I use fastmail for the email alias ability. Proton doesn’t have as robust a system for creating lots of different email addresses that all go to the same place. Also proton is only encrypted if both parties use proton so it’s security claims are diminished in my eyes. It’s better to assume nothing is encrypted than to think everything is and be wrong.

Mine is a shark and has a different looking filter than that. They probably weren’t designed to be checked in the washing machine but it has worked every time I’ve done it so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

It’s a brush similar to a regular vacuum, a long thin tube with bristles. Like I said I clean the vacuum about once a week, including checking that everything spins like it’s supposed to. The wet/dry versions do look like they would be much more effective at keeping your house actually clean however when I bought mine several years ago those were still well over $1,000 and not yet a well-tested enough setup but I would have trusted it to have water going around my house without supervision. If my vacuum dies and I need to buy another one I will most likely buy a wet dry vac but I don’t see a reason to upgrade for now as long as mine keeps the majority of the mess away. It’s definitely not perfect, but a regular vacuum isn’t perfect even if you do it three times a day you still going to have dirty rugs that need to be washed and a hardwood floor that needs mopped. The dust collector being about 1-2 cups worth of dust and cat hair when I change it out each week makes me feel very confident that it helps keep my house cleaner than I would be able to on my own, and for the roughly $300 I spend on it over 4 years ago, well worth the price.

My robot vacuum! My robot vacuum with the little home dock tower thing that lets it dump its load and keep vacuuming! I had the original robot vacuums that didn’t have a dock to dump their garbage in and it helped some but mostly it needed to be cleaned more often than I would have vacuumed my house without it, the newer ones with big receptacles are so worth it, once a week I dump his container and change his filters and maybe give him a little wipe down with a dust rag and he’s happy as a clam. I bought a set of replacement filters so that I can take the old filters out and use my big vacuum on them to get most of the dust and then chuck them in the washing machine, once they’re clean they go in the filter drawer and I just rotate filters once a week.

My litter robot! I got mine refurbished so it was a little cheaper. Not only is it worth it to not have to scoop all the time and somehow still have a stinky house, it has saved me TONES on litter. I buy one 40lb bag for $20 a month and that’s more than plenty, whereas before it would be at least 2.5 bags a month. All that and still I would buy all sorts of different scent absorbers and diffusers and good smelly type things to try and mask it and it never worked. So I’m saving about 30 bucks a month on cat litter and probably 40 bucks a month on good smellies and filters AND my house actually smells nice. Totally worth it, even with the almost $500 price tag for the refurbished machines. Just with the savings on litter and smellies it probably paid for itself within a year.

My power tools. I’m not a professional but doing all the diy home repairs myself with the right tools for the job has probably saved me tens of thousands of dollars in contractors. And believe me when I say get the right tools for the job, it’s worth it. You can fight with the wrong tool for hours trying to get a job done poorly or do it right in minutes with the right tools for the job. Not only is your time valuable but having the project done correctly the first time means you don’t have to pay to fix it a second time. Even if you’re the one doing it the second time, you still have to spend the time ripping out the garbage you put in and pay for the materials to do it right the second time.

My sous vide, 100% I have never gotten a steak from a restaurant that was better than what I make at home with my sous vide and a good thick iron pan. It cost $100 and it probably paid for itself with one package of steaks from Costco.

Japan for a month in November! Been saving for and planning on going for the last 20 years and I’m finally going! I’m so freaking excited!

I don’t know about a metal cord protector but here’s a different solution just in case it doesn’t exist. when my cat wouldn’t stop chewing on cables, I got bitter apple spray, collected all the cables in my house, put them all in my bathtub and sprayed them all very liberally with this bitter apple spray, let them dry then plugged everything back in. Now the only time I have a cable get chewed through is when I just got something and I forget to spray it cuz I guess she still tests them just to be sure they taste awful. And believe me, it tastes awful. I highly recommend wearing disposable gloves while handling the stuff, especially while it’s wet and then washing the bathtub and your hands thoroughly once the cables are dry and back where they go. Blegh!

At a time or total?

Crunchy peanut butter and low sugar strawberry jam (it’s more tart is all, DGAF about the sugar content) mixed together, use as a dip for pretzels. Only done it with crunchy pretzels but might be fire with fresh hot pretzels.

Hi Utah!

Thanks!

It’s the best look!

Awww, thank you!!!

Like a handful of other people in the comments I never dress up or wear makeup, it’s black pants and a t-shirt for me. It’s usually a graphic t-shirt that is silly so if someone’s like “oh cute t-shirt” sure, that’s fine. But if they’re talking to me specifically cute feels infantilizing. I’m a 33-Year-Old woman, I either look fine, nice, beautiful, or like a deranged raccoon holding a knife.

I’m currently on an autism diagnosis waiting list cuz there’s just not that many adult autism services in my area so maybe it might be that too ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

That! My Boo has the hardest time figuring out if I’ve listened to a song or not because he tells me the name of the song and the artist and I go “I don’t fucking know dude”, so he tells me some of the lyrics, and I go ¯⁠\⁠(⁠◉⁠‿⁠◉⁠)⁠/⁠¯, so he plays me the song and within the first two notes I’m like “oh yeah I’ve heard this a billion times” 🤦‍♀️

https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools/adhd/ This seems like a useful test to me for getting a better idea if you should talk to a psychiatrist or not. It’s ups and downs getting diagnosed, especially as an adult. I had one psychiatrist give me their full test and questionnaire and decided I was borderline but wouldn’t diagnose me or prescribe anything, (I was already on a med that helped but not any of the controlled ones) The next psychiatrist I went to a few years later didn’t even have me do the test, we had an in person appointment, (which I was late to) and after we’d talked for about 20 minutes I asked “so, when do we schedule the ADHD assessment?” He said “Oh, no, we don’t need to do one, you very clearly have ADHD.” XD Honestly though I learned more about it from the experiences of people on social media who had it than I ever learned from a doctor. I’d start with searching ADHD hashtags and see if you resonate with other people’s experiences.

I have ADHD and I find I have lots of difficulties with auditory processing in high noise floor situations. Also got my hearing checked because I couldn’t understand people in loud spaces. Turns out ADHD brains just don’t handle processing all that noise well. If I understand it correctly it’s because we need to process everything at the same level instead of some things being easy to leave on autopilot. Might not be your case but it sounded familiar so, that’s my two bits.