How's May treating you so far?

Theresa is treating me like a guaranteed vote, she will be disappointed.
Must be the housestaff & shit

Busy! The weather is beautiful, sunny, mild, in the 60’s, going for high 70’s by the end of the week. I am scrambling to put together 1000+ gift bags for a big horse event the week after this and only have about, oh, 800 to go. haha
I also have 11 days of pet/house sitting coming up between this weekend and the following week. I’m on fire here. lol

Hey, thanks for asking!

Bit stressful. I’ve just gotten some increased responsibilities at work and I already didn’t feel smart enough for the job I had. I purchased an online course and am working through it on my own time to try to get up to speed, but it’s exhausting and I feel so insecure all the time.

I do love May, though – it’s my favorite month of the year. Temperatures tend to be good, and there are nesting birds and flowering trees to enjoy.

Weather could be a bit better – lots of rain – but otherwise great so far!

Good. My daughter came for a few days, which was delightful. I’m looking forward to some things coming up at work. It’s good.

Already hot as a firecracker most days. Mornings are still bearable though. But like they say, if you don’t like the weather in Texas, stick around. It’ll change.

Fair to middling I guess. This past Friday was a really good day, or I should say my husband had a great Friday, and it made me extremely happy. Today one of our employees quit, and we’ll see how that all works out. I’m hoping it actually makes things better in the end, he was unreliable.

It’s getting colder and it’s just flying by too fast. I was saying to someone on FB the other day, time is just going way, way too fast!

Relieved, yet fearful. We finally found out the cause of my 13 year old daughter’s severe depression. She told us several days ago she feels like a boy. She wants to be called a he/him and has chosen a name. We live in a tiny town with no resources. I’ve gone crazy spending most of my time researching, joining parenting groups of transgenders and looking for help.

We’re relieved we have an answer but fearful because this will be a difficult journey. The world is full of hatred for people like my son.

@jonsblond Gook luck on your journey. Your daughter or son has done nothing wrong. It’s the hateful world that is to blame. I don’t know what kind of help to offere other than some comfort. Just treat her the way she wants to be treated and teach her to always be herself.

If it make you and your daughter feel any better, her problem isn’t something new or rare. There are a lot of people out there who openly declare their true gender and even go so far as to do surgery just to live in their true self. What do they have in common? They are not afraid of their identity. There is this man who used to be a woman and was trapped in the same kind of depression as your daughter. He was even committed to mental institution. Now he is a celebrity who goes around universities making inspirational speeches about tolerance and acceptance.

I have high hope that your daughter will become a functional adult with enough love and care.

@Coloma Calm down! She didn’t ask for help this time. She was only telling us how she is doing, just like everyone else answering this thread. This question is “How’s May treating you so far?” right?

@Mimishu1995 I am calm but I am concerned.
@jonsblond I’m glad to hear that, really I am.

It’s racing by!

@jonsblond thank goodness you got to the bottom of it and now your treasured child is relieved. You will all get through this rough patch since you are so supportive. All the very best to you all.

As for May, well…....meh.

My snail is Jesus.

I have a snail in my fishtank and I noticed its shell got really pale. I was concerned so I googled and found it is probably a calcium deficiency. Luckily there is a supplement I can add to the tank to help.

Problem is I couldn’t find it locally so I had to order from Amazon. Problem #2 is shipping would take a few weeks. I believe it came from the UK.

So this damn snail is about the size of a small gumball and I could just not find her about a week after ordering the calcium. I eventually get the calcium and add some. At this point I am convinced she is dead in the tank or did a runner and shriveled in my carpet.

I ripped apart the filters and dug in the plants and I could not find the snail. I spent a good ten hours looking for the thing.

And I was doing big water changes since a dead and rotting snail could really fuck my water in such a small tank.

So it was Friday night and the snail had been missing about 12 days. I come home from the Bar and something odd is going on my tank. My little snail is chilling on a leaf munching away on some algae. I have no idea where it had been hiding. But now it has a nice brown shell again and is motoring around the tank. It was a miracle.

So I never thought I would name a snail and not being all that creative I went with “Shelly”.

@johnpowell Excellent story. I really identify with it. A customer gave my husband a little plant, in a little pot, that was just three leaves. Funny looking leaves that I don’t think I have ever seen before. I had no idea how much water or sun this thing needed, and I generally don’t have a green thumb.

The last two months I’ve been watering it and moving it around from inside and out and not too much sun, but hopefully enough sun, and it sprouted many more leaves.

A week ago I noticed three buds! Buds for flowers. I’m so excited. I wrote in Facebook my story and people asked for pics, but I didn’t put any, because I don’t want someone to tell me the name of the plant or link me a photo of what the flowers will look like.

Waiting with anticipation. Lol.

It feels good to bring something back from the brink.

Fabulous news about your snail @jp! We want photos of her/him? now.

I actually tried. But it is 2:30AM here and I couldn’t get a good picture with the light in the tank off. I don’t want to wake the fish since they are goldfish and the poor bastards don’t have eyelids.

@johnpowell, fair enough! We can wait for snaily to have her photoshoot! My daughter absolutely loves fish. She keeps (kept) salt water fish. So pretty, but so temperamental. She’s just moved out and so I imagine she’ll set up her tank again. We’ve had her huge tank with one fish left in it in the entry to our house for over two years. That one fish was a survivor.

Update: I just went out on the patio to check my plant. Two of the three flower buds seem to be progressing nicely, but the third is hanging down, kind of like it’s the runt. I’m waiting to see if it somehow catches up. All three were down like that initially, but two of them popped up a few days ago, and the buds are growing and starting to open. I don’t know if that’s typical or not. Looks like red flowers.

@Earthbound_Misfit :: Saltwater is hard. I’m assuming she is going off to college or some other grown-up thing where time is at a minimum. I recommend feeders. They were around 10 cents each and you have to work hard to kill them. I went away for a week and they were alive when I got back. Goldfish will, in a pinch, eat their own poop. Toss in some live plants and you can get pretty close to maintenance free. I spend around 20 minutes a week maintaining my tank.

@JLeslie :: I’m sure the plant will recover. But I have a horrible green thumb. My buddy Adeline got me a houseplant as a housewarming gift. She said if the plant was alive in a year we could make babies. It was dead in a month. I didn’t know you could over-water a plant.

No, she’s just bought her own apartments. She moved back home to save up for a deposit. She’s kept them before, but when she moved back home, she stopped replacing fish. She ended up being here for about three years. She loves fish! I wouldn’t have the time or patience for saltwater fish, but they are so beautiful. It’s a good present idea too!

There is my favorite food thing ever. The lobby that gives me the most amazing breadsticks has the most poorly maintained salt water reef tank I have ever seen.

It is actually so bad a few weeks ago I spent a few hours calling around to report them for animal cruelty. Oregon does not give a fuck if you are slowly murdering Nemo. And yes. There is a Clownfish in the tank.

Oh. The breadsticks look tasty. Sad about the fish tank. That’s awful Poor fish.

I went to a Chinese take out place a few months ago, and they had a really big fish in a tank. The tank barely was big enough for the fish and there were also a bunch of smaller fish in it. I asked the lady what kind of fish is that big one and she said an Arawanna. I googled it. It’s pretty interesting. I felt bad for the fish because it was long – probably two feet and really needs a bigger tank. The tank looked clean though, at least.

Aaaaand Finding Dory is on the entertainment schedule for the evening, after reading this!
Thanks for your Shelly story, @johnpowell, it’s curiously uplifting!

Too warm. I want winter back.

@johnpowell It’s possible it’s from overwatering, or underwatering. I’m clueless. I’m terrible at taking care of plants.

The two buds seemed to perk up right after I heavily watered the plant though. It had become extremely dry, and I was panicked I had hurt it, although the leaves were still green, and perky enough. Then, a few days later, it got drenched in a rainstorm. I had it on the patio, and the rain came in a little during a long day of rain. As I think about the chronology I’m guessing the few days of dry right when the buds were forming might have done some damage to the bud.

It’s fascinating how plants can recover, and grow new roots, and make babies, like a will to live. At the same time, there is this delicate balance of just enough sun and moisture, and it can be so tricky. I killed my cilantro plant. I was able to keep one alive in my Clearwater apartment, but can’t do it in my house here in central Florida.

@JLeslie: Last spring I planted some bulbs in pots in my office. I, too, am not one with a green thumb. I found the bulbs very easy to grow and they sprouted up beautifully. I had posted photos on FB last year. They smelled incredible and I was so proud of them. I snipped off the dead plants in the fall and now they’re sprouting up again. In a few weeks I think they’ll be gorgeous. They are some kind of lily. A friend whose son is really into gardening told me that people will often throw away Easter lilies after the holiday but those are bulbs just like any other. You can take them and plant them and they’ll grow year after year.

I have a big boulder in my yard. There was a garden in front of the boulder and my mom had often planted bulbs there. In the past few years it got choked with weeds. The bulbs still sprouted flowers but you could barely see them through the weeds. A few weeks ago a friend hired a day laborer for me ($100) and he dug up all the weeds (I tried to do it myself and it was impossible). He put landscaping fabric under the soil and replanted the bulbs. He put mulch down and now hopefully the garden will grow with the bulbs only, no weeds. I got some little garden animals that I’m going to place when I see where the plants are growing.

The two flowers are open, and the third bud has popped up! I posted photos on Facebook and it seems it is a geranium plant.

@jca That’s so nice that a friend paid for someone to clean up that area!

Seriously, fluther makes my day at times. @JLeslie I’m googling geranium plants right now.

No, @JLeslie, it was my money, just the friend dealt with the day laborer LOL.

Beautiful. it looks wonderful outside. I’m going to take my dog out.

*out back.

Pretty darn good!

“It looks wonderful outside”

I walked outside and I swear it’s hotter than Satans butthole.

I am dripping sweat.

When did May happen? I missed it AGAIN.