Question: if we need to get back to legislation and stop relying on courts, how do we do that??? Congress has been completely useless in so many ways and I don’t feel like any of the regular pathways work! Calls? Emails? Letters? Protests? In person meetings with staff? What impact did it ever have on my Republican representatives? My vote didn’t change it, my voice hasn’t changed it…so what now?
Doesn't it feel like everyone is expected to 'go it alone'? I mean we are supposed to work toward a common agreedupon goal, isn't that what the parties are supposed to do? Flesh it out? Also, everyone has different strengths, let's use them and not pretend that process people are comms people and not pretend that strategy people are risk averse enough for the rest of us! It takes all of us, otherwise the winners group just gets smaller and smaller and smaller!
Somehow I completely missed this ep last week, which never happens, but I’m so glad I came back to listen, even though now I’m grieving the passage of the Big Sucky Bill.
First, I would love a project to try to activate our representatives to not punt to the courts. What pressure tactics or outreach campaigns do you think might start to move the needle toward taking more responsibility? Cuz you’re so right that currently they’re just biding their time until the “right” person gets in to decree their way to better policy. I have to say I was initially really upset about the ruling against injunctions— “but we need them cuz he’s so awful”— and I have come to appreciate that the abuse of the executive order process has been going on for way too long.
Second, this comments section is a gem! The way the remarks flip back and forth between potholders and healthcare and “cans” and taxes? It’s the perfect distillation of the community you have built! Actually, make this my birthday message to you all— Happy Birthday to a fabulous team who brings a disparate group of people together around good government and handy household hints 😁
Beth, I have the solution for your potholders! You take 4 of those little handmade potholders and sew (or, in my mom's case, crochet) them together, then you have a giant potholder that you can fold over to give you another layer of protection when you pull things out of the oven. Credit to my mother for figuring this out -- she gave me three of these giant potholders from 12 I had made as a kid with that tiny plastic loom and old tights. I use them all the time!
Hoping the link works so you can see what it would look like:
One small thing that changed my life is adding a motion sensor to my hallway off the garage (which also happens to be my laundry room). You're hands are full, the motion lights your path. Best choice EVER
HR and open enrollment. So glad this was brought up. My husband is in HR and complains about this all the time during open enrollment, getting attention etc. I am a project geologist and have been in environmental consulting for 21 years. My side of open enrollment has always been this: I wait to fill out paperwork and dive into it because I am busy with work and most of my career it has been confusing. It isn’t always clear if you can spend “work time” on it, and that can be tough for hourly workers. I liked the companies that had mandatory meetings to go over the open enrollment as they allowed us to use our work time to go over things. I do think some people just go into shock of the complications, but it is always happening at the busiest time of the year, which creates overwhelm. It is much better now, but I also have has my husband explain things to me enough that I finally get it (sometimes), and he loses patience since he is doing it at work all the time too!
This is a service my team offers for our clients that pay for holistic planning - a yearly fee to help them with whatever they need in finances. I have reviewed so many open enrollment packages and they really can be (not confusing to me at this point) confusing/different/complex/etc. I didn't realize how much of a headache it is for people, but all of our clients that pay for fee based planning, bring/email their open enrollment packages to us for review. To be fair, we never really have/had to debate anything in my home. I've always worked for small companies and my husband has always worked for hospitals so just due to the "size" of companies my benefits can never compete so we always know we want to take his benefits regardless of "how good" they are.
I have a question I’m not seeing mentioned in news or online but we have 3 Democratic representatives that have died right? So if those seats were filled Mike Johnson wouldn’t be able to lose a single Republican?
Something small that’s made my life so much easier: I’ve always hated how measuring spoons come on a ring. If you leave them on, you have to wash all of them every time you use one. If you take them off, they end up loose in a drawer and you’re constantly digging for the right size.
My solution: I bought a keyholder and mounted it to the inside of a cabinet door using 3M removable tape. Now each spoon has its own spot, they’re labeled by size, and I only wash what I use. It’s one of those small upgrades that makes daily life so much smoother.
I recently mounted a magnetic knife strip on the wall which holds my measuring spoons, and I love it! It looks tidy and the basic selection is always handy. I did have to sort through the spoons, as only about half of mine were magnetic, but it was worth it!
Second this-command hooks everywhere. On the inside of any cabinet door, in your shower to hang the cleaning brushes or body scrubs, to keep electrical cords off the floor, for kids towels so they don't tear the towel rack off the wall. I invested in 3M after they came out with command hooks. Lol
Those crappy takeout napkins go straight to my glove box to be used for blowing noses, insulating cup holders, and wiping up little messes in my car. I also always have a plastic bag in my car for trash.
We had an issue with everyone using more than one water glass a day. So, I went to the thrift store and got a bunch of mismatched $1 glasses and now we have our favorite glasses and only use one a day. Plus they have character!
Anyone find a good way to keep area rugs from shifting? Those grip pads don't cut it in my house.
Just wanted to chime in; thank you for all the great comments & to PP for the fantastic episode. First, I’ve been wearing Made by Mary tiny heart post earrings with a screw on, ball back for the past few years non-stop. They are very short posted so if you have small earlobes, they’re fantastic. I recently remodeled our kitchen & put in two dishwashers, it’s life changing. I have two, teenage sons & a husband & we all agree having a Clean & Dirty dishwasher (and often running both simultaneously) is incredible; we hardly have dishes in the sink because there’s almost always a Dirty dishwasher for them to be loaded into.
Thank you so much for this comment! We’re planning our next house now and I so want 2 dishwashers but my husband thinks it’s unnecessary. This is great reasoning.
I appreciated this episode and it prompted me to make a rare comment. I understand Sarah's argument that using the courts as a remedy for issues that Congress should be addressing, but I I think that, at least in the second Trump presidency, there are other factors at play. Primarily, the fact that Trump has been suing people in court for decades, this is his primary revenge strategy. The Trump administration knew that all of these executive orders were going to end up in court, that's why they wrote them the way that they did. If we don't fight in court, we really have no fight because Congress is as you say ineffectual and only serving the president. And the same applies to the big ugly Bill. I've read that many Republicans just intended to pack that Bill full of crap and let the Kortz figure out what sticks and what doesn't. They're wasting our time and money, especially our money, which infuriates me.
Fellow cat owners, I have a problem to solve. What are we doing about the cat litter that gets tracked EVERYWHERE? Are we vacuuming every day? Is there some kind of magic mat outside the box that keeps the litter from ending up in every crevice of our homes? I’m losing it.
I have my cats’ boxes in a small room under the stairs and lined the floors with several large size litter mats from Walmart. Then I also have a special one with grooves on it near the door. This helps trap it all and I vacuum it about once a month when I switch out the litter. We have LVP in our basement and a robot vacuum twice weekly and that helps keep the trafficked litter way down.
FYI - Organizations like Food Not Bombs and others that distribute free food will more than happily take your fast food utensils if they are wrapped in sealed packages. Many will also take the condiment packages.
I found some highschools have culinary programs and they will usually take the utensils, packets, napkins, etc. I found emailing the school and asking for the staff of the program what they will accept has been the easiest way to connect with them.
Hair looking thin? Get out your eyeshadow and brush some on the part! Works fantastic and doesn't feel sticky.
Question: if we need to get back to legislation and stop relying on courts, how do we do that??? Congress has been completely useless in so many ways and I don’t feel like any of the regular pathways work! Calls? Emails? Letters? Protests? In person meetings with staff? What impact did it ever have on my Republican representatives? My vote didn’t change it, my voice hasn’t changed it…so what now?
Doesn't it feel like everyone is expected to 'go it alone'? I mean we are supposed to work toward a common agreedupon goal, isn't that what the parties are supposed to do? Flesh it out? Also, everyone has different strengths, let's use them and not pretend that process people are comms people and not pretend that strategy people are risk averse enough for the rest of us! It takes all of us, otherwise the winners group just gets smaller and smaller and smaller!
Somehow I completely missed this ep last week, which never happens, but I’m so glad I came back to listen, even though now I’m grieving the passage of the Big Sucky Bill.
First, I would love a project to try to activate our representatives to not punt to the courts. What pressure tactics or outreach campaigns do you think might start to move the needle toward taking more responsibility? Cuz you’re so right that currently they’re just biding their time until the “right” person gets in to decree their way to better policy. I have to say I was initially really upset about the ruling against injunctions— “but we need them cuz he’s so awful”— and I have come to appreciate that the abuse of the executive order process has been going on for way too long.
Second, this comments section is a gem! The way the remarks flip back and forth between potholders and healthcare and “cans” and taxes? It’s the perfect distillation of the community you have built! Actually, make this my birthday message to you all— Happy Birthday to a fabulous team who brings a disparate group of people together around good government and handy household hints 😁
Beth, I have the solution for your potholders! You take 4 of those little handmade potholders and sew (or, in my mom's case, crochet) them together, then you have a giant potholder that you can fold over to give you another layer of protection when you pull things out of the oven. Credit to my mother for figuring this out -- she gave me three of these giant potholders from 12 I had made as a kid with that tiny plastic loom and old tights. I use them all the time!
Hoping the link works so you can see what it would look like:
https://www.goodknitkisses.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/BLOG-02seam-tabby-728x728.jpg
One small thing that changed my life is adding a motion sensor to my hallway off the garage (which also happens to be my laundry room). You're hands are full, the motion lights your path. Best choice EVER
Beth, you need flat back earrings! They were life changing.
HR and open enrollment. So glad this was brought up. My husband is in HR and complains about this all the time during open enrollment, getting attention etc. I am a project geologist and have been in environmental consulting for 21 years. My side of open enrollment has always been this: I wait to fill out paperwork and dive into it because I am busy with work and most of my career it has been confusing. It isn’t always clear if you can spend “work time” on it, and that can be tough for hourly workers. I liked the companies that had mandatory meetings to go over the open enrollment as they allowed us to use our work time to go over things. I do think some people just go into shock of the complications, but it is always happening at the busiest time of the year, which creates overwhelm. It is much better now, but I also have has my husband explain things to me enough that I finally get it (sometimes), and he loses patience since he is doing it at work all the time too!
This is a service my team offers for our clients that pay for holistic planning - a yearly fee to help them with whatever they need in finances. I have reviewed so many open enrollment packages and they really can be (not confusing to me at this point) confusing/different/complex/etc. I didn't realize how much of a headache it is for people, but all of our clients that pay for fee based planning, bring/email their open enrollment packages to us for review. To be fair, we never really have/had to debate anything in my home. I've always worked for small companies and my husband has always worked for hospitals so just due to the "size" of companies my benefits can never compete so we always know we want to take his benefits regardless of "how good" they are.
I have a question I’m not seeing mentioned in news or online but we have 3 Democratic representatives that have died right? So if those seats were filled Mike Johnson wouldn’t be able to lose a single Republican?
Something small that’s made my life so much easier: I’ve always hated how measuring spoons come on a ring. If you leave them on, you have to wash all of them every time you use one. If you take them off, they end up loose in a drawer and you’re constantly digging for the right size.
My solution: I bought a keyholder and mounted it to the inside of a cabinet door using 3M removable tape. Now each spoon has its own spot, they’re labeled by size, and I only wash what I use. It’s one of those small upgrades that makes daily life so much smoother.
I recently mounted a magnetic knife strip on the wall which holds my measuring spoons, and I love it! It looks tidy and the basic selection is always handy. I did have to sort through the spoons, as only about half of mine were magnetic, but it was worth it!
Second this-command hooks everywhere. On the inside of any cabinet door, in your shower to hang the cleaning brushes or body scrubs, to keep electrical cords off the floor, for kids towels so they don't tear the towel rack off the wall. I invested in 3M after they came out with command hooks. Lol
If your littles never stop asking for grapes: grape cutter 🍇 https://a.co/d/iWmNXoF
If you travel a lot and use apple products: https://a.co/d/70Zxmzc
If you use little elastics in your kids’ hair: https://a.co/d/6O9b9ji
If you hate putting sunscreen on your kids: https://a.co/d/8mJ8qFN
Those crappy takeout napkins go straight to my glove box to be used for blowing noses, insulating cup holders, and wiping up little messes in my car. I also always have a plastic bag in my car for trash.
We had an issue with everyone using more than one water glass a day. So, I went to the thrift store and got a bunch of mismatched $1 glasses and now we have our favorite glasses and only use one a day. Plus they have character!
Anyone find a good way to keep area rugs from shifting? Those grip pads don't cut it in my house.
Just wanted to chime in; thank you for all the great comments & to PP for the fantastic episode. First, I’ve been wearing Made by Mary tiny heart post earrings with a screw on, ball back for the past few years non-stop. They are very short posted so if you have small earlobes, they’re fantastic. I recently remodeled our kitchen & put in two dishwashers, it’s life changing. I have two, teenage sons & a husband & we all agree having a Clean & Dirty dishwasher (and often running both simultaneously) is incredible; we hardly have dishes in the sink because there’s almost always a Dirty dishwasher for them to be loaded into.
Thank you so much for this comment! We’re planning our next house now and I so want 2 dishwashers but my husband thinks it’s unnecessary. This is great reasoning.
Yes to this!! I also have a tablecloth that we've worn a hole through that I'm planning to turn into cloth napkins - double win!
I appreciated this episode and it prompted me to make a rare comment. I understand Sarah's argument that using the courts as a remedy for issues that Congress should be addressing, but I I think that, at least in the second Trump presidency, there are other factors at play. Primarily, the fact that Trump has been suing people in court for decades, this is his primary revenge strategy. The Trump administration knew that all of these executive orders were going to end up in court, that's why they wrote them the way that they did. If we don't fight in court, we really have no fight because Congress is as you say ineffectual and only serving the president. And the same applies to the big ugly Bill. I've read that many Republicans just intended to pack that Bill full of crap and let the Kortz figure out what sticks and what doesn't. They're wasting our time and money, especially our money, which infuriates me.
Beth and Sarah — amazing episode, 5 stars!
Fellow cat owners, I have a problem to solve. What are we doing about the cat litter that gets tracked EVERYWHERE? Are we vacuuming every day? Is there some kind of magic mat outside the box that keeps the litter from ending up in every crevice of our homes? I’m losing it.
I have my cats’ boxes in a small room under the stairs and lined the floors with several large size litter mats from Walmart. Then I also have a special one with grooves on it near the door. This helps trap it all and I vacuum it about once a month when I switch out the litter. We have LVP in our basement and a robot vacuum twice weekly and that helps keep the trafficked litter way down.
FYI - Organizations like Food Not Bombs and others that distribute free food will more than happily take your fast food utensils if they are wrapped in sealed packages. Many will also take the condiment packages.
I found some highschools have culinary programs and they will usually take the utensils, packets, napkins, etc. I found emailing the school and asking for the staff of the program what they will accept has been the easiest way to connect with them.
When my husband was deployed, I sent them to him. MREs are not tasty. Taco Bell sauce helps.
Great idea!