International schools. Your wife can teach and bring the family along. There are international schools all over the place.

Love bombing. Run!

Military brat turned military spouse. I’ve taught in multiple states. Closest I have to my old school was teaching in DoDEA, and I graduated from a DoDEA school. I can’t fathom still living in a city or even a state I grew up in. Home is where my luggage happens to be.

The weirdly terrible high-highlight contrasted photos is the only bad thing about this house. I’d flat live the rest of my days here. Just need books and wine and I’d be happy as a clam!

My only complaint is how small that kitchen is with all that space. I’d make it twice as large - a large island, a wall of cabinets for pantry space, 6 burner stove, etc.

For easy meals, I often do hard boiled egg, avocado, some cheese, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, lunch meats in various combos. I’ll then drizzle a little balsamic glaze on it or skinny girl dressing and call it a meal. Fair life chocolate protein shakes are 30g protein, I think 2g carbs and really good and will hit a sweet spot.

When you are done eating, brush your teeth. Go to bed early to avoid late night snacking. I often just go watch something on my computer or read a book if it’s too early, but being in bed kills my snacking desire.

Be sure you are lifting weights during your exercise and end with 20 min of intervals of some sort (walk/run, high/low on a rower. Do whatever interval lengths you can- 30 sec on/off or 1 min on, 2 min slow.)

I got my pregnant my first year teaching. It was luckily over Christmas break so I got 2 free weeks of leave. I did not get fired, but I definitely was scared and felt bad and took the bare minimum time, which looking back was a mistake. I was a struggle. I wish I would have asked for more time off. I spent the first half of the year scrimping and saving so I had enough money to cover the 5 weeks (plus 2) that I took off. My school and principal were really great though. Even offered to change my schedule to accommodate for any pumping I had to do. I luckily already had a schedule that was pretty conducive to that so didn’t need to take the offer, but it was great to know they were willing to go to that for me. Good luck! I hope your school and admin are supportive and helpful.

Mental health is health! Don’t want to go into work because any reason = sick day.

People quit bosses not jobs. Everyone in the office at least liked the job up until a year ago when the new boss came on (hired over an internal supervisor that was awesome and had worked their way up over many years and really knew their shit). Shit has been slowly going down hill over the last year. Super who didn’t get the job left for greener pastures that respected the skills and knowledge they brought to the table. New super came in a few months ago and the deep dive into micromanaging illogical asshatery has accelerated at an unfathomable pace. Now everyone in the office is spending more time looking for a new job and doing the bare minimum of what we need to do.

Toxic leadership is the worst. There really needs to be better processes in place to weed these turnips out. Maybe some required 6 month details with 360 evals as learning experiences and evaluation measure for hiring.

A hard boiled egg and a small avocado with salt and pepper.

Same! I am very low contact with my parents because of it. My mom happened to be in town with us once. We were out at a park with friends and their kids and one of them began whining over something kid whine about. My mom then proceeds to joke about how they’d deal with me when I got upset over something kids get upset about- by singing a lovely taunting song: “daughters mad and I’m glad and I know how to please her!” I shut that down so fast. “No mom. That’s not funny nor was it appropriate. It was emotionally abusive and we do better by our kids now.” She was not happy and I’m sure embarrassed but Jesus Christ on a cracker how can someone still not see how terrible shit like that was?

Anyway, hugs to you and your healing! At least we somehow developed the ability for self reflection and doing the work to be better for ourselves, our kids, and everyone else we interact with.

It should be four 8-hour days or what’s the point really? I wish people would stop calling it a 4 day work week and instead call it the 32 hour work week, which is far more direct. We deserve actual progress and unless we are spending less time working, it’s not progress. The 40 hour work week was implemented with the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938! We are closing in on 100 years almost, and the advent of computers and internet and fast travel and instantaneous communication and sharing of knowledge. Productively has gone through the roof since 1938. We absolutely do NOT need to be working 40 hours a week anymore. There are also the multitude of studies that say most office workers are really only working about 4 hours a day and the rest of it is fucking off. The richest has been exploiting and sucking wages from employees for years, growing the disparities between employee and CEO pay to unfathomable levels. I think these companies can afford to keep yearly pay the same for people while cutting a few hours off them. I’d bet productivity isn’t hurt in the least either.

I worked a job once that had half day Fridays but that came with increased hours Mon-Thurs. Fri afternoon was nice as my husband and I would go get a drink after work before school let out, but the rest of the week was miserable. That extra hour worked each day made a HUGE difference in my day. My workouts were cut short, the commute took more time, we ate dinner far too late, I went to bed later and didn’t get as much sleep, and I was generally really grumpy trying to just smash all the “must dos” in and having no time to just sit and take a breather. Not to mention I honestly got less done at work because you lose steam, plus being grumpy.

I wish it were easier to get rid of shitty supervisors. We have one lazy guy in the office, but his poor performance doesn’t really impact anyone else, or it’s at least minimal. The shitty supervisors though that refuse to hold him accountable and instead decide to rescind telework and micromanage everyone to try and “force” this one person to work more DOES impact me. Also though, the supervisors attitudes and lack of actual leadership doesn’t actually motivate anyone to work hard. I’ve always been an overachiever, but since these two new chumps have come in, I’m on the bare minimum train too. It’s obviously they have no trust in anyone so what’s the point?

Not to mention all the general living things- water, sewage, toilet paper, soap, lights, internet, running the microwave and fridge, keeping my phone charged cause I’m scrolling Reddit at work. Speaking of which, my phone usage goes way down when I get to telework because I spend my down time doing dishes or laundry instead of doom scrolling. (My job is NOT rocket science and I’m efficient and quick so I find myself with nothing to do quite often.)

In my case, I have a boss that’s a giant drama queen and requires an audience. He hates working from home so he pushes back against telework. He’ll say it’s cause Todd doesn’t actually work - to which I ask does Todd work more when he’s at work? Cause it looks to me like he doesn’t work regardless of where is butt is planted so quit trying to punish everyone. But really he just lacks the self awareness to acknowledge his man baby ego and his need to feel important.

I got my first Botox at 40. Helped some. The lady told me Botox is a preventative measure, to stop wrinkles from forming, and once wrinkles are there, Botox won’t make them go away. I used to kick myself for no knowing this. But I’ve seen a number of these videos and it makes it seem as though Botox might age you over time if started young. But then again, the type of woman who is getting Botox in her 20s is probably also the type to get other work done and wear copious amounts of makeup which may be adding to the aging look. I don’t know shit though. I’m just guessing.

I have no idea why people with terrible gas don’t do this… Having gas doesn’t make for a comfortable belly. Go sit on the pot and push that shit smelling nonsense out!

The worst part about those idiotic assessments is they don’t tell you how many questions there. Are there 10 or 1000? Who the fuck knows?! It’d be easier to handle if you had an idea of how long you’d be stuck there for.

I was applying for a job then got the notice I had to take assessments. I started it, and after about 20 min I decided I didn’t want that job enough to go through with this, having no idea how long it would take me. Fast forward god knows how long and I’m applying for a job I DO want (although questioned it if it was requiring those assessments), and discovered my half completed assessment was still there and I picked up where I left off. Which left me a little worried because the first time I lost my patience with it and didn’t put a whole lot of effort into the answers….

I just straight up told my mom “If you think kids deserve to go hungry because their parents can’t afford food for whatever reason, then you are a bad person.”

Samsies. I despise thank you cards on every level. I thanked you at the event for coming and I thanked you for the gift in person. If they aren’t there in person I’ll send a simple text or might call. But people are busy. Who has time to go to the store, buy cards, fill them out, figure out peoples physical address, address the envelopes, and get them in the mail? And it is so fucking wasteful. They are just going straight in the trash and we all know it. So all that money wasted on the notes and postage plus all the new landfill waste. Thank you notes hopefully die off with the boomers.

I’m sorry you are going through this. About 2 years ago I went through a very depressive state, was suicidal, and self medicated by drinking too much. Got into many an argument with my husband. God knows what the neighbors thought of me and my family…. I realize now it was prob the start of peri. All my traumas through life seemed to bubble up to the surface again. I had spent my entire adult life just shoving it all down and getting on with it, and it was as if my body was all, “nah, fam, it’s time to deal with this shit.” I went to therapy and was out on an antidepressant. I got super lucky in that the first drug I was put on, at the lowest dose (lexapro, 10mg), worked wonders. The first week was rough, but then I perked right up. A year of that, and I am so much better now. I wanted to stay on the lexapro because it helped with my general anxiety so much, but the weight gain got to be too much. The antidepressants weight gain plus the peri weight gain- I put on like 20 lbs that year! I’ve struggled to make it go away since…..

You are not alone. If you can, I highly recommend therapy and antidepressants. And neighbors will soon forget. Wishing you the best!!!

I’d give my soul to have my old body back. I used to be a fitness competitor and I was smoking hot. Covid hit with peri and I lost so much muscle mass not having access to a gym. Now, no amount of working out, weight training, dieting seems to do anything. It’s so frustrating.

Get up and take a 10-15 min walk. Lots of people are anti sugar free drinks, but a Coke Zero always hits the spot for me.

Did they do 20+ years and retire? Cause that’s the only way they maintain tricare when no longer active duty. If they just did an enlistment or two and then separated, they no longer have military covered healthcare. Which might explain the lack of doctors…

This is what I think. When my mom was obviously going into peri (she never connected the dots and when I bring it up she says that definitely wasn’t it) she quit her job and then proceeded to do whatever she wanted- which was basically to sleep till 10am, and sit and watch tv on the couch all day. My god what I would give to be able to quit my job right now!! I’d be able to sleep in or nap rather than be chronically sleep deprived. Hang out at home in my PJs if I wasn’t feeling awesome. Do things that make me happy rather than just trudge through the day like a miserable old hag while simultaneously smiling and pretending everything is fine. No way we can afford life on just my husband’s salary……