Same here! Our whole kitchen had at least 2 sets of owners worth of grease and grime coating everything. The people before us only owned the house for a couple years, but I don’t think they cleaned the place even once. We spent the first day of homeownership scrubbing all the nooks and crannies of just the kitchen. The outsides and tops of the cabinets are still a bit sticky, but we’re hoping to replace them soon. One of the burners on the stove was absolutely encrusted with burned stuff, the bottom of the fridge drawer had tons of dust and crud, and the walls were covered in handprints, food splatters, and misc. grime. Bleh!

I use bluetooth earbuds for work - I used wired buds up until this job, but I ended up constantly ripping them out of my ear by accident, UUUUGGGGHHHHHH. But I would still be using wired if I could. My husband also uses wireless earbuds at work, but needs a headphone jack to play music through his ancient work truck. He had an adapter while he had a phone w/o a jack, but then he couldn’t charge his phone while listening to music. I know there are splitters out there, but we didn’t end up buying one, and he just replaced his phone with a new one that includes a headphone jack.

Reading more books during breaks at work! It’s easier to focus on reading books when I don’t have reddit on my phone. I like Lemmy, but I mostly use it for 15min at a time. Since I joined Lemmy/stopped using reddit mobile, I’ve read 5 books! :)

Thrift stores, basically. I worked in various thrift stores for 5 years and mostly furnished my home that way. Just be thorough when you’re inspecting it before you buy it! Check for bugs, broken/missing pieces, wiggly legs, cosmetic damage. We’ve gotten some really cool stuff in great condition for actually reasonable prices. My favorite is an ancient La-Z-Boy for $12, in decent shape.

If there’s a Re-Store near you, they’re great too! We got an adorable coffee hutch for $65, a decent couch for $80, a couple nightstands for $10-20 each, a solid, heavy duty coffee table for $30. It requires patience to find what you might be looking for, and it helps if you already know which thrift stores tend to get better quality items. Antique stores are worth a shot too, if you’re ok with spending on the upper end of cheap? You can get some really well built, old, beautiful furniture. Or see if there’s a furniture consignment store around you!

I think things like IKEA or Target are fine too, as long as you take care of your furniture. I’ve never had any problems with anything from IKEA, even when I buy used, but it probably helps I don’t have kids, lol.

I still use reddit for specific communities, but only on desktop. I wasn’t intending to 100% quit reddit anyway though, just to primarily use Lemmy (or whatever alternative I liked best, which is Lemmy so far)

I have a few Kindles - got the first couple from a thrift store, then I upgraded to a Paperwhite. I like them! I don’t usually have time to go to the library and get paper books, so it’s really convenient for library books, almost everything I’ve looked for has been on Libby. I do still buy paper books, I love paper books, but I think I prefer reading on Kindle (or my phone) because I can change the font, and it’s super light, fits in all of my bags. I also have problems with my hands sometimes, and holding a kindle is easier on them than holding a book. Lately I’ve just been reading on my phone though lol.

They got rid of my whole team to get rid of me? Lol, I don’t think so. The job was mortgage related, and the work volume tanked in 2022, after blowing up in 2020. I was just a barely above minimum wage minion, with no team members under me. I honestly think that along with there not being enough work for all of us, they wanted to eliminate WFH teams.

Yup. At my last job, I did my best to produce quality work, I got an award for making zero errors in a year, and I was one of the go-to people for new employees to ask for advice. I trained new team members, even while I was still a temp myself. Eventually got told that I was joining the team that dealt with all the escalation emails. I only knew how to work on 2 of the many types of products that went into that folder, but it was mandatory to work every single email that went into that box, 2 hour shift, every email had to be answered by the end of the 2hrs. I also only had a single 30min super quick “training” on how to even answer the emails (really complicated template system, which I still did not understand by the end of it)

I told my manager I wasn’t comfortable working in that box, considering they never trained me to work on most of the other products, but she ignored me and said I’d figure it out. Luckily, I only had to do it once, then they delayed my actual start date for that task, until I got laid off (along with most of the rest of my team) 3 months later. YAAAAAAY. :|

Reading Stalking Darkness, by Lynn Flewelling. 2nd book of the Nightrunner series. Up next is the rest of the series! :P This is my 2nd read through. After that, I’m planning to re-reading a few Mercedes Lackey books before finally reading the newest one. Might just hop into the newest one if I get impatient though.

I mostly just upvote, usually posts I find really entertaining, helpful, or that I agree with strongly. If I downvote, it’s because I found a post needlessly aggressive, rude, like it didn’t contribute to the conversation, like the poster was trying to start drama, or spreading misinformation, stuff like that.

English muffin, extra toasted, with jalapeño cream cheese and Cholula. 😍 I had it for breakfast for about a year straight while I was working from home, still love it. The cream cheese has to be Philadelphia, I tried the store brands from my local grocery stores, and it’s just not the same. If Philadelphia isn’t available, plain cream cheese is fine. On the weekend, I’ll add a sunny-side-up egg and bacon or ham! Yummmm

My husband got us a Zojirushi rice cooker for my birthday one year, and I love it so much! We had an old $15 Oster one previously, which was also pretty nice to have, but oh boy. I’m spoiled by Zojirushi now. We could make a cake in it! I haven’t yet… But I could! Lol.

I’m wearing mine right now! :P