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 Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2024 10:41 am
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You deserve better than "rarely" receiving something in thanks. I mean, you're not obligated to watch the children, so they should really be showing gratitude more often in some kind of way. Doesn't even have to be a THING, could be an act, like offering to wash some of your stuff with theirs (ignoring the part where it's your own washer and dryer in the first place), or taking out trash, or any one of various household chores (again ignoring that they ought to be contributing to these anyway). It just frustrates me to no end, the way some people are like this, just expecting things and not pausing to return what is actually a favor being done for them.
Yeah, once I was a teenager and my parents had split, money was always really tight, so I know how it goes. My ma is disabled, so our income was fixed and very limited. (She's been having to fight social security again over her disability, actually; ******** want to take all her benefits. And, one, since she first got disability, nothing has changed, could even argue she's worse off now. Two, she's close to retiring age anyway, the actual ******** do they expect her to do?) We couldn't rely on my father to do anything without strings attached (like when we had to have him pay for the wisdom teeth I had to have pulled, he shorted us child support so we could "pay the bill back to him" or when my ma let him claim me on taxes so long as some of his return came back to me and the jerk kept my portion to "save for a car for me," when it was clear that I had no desire to drive), my uncle and his kids were on as tight a budget as we were, and my aunts are stuck-up twats that would sooner light themselves on fire than have anything to do with us poor folk. So, yeah, I generally didn't ask for anything even from my mom. Probably needless to say, but I didn't get out much as a teenager. cat_sweatdrop Not that I was much bothered by it, libraries are free, after all. |
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Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2024 7:51 am
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Sigh, and if the kids aren't under supervision while doing the chores, I expect they mostly just make more work for you in the end. But it IS something, which is better than nothing, even if only marginally.
Oh, I might be able to help out with the ramen conundrum, actually! Cheap tinned foods and condensed soups can work WONDERS with instant ramen! Also, and I know how weird this is going to sound but it is good I swear, mustard! Just skip the seasoning packet. I LOVE mustard ramen. If you can swing a can of cream of chicken soup, a bit of that with the chicken flavored ramen is a favorite of my mom's, and was a staple of childhood before I was allowed to make my own food choices and became a vegetarian. If you have any soy sauce kicking about and a bit of oil, they're good for stir frying, too. You can also chill them and add salad dressing, basically instant pasta salad. And if you're not opposed to tinned meats, Spam is supposed to be good with ramen. You can also use the noodles uncooked; crush them up a bit and sprinkle over sale salad, they're basically croutons. You can also make the confection I know as "haystacks" with them, according to a recipe I remember seeing ages ago. (Actual haystacks are basically just little piles of chow mein noodles covered with melted butterscotch chips, in the event you've never heard of them. I'm never sure which things that are common to me are specific to the Midwest until someone is like "wtf are you talking about." >>; So I tend toward explaining first just so that doesn't happen.)
We, uh, we ate a LOT of ramen when I was growing up. And when I was in uni. cat_sweatdrop
I even have a whole book of recipes for instant ramen... cat_redface |
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Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2024 9:41 am
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Ugh, that's really frustrating. Like, chores are a drag already, but having to put in more work to correct the "work" someone else does, regardless of whether they're a child or an adult, is even worse.
!!! A fellow mustard ramen enjoyer! Oh, happy day, people always look at me funny when I put mustard on ramen, so it's nice to know I'm not the only one out there eating it. (I still remember where I got the idea to try it in the first place. Ah, old school Beyblade anime, you were something else.)
Definitely understand wanting other things than ramen, though. Like, when I'm experiencing/recovering from a flare of my condition, it's easier to list what I can eat than what I can't. (It's a boring list; boiled potatoes/mashed potatoes without peel, vegetable broth, ramen, white bread, white rice, saltines, peanut butter, almond milk. It gets old really fast.) But wherever you shop, just keep an eye out for foods priced for quick sale; they're usually approaching their sell-by date, and most places give a deep discount on them. Was about the only way my ma and I got any fresh (well, fresh-ish) produce. Like, there's nothing actually WRONG with the food, the stores just can't keep it on the shelves after a certain point and it may not have as much of a shelf life as you might be used to, especially in the case of produce and meats, so you'll have to either freeze it to keep it from spoiling or use it within about a week (I'd recommend within three days for most meats unless you freeze them, though). Still, when you're on a shoestring budget, beats the hell out of ramen or plain white rice every night. And if you happen to have any bargain/discount shops like Ollie's nearby, sometimes you can find non-perishables fairly cheap and the only "problems" with them are, like, dented cans or slightly smushed boxes or whatever. I LIVE for shopping at bargain stores like that, really makes a tight budget stretch further. |
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:05 am
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Honestly, I'd probably put the doggy dook in their shoes or something, that should teach them pretty quickly that it doesn't matter whose dog it is, dog messes are gross. Also, it's not like the poor dog had a choice in all of this, it's just plain cruel to not let her out when she needs to go. Maybe tell the kids since you're not their parent, they can't use your bathroom, see how they like being treated like that, because that's exactly what they're doing to the dog.
For mustard, probably because people can't think past it being a condiment, so they can't imagine using it for anything other than sandwiches. Also, I think most of those things are atrocious, but in an only-to-me way (because it's 100% just a me thing, I'm a texture eater, so even the thought of thick dressing with pizza is enough to make me shudder; sprinkling some ranch seasoning in with sauce or cheese, on the other hand, I could definitely live with). If other people think it's tasty, that's their choice, and I'm not going to side-eye them or tell them it's gross, or they're gross for eating it. Just because I'm not willing to eat something doesn't mean it can't be tasty. (With the right toppings and cheese, honey on pizza would be divine, by the way. Olives and pineapple make sense together, to me. A salty sweet combo. 'course, the only way I can stand eating watermelon is to put salt on it, so maybe I'm simply weird enough to imagine it working, who knows.)
Honestly, most foods are fine well past their "expiration" dates. And plenty of 'spoiled' foods are safe enough to eat. Don't recommend testing your luck with meats, of course, but, like, moldy cheese is perfectly safe to eat after cutting off the molded bits. Most bread molds are harmless unless your immune system is compromised, though there's no "cutting off the mold" for bread like there is for cheese; bread is soft, full of air holes, so there are microscopic "tendrils" of mold throughout once it has grown to the point you can see it on the surface. And while curdled milk certainly isn't pleasant to taste, it's generally not particularly dangerous, either. (I mean, that's basically what cottage cheese is, after all. Not to mention sour cream being exactly what it says on the tin; soured cream. Plus you can curdle milk yourself just by adding lemon juice to it, and you can use that in baking as a replacement for buttermilk.) |
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Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2024 9:42 am
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2024 4:46 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2024 6:29 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2024 6:40 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2024 12:53 pm
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