Tahoe daily snow

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Preferably from Tundra, Elegant, Marine, Archipelago, Sandstorm, Monsoon, Jungle, Icy Snow and Polar regions.
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Thanks :)

Julia Holdom New Zealand Tertiary College

Practitioner Research： Vol 5, No 3 - May 2018

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A personal reflection

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Figure 1: Children at Little Einstein’s Educare in Cambridge lead the design, planning, and execution of the construction of a hut made out of tree branches after recent stormy weather.
When introduced to the acronym STEM (which stood for science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning in early childhood education (ECE), I was immediately intrigued. Having been a kaiako (teacher) in rural New Zealand and growing up on a dairy farm, natural, hands-on, child-lead, and inquiry-based learning was my passion. It always sat well with me that Te Whāriki: He Whāriki Mātauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early Childhood Curriculum (Te Whāriki) (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2017) backed by decades of research and literature supports a play-based approach to learning in the early years in New Zealand. It did not come as a surprise to me then that STEM learning, a term for the learning areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, a buzz phrase making its way around the international academic world, was something I recognised as intrinsically woven throughout early childhood curriculum and programs in Aotearoa/New Zealand. As a result, I presented on STEM learning in ECE with Fiona Woodgate, at the 2017 New Zealand Tertiary College symposium and have since been speaking with kaiako from different regions in New Zealand to get a broader idea of how STEM learning is integrated into their ECE programs.
Due to a rapidly evolving, complex and technologically advancing society, it is now well recognised that future societies are going to need to be equipped with a range of problem solving and creative thinking dispositions, rather than specific skill sets (Allen, 2016; Smith, 2016; Rodriguez, 2016; Wise Lindeman & McKendry Anderson, 2015). The young children of today need to be involved in real world, contextually relevant learning, in order to support their communities, preparing them for educational opportunities in the future, as well as a wide range of careers that may not currently exist (Allen, 2016; Draper & Wood, 2017). This realisation has resulted in a strong international focus on the concept of STEM learning in today’s varying education settings. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), whilst a relatively new term in the early childhood education sector in New Zealand, is not a new concept. Its focus is to support children in learning problem solving, creative thinking, investigation skills and design, through multi-content curricula (Sharapan, 2012; Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.; Gartrell, 2016).
This reflective article begins to explore the concept of STEM through the lens of Te Whāriki (MoE, 2017). The world renowned curriculum document is well known for its focus on dispositional, play-based learning, and the weaving of multiple curriculum content areas throughout daily and ongoing learning experiences. Te Whāriki (MoE, 2017) not only focuses on skill acquisition, but on dispositions and attitudes that support learning throughout a lifetime. This article presents an explanation of how teachers can support STEM concepts and experiences from ECE settings inAotearoa/New Zealand are shared to provoke thinking and reflection.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics – An introduction

In ECE, recognising individual aspects of STEM learning can be relatively simple. Children are naturally curious, and begin to explore the world around them from infancy, developing their own working theories about how the world works through the people, places and things that they interact with (MoE, 2017). In this sense, they are natural born scientists, investigating, questioning, exploring, and experimenting. As they explore, they are often confronted with simple scientific and mathematical concepts, such as learning about gravity, force and motion, quantity, number, weight, space, and time through play (Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.; Sharapan, 2012; Hamlin & Wisneski, 2012; Bosse, Jacobs & Anderson, 2009).
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Figure 2: Building a relationship with Papatūānuku (Mother Earth) is seen as an essential aspect of early childhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which can lead to increased environmentalism and sustainability in years to come. Children are encouraged to be involved in the care of the natural environment, and here, they are engaged with centre family members in exploring the garden, utilising and leaning valuable STEM concepts in the process.
Working theories are the evolving ideas and understandings that children develop as they use their existing knowledge to try to make sense of new experiences. Children are most likely to generate and refine working theories in learning environments where uncertainty is valued, inquiry is modelled, and making meaning is the goal” (MoE, 2017, p. 23).
Often within children’s play arises the opportunity to use varying tools to support their learning. Utilising tools with a purpose for design or problem solving can be understood as technology (Dietze & Kashin, 2012; Young & Elliot, 2003). Technology in ECE is often viewed by kaiako as digital technology, and the use of information communication technology (ICT) (Wise Lindeman & McKendry Anderson, 2015), however it is imperative to recognise that technology is anything that has been designed for and is used for a purpose, generally being to make a task easier, quicker, or more productive (Young & Elliot, 2003; Fleer & Jane, 2011). In my experience, engineering is perhaps the more challenging notion to identify as part of young children’s learning and development, in part due to some teachers’ lack of content knowledge in this area, but also the complexities of this concept for children in the early years. Much of the literature on STEM learning focuses on engineering for children from preschool age onwards (3+) without mentioning the infant and toddler years. Perhaps this is due to the perception of what design and engineering is for differing ages. Is a toddler not engineering when they are constructing with sand in the sandpit? Is an infant not designing when creating art with finger paints or food on different surfaces during experiences every day?
“The day-to-day programme and environment are organised in such a way that children can initiate purposeful, problem-solving activities and devise and solve problems to their own satisfaction using a variety of materials and equipment” (MoE, 2017, p. 49).
Science is a way of investigating, understanding, and explaining our natural, physical world and the wider universe. It involves generating and testing ideas, gathering evidence – including by making observations, carrying out investigations and modelling, and communicating and debating with others – in order to develop scientific knowledge, understanding, and explanations (MoE, 2007, p. 26).Technology is intervention by design: the use of practical and intellectual resources to develop products and systems (technological outcomes) that expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realising opportunities. Adaptation and innovation are at the heart of technological practice. Quality outcomes result from thinking and practices that are informed, critical, and creative.... Technology is never static. It is influenced by and in turn impacts on the cultural, ethical, environmental, political, and economic conditions of the day (MoE, 2007, p. 26).Engineers design technology using a combination of science and math (Pantoya, Aguirre-Munoz & Hunt, 2015, p. 61). Engineering is solving problems, using a variety of materials, designing and creating, and building things that work (Boston Children’s Museum, 2013, p. 3).Mathematics is the exploration and use of patterns and relationships in quantities, space, and time. Statistics is the exploration and use of patterns and relationships in data. These two disciplines are related but different ways of thinking and of solving problems. Both equip students with effective means for investigating, interpreting, explaining, and making sense of the world in which they live (MoE, 2007, p. 26).
Whilst internationally, the concept of STEM focuses on inquiry and project-based learning, often planned for, facilitated and led by adults, I see this concept being represented in a range of educational settings, woven through a range of pedagogical approaches and philosophies of teaching in New Zealand. In line with the vision of Te Whāriki (MoE, 2017), STEM learning occurs naturally in children’s play, need not be teacher-led or project focused (Gartrell, 2016; Draper & Wood, 2017) and can effectively be supported in a socioculturally relevant context for individual learners and their learning communities (Hamlin & Wisneski, 2012; Moomaw & Davis, 2010; Neill, 2009).
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning is important for all children, individually, and within social groups of learners. The common theme within the four STEM concepts, is that they are all content areas that occur naturally through play. When children are natural learners, curious in nature, they do not require adults to give them answers to questions, and do not benefit greatly from this method of teaching (Allen, 2016; Sharapan, 2012). Instead, children develop life-long dispositions of inquiry, curiosity and independent thinking by having inquiry skills scaffolded or modelled to them. Often children embrace the opportunity to investigate for themselves, experimenting, exploring, making mistakes, and using trial and error. In this sense, STEM learning is a way of being, a way of playing and a way of learning (Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.). So where do kaiako fit into STEM learning?
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Figure 3: Through their natural urges, infants and toddlers explore mathematic and scientific concepts through play with the support of their kaiako, as well as through environmental prompts, provocations and play invitations.

The science, technology, engineering and mathematics environment

There are a number of areas worth considering when planning for and facilitating learning in diverse and unique education settings. One of the most obvious in play-based, child-led settings is the physical environment. Those familiar with the Reggio Emilio approach will have heard of the notion of the environment as the third teacher (Delany, 2011) and providing opportunities for child-led learning through the design of and resources available in the child’s physical learning environment. It is imperative that the environment supports STEM learning so that children may engage in STEM learning experiences both independently, as well as with peers and kaiako (Hamlin & Wisneski, 2012). Long gone are the days of including a science, mathematics or technology corner in your classroom or setting (Neill, 2009; Delany, 2011), instead the emphasis is on saturating the environment in resources that encourage authentic, real-world, familiar and culturally relevant ways of exploring. These resources do not need to be expensive and single purpose, and can easily be found in our natural environments. As New Zealand makes more of a move towards environmental sustainability, and eco-schools become more popular (Vincent-Snow, 2017; Enviroschools, n.d.), reusing and recycling materials becomes an exciting way to make the most of what we have available to us, and supports children’s creativity.
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Figure 4: Uninterrupted play allows these tamariki time to work together to create, design, problem solve, and imagine. Here, children in the Tui room of Little Einstein’s Educare have created a structure to protect themselves from the ‘Lava’ beneath.
Another popular move in recent years appears to be the inclination to get out into nature to support real life, hands on learning. Emphasis has been made on preventing a generation of children with Nature Deficit Disorder, a term coined by Richard Louv (2005) in his book Last Child in the Woods. Kaiako and children are venturing out into whatever natural environments they have available to them, such as local parks, reserves or forests to make the most of natural learning that occurs when children are empowered to explore, question, and discover. science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning could not be more evident in these opportunities to explore and build a relationship with Papatūānuku.
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Figure 5: Nature Days are becoming increasingly popular in ECE settings that can accommodate such expeditions. Children are empowered to use a variety of tools to explore, create and design, and developing working theories through the relationship they are building with the natural world around them.

Reflective Prompts

Consider the ECE settings and environments you are familiar with.Does your environment invite exploration? Are there spaces, in which children can taste, touch, smell, listen and look?Are there gardens and natural spaces for children to independently explore nature science, earth science and opportunities for children to play with different matter to build working theories about the natural and physical world?Are there loose parts provided both inside and out for children to construct, build, design, create and begin to develop theories around science and mathematics through size, weight, height, gravity, momentum, trajectory and more?Do you have pen, paper, clipboards, scissors, cameras and other technological tools available to children in different areas that they can easily access and use to document, plan, take notes and draw about their learning and discoveries – inviting engagement in the concept of engineering?
“Children have opportunities to explore how things move and how they can be moved by, for example, blowing, throwing, pushing, pulling, rolling, swinging and sinking. Children have access to technology that enables them to explore movement, for example, wheels, pulleys, magnets and swings. Children have opportunities to develop spatial understandings by fitting things together and taking things apart, rearranging and reshaping objects and materials, seeing things from different spatial viewpoints and using a magnifying glass” (MoE, 2017, p. 49).

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics books

Books are an essential resource for any STEM learning environment (Bosse, Jacobs & Anderson, 2009; Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.). Not only is it important for children to access reference books with correct images and names of items, something Fred Rogers found instrumental in supporting children’s language acquisition and development (Sharapan, 2012), but also fictional and non-fiction story books about people and characters whom are investigators, explorers, inventors, designers and problem solvers themselves (Pantoya, Aguirre-Munoz & Hunt, 2015). Children’s scientific and engineering identities are supported as they explore literature that introduces concepts, dispositions and attitudes children recognise within themselves, and they are able to develop deeper understanding of STEM concepts as they explore these in context through stories, characters and the arts (McLean, Jones & Schaper, 2015; Sackes, Trundle & Flevares, 2009).
In addition to this, Kathy Trundle’s work on inquiry-based learning emphasises the opportunities that arise through purposeful interactions between kaiako, children and books to scaffold children’s inquiry skills.
Fictional children’s books to support STEM learning and identity in the early years:Inventor McGregor by Kathleen T. PelleyThe Grandma McGarvey series by Jenny HessellOh the Things they Invented by Dr SeussRosie Revere, Engineer; and Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beatty and David RobertsAnything is Possible by Giulia Belloni

Risk taking

Wise Lindeman and McKendry Anderson (2015) emphasise that children need real-world experience and real-world problems in order to have a chance at developing solutions to these. Pawlina and Stanford ( as cited in Wise Lindeman & McKendry Anderson, 2015) add that educators must view mistakes as opportunities to grow children’s brains. Here, teachers must consider both physical risk taking, as well as emotional and mental risk taking. In today’s society, maintaining the physical health and safety of the children in our care settings seems to have counterbalanced the human need to take risks in order to learn. Kaiako are finding themselves challenged beyond comfort when it comes to children’s safety, and the balance between safe and calculated risks, children learning from experience, and adults protecting children from physical injury is out of sync. However, research shows that children need these experiences to learn for themselves, and that without these risk-taking experiences, children will not be adequately prepared for challenges they will face in the future, both physically and mentally (Brynes-Swiatek, 2017; Curtis, 2010; Gramling, 2010; Warden, 2010). When it comes to emotional and mental risk taking, we must consider how we are supporting children to try new things, supporting them to push themselves out of their comfort zones, and risk making mistakes and being wrong, all whilst remaining confident that their holistic wellbeing needs are being met to maintain a safe learning environment.
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Figure 6: When the tolerance for risk is zero, children don’t really risk loss of life or limb, but more often than not, they risk losing valuable experiences with the world they inhabit. (Gramling, 2010, p. 51).
Te Whāriki (MoE, 2017) supports this through its sociocultural approach to learning, outlining the need for children to learn in culturally and socially relevant contexts. In addition to this, aspects of dispositional learning such as perseverance, persisting with difficulty, and facing challenges or uncertainty (MoE, 2017), are outlined as important for life-long learning. Risk taking is highlighted as a desirable learning outcome throughout the Exploration strand of Te Whāriki (MoE, 2017), particularly for toddlers and young children. Risk taking, mistakes, failure, trial and error are all significantly important in STEM learning and developing perseverance, inquiry skills, attitudes towards exploration and creative thinking.

Reflective Questions

Does your learning environment, both material and otherwise, provide opportunities for children to take risks physically, cognitively and emotionally?Are children encouraged and supported to experiment, to trial, to make mistakes, to fail or succeed, and to revisit their learning?Do your environments allow for independent and group creative thinking and problem solving?

Time

Providing children with not only the space and resources needed for exploration and enquiry learning, but the time to discover at their own pace, and the opportunity to document or revisit their learning is crucial. Gifting children the time to figure things out for themselves, without interrupting their learning with a quick answer, supports an attitude and disposition towards creative thinking and problem solving. Dr. Emmi Pikler (as cited in Christie, 2012) emphasised the importance of slowing down one’s practice and interactions to deeply engage with the children during interactions. Toni Christie (2012) states that the practice of taking adequate time deepens teachers’ awareness and knowledge of each child. The same concept can be applied to children’s interactions with the world around them. Can giving children the time to explore, think and discover deepen their awareness and knowledge of the world around them, teaching them more about science, mathematics, engineering and technology in real-world, contextually relevant and authentic ways?
“The learning outcomes in each strand are broad statements that encompass valued knowledge, skills, attitudes and dispositions that children develop over time” (MoE, 2017, p. 22).
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Figure 7: Hands on Science in action! Many New Zealand ECE settings are making a move to embrace children’s natural inclination to get messy during their exploratory play. Science occurs in many forms, why not through mud and water play?
In addition to giving children the time needed to learn, do teachers support children to stay on task and be focused on the interest they have taken, or do they interrupt this learning with routines? In Carr and Lee’s (2011) research on children’s learning wisdom, they highlight the importance of teachers adopting strategies to support children to revisit their learning. One strategy suggested is that “Teachers can document the changes in children’s understanding” (Fleer, 2008 as cited in Hamlin & Wisneski, 2012, p. 85). This allows children to deepen their engagement, and develop an openness to experiences and a capacity to reflect, in order to make sense of their learning.
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Figure 8: Working together as a team to solve problems, think creatively and develop theories about how things work. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics all evident through child initiated play experiences.
Reflective Questions:Are children gifted the time needed to explore, design, create and learn in uninterrupted environments?Do the routines of the day disrupt this learning or do they support busy learners to continue their work?Are children given the tools and strategies required to support them to document and revisit their learning? Are kaiako skilled in the art of observation, knowing when to step in, and when to step back?Are kaiako gifted the time to support children’s learning in this way, or are they too busy with the organisational tasks of the day?Do teacher - child ratios support quality STEM interactions?

Purposeful, intentional teaching

Once we have decided as kaiako whether we should step back to observe, or step in to add value to the child’s learning experience, the responses we provide must consist of high quality, purposeful, thoughtful interactions with children (MoE, 2017). In these moments, teachers need to be highly sensitive and aware of what the child needs from them – more often than not, it is not an answer they need, but stimulating investigation habits and behaviours being modelled to them (Sharapan, 2012). Kaiako must embrace opportunities to model moments of wonder, using questions that may prompt curiosity within children, and the opportunity to co-construct ideas and working theories in collaborative settings (Allen, 2016; Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.; Sharapan, 2012).
The key to these experiences is not to make the mistake of answering children’s questions with an answer, but to provide intentional, open-ended questions and comments that get the children thinking (Boston Children’s Museum, n.d.; Sharapan, 2012). Equally as important, is the need to model and introduce the use of varying tools to support their enquiry, so that they may seek their own answers independently in future.
Modelling STEM language is crucial to a child’s ability to learn STEM enquiry and thinking themselves. In addition to questions, modelling scientific, mathematical and investigative language is important to support children’s inclination to develop their own working theories. Supporting children by modelling language, describing using scientific, mathematical and technological words will give them the tools to use to do the same in future experiences. This will also normalise STEM concepts and learning for children (Sharapan, 2012).
It is important to support children’s scientific enquiry in new ways too – perhaps in ways they had not thought of themselves. This is where we are scaffolding their learning, in that they are learning new ideas and knowledge in a social situation from others. Part of STEM learning is how children understand investigative thinking and processes. Imperative to science, engineering and design are STEM process skills (Neill, 2009). The Ministry of Education supports this by adding that children should have opportunities to demonstrate “curiosity and the ability to enquire into, research, explore, generate and modify working theories about the natural, social, physical, spiritual and man-made worlds… [and the] ability to represent [these] discoveries using expressive media, including digital media” (2017, p. 47).
“Kaiako are the key resource in any ECE service. Their primary responsibility is to facilitate children’s learning and development through thoughtful and intentional pedagogy. This means they require a wide range of capabilities [including being] knowledgeable about play-based curriculum and pedagogy and able to conceptualise, plan and enact curriculum that is motivating, enjoyable and accessible for all children, [and] able to integrate domain knowledge (for example science and arts knowledge) into the curriculum” (MoE, 2017, p. 59).

Conclusion

The rapidly changing world that we live in, is providing us with many new and exciting technologies that make our lives easier, more enjoyable, and enable quick access to new information at a rate never seen before. However, with these new and exciting changes, also come challenges for children’s natural, enquiry learning. More and more ECE centres, particularly in city environments are designing spaces with little-to-no large open natural spaces for children in the outdoors, and are resorting to man-made environments of turf, concrete and other year-round, all-weather materials to support indoooutdoor play. Does this mean that these children miss out on the opportunity to learn natural science? Or can nature be woven through the environment and program in other ways? Children are also more inclined to want to be engaged with digital media, as their parents and society are modelling the use of these in everyday interactions. Is this cause for concern in the ECE setting, or can children be empowered to use technology in constructive ways? Are kaiako equipped with the understanding of STEM learning and child development that they need to support life-long learning dispositions of enquiry, problem solving, risk taking and perseverance, or are current pedagogies failing tamariki (children)? As learning and information consumption grows exponentially to the highest it has even been, it is now more than ever that children need teachers to be the facilitators of learning, the models of curiosity, the inspiration to learn, explore, discover, think, design and to be leaders of the future. Dispositions, rather than skills, are what tamariki need to succeed in the future. A final question for reflection therefore asks are educators preparing tamariki adequately for life-long success?

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to Jo, Jade and the entire learning community at Little Einstein’s Educare Ltd in Cambridge for giving permission to publish their inspirational photographs, and shared understanding of STEM learning in action. Special thanks also to Catherine at Hobsonville Point ELC, and Jen at Changepoint ELC, Tauranga for your wisdom and input on STEM learning in your ECE learning communities.

Hi all,
Information: * Large adult male seal lynx point bengal cat. * Age: 5 * Neutered: Yes * No veterinarian appointment yet. * Past symptoms: Gingivitis. Sensitive stomach. He can yowl after eating and sometimes during eating. Can sound pretty strange and almost like a mating goal. In the past he had bright red blood in stool when food was changed. * Now on grain-free, meat only diet. * Location is Bavaria, Germany. * Weight: 5.8kgs * Current symptom duration: 1-2 months
Here is an Imgur link to two videos of him licking the area.
I'm reaching out to in hopes of gaining some insights and advice regarding my cat's health. Lately, I've noticed a peculiar behavior that has been causing me quite a bit of concern.
My cat has been consistently licking a specific area on his stomach. It's become a daily ritual for him, and he does it at least 10, sometimes 15+ times a day. The fact that he focuses on such a specific spot has me worried.
What adds to my apprehension is the knowledge that snow bengals, like my cat, have a predisposition to cancer. I understand that it might not necessarily be the case here, but the association has certainly amplified my concerns.
I want to ensure that my cat receives the best care possible, so I'm turning to this supportive community for any insights, experiences, or advice you might have. Has anyone else observed a similar behavior in their snow bengal or any other breed of cat? Should I be worried about potential health issues? Are there any preventive measures or specific signs I should be looking out for?
Of course, I plan to consult my veterinarian about this issue. Any input now could help guide me in the right direction and give me peace of mind.
Thank you in advance for your time and assistance. Your support means a lot to me and my furry friend.

For context, I’m 20 years old. I’m not a good person and I’ve come to accept this, not as an excuse to not try to be better, I always want to try to be, but just as a fact of who I am as what I’ve done could only be a result of that fact. When I was six years old my parents got the family 2 dogs because me and my brother wanted some from seeing them on tv. I now recognize that the way I treated those dogs was almost assuredly abusive. We didn’t ever hit them for than flick on the nose, but we shouldn’t have done that at all. I also didn’t take care for their needs well at all. They were fed and watered but not walked at all consistently. They also were played with only sometimes. For the most part they hung out in our backyard. They also only got vet visits when they were sick or hurt. Alongside this my family got 2 rabbits when I was 14 who mostly hung out inside of a fairly large cage all day with water and food. I remember one of them having bruises from the other. I recognize that I I also engaged in abusive behavior towards them. My family eventually moved to another state and we gave away the rabbits to a no kill shelter and we took the dogs with us.Still I engaged in clearly abusive behavior like sometimes when I wanted to hang out at someone’s house or fire works going off we would put the dogs in the utility room with water and while this room wasn’t tiny this was clearly me neglecting my duties for my own satisfaction. At the start of the new year I began to recognize my abuse and started trying to take better care of them, by taking them for a daily walk and giving them more affection. Unfortunately I still engaged in sub par care cause I would do things like take them for walks through snow without checking the temperature. Luckily neither ever caught frostbite but still the degree of irresponsibly I engaged in is bad. Honestly it bothers me that they still loved me, they let me pet their belly’s, when I put my hand on ones belly she would put her paw on my arm to pet me back. Despite everything I had done they still loved me. Three months into this year one the two dogs passed, ironically the younger and healthier one. It happened in one day, she suddenly fell ill. My parents set up a vet visit for her and I thought she would be okay as the symptoms had only set in that day so I went about my day normally. I later came out to visit her and watched over her for a while before work. She at one point passed blood and I called my parents to tell them I wanted to take her to the emergency vet. They told me to not panic and that it was possibly just mucous. I eventually left for my job cause I knew my parents would be home in twenty minutes to take care of her. I kissed her on the head and pet her before I left. This was the last time I ever saw her, my mom got home and she said she was doing okay till her condition deteriorated and my mom tried to get her to the vet but she passed before they got there. I wont forgive myself for not being there when she passed, she was probably scared and in pain and I wasn’t there to comfort her. After her passing this I began to realize that my care still wasn’t good enough and that even in my other dogs last couple months I wasn’t doing a good job, and for that I will always carry regrets. As with the other dog I began to recognize some of the worse medical problems he has and still does, he doesn’t have very great teeth cause he never got regular dental and even the most recent trip to the vet the vet recommended against a teeth cleaning as he stated that while my dogs teeth were dirty they were structurally sound and that he thought the heightened risk of anesthesia was too high despite his blood levels looking fine. He also noted that by virtue of being an old dog he had some arthritis and while he didn’t recommend us any pain meds at least not yet, I’ve been doing my best to get him vitamin supplements to help him. I’ve been trying to give him more care and affection since he’s also in his later years, he gets a daily 30 minute walk where he gets to go at his own pace and sniff around. It makes me happy but also frustrated that despite everything he still likes me, at least most days he still seems happy. I also try to spend at least two hours of my day with him when I can. I won’t claim I’m always good, I’ve had an incident where I took him for a walk when it was too hot out and while he didn’t burn his paws I was irresponsible again. There were times where actions I took accidentally got him to slip down some stairs, and even though he never limped, I regret this. Even just today I accidentally over-walked him in an attempt to help with him being slightly overweight and he wasn’t hurt but tired. I’m saying this emphasize I know I still have a lot of growing to do and I’m sorry deeply when I make these mistakes. It also been difficult cause my family recently got a new puppy who somewhat bothers the older dog, and the old dog has even recently taken to sleeping in my parents bathroom, which they allow. He’s a good little guy and I’m gonna do my best to not make the same mistakes I made the first time. Also once my older dog does pass, I’m going to try and donate my time to an animal rescue shelter at least once a week. I already donate 25 dollars to a bunny charity once a week to hopefully start making up for what I did the poor rabbits. I recognize that I’ve engaged with terrible behavior and some of this behavior lingers. I know I could use excuses like “I was just young and didn’t know better” or “I was focused on things like my education”. I don’t want to use those though, I recognize those are ways of me pushing the blame off of myself when it’s weight and gnawing is what I should rightfully feel. Even now I feel like I’m lying to my friends, while I talk about some of this with them, as I don’t talk about it all. It’s also hard to now as I’m kinda lying to you all because I’m too cowardly to put a name to this post. I sometimes do wonder if I just fear the social consequences of what I’ve done. I will say one thing I hate about myself with this situation is me being an infinite baby about it. Despite knowing I don’t deserve it I still want empathy from others, even now I want empathy but I know I don’t deserve it. My parents have decided to let me see a counselor about some of these feelings, my first session was yesterday. He was a very nice man but I don’t know how much distance he’ll make with me, I’m still as I said before a bad person fundamentally. I know writing this that I’m still a coward, I’m not willing to put a name to this post cause it fills my stomach with a sinking pit. I won’t lie some days it’s still pretty hard to keep up with cause I’ve lost a lot of time for hobbys and to be honest engaging with them now, kinda makes me feel guilty, like I’m being neglectful again. If you’ve read this whole post thank you for letting me air things out

Life is but a dream? more like LIFE IS BUT A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!
I Grew up with Avenged Sevenfold in my teenage years, they were one of the first Metal bands i actively began listening to, and Nightmare, to this day, is still one of the best Metal album to me
Come Hail to the King and these guys shamelessly ripped off Alice in Chain, The Entire song of "Sad but True" by Metallica, thinking we won't fucking notice it, but fine, because after that they gave us the Stage which was sort of a flop, but at the same time, a return to form, and with a concept that actually aged really fucking well, I won’t pretend to be a genius when it comes to reviewing music, or any kind of Media in general, I don’t use fancy wordings like someone from fucking Loudwire, or Metalc(s)ucks, or even fucking Metal Injection, and quite frankly, I think my reviews suck, I don’t have much faith in them, I just type whatever comes to my mind, but once in a blue fucking moon, a record either manages to take me off my feet with how good they are, or, how fucking atrocious and disastrous it is, so come the new Avenged Sevenfold album and its quite literally the worst fucking album they could have ever made, this makes Hail to the King an actual 10/10 in comparison, there is not a single positive I could write about this shit, it would be like picking up a dog turd from the street and tossing it in the garbage, at the end of the day, you did something for the environment, but at the cost of dirtying your hand with literal shit.
There is 5 factors I take into account when im deciding if an album is worthy of a certain score, and the list is as follows: Vocals, Musicianship, Production, Lyrics, and lastly Instruments.
Let’s start with the Vocals, because oh my fucking god it’s nails on a chalkboard, it’s like someone is actively trying to brainfuck me through my earhole with a rusty and molded Drill, I’d rather walk on fucking legos for the rest of my life than dealing with this fucking vocals, whatever the hell M Shadows is trying to do in this shit is NOT working, the opening track has some really ass tier lyrics (which I will get to later) and M Shadows does the wimpiest, Shittiest, tired, nasally and processed screams I probably ever fucking heard, this makes Danzig in his current time look actually fucking amazing in comparison, this makes Vince Fucking Neil sounds almost audible, Almost is the keyword here, because the vocals gets progressively way fucking worse, M Shadows cannot hit any fucking right notes, nor the highs, nor the lows, no in between, nothing, they all sound forced and as if someone was kicked in the balls and let out the most desperate cry but with the voice of Lisa Simpson, And DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE SINGLES! M Shadows’ vocals gets progressively way fucking worse the more this album drags out its 53 minute runtime, and it doesn’t fucking help that M Shadows actually admitted in an interview that he and everyone else was high out of their fucking mind and decided “you know what? We should make the shittiest Mr. Bungle Rip-off we can with Nobody and We Love You!” Nobody is one hell of a fucking title because I wish Nobody had to fucking write this tired, phoned in, ‘we had to make music to please our record label’ type of fucking music, this is a band actively pissing off whatever goodwill they had, and that’s not even mentioning the Fucking NFT and “Deathbat club” shit they have going on, that is a topic for a completely different discussion, going back, Nobody was the first single, and the beginning sounds like someone shoved up a tuba in Synyster Gates’ asshole and let out the loudest fart he could possibly do, the entire fucking song sounds disjointed and as if it was recorded by a fucking cover band, not a multi-platinum selling Metal band who SHOULD have at this point DECADES of experience, like Jesus fucking Christ in a Maid Outfit HOW THE FUCK DOES SOMEONE FUCK UP SOMETHING THIS HARD?! It’s fascinates me because this band made one of the best album in the form of Nightmare, then they actively fucking made the middest music imaginable, Nobody sounds like it’s walking with fucking crutches, Nobody is so fucking bad that every fucking fiber of my body is actively telling me to stop listening to this, listen to a better band, but because I am a fucking Masochist I suffered through it, it doesn’t get better, oh NO IT DOESN’T, skipping to We Love You, we have the Mr. Bungle rip-off that we all fucking loved when it came out (if you couldn’t tell already, that last part was pure fucking sass and sarcasm) whoever the fuck thought this was a good fucking single or a song in general to release should be fucking forced to listen to Psychosinner for the rest of their life, M Shadows tries to do some kind of spoken section mid verse with More Power More Money More Whatever the fuck the word of the day is, and it just sounds way too fucking pandering, and that is coming from someone who suffered through Skillet’s discography at one point, if it wasn’t for that I would legit thought its a fucking piss-take on Christian Rock and Metal as a whole, all it needed was some vague “we love god blah blah blah” so yeah, the Spoken word section thing did NOT work at all, and you know what else doesn’t work? DRAGGING YOUR FUCKING SONGS OUT TO 5+ MINUTES! Half the fucking album drags on for WAY TOO FUCKING LONG, and what DOESN’T HELP is the fact that nothing on this album sounds like it was written with the mind of an album, this sounds like a demo a fucking no name band shits out on Bandcamp or Soundcloud, but im getting side tracked, We Love You is a fucking shitshow of epic proportions, whoever the fuck thought they should use Autotune to make M Shadows sound robotic should be fired from their job, I’m dead fucking serious, and good to know they fucking play fucking FORTNITE with the amazing lyrics like “More Sex More Pill Build Tall Build Higher Build Wider” just for that alone, Fuck You A7X, I despise Shitnite with all my fucking passion and you making reference to that, even unintentionally pisses me off to no end, I’m already dragging the point of the vocals sounding shit, so I won’t even bother torturing you guys with this anymore, instead, let me torture you with the fact that EVERYBODY SOUNDS COMPLETELY FUCKING WASTED HERE! Seriously where the fuck is the cool solos from Synyster?! Where is the kickass and in your face drumming?! Why does everything sound so compressed?! Why does this fucking album sounds like they ran out of ideas so they tried to do the shittiest of rip-off they can think about from bands that are popular these days?! AND WHY, THE FUCK, DOES THIS ALBUM SOUND LIKE IT’S BEING PUT THROUGH A FUCKING GUILLOTINE ?! Everything that defined this band is long fucking gone, nothing is left here, just a husk, a broken down shell of a band that used to write cool stuff, even if you never liked their music, you could always respect them for putting in the work, but here? The entire musicianship is down the drain, this sounds like a band on its deathbed, the entire album is just not fun to listen to, at least there is always some redeeming quality in a bad album, or a fucking excuse why it turned out to be shit, but “Ohh nooooo M Shadows blew his vocals, the Horror!” guess who else fucking blew his vocals out? Matt Heafy from Trivium, and what did he do? Despite not being able to Scream for a while, he made Silence in the Snow in response, where he showcased his rather nice singing ability, is that album perfect? No, but it is an example that despite an album being average, the singing can be a redeeming quality of that, so I will not, under any fucking circumstances will take “BuT He BlEw HiS vOcAls OuT hE cAn’t sInG lIke He UsEd To AnYmOrE!!!” As a fucking excuse when Matt Heafy and a lot of other Metal Vocalist fucking made the best out of a bad situation and still managed to make decent recordings, also, you know what else doesn’t work on this shitshow of an album? MIXING COUNTRY WITH FUCKING METAL! It, LEGIT angers me to hear country in Metal because guess what, most of the country songs are hot garbage, all me an elitist all you want but Country nowadays sucks Donkey Balls, Maybe I’m just not looking at the right direction or the right artist but whatever because IM NOT DONE TEARING THIS FUCKING ALBUM 12 ASSHOLES YET! And this song is the longest on the entire album, clocking in at 7 and a half minutes, I am a fan of long songs, if they are done right,oh and please excuse me while I fucking bash my head into the nearest wall I can find because MY FUCKING GOD WHOEVER PUT SIREN NOISES IN THE SONG LEGITIMATELY HATES PEOPLES BECAUSE THIS IS FUCKING EARRAPE PERSONIFIED, Like my fucking God, Lucifer himself is not this fucking Satanic to try and piss humans off in Hell, Cosmic, which is the title of the song, can Fuck Right off Sideways in a Fucking Fake Taxi Casting and then blow whatever the fucking dick it can find because this song literally facefucks me with how bad this shit is, and that’s not even touching on how completely BORING the next track is, I damn near fell asleep from it when I first listened to it, it was the closest I probably got to music actually putting me to sleep from how BORING It is, and my god I already touched on the production but can I just ask why does everything sound like its AI generated? Oh waaaaait, I know now, BECAUSE AVENGED SEVENFOLD BECAME NFT BROS! AND FUCKING SCAMMING DICKHEADS! So no wonder they want to try and cater to the lowest common fucking denominator by putting out a song that makes all the NFT Bros and shills and rich companies cum from the cash they see in their eyes, also can I just ask, how do you make PIANO sound so horribly fucking bad? It’s like someone just got a cheap synth and tried to mimic how Piano sounds like but with the worst settings possible, so that’s the vocals, musicianship, and the fucking production in a nutshell, BUT WAIT, THERE IS MORE! If that wasn’t enough, M Shadows does his worst possible fucking T-Pain impression on the song Easier! Add that to the list of why the fuck does this exist: Music Edition. Anyways, that was the only noteworthy thing I could possibly point out in that song, aside from that its generic Imagine Dragons-Core, but now we have a trilogy of songs in the from of G. O, And D...wait you expected me to give them the full song title with the brackets? Sweet summer child, you are not on a fucking Simple Plan fan Group page, Anyways, G is a fucking Voivod rip-off, in the worst possible way, Did they seriously fucking think im not gonna notice that? Its a literal fucking Voivod rip-off, and on the topic of Voivod, can I ask what the fuck this shit has to do with Avant-Garde? Are peoples really just gonna put Avant-Garde in every single fucking disjointed shitty mess a fucking artist does? By that same logic Kanye West is Avant-Garde, Machine Gun Kelly is Avant-Garde, even fucking Lil Pump is Avant-Garde by this fucking logic, this is the furthest from fucking Avant-Garde, it’s a few peoples writing the shittiest of fucking “prog metal” if you can even call it that, and then selling it as some revolutionary sound while they forget that IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT HAS BEEN DOING THAT FOR NEARLY 2 DECADES! MY FUCKING GOD THIS ALBUM FINDS MORE WAYS TO JUST PISS ME THE FUCK OFF!!! also, even more spoken words, fucking kill me, but since we are nearing the end of this fucking album how about we talk about just how shitty the lyrics are? I already touched on how fucking horrible We Love You’s lyrics are, but it’s even worse on some songs, like Cosmic, with such gems like “Pain, it founds its way back in, until we meet again, into that good night” or how about Beautiful Morning? Where it literally says “Help me to hear and hear me to save And save me before I've gone too far Let me inhale my passage to hell While slowly exhaling the scar” wow, such insightful lyrics, this is the worst fucking cliched and generic Im14andthisisdeep type of lyrics I ever saw, then we get this fucking amazing words on the opening track “Game Over” that is literally just a word vomit, don’t believe me? Then look up to the fucking lyrics yourself, half the song is just M Shadows burping out whatever the fucking word of the day is, “Open, blurry, nurture, loving Crawling, walking, fleeting, glory Welcome, brother, stranger, bloody Ally, teacher, recess, buddy Secret, toothless, fairy, pillow Money, kissing, nervous, hero Warmly ordinary, Changes, hormones, high school, threesome Roll call, study, license, freedom Novice, flirting, first time, lover Party, fighting, wasted, summer Questions, doubtful, wedding, family Happy, ever, after, dead end Daily iteration” This is literally half the fucking song! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! HOW DOES A GROWN FUCKING MAN COME UP WITH SUCH A SHITTY SONG LIKE THIS?! “Give me a delete button, Delete!” yeah I WISH I COULD FUCKING DELETE THIS FROM EXISTENCE! And you know you have to truly run out of idea, WHEN YOU HAVE TO USE GUILE’S THEME FROM STREET FIGHTER AS A SAMPLE IN YOUR FUCKING SONG CALLED ORDINARY!!! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND AVENGED SEVENFOLD?! DID YOU SERIOUSLY THINK I WON’T FUCKING NOTICE IT?! DID YOU SERIOUSLY THINK FOR A FRACTION OF A FUCKING SECOND THAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH SUCH A BLATANT PLAGIARISM ?! If I was Capcom I would fucking sue. Plain and fucking simple, and with the album almost over and my rage ran out...mostly, how about we talk about the fucking instrument? Oh wait, there is nothing to talk about there, because the Instruments are fucking dead on this album, and when it’s not dead it’s fucking pretentious like all hell, trying to sound triumphant, sounding motivating, but only being a generic fucking Frank Sinatra rip-off by the second to last track Death, which is a fitting title considering this band is fucking Dead to me, the entire mixing is all over the place and nothing blends in together, nothing feels like it belongs there, nothing on this fucking album is made competently, but what the fuck did I expected from a band that tried to cash in on the pyramid scheme that is fucking NFTs? The Fucking Rev, is rolling in his grave from seeing what this band turned out to be, you made Bad Music and that much is fucking clear at this point, I don’t care if I look like an asshole saying this but fuck it, Avenged Sevenfold DIED with Jimmy Sullivan, The Stage was a simple fucking fluke, that aged about as well as a fucking Big Mac left in the fridge for 20 years, and im not even gonna fucking mention the instrumental closing track because MY PATIENCE HAS RAN OUT! And quite frankly, Fuck that Beethoven wanna-be fucking track, it can suck my dick for all I care.
In conclusion: THERE IS NO FUCKING CONCLUSION! THIS SHIT FUCKING SUCKS HORSE DICK! Life is but a dream? MORE LIKE LIFE IS BUT A FUCKING NIGHTMARE! Did they seriously think they can get away with this shit AGAIN?! IT DIDN’T WORK WHEN THEY FUCKING RIPPED OFF METALLICA AND WHAT NOT ON HAIL TO THE KING! AND IT SURE AS HELL DIDN’T WORK TO BE A FUCKING MR. BUNGLE T-PAIN VOIVOD CAPCOM WANNA-BE JACKASSES! Avant-Garde? WHERE THE FUCK IS THE AVANT-GARDE!? THIS IS THE FURTHEST THING OF AVANT-GARDE! JUST BECAUSE IT’S A FUCKING MESS IT DOESN’T MEAN ITS FUCKING AVANT-GARDE JUST IN THE SAME VEIN AS NOTHING IS FUCKING NINTENDO-CORE JUST BECAUSE IT HAS MIDI OR 8-BIT TUNES IN THEM! Game Over is a fucking AMAZING title because I wish this fucking album would have ended right on that stupid song, Mattel is also a fitting title because this is a fucking band trying to make their band a fucking brand in the same way Kiss or Metallica is a fucking brand at this point, I Wish Nobody would had to go through the fucking suffering that this shit is, when did peoples fucking standards went down this much?! I cannot for the life of me understand how the hell does this album have such a high as fuck rating when FUCKING METALLICA’S BLACK ALBUM IS RATED LOWER THAN THIS SHIT!!! And can I just ask who the fuck does this band love so much? Me?? Who the fuck is me?! WHO THE FUCK IS WE?! I don’t see anyone I know fucking acting like rabid dogs over something as shitty as this, I rather drink my own piss and cut my veins before I ever fucking classify myself as we or me or you by this band, If I could I would fucking steal a SpaceX rocket and send this fucking album into Cosmic with the hopes of this shit melting into the sun forever, I wanted to have a Beautiful Morning but Avenged Dickfold decided to fucking ruin it for me, it would be so much fucking Easier to just be lobotomized instead of paying any fucking attention to this band anymore, but since they are mainstream, here I am bitching and moaning like a fucking bitch in heat for a monkey to fuck, hopefully that fuck would be much better and it actually hits the G Spot instead of huffing and puffing like a pussy from getting tired after 2 minutes, I Have a new found Respect for Ordinary Man By Ozzy because while its not his best material, as well as even his latest album, I can respect him for still making the music he loves instead of phoning it in like Avenging Sevenfucktards did while also plagiarizing the shit out of everything, this band is fucking Dead to me, Death must have swung at them when they had the guts to make Hail to the King, I wish this was really just a dream, then again, Life is NOTHING But a fucking dream because DEAR FUCKING GOD I WISH THERE WAS AN ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE WHERE I LIVE AND THIS ALBUM DOESN’T EXIST THERE! I WISH I COULD FUCKING AVENGE THIS ALBUM IN SEVEN WAYS AND THEN JUST FOLD IT UP LIKE A NEWSPAPER SO MY DOG CAN TAKE A GIGANTIC FUCKING SHIT ON IT BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE LESS FUCKING DISGUSTING THAN TOUCHING THIS PIECE OF DIARRHEA WITH A 10 FOOT POLE, FUCK M SHADOWS, FUCK SYNYSTER GATES, FUCK EVERYONE WHO WORKED ON THIS ALBUM, FUCK YOU, FUCK THE CRITICS FOR ALLOWING THIS SHIT IN MUSIC, FUCK THE NFT BROS FUCK THE FANS FOR HAVING SUCH A LOW STANDARD TO HAVE THE GUTS AND RATE THIS HIGHER THAN THE FUCKING BLACK ALBUM! BY MOTHER FUCKING METALLICA!!! And last but not least, FUCK, THIS, ALBUM! I RATHER HAVE AN EAGLE CLAW MY EYES OUT, I RATHER HAVE SOMEONE STICK THEIR DICKS IN MY EARHOLES BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE LESS OF A BRAINFUCK THAN THIS SHITTY EXCUSE OF A MUSIC! NOT A SINGLE FUCKING PIECE OF ALCOHOL COULD NUMB THE PAIN I FEEL AFTER LISTENING TO THIS SHIT INDUCING ASS LICKING BALLS SUCKING DICK CHEWING CUMSTAIN OF A FUCKING PUSSY OF AN ALBUM LISTEN TO LITERALLY ANY OTHER ALBUM! LIKE I DON’T KNOW……..Terrasite? Yeah that one is a good album, listen to that one instead, as for this album? It’s the worst album of NOT JUST THIS YEAR! BUT THIS DECADE!
0 OUT OF FUCKING 5

Medications: testosterone cypionate 85mg a week split into daily doses (12 mg daily) taken in the morning intramuscular Supplements: Vitamin E and melatonin, occasionally theanine
Day time symptoms: -Fatigue -Extremely weak sleep (no deep sleep) -Constant visual snow -Severe Brain Fog -Elevated Anxiety -headaches -Depression Symptoms, mostly loss of motivation -Low libido
Night time symptoms (during the cortisol rush) -physical anxiety -Nausea -Tension in my muscles that can’t be relieved with breathing, theragun or hot shower -Lack of ability to fall into natural sleepiness, feels forced using melatonin -Irritable
This happens every evening around 5 or 6pm but I don’t feel this tension earlier in the day. Symptoms started about a year ago.
Cancer survivor 6/2019 but this started way after I had my double orchiectomy and started trt. Have struggled with insomnia since childhood however not like this, before it was just I took forever to fall asleep.
I still need to get a sleep study but most sleep centers in my city are booked out.
Extremely active I have a laborious job and I box. Walk over 15k steps a day. No real stress in my life, no debt or anything to be really anxious over. Just frustrated I’m struggling with this.
Going to a visit with my pcp in August but is there anything I can do in the meantime
Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes going through the cortisol rush at this moment.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/PrYzgSj
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/LIStYxd
New version of the Bullet Bags! Inspired by a custom order request. New design has 2 loops of webbing and 2 D rings on one end to attach to my belt clips or a carabiner to hang off your belt or pack or any gear. 3 inch by 1.5 inch field of loop for patches. Offering 2 sizes for handguns and rifle caliber bullets. Little guy holds atleast 300 bullets and could hold more but not certain how much more weight it can hold I haven’t tested more than 200 9mm rounds. I double stitched every seam and triple stitched on some so it should hold a good heavy load but not tested much. Available in Multicam Black, Woodland, MC Tropic, Ranger Green, Coyote, Flecktarn, 2 small Vietnam Tiger Stripe Left, Alpine Snow, Scorpion Ocp and Black. Currently only have the three patches variations show in the picture 9mm, 556, and ''Freedom Seeds''. Each bag will come with one patch of your choice. At the moment I can not sell the patches separately from the bags due to inventory. $30 shipped for smaller pouch $35 shipped for larger pouch ** First person to buy 2 or more bags gets an EDC HK hook belt clip of your choice.
x1 small MC Tropic x1 small Alpine Snow x1 small MC Black
​HK hook belt clip lanyards to hang your keys, gloves, or any other tacticool gear you can think of. The belt clips wrap around your belt and velcro onto itself. They can be weaved through Molle if you don’t want to wrap around your belt. I offer 2 sizes one for EDC belts that are up to 2 inches wide and don't hang as low. The Battle Belt clips fit belts up to 2.5 inches wide and hang about an inch lower. At the moment I have Coyote, Multicam Tropic and Arid, Black, Ranger Green, Woodland, Multicam Black, Hawaiian Sunset, Black Hawaiian, Black, and Blue Polynesian materials on hand. Currently have 1 of each color for the edc but plenty more materials and making more daily. EDC clip $15 shipped and $10 for each additional clip Battle clip $17 shipped and $12 for each additional clip First person to buy 4 or more belt clips gets a free 2 point quick adjust sling that I make!​​
Can’t take preorders per page rules but comment what you would like to see in the next post and I’ll make sure to have it!
Post dibs and I’ll pm. PayPal or Venmo add 3% for goods and services. Thanks for any and all support.

I like using a very small amount of edibles to go to sleep every night. I’m an ex alcoholic that was able to quit for ten months, now I drink maybe every Friday.
Anyway, I use about 3mg every night and before you laugh; this gets me buzzed. 5-10 mg would kill me. I have noticed that if I use everyday, I feel kinda off.
I noticed these symptoms from daily usage.

1. More episodes of tinnitus.
2. A slight off balance feeling.
3. Brain fog.
4. Fatigue
5. Visual snow

To clarify, these symptoms are present the next day. If I take breaks, then obviously when I do it again it’s such a better feeling and I wake up feeling refreshed.
Another odd symptom, sometimes when I get high I think deeply about my own death or family. Like how sad I would be if I lost a loved one. It’s only when high. So weird.
So conclusion, I think I need to cut down to twice a week to get actual benefits. Otherwise, I think I’m over indulging.

• if you have any dark head cannons, make sure make sure it’s the kind of thing that everyone goes through on a daily basis like Tiana being a workaholic, or if it was related to their stories* My favorite, Disney, princess head canon is Ariel being a black trans princess 🧜🏾‍♀️🏳️‍⚧️👸🏿happy pride month. I expressed this in a post that I made months ago. and thankfully a decent amount of people agree with me. I want to know what head cannons you have about Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel Belle, Jasmine, Tiana, Rapunzel, and Moana. I love these characters (despite some of Disney’s internalized bigotry in their stories) but that’s why I’m making this post, because these princesses might be a part of some marginalized groups without us even knowing it. So LMK your headcannons!🤗✨💞👸💖💕

Hey all, question:
Background: I really want to buy myself a RWD sports car with a manual, maybe an RF Miata or 86 / BRZ as a year-round vehicle prior to having kids in my early 30s. I am unhappy driving my 2015 Mazda 6 . Super reliable and low cost to maintain, but I just know I'm missing out on an experience I really want to have before its too late - being a guy who loves manual RWD cars. I'm 26 years old, make ~$90k/yr as an Engineer living in a small town in the prairies and have a low monthly expense. But I only have room for one vehicle.
Problem: We get extreme winters here that last between November and early May. I know about needing winter tyres to make it through slippery environments (I used to daily a 30 year old RWD pickup truck - sandbags galore in back) and I know cars rust in the winter -- which is why I want a reasonable car like a Miata or 86 / BRZ. I want to spend under 35k CAD.
But realistically, how unbearable would driving a low vehicle like this be in my climate combined with the RWD? Anybody done it with a Miata or 86/BRZ specifically? Already seen the Topher videos etc. on YouTube but I feel like they weren't giving enough examples that apply to heavier snow days or very cold days (sometimes -40C).
Thanks,

This has been kind of a shit year financially for my Wife and I (outside of the market performing well thus far.) We've kind of resigned ourselves to the fact that we're going to have a 'Year of Spending' to get us caught back up on some probably long overdue home maintenance projects.

• The year started with our water heater taking a dump on us -- $1,100 replace and install
• Took a guys ski trip to Tahoe and got snowed in at the casino - I lost $500 playing Blackjack for my once a decade gambling bonanza. I had a good time doing it, so I wasn't TOTALLY sick to my stomach when the reality set in. I just chalked it up as a vacation expenditure, as I had walked in with $500 fully knowing that it would likely be gone by the end of the trip.
• Our oven conked out on us, so there went another $700.
• We knew our A/C needed to be replaced at the end of last year and rather than spending $3k to repair, we just decided to bite the bullet and replace both the A/C & the furnace -- furnace was almost 30 years old. $8,800 total, but it's nice to have an all knew utility room this year.
• Our roof has a slow leak somewhere on one of the seams. We had a roofing company come out and look at it last Fall and they quoted us $7,500 to repair. Ouch. We're going to get some more quotes this Summer while my wife's home (teacher). I'm also praying for a massive hail storm to sweep through our area.
• I got rear-ended yesterday in my Miata. Still waiting on my insurance agent to call me to iron out some details. Guy that hit me didn't speak a lick of English, but I had the police come out to complete the accident report so that I'm covered. Driver exchange says that he has insurance, but I'm kind of expecting the worst on this one. $2,000 deductible if I end up having to pay using my policy.

ALL of this and we still have a positive savings rate for the year. We usually hover around 50-60% savings and right now we're at 20%. It's really put things into perspective for me and how fortunate we are to be in the position we are. If half of this shit happened to the average family in one year, it would likely be a massive struggle.
I'm projecting us to officially be millionaires next year if all goes according to plan, and having a liquid investment portfolio close to $300k almost feels like cheating when large unforeseen expenditures catch you by surprise. We're very fortunate that we can handle the times of misfortune.

Edit: Thanks everyone! I found some solutions and am going to try Deb Jones book Cooperative Care.
My 6 months old collie hates nail trims and will only let the groomer do them. I don’t know why, I don’t think anything aversive happened to her. We got her at 8 weeks and did lots of feet touching and desensitization from the get-go. She did okay with wearing booties in the snow, took some coaxing but it wasn’t traumatic. When she was very tiny I managed to get 1 or 2 nails a day with a lot of distraction and treats. Now me and my mom can’t even do that.We took her to the vet and they couldn’t even do her nails, she was too upset. Last time I tried to do them, I got bit (entirely my fault, I pushed her too fast, I had HV treats and tried to confidently just go for it, she wasn’t having it). She is an angel for the groomer in all ways (nail trims, file, and paw pads shaved!), and thank god, but I don’t know what else to do except hope it gets better.
Here’s what she’s generally okay with, and I use highest value treats (like cooked chicken). I don’t do these things daily, but we started working on this regularly 3 months ago:

• Putting my hand on her foot
• Touching nails
• Nail clipper touching top of foot and nails
• Dremel turned on near feet
• Laying on her back, in between my legs, but not touching feet.

I show her the nail clipper, do a click or say ‘good’ and give treats. For a few weeks there, I carried the nail clippers in my pocket and would randomly show it to her, open it and close it, say good, give a treat. I don’t think she hates the clippers or has a negative association, we just can’t get seem to further than this. Also, her energy level doesn't seem to make a difference.
She still hates:

• Holding her paw. Including having her paws wiped or the command ‘shake a paw’, she tries to pull away. With 'shake', I try to hold it for as long as she’ll let me when she gets a treat.
• Putting the nail in the clipper. I've tried not even picking up her foot, she still wasn't having it.

I think if she perceives something as forceful, it sets her off and she gets upset. Teaching her to be happy having the harness put on took 3 months of daily training, and I still use a lure, same with hair brushing; however, she’s now conditioned to be excited for these things before even seeing the treat so we’re on the right track. Similarly, she’s fine with collar grabs, being picked up, and those kinds of things. She can be very sassy, but she’s not aggressive about anything else except the nail trimming. I have hope I can get her to be content with nail trims but I feel lost as to how and I'm afraid a day may come when she no longer lets the groomer do it, or it'll come out in another way like not letting the vet draw blood. I appreciate any ideas or thoughts.

Gruff44 (7640 9955 6815) I am trying to fill in my Vivillon Collection. Icy Snow, Elegant, Meadow, Sandstorm, Sun, and Ocean are needed. I send daily to as many friends as possible. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. Happy hunting.

I had a phenibut and f-phenibut binge holiday weekend. And ended up feeling pretty crappy.
Tingling Vertigo Tinnitus Visual snow (minimal) Shakiness (internal vibrating) Ears Popping (this could have been from my flight home) Severely dehydrated - face puffed up like balloon lol
I am not a daily user and had just gone about a week without using to reduce tolerance for the holiday weekend. No issues there.
I think I took around 15-20 grams between Fri and Tues (heaviest use Sun and Mon) combined with stims. Wednesday was the worst of it. I convinced myself I was in withdrawal from scouring this sub. So I took a 1.6g dose (reg phenibut) Thursday morning with the intent of tapering.
I continued looking through this sub and saw a comment that said some people confuse glutamate storms with withdrawals and that Magesium and NAC can help.
So I ran to Amazon and took both of these last night. (Thanks Prime same day delivery!)
I feel sooooo much better.
I plan to see how the next few days go with these supplements and no phenibut or f-phenibut.
Also, will never binge like that again lol. Crazy how it can turn on you when you do stupid shyt like that.
Stay safe friends and thanks for all the helpful information in this sub.