I’m not fully de-Googling, however I have been migrating things that Google does badly over to other services. Kagi for search was the latest, and admittedly hardest mentally for me to do. Not because the search engine itself isn’t fantastic (it is), but I’ve been using Google since its inception when I stopped asking Jeeves or Hotbot. Just feels weird to jump ship, but I’m so tired of how bad and enshitified their search has become that I just can’t do it anymore.

I actually have a Proton acct already but only use the VPN. Sounds like it’s time to look further into the other offerings.

We just finished Prodigy, and are in the middle of Dr Who. Soon we’ll start up House of the Dragon 😊

My husband and I don’t watch TV together a lot, but Sunday nights are the one night a week we set aside for it. I often find myself looking forward to Sunday evenings when we get to catch up on our favorite shows and hang out. It’s also typically the only night of the week I eat ice cream, so it’s an extra treat.

I’m usually busy enjoying my Sunday evenings and don’t even think about the fact that the weekend is ending.

Eh, I don’t agree. Sports are a good way for people to get exercise and recreation time in, which are vital for mental and physical health. There are definitely ways to incorporate animals into sports that the animals enjoy and is also good for their mental and physical well-being. We just need to collectively stop being shitty stewards of our animal companions.

Absolutely this. There IS a scenario in which I would love a “smart” or “AI” fridge, but it’s gotta be damn impressive to even be worth my time.

It needs to know everything in my fridge, how long it’s been there and it’s expiration date, and I want it to build grocery lists for me based on what is low, and let me know ahead of time that I should use something up that’s going bad soon. Bonus points if it recommends some options for how to do that based on my tastes. And I want to do this without having to manually input or remove everything.

But we’re still SO far from being able to do this reliably, let alone at any kind of acceptable price point, and yet fridge makers keep shoving out dumb fridges with a screen on them and calling them “smart”. I hate it.

Honestly, look into the Breeze litter boxes. They’re not automatic or anything crazy expensive, but it really does make a HUGE difference. I’ve been told by multiple strangers “I thought you had a cat?” after being in my house a while because she hides and the box generally cannot be smelled. If you change the pads regularly (i.e. before they are full), replace the pellets 2-3 times a year, and clean the box itself when replacing the pellets, the only smell you will have is from poop. I personally buy the bioplastic dog poop bags in bulk, and just use those to quickly grab and dispose of it.

When we used regular litter the cats tracked it everywhere, flung it out of the box, and it always had a smell, even when cleaned daily. I have none of those things with the Breeze boxes. We were using two when we had 3 cats and I had to replace the pads every 3 days. Now with one cat I replace the pads every week to two weeks depending on whether she divides her usage or fixates on one. We pick up the poop as soon as we notice it, which is usually very quickly because they can’t really bury it as well. I will never go back to traditional litter.

Moats were cool until I learned that toileting holes were often positioned such that the urine and feces wash down into the moat. I’m gonna have to take a pass on that lazy river…

My big wool cloak is my absolute favorite winter garment. It is unbelievably warm and cozy, blocks wind better than any other coat I own, and as an added bonus I can wrap someone else up in it with me to keep THEM warm.

I am unabashedly the cloak girl. Bring back cloaks!

I taught my dog weave poles and he loves them!

Dog training/sports.

Here I am thinking “I need to get more active and it’ll be fun to do stuff with my best bud Link” (Link is a 4 year old golden retriever)

Starts with basic training obedience classes, no biggy. Then they offer Rally classes, which is basically obedience plus some fun stuff, cool, I’ll take that class. Oh, I can get a cool title for him? Sure, we already trained him, why not! Ok he needs 3 successful runs, and each run attempt is $25…? k…

Rally Novice acquired…fun but… Was that really worth 150 for the class + $75 for the three runs? …sure whatever

Ooooo agility sounds fun! Let’s do that! $150 for a 6 week session, that’s not bad! 6 months and many sessions later + buying practice equipment… I’m officially poor. My dog is a happy boy, and I’m more active, but FML this is a rabbit hole lol

We’re having a lot of fun, and my dog is a happier more obedient boy, but man was I not expecting the crazy expense. Those people with the dogs that have a bazillion titles and letters after their names? They’ve spent a literal fortune on that dog. It’s absolutely mind boggling.

For me personally, the one and only reason I don’t main Firefox is because it doesn’t work with Chromecast and I use that a LOT. I would switch to FF tomorrow if I could easily and reliably cast with it.