I don’t know why exactly, but I imagine it’s similar to recurring nightmares about trauma. I had frequent ones following a horrible work situation. I’m a few years past it, but I still have an occasional one to make sure my sleep is ruined. I think of it as my brain compulsively poking a spot where I hurt over and over to see if it still hurts.

Sounds useful as a screwdriver. I needed a low powered one to run the crank attachment on my knitting machine. It’s entirely plastic and the gears inside get horribly worn if any kind of serious speed or torque is exerted on it.

Teal is my favorite color and yet I own no Makita. I’m very agnostic otherwise. Have things in all the other “houses” plus Harbor Freight brands and Kobalt.

Cheap > breaks > upgrade is my motto

US, audit & tax

Once in a blue moon, on a really nice day, we would get a patio table and have a margarita with lunch. Only if it was a slow work day, like with nothing but webinars scheduled for the afternoon (as attendees, not presenters).

It was not uncommon to see beer in the office fridge during tax season because those folks would be pulling 15+ hour days for pretty much 3 months straight.

Brahm’s lullaby was the one mom would hum to me and would buy music boxes with it.

Blackbird by the Beatles was the one I wanted to sing to my kids if I’d ever had any.

I did both when learning but did have to separate them because thinking about all the things, clutch, gears, RPM, mirrors, traffic, pedestrians was too much all together at first. I drove my grandma’s automatic to get used to driving on the road in traffic, and I drove my dad’s manual around empty parking lots, fairgrounds, etc until I was comfortable with the car. Then I moved on to driving dad’s car in traffic.

I loved driving manual, but my husband can’t drive one, so if we took my car somewhere on a trip, I had to commit to being the driver the whole time. I gave it up after my job required me to do a lot of driving in bad traffic. For fun I will get one as a rental if we travel somewhere that has them commonly available to rent. I’ve had to convince well-meaning but somewhat judgy rental clerks to not upgrade me to automatic and that yes I did know that I selected manual when I made the booking.

My honey ended a phone conversation last night with his cousin with “thank you for your time.” Just running on autopilot.

I have reverse work/life autopilot. I’ve ended work-related voicemails with “love you! Er, uh, that just came out by accident. I mean I am fond of you but…well, crap, just call me back.”

So you don’t have to whack a car window hard with the spark plug? You only need to scratch at it a lil bit?

What is your favorite pizza topping?

Yeah, I don’t religiously follow the steps either. It’s more like a buffet of tips where I sample some of them. I still shampoo, but much less often. My other take aways were to stop using a hairbrush, I rarely use a wide tooth comb anymore either (mostly finger comb in the shower) , and don’t touch the hair while it’s drying.

If I have a party or something, I’ll use gel and let it form a proper cast, etc etc.

For curly hair types, shampoo shouldn’t really be used. Conditioner is used to “wash” the scalp and hair (thus, “co-wash”), rinse it out, and then condition again, leaving it in while you wash the rest of you with soap, and then rinse it all off at the end.

Anyone with curly hair who is wanting to follow the Curly Girl method of caring for your curls so they maintain their shape better.

Although I don’t much like the term either. But the method does really work.

Some kind of empathizing response followed by “well, I need to get back to it” or just a simple “sorry for cutting this short, I need a bio break”.

Empathizing statements could include, but are not limited to:

• I know how you feel
• I’m so glad things are going your way
• that sucks, I hope it works out for you

When USRobotics first brought the 56k modem to market, they had an online contest to give away 100 of them. I won one. My ISP couldn’t even serve me 56k for about another year.

Also, I miss silly fun winnable online contests and freebies.

There’s dozens of us!

Since OP uses spoons, you only need to find warshboard and jug players to round out your quartet!

I completely get the relief when a loved one passes from a long health struggle. Everyone’s grief journey is different, and even mine was different between different family members’ passings. But for me all sorts of other complicated emotions continue to bubble up from time to time regarding my mom. The waves get further and further apart, but it may never completely go away. Sending you thoughts of support and comfort.

I looked up the old orders on Etsy but the sellers I used back then have since closed their shops.

I’m very sorry for what you’re going through. I got an urn for mom off of Etsy 5ish years ago. It was a wooden one with a tree of life carved into it.

Talk to some laser engravers on Etsy to see if their laser setup could accommodate the dimensions of an urn.

I’m only familiar with a Glowforge at the maker lab in my library, and the max clearance for items is only about an inch. So my workaround for that would be to have some thin pieces of wood and laser cut or etch that with your design, and laminate them to a plain wooden urn. I’d stain the laminate pieces a different color than the urn as well.

Or, can’t believe I didn’t think to mention this first…I had a brass plate laser etched (also from Etsy) with a labyrinth pattern that was significant to Mom. That’s also where I put her name and years. I affixed that to the top of the urn (the urn chamber was accessed via the bottom). Let me see if I can get you some pics in case it would help give you ideas.

Full disclosure, I peeked at your comment history.

How about those phone mounts and maybe a neat 2-in-1 tripod/monopod for your binoculars? Or a shoulder sling?

Otherwise, my go-to is an experience like others suggested. Escape room, paint nite, afternoon of pool/ bowling/ mini golf, Top Golf, cooking class, museum visit, comedy night, hockey game, roller skating, hiking, music bingo/pub trivia, or consider a hotel room nearby for the night with an indoor pool or my absolute favorite…a cabin weekend with a hot tub and a real wood-burning fireplace.

The global hitchiker’s currency is gas, grass, or ass.