clean through using the part of the knife closest to the handle. Best strategy imo.
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Another rec for a cutting board! As you know, I have a high volume pill boy, and I’ve worn out two pill cutters more quickly than I’d expect. I also do paring knife or chefs knife (depending on the pill) + cutting board.
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I second that a knife and cutting board is a good pill splitter alternative. Be sure your knives are sharp 
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I’m super interested in hearing all about this. Adding solar to our home has always been on the list of things we want to do, but I’ve been hesitant to do it because there are just so many sketchy companies. We almost bought in a neighborhood where one of the amenities was that every house came with solar panels.
According to that fun website posted earlier my entire roof gets extreme sun at all times.
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One of the recent inflation reduction bills just bumped the federal rebates back up to 30% (it was 22% and declining every year).
So you get 30% of the system cost back as a tax rebate (with that caveat that you won’t get it if you don’t owe any taxes). The way most solar financing companies work is that if you give them the amount of your rebate within 18 months of taking out the loan then the monthly payment stays low. Otherwise it jumps up after 18 months.
Of course the solar companies charge a higher base price if you finance it. I’m sure they calculate this behind the scenes to work out perfectly but we were getting quotes for $85-140 /month loan payments, plus ~$25/month city connection fee which would be break even or slightly lower than our $150/month average electric bill.
We are going to pay cash, which isn’t the best financial choice when we were offered a super low financing rate. But I didn’t want to deal with a shady solar loan company and traditional loan or even an HELOC was going to be much higher rates.
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One other thing: each state/city/electric company has their own policies on whether you can sell back to the grid and how they calculate usage offsets.
California’s major utilities are going to move to a new system any day (maybe) that will be less advantages for solar households, as a way to smooth out the impact on low vs high income communities.
But, we’re on a smaller, independent grid that isn’t going to be as impacted by the rules so we’ll likely be able to be credited at a higher rate for the power we give vs take.
…and one final thought. I do think you need to be prepared for things to go wrong. My sister’s system went down because of an electrical part failure and even though it the company fixed it under warranty, it was during the severe supply chain chaos of last year so it took 8 weeks to repair. She ended up not having solar during the two hottest months of the year and had the pay the electric utility a big bill when she settled up at the end of the year.
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Language learning: does anyone have recommendations that they use and really like, outside of Duolingo? I am starting to volunteer at a free clinic, and I really want to work hard to learn Spanish really well, as most of the population served is Spanish speaking. I want to dive in a little deeper than Duolingo, but there are so many books/resources out there, wondering if anyone has been particularly happy/successful with anything specific?
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I’ve been really liking Babbel but it is pay-for.
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I just started using lingopie and I really love it!
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Not a learning course specifically, but I love the “españolistos” podcast for getting back in the groove of listening to Spanish.
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Washington Post podcast in Spanish. News in Slow Spanish is pricey but worth it. Language exchange buddies through Mixxer.
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For the languages I have tried (Farsi and Danish) the free language pod 101 classes on youtube have been great for pronunciation and conversational bits
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So my brother and his wife are applying to sponsor a Ukrainian refugee family, and asked if they can count on us as help as well if they’re accepted. Does anyone know any good resources for what it all entails? I have vague ideas but I’d like a more concrete foundation. Ty.
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