I’m just tired, sad, ill, disappointed, and so very alone. That’s all I got this week.

Honestly, when I left Reddit I was extremely excited by the potential of federation, but at least in the case of Lemmy, my enthusiasm was premature. I mostly stay on Beehaw these days.

I’m a member of a few communities on other instances- for example, I’m super into aquariums and “Pets” just doesn’t quite do it for me as it lacks in-depth discussion of aquarium fish, and as an autistic/ADHD adult “neurodivergence” doesn’t quite meet my needs as it seems to be strongly focused on people who only have ADHD.

The communities I’ve joined on other instances don’t have a lot of traffic, so I end up back here 99% of the time, and that’s okay. If Beehaw decides to become a non-federated community I will still be here. I have a few other accounts I can use to access the Fediverse should I want to do so.

I started to post yesterday, but I was feeling down for no discernable reason, and I couldn’t think of anything to say other than how awful I felt. Today, thankfully, I feel a lot better.

Much to my joy, my youngest (who is 20 years old) has agreed that, instead of me scrambling around looking for perfect, expensive presents for Christmas for everyone (which is pretty much exclusively my job), we’re all just going to buy stocking stuffers for each other and let each person buy their own expensive things instead of expecting me to do it for them. It just seems so ridiculous to me that I got my kids addicted to a Christmas celebration that often left me so burned out that I’d spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s in bed. We’re not even Christian, and my kids are adults, so why on earth am I still killing myself to make the day perfect for them, when they have no interest in doing the same for me? We all have similar incomes, so this seems very fair to me. I hope it will take some of the stress out of the coming season.

Finally, I’m starting to feel better on CPAP. Got a full face mask instead of those horrific nasal pillows (I don’t get how having something shoved into your nostrils is supposed to be the most comfortable option, especially when I had to tape my mouth shut to make them work at all!). I kept waking up flat on my back, when I haven’t been able to breathe while laying on my back since the mid-1990s. Checked my data using OSCAR, and have learned a whole lot. Apparently, with a CPAP and a full face mask, I can both breathe and sleep just fine on my back- last night I only spent thirteen seconds total in apnoea- and I’ve had some episodes of deep sleep that lasted more than an hour, when I couldn’t maintain deep sleep for two minutes with untreated apnoea.

This of course makes me wonder if I’ve actually had apnoea since the mid-1990s and how much damage I’ve done to my brain. At my age I doubt I will get all of it back.

I’m concerned about my eldest, who seems very dull and quiet lately. They’ve been a hardcore tech person since they were a toddler (not even exaggerating) and are now saying things like “I just leave all settings on default, it’s easier”, and not even bothering to do a search when they run into issues with things. They are behaving like my 73-year-old husband and it’s super worrying because they will be 29 next month. I wish I knew what to do to help them.

I also need to stop treating this thread like it’s my personal blog, haha.

I’ve lost 40kg in the past year, but currently cannot afford the new clothes I both need and deserve (I’m still a “plus” size so secondhand shops don’t have much for me). So this winter will be all about layering. I have thermals in several sizes, I’ll just wear the smallest against my skin and the largest on the outside! Next summer I’ll be able to get new clothes and with any luck, by then I’ll be a size that can be found anywhere!

I got some really nice chai from the local Indian supermarket. I gave up coffee a few months ago- or Ozempic put me right off it- and I had a hole in my life where a hot drink belongs. I’m glad to have found something I like.

It’s looking like it’ll be a stormy autumn and winter and honestly I’m here for it, even though I know the reasons for it are ungood on a global scale. I love wind and rain to a ridiculous degree.

I think I’ve finally worked out all the CPAP bugs but I’m still waiting to feel better. I suspect that part of the problem is that the dose of my blood pressure medication needs to be lowered and that’s making me tired, but I won’t see my GP again until next month so I have to deal.

We had a windstorm midway through the week last week, with knocked about 75% of the apples off of my little apple tree, a few days before they would have been perfectly ripe. So we made apple crumble, and it was absolutely delicious. None of the apples were wormy this year even though we don’t spray the tree- just lucky I suppose.

I saw the CPAP specialist, who is apparently a respiratory guy, and he agreed to tighten up the settings on my CPAP so it stops giving me jumpscares in the middle of the night. I can go see him again in a month if that doesn’t help. So far it has not, but it’s only been four days. I also wrote to the nurse helpline to ask how I should dry my hose, and they not only offered to send me a spare hose for free, they are also sending a full face mask for when I inevitably get a cold. This is of course a completely new experience with ResMed, but they can keep it up!

We had an unseasonably hot spell a couple of weeks back which was pretty miserable- I don’t do well in hot weather at all. Today it’s cool and windy and autumnal and I’m making a stew with Yorkshire puddings for dinner, which is much more emotionally satisfying than the cold potato salad we were eating a week and a half ago.

I don’t talk about this much, but I’ve lost about 30% of my body weight in the past year. Before anyone asks, the answer is “Ozempic”. I had a bunch of stuff in smaller sizes in storage but was afraid to try anything on. I did so yesterday and discovered that not only do my small jeans fit, they’re actually a bit loose. So that’s awesome.

I’m tired. And tired of being tired. And still waiting to see benefits from using a CPAP. Instead it’s all getting worse- I’m having a ton of mask leakage and can’t figure out why. I’m supposed to finally see the specialist on the 28th, but as a visibly non-conformist woman I’m not expecting that to go well at all. Mainly I’m expecting “your numbers are fine, stop wasting my time”.

I’m really looking forward to the day when I won’t mostly write complaining about the damn CPAP.

I know I’ll die with student loan debt, because I dropped out of college after four and a half years, never have had a decent job, and finally moved to another country without leaving a forwarding address. They found me once after I filed an absentee ballot, then I moved again. Welp, guess I can’t vote in the US anymore.

However, I refuse to be held back for life because of contracts I signed when I was 18 and too stupid to know what I was getting into. I didn’t even want to go to college but my mom made me.

The whole thing is ridiculous and stupid and it sucks that the way I took is the only way out, as most don’t have the option to leave the country and never come back.

One month on CPAP. I hate the thing and it hasn’t improved my sleep. I made a recording using Sleep As Android and I’m still snoring a bit. I am waiting to get an appointment with the actual specialist who ordered my sleep test and prescribed CPAP- I’ve never met him, and am not sure I ever would have met him if I hadn’t melted down a little when the ResMed drone said that my numbers are excellent and that “studies show” that most people adjust within six weeks. Well, I’m not a number, I’m a neurodivergent individual with individual needs and quoting study results at me does not help or reassure.

Most wildflowers need full sun for at least part of the day. Must houseplants are species that do reasonably well in shade.

So yes, they’d likely just die. You could always experiment if you’ve found some shade-loving species or if you have a window that gets full sun for a good part of the day.

Fair enough, I was mistaken. I still actually prefer this layout.

I honestly don’t know. I had been using old.beehaw.org for a day or so when I noticed my browser had populated some communities to the shortcuts across the top, which is when I posted the previous comment, but when I tried to rearrange them (as you can do in RES) that didn’t work. So maybe it’s not actually RES but just an attempt to make it visually the same as RES?

It appears to work with RES. I am sold.

Even back in the 80s we didn’t excuse bigotry, no matter the age or the history of the person. We maybe didn’t feel as safe calling it out publicly back in the day, but it was certainly discussed. A bigot is a bigot, end of story. There was no excuse for it in 1983- when the ones “from a different time” were young!- and there’s still no excuse for it forty years later.

Once I learned that the thing had been unrefrigerated overnight, it was no longer going into my mouth. My husband was hoping I’d rethink that, so I was actually pleased when the melted plastic made it inedible even by his very lax standards.

This was not actually my mistake, but last year we bought an expensive fresh turkey two days before Christmas, and unbeknownst to me, my husband decided to store it in the oven (mistake #1) then my son turned on the oven to cook something else, causing the turkey’s plastic bag to melt to the turkey (mistake #2).

We had ham for Christmas.

I’m so sorry for your loss. I keep fish, especially Betta fish, and I reached a point where I realised I’d have to accept their short lives because they bring me such joy. So I’ll just pass on what one of my friends often says: “May their memory always be for a blessing.”

In 1981, I won a goldfish at the fair. My parents were annoyed about having to buy a bowl for it. It died within days (no living creature should be kept in a half gallon bowl), but I pestered my mom into buying a ten gallon tank for the replacement. This was the beginning of a lifelong hobby- I now have nine aquariums in my living room, and in the past forty-some years have spent many thousands on tanks, fish, plants, fish food, and so on. My most expensive tank cost me €5000 to set up.

And all this began because I spent a quarter and managed to get a ping-pong ball into a cup.

My own parents were of the “you’re an adult, look after yourself” generation, and my parenting style was the opposite of what they did. My kids were told they’d always have a home with me, and I meant it. I didn’t foresee that they’d still be at home at 28 and 21 years of age with no chance of them moving out anytime…well, it’s starting to feel like they might be here for good. It feels like there can be no end to it, we live in a rural area and that means no jobs as well as no houses.

I won’t lie, I was looking forward to my kids being grown and gone (with loads of visits of course). I’m struggling a lot lately. I never have any privacy in my own house, I’m having to lay down the law about things like voice chatting in the living room. My kids ought to have more privacy too, I sympathise with their side of it too. My 21 year old is in a bloody box room, god knows it’s not easy for any of us.

I joined Beehaw because I was hoping for more of exactly what you posted here. Thank you. You’re also a bright, shining light and I am grateful that you’re here.