Funny enough my wife is a wedding photographer, I shoot with her a few times a year and absolutely hate it. She can’t imagine doing anything else but if it wasn’t my wife you couldn’t pay me enough to do it more than once a year.

The second hand gear is the way to go though, she got some Sony camera a while back that cost like 2k new for around 900 because it had a small scratch on the body and one of the metal things that hold the thing on was loose. We ordered a new metal thingy and with a couple screws it was practically new.

Oh man I put so much time into my garden this year, planted so many vegetables, started a bunch indoors on a nice indoor greenhouse I set up with one of those rolling shelves. I was basically ready to feed my whole family from the garden…

So far I’ve got a whopping 3 bell peppers, 6 tomatoes and one tiny baby squash that’s starting to grow.

Granted we had a very hot summer that I wasn’t prepared for and even watering 3 times a day a lot of my stuff just burnt, plus the ravenous squirells that ate every seedling I put out.

But I’ll do it all again next year because it was a blast.

Exactly this. Woodworking, gardening, working out, macrame, knitting, eating, making spices, building robots.

For a while I felt bad about all the stuff I learned and didn’t keep up with but at a certain point I just accepted that most of the hobbies I pick up won’t last long and it’s been great since then.

Those people stealing carts to sell them on the street are a god send.

We had a guy in my old neighborhood who would come around once a week with various necessities that most people couldn’t afford otherwise. Sure he made decent money, but babies got fed, pantries got replenished, feminine products were given out if you bought stuff from him regularly.

That might seem grimey to you, but that’s fine.

I grew up below the dirt poor, like oodles and noodles were a treat poor, with no adult supervision for a good portion of my childhood. My mom was on basically every government program that existed, that didn’t mean I got anything out of it. The only reason I survived was by people looking the other way as I fed myself.

As I got older I had no life skills whatsoever and couldn’t hold down a job, friends, or any sort of meaningful relationship. So again, dirt poor, a little better off than I was before because there were a few ways to make money. But still I only ever got food at a store, and probably would have starved if too many people said something, or had to do even worse stuff than I was to feed myself.

Hell even when I got myself together a bit and held down a shitty job for a while I still couldn’t afford to feed myself after the bills hit, it was even worse when I started making just enough to get kicked off state insurance and stamps.

There are a lot of people out here just trying to survive, they shouldn’t have to steal to eat but they do and in my eyes that’s a human right.

Side note: food stamps are a fucking joke. What they’re giving to a family of 4 wouldn’t feed a single person, from my experience at least.

One night a while back I ordered some food from a place about 10 minutes away after a long day with a sick baby and tipped ~30%.

While the drivers at the restaurant I got like 5 messages asking for a better tip, I didn’t answer because why would I. Then my foods on the way and on the app it looked like the guy parked down the street for 10 minutes and continued to spam me with messages asking for a better tip. I didn’t respond because why would I. Then the food gets here, I’m hype. I have very simple delivery notes on every order “Please don’t knock or ring the bell” and always do leave it at the door. I pulled up my security camera to see this guy just going in on my doorbell (which is disconnected anyway), then he starts slamming on the door yelling variation of “come get your food”. After a few minutes of that he just puts the food on the step and starts yelling a bunch of stuff out front of my house at like 9pm, including again asking for more of a tip. In this time he set off my dog who’s now losing his mind and woke my sick baby. So naturally I put my dog on the leash, grabbed my crying baby and in the most redneck b horror movie fashion I could muster flung the door open and just stood there on the step with a crying baby, a 100lb dog going nuts and the defeated eyes of a father who just wanted a cheesesteak after a long day.

I said all that to support, how I didn’t get to eat my food until hours later because now I had to soothe my baby back to sleep. Their response was something along the lines of

‘Hi ***, sorry about that. Here’s a 4.63 credit as an apology. That’s 20% off your order total!’

Moral of the story is now I always keep a few quick meals in the house that cook in the toaster oven. It’s cheaper and the toaster oven never woke my baby.

My wife and I started sleeping with separate blankets a while ago. I like to sleep with 2 heavy comforters even in the summer but my wife gets hot while she sleeps. A lot of the times we end up sharing a single blanket by morning but I don’t think I could fall asleep like that.

Also I just realized while typing this that I do like weight on my body!