I live in the US, and with the state of things I have decided to make my life more analog and disconnected this year, and for the foreseeable future. Instead of online games, I do puzzles and listen to audiobooks. Instead of doom scrolling for hours, I’ve decided I’m going to start backpacking. Instead of watching so much TV, I’ve been reading more.

All of these things are helping bring me peace. I’ve been pack training with my dog, which means doing longer day hikes with a heavy pack for each of us, and it’s just been so nice. I’m losing weight without trying (which is a good thing as I’m overweight), I’m seeing parts of my area I’ve never seen, and spending fantastic quality time with my dog. This weekend we’re doing a shakedown car camp to see how he does in my smaller backpacking tent and I am SO excited. In 3 weeks we go on our first backpacking trip with a friend, and I’m already dreaming of future trips. All of this is huge for us because I’m allergic to the sun (literally) and he (my dog) is very sensitive to heat, and allergic to wasps (we have to carry epipens for him) so deciding to spend time outdoors has taken a lot of consideration, determination and planning, but we’re doing it. I’m so excited for the adventures we’ll have, I can’t even put my emotions into words.

It’s all about who the most important prophet is, and anyone that disagrees is wrong and we hate them.

Religion is wild.

Dog training/sports.

Here I am thinking “I need to get more active and it’ll be fun to do stuff with my best bud Link” (Link is a 4 year old golden retriever)

Starts with basic training obedience classes, no biggy. Then they offer Rally classes, which is basically obedience plus some fun stuff, cool, I’ll take that class. Oh, I can get a cool title for him? Sure, we already trained him, why not! Ok he needs 3 successful runs, and each run attempt is $25…? k…

Rally Novice acquired…fun but… Was that really worth 150 for the class + $75 for the three runs? …sure whatever

Ooooo agility sounds fun! Let’s do that! $150 for a 6 week session, that’s not bad! 6 months and many sessions later + buying practice equipment… I’m officially poor. My dog is a happy boy, and I’m more active, but FML this is a rabbit hole lol

We’re having a lot of fun, and my dog is a happier more obedient boy, but man was I not expecting the crazy expense. Those people with the dogs that have a bazillion titles and letters after their names? They’ve spent a literal fortune on that dog. It’s absolutely mind boggling.

For me personally, the one and only reason I don’t main Firefox is because it doesn’t work with Chromecast and I use that a LOT. I would switch to FF tomorrow if I could easily and reliably cast with it.

My husband has an '06 Mazda Speed 6 and I swear it’s the most reliable car I’ve ever seen. It’s only been to the shop for repair a few times ever, and it’s been weird stuff like the AC went out, nothing major. Pretty sure my husband has spent more on tires and oil changes than repairs for that car. It’s been an absolute beast.

Absolutely. This was the entire reason the CEO at my last company forced everyone to return to office, giving local managers zero latitude to allow flexibility. He sent out videos saying crazy things like “introvert or extrovert, we’re all energized by working in person together!” Just completely tone deaf bullshit. We got a month’s notice for when we had to return, and I found a new job in that month and am much happier now.

Zero reason for people to be in the office if they can be just as productive as home, and happier doing it.

It makes me crazy that we’re even talking about this and it’s more than a year away. Our election cycles in the US are too damn long.