Mine are both coming up on 11, and one is really starting to show his age. He didn't have the best start in life, and everything we've done since we adopted him has helped but can't erase that. I'm going to be crushed, but I've promised him when the time comes, he'll finally get those Reese's he so desperately wants, and I'll be right there with him. He's been put under for an ear surgery before, and he cried all the way down until he was unconscious, so the vet is trying to figure out another option. Supplements have helped a lot, and more exercise and more fat and protein in his food, since his kidneys are great, but his muscle mass loss over the last year has been significant.

The other dog? Who knows. He'll be 11 at the end of this month but still looks and acts and works like he's 4. His vet checkups and blood tests say he's perfectly healthy, and the only sign of his age is that he now sprints with my bike at 20mph instead of 25 and jogs with it at 9mph instead of 12. He still launches himself up the stairs without touching them and shrugs off 7.5 mile walks like they're nothing, even though he's having to pull to assist me for half of them.

I dated a friend of my older step brother for a Summer, and I knew he had a kid because I babysat my nephew and his kid on weekdays in trade for rent for my brother's spare bedroom. What I didn't know, and didn't find out until we went to the airport to pick up someone he really wanted me to meet, was that he had another son who was only a month younger than me. I mean, I did know he was older than me. I knew how much older. But I had no idea he had another kid at all.

So, this son visited for a week, and we got along great, but one day he's sitting on the couch playing with his half brother and just telling this toddler about their other half siblings.

My brother knew, btw. He just didn't think I'd care because it was obviously a Summer fling, and he knew I'd get sick of the guy being more immature than me eventually. I mean, true, but nah. I did care. Not maybe that he had those kids, but that he just never mentioned them in a whole Summer.

He's not the only guy I've dated that didn't tell me he had kids, but he was certainly the first.

I found out 3 months into dating a guy that he had two kids with his ex only because I got annoyed with him that he kept saying he wanted to go camping with me but declining any time I invited him. Yeah, those were the weekends he had his kids. And I quote, "I didn't think it was important to tell you until we got serious." Noooo, you tell, and you don't have someone meet your kids until you get serious. That's how that works.

For me, it was often junk piles, tons of them, just barely out of all the pics. The property I finally settled on only has one small one - a collapsed cabin - but the previous owners cleaned up everything else. I scavenged enough materials from that to build a small woodshed, and neighbors saw me with my trailer and come helped clean up the rest of it.

It was also outdated photos on pretty much every listing with a cabin on it. Maybe the cabin was in good shape and maybe there was a large tree fallen on top of it quite obviously several years before. I can't think of a single one with a cabin that didn't have some major issue somehow that wasn't in the listing, but I did expect the issues in my price range.

I used Google Earth, historic USGS maps, and current USGS maps heavily in my search. I also used my state's current permitted well map heavily. But satellite isn't that great around here because it's all forest. Like, I'd see a pic of a decent driveway, and only trees on Google Earth. When I got there, it was a 50/50 on how old that photo was. Maybe the driveway was still decent, and maybe it was all 10' trees. I also mapped and planned trips to catch 5 or 6 properties in a loop each Saturday instead of out and back several times, and I think I still ended up spending about $600 in fuel before I bought this place.

The one I ended up buying had new photos and had a brutally honest listing. The listing had me a little worried. Nah, it is awesome. All the things in the listing were true, but they didn't list any of the good things except the year round creek, and their photo of that was terrible. Honestly, they accepted $10k off the list price because no one else had looked at it, and I think they could have sold for over with a better listing. It kind of boggled me that all the best places had the worst listing and the worst places had listings that were basically lies by omission.

I don't think they were back then. They do have some styles for "only" $130. Shein, of course, has knock off ones for about $30. As much as they're probably cheap junk, I've been considering a pair. I way outgrew my old ones.

If you do a platform, remember stairs if it's high off the ground. Some of us older people struggle to get up stuff that's knee high.

My son and I stayed at a hip camp with one big enough for both our two man backpacking tents and a whole camp kitchen set up. It was sooo nice.

My arthritic knees wished it had a step, though, because it was pretty high off the ground.

Mine got passed on to younger people at raves here, but if you're willing to drop ridiculous cash, JNCO still sells new ones.

Somehow, I did not end up with that result, but my face, mouth, nose, and esophagus burned for way too long, and I was pink and sweating.

I gave away the rest of my 5 pack to someone else, but then somehow still bought more. I use way less than a full seasoning packet now.

So many people adopt dogs and immediately take them to dog parks, too.

I've had one yell at me he didn't see me when I smacked his window for crossing into the bike lane (25mph street, and we were both slowing down for a stop sign), and 1/4 mile later has another yell at me I was lit up too bright and distracting, and that's why she swerved at me unintentionally. I just turned around and went home.

I've had a neighbor slow down to say hi to me and then almost immediately after right hook me. "I didn't see you over there, so I thought you were behind me." No actual contact because I slammed on my brakes, but duuuude, come on. He only noticed me then because my discs were wet, and they sound like a banshee that way when I brake.

On the same stretch of road, I also got hit by a deer who jumped out of the bushes. I am willing to believe she truly didn't see me and couldn't be expected to look. ;)

I got hit back when I was 14 by a driver who didn't see me, and he was sooo upset when I really wasn't. NGL, that wreck was absolutely my fault. I was crossing between patches of desert nowhere near an intersection, house, business, or anything else. I was in a dip where you can't see cars for more than about 50' coming from the East, and they can't see you until then, either. On a 50mph road. Because I didn't want to bike down to the light half a mile away and be unable to trigger the sensor. Literally anywhere else on that road would have been safer, even crossing against a red at that light. Dude still felt like it was all his fault and took me, one of my friends, and my bike to a shop to get it all fixed up. He was going to buy me a whole new bike if he had to. And it was clearly my fault.

I wasn't really hurt, btw. I got tossed into a thorn bush, which wasn't really fun, but it kept me from any serious injuries. We all crossed at a spot with much more visibility after that, and I got teased for months about that not being the way to finally replace my already cracked rear rim and bent pedal. Dude was nice enough to buy me brakes, too, though he couldn't have damaged them. I had none.

When I was in highschool, we had a dude in a pickup "not see" our huge yellow school bus, run a stop sign from a side street into an arterial, and actually manage to push the bus halfway into the next lane, hitting another car.

One kid got his ribs broken. Most of us had bruises and were incredibly sore for days after. We all had to wait in 100F weather in an empty lot for over an hour for another bus to come, and what was his citation? Just running the stop sign. Because it was "an accident" and "he just didn't see the bus."

If you can't see a freaking school bus when you have almost 1/4 mile of open visibility the way it's coming, you should not be driving. If you come off a side street fast enough to shove a bus with 30 students on it into another lane, you should not be driving.

Normal is the most useless setting on my washing machine, too. It uses way too much water and doesn't actually get stuff clean.

A razor blade scraper. Test for lead. You can still scrape, but you'll want masks, gloves, and a hepa filter vacuum. Misting everything with a spray bottle helps keep the lead dust from escaping, too.

The smaller one of mine (55lb husky) is very leash reactive toward other dogs. After almost 3 years, he can finally be chill as long as the other dog is chill, but if it barks even once or lunges, all that training is forgotten. He's great with other dogs when off leash, but 1) that's not legal here except in fenced areas, he has a propensity for trying to attack cars that go by, and 3) his prey drive is nuts.

The larger one (80lb husky, not fat, just tall and huge), isn't reactive to anything in the usual sense of the word, but he is exuberantly friendly. When we adopted him, he was incredibly well trained except in 2 ways - no damned recall at all, and no manners when greeting a new dog or person. He will jump on people, and he's just way too big even if I thought jumping at all was okay. With other dogs, he just wants to play, but his idea of play is super overwhelming. He really does try to fit their entire heads in his mouth and then has no idea why they get hostile with him. He will body slam. He will smack them around. Our other husky, and several huskies we've met, love it, but most dogs do not at all. If a person gives me warning by asking if they can pet him, I can get. His prey drive is also nuts. But, you know, huskies. They're gonna be huskies.

Oh, wait. They are both incredibly reactive to deer and horses, which has not been an easy thing to train, but we've managed to get them down to 50' away without a freak out. It used to be within sight. My neighborhood is full of deer, so we get lots of training opportunities.

I got my divorce finalized on December 23 years ago, and yes, Merry Christmas! To you, too!

I'm not 100% sure they were legally married, but somewhere in her treatment, he just stopped sending money for rent and bills (long range trucker) even though they had two kids. So, she applied for housing help and got it. And he flipped out over her supposedly making him look bad. And that was the end of whatever it was they had going on before.

It really was that. Even without cruise control, it really shouldn't be that much variance. He had absolutely none once he started tailgating me, so I know he was capable of maintaining speed when he had someone to follow. :P

My solar panels and huge battery on a two wheeled cart probably top the list since it's mostly used to run a fan and charge my phone.

Other than that, a leather writing bag with notebook, pens, pencils, erasers, stickers, and portable watercolor kit.

And, if I know I'll be somewhere with no one else around, a portable typewriter. I've even backpacked that to prove a point, once.

I have a DC fan and a 3000 watt hour battery with solar panels. It's not just great for air movement to cool off, the mosquitoes can't land on me if it's on high.

The battery is also used to charge phones, cameras, and to get people to plug into it instead of using a generator. When friends and I manage to get our schedules lined up, we rent a big group camp that's separate from other camping by about half a mile and bring a screen and projector for movie marathons. It has way more uses than just the fan, but there have been trips I only used it for the fan.

I do this, too. "Not everyone wants to be your friend. We're just going to cross the street now. Yes, I see the other dog, but you like to put their heads in your mouth, and they don't like that, so keep moving, buddy."

It not only helps him focus on me, it lets the other dog owner know exactly why I'm moving him away, so they don't try to follow me like some used to before I started talking to him.

I second sleeping porches! My more modern house gets so hot in the Summer and doesn't cool off well even when it's cool outside, but the deck has too many bugs and is too open to sleep on. My son's century house has a sleeping porch just big enough for a twin bed, and it's amazing out there on Summer nights.

Transom windows above all interior doors again, too, so you can open them and create a breeze through the entire house on those perfect days.