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What's something you're "in too deep" on?
A little white lie that got bigger than you anticipated.
A hobby you got a little too into.
The sunk costs of something irreversible in your life.
Whatever it is, you're "in to deep" on it and think fondly of surfacing (whether that's possible for your situation or not).
Share what it is, how it came to be that way, and what's next for you.
Okay this one is kind of minor but it comes up ALL THE TIME in my family and I feel like it's still better just to let it go than to try to correct it and explain why it happened.
I am deathly afraid of horses. Like shaking in my boots, backing away slowly, uncomfortable even thinking about riding a horse. At least, that's what you'd believe if you asked anyone in my family. I'm not afraid of horses at all. I mean, at least no more than I am afraid of the ocean, or hiking, or snowboarding. Healthy respect for the risks but overall comfortable with the enjoyment.
I am not really, truly "afraid" of anything. That doesn't mean I'm some kind of adrenaline-junky daredevil. I just think almost all forms of entertainment are valid with proper consideration. In combination with my teenage haughtiness and general level of trivia knowledge, my family used to treat me kind of, poorly I guess? Because they believed I thought I was better than them.
So one day we went to Disneyworld and they had some kind of thing there with Clydesdales. I for some reason came up with this idea to pretend I am afraid of horses, so they would feel like they had something above me. I don't know why this was the plan I came up with.
Anyway I guess it worked because now they can't be around without bringing up my supposed "fear" of horses. "What is it called again? Equinophobia!?" They ask me every single time as if they don't know. It's such a weird thing but it's just not worth correcting at this point. My wife knows I'm not afraid of horses. I'm sure one day when it's time for my daughter to learn to ride a horse, and I'm not afraid of teaching her, the truth will come out? I'm sure they will frame it as me growing passed it or something.
Anyway it's very strange and thinking too much about it really just makes me cringe about how uncomfortable I have been being myself around my family for my whole life.
But yeah, that's my thing. Equinophobia as a bit.
I hope you know that while reading that I pictured you as Squidward from the classic "Stop it Patrick you're scaring him!" line in Spongebob (link). Like a family member holds up a picture of a horse and another one screams "Stop it you're scaring him!" meanwhile you're just standing there completely stoic.
This is more or less completely accurate.
Wow what a weird one :D small stakes, long years I love it.
If you need an out, I think your daughter is a good one you picked up on. Phrase you can borrow from women and our presumed low pain tolerance: a woman might be weak but a mother is strong. (I've met so many men over my life bragging about how much better men can bear pain than women. Not all men of course but many. It is my personal unscientific belief that some men are better at taking/ignoring acute pain, but I am better at chronic pain. Edit obvious disclaimer than women and men are invididuals and no better or worse at anything by simply status change)
As a younger man you were scared of horse but as Papa you've overcome it.
I wrote a pretty massive off-topic "essay" regarding your parenthesis, but then I figured almost nobody wants yet another episode of "ferrety trans woman rambles about metabolites, epigenetics, transactivation, and psychology". So I'm going to just leave you with an "it's a lot more complicated than a simple black and white statement™"
Noooo I want to subscribe to your newsletter, you had me at "ferrety"
Does ferrety describe your appearance, behaviour, pet choice, or some or all of the above?
It’s funny that guys brag about pain tolerance. I’m trained as a first responder, and one of the questions we ask about is pain, including severity. It is always taught that women will grade the same pain at a lower severity (1-2 lower on a 1-10 scale) than men do. So the medical establishment knows guys are full of themselves even if other people don’t.
I'm in too deep withhome networking and self-hosting. I spent around 2000€ on all the stuff like switch, router, wifi APs, server hardware, too much time invested in setting the server up, and running the wires and then managing it all... It was kinda hobby and kinda needed and it works, but yeah, I'm so deep in it financially and time-wise.
But I'm hosting for the whole family, backing up the photos to another server of mine and I don't have any problems with networking at home. It was and still is worth it.
Ditto. I feel even more annoyed because i bought the wrong sized NAS for my rack and had to ship it back, and am now in this limbo of "what do I get then"...again.
At least you have a family that could benefit from all that. For my home network and homelab and stuff...it's just me! I spent like a thousand bucks back in August/September for new Unifi gear. To replace some of the smaller Unifi gear that I had only bought a year previous and was perfectly fine!
Next thing I'm looking into buying a new server...but those prices are scary these days.
Click to expand obligatory millennial reference
Sum41 - In Too Deep (2001)Well maybe we're just trying too hard
When really, it's closer than it is too far
'Cause I'm in too deep
And I'm trying to keep
Up above in my head
Instead of going under
I would say it more proudly, but I do worry about backlash and judgement, so be gentle, and if you are wanting to offer ongoing support, sure, I'd love it.
Click to expand spoiler.
Homeschooling. It just made sense to spend a ton of time teaching your baby sign language, and teaching your toddler to love reading. Then kindergarten rolled around, and we had a large community of homeschooling outdoor indoor take home materials to keep going. Elementary years saw unit studies, annual memberships to museums / galleries / aquarium / science centers.
Then COVID hit and it made sense to keep going at home while everyeon else is also home, following public curriculums from different cities, accerlerating and supplementing by mastery and interest, and staying a bit longer when more support is needed.
Annnnd then suddenly we're within a handful of years of university. Neurodivergence diagnoses (yes plural for the whole fam). Need for flexible travelling schedule to see my aging dad / opportunity for all the big city museum extracurriculars.
To be honest I'm starting to feel over my head. I'll start with the fact that I honestly don't mind if the kid now goes to public highschool at all. I have to pull a "trust me bro" and "it's not that simple" here; Im on first name basis with the highschool and have ongoing confirmation that we can switch any time. I have no pride at stake on this other than what works best for my kid.
I've pulled in occupational therapy for executive functioning, speech language therapist for different / visual communication styles, and I'm doing my best learning all the materials together on the fly. But I do find myself feeling short on time balancing a full time job on top.
Edit: I'm aware of where other homeschooling experiences have gone terribly wrong and am proactively working to not be like that. Yes we're religious, but the kid knows the earth is round and 4.5 GA old and humans have always had intersexed individuals and same sex relationships. We're doing AP courses lite this year, focus on engagement and understanding, not sure when or how much we will pursue AP exams until maybe a year or two before graduation, so we're not un-schooling either.
Honestly, I'd pull the trigger on sending your kid to public school. S/he's going to have a lot of adjustments moving into "public life", whenever that hits. High school is hell for many people (it's specifically why Buffy was set in high school), but s/he can make their adjustments during a period where they're already adjusting anyway, and put them into a better footing for going to college or getting a job.
I don't disagree with you. Being able to just re-invent yourself (maybe even every year) and possibly meet lifelong friends are definite highlights.
Hey I don't have any experience with anything like that (only have a toddler), but reading your comment reminded me of a Freakonomics study from a long time ago that might reassure you. Basically the study was that they looked at kids' developmental milestones and performances in early schooling and discovered that the kids did better when the parents bought baby/parenting self-help books. Wow, those must be amazing books, right? Well not really, the books themselves didn't matter. It's the fact that the type of parent who would go out of their way to purchase those parenting books and read them and try out the things in them are the same types of parents who are invested in their kids' development and schooling. So naturally those kids would have better results, not because of any information in the books themselves, but because the purchase of said books showed the commitment of the parents. That study has stuck with me for a long time.
So I don't know what you should or shouldn't do with your kid with regards to homeschooling or public high school, but I think that the fact that you're thinking a lot about it and it's weighing on your head means that you're probably doing something right. So whatever you end up doing, it sounds like your kid has already been set up for success by virtue of having a parent that cares deeply about their education (as evidenced by all the years of homeschooling, the therapists brought in to help, and this recent internal struggle about what might be best for their final years of school). I hope that brings you some solace/reassurance, as I often find myself thinking about that study when thinking about my own parenting. Good luck!
What an interesting study, and yeah there's a bunch of sideways correlation I guess. I have no doubt in my mind that I'm providing a better academic education for the kid; the rural highschool has its own challenges. (Example, the local dentist casually remarked kid has good teeth and complimented on not smoking tobacco /weed and drinking. At 12.) But as a parent we want it all for them don't we; so I'm working hard to facilitate making lifelong friends from this age too.
Okay, was gonna skip past but had to see what you were hiding.
Lol'd slightly at the Sum41 reference.
But um, I was homeschooled by a mother starting in the early 80s when it was illegal in California (also I believe you're in the US as well). And based on what I remember (and what she's shared from her side), I 1) feel bad that things have gone so screwy, and that so many diagnoses have emerged but also 2) I will always feel that (and this is 120% based on my mom's actual learning with me and my sibs, as well as other homeschooled families I knew) if a parent is that invested in their child's education, that child will benefit. There are so many issues with the public (and even private) school system in the US, and if parents would actually step in even a little, so many of those aspects would work much better. But I also know that not all parents are going to be the best teachers - I had a friend who homeschooled due to life situations, and both her and her daughter were like "yeah, that was a dark time", but it was still better than if she hadn't.
I don't have kids, and actually this is one of the main reasons, but I respect any parent who puts the effort into "raising" one. So big kudos to you and to the song reference :D
Thank you, that's very gentle of you and thoughtful to share. Yeah, absolutely wouldn't work for families where the kid doesn't like it, that'd be a recipe for disaster for both parent and child. Haha glad someone else knows the song
I'm tail-end of GenX, and that song is pretty legit. I mean fire? I dunno... but I'm always rooting for parents trying to do better by their kids. Seems at least yours won't end up worse than I did...
Mom was the grammar Nazi and I had to diagram sentences to a T, and dad came home and explained all the maths stuff. But hey, I'm making 6 figures and I love my job and all my other siblings are doing well and have many children who are also seeming to be doing well...
I think you'll be good in the long run, and what "failures" you may have, there are so many kids out there with sheit parents who still manage to excel in life. I'm pretty sure yours will be ending up on the good side!
Kudos to you for being intentional about your kid's (s'?) education. That is The Most Important Thing. As parents, we make the best decisions we can and try to adapt. There's no perfect option and no way to predict all the consequences of a choice. So give yourself a little grace.
It's also worth remembering that if it doesn't work out, you can change schools or go back to home schooling. Even though we're very happy in Montessori and plan to stay in, we re-evaluate the pro's and cons every year.
It's hard to shake that feeling, y'know, even though you've weighted the pros and cons and chosen the better option, it's hard not to focus on the remaining cons in a "a better parent could have (magically) combined both pros into a (magical) actionable optimized outcome."
But yeah, a dear friend lost a child, and they told me their mantra is, at the end of the day, their kids are alive and know they love them. Considering that my parents put me in public school with all the wonderful pros and they still nearly didn't end up with an alive child and jury's still out on the second part, sometimes we just gotta take the small wins.
I do know! I can really perseverate over parenting decisions, and it can be overwhelming because there's so many, or some unexpected issue will come up and we just have to take it in stride with everything else. Probably half of my time in therapy is spent processing these feelings. A common mantra from my therapist is "you did the best you could with what you had available at the time".
I mainly wanted to encourage you that because you are worrying about these things, you are already a pretty good parent. I hope you don't beat yourself up by comparing yourself to an imaginary perfect standard. My therapist's other frequent reminder is that I am not perfect and will make mistakes, and that's okay.
If you haven't heard Persevere by Gang of Youths, it might be worth a listen.
So some of you have heard me talk about my 1983 Toyota Tercel SR5 Wagon Big Block Project for awhile now.
If I go back through comments I've made here, I've been talking about it for five years and while I am in the final stages of getting it going, it's also been five freaking years that I've been building the car.
A car I got for free.
A car that might be worth $4k when I'm done (not that I'm selling it).
Sure, I pretty much only work on it on the weekends.
Sure, a year of that was with me in a different state than the car and so I couldn't work on it at all.
Sure, I skip a lot of weekends because of other commitments, weather (all but about 8 months of this time it was in Texas where 6 months of the year are too hot to do any work on it), and any other thing that might get in the way.
Sure, the weekends I do work on it are only a few hours at a time, so collectively if I cut the 5 years down to 4 for the year I was away from it, down to 2 because 6 months of each year in Texas are unusable, multiply that by 52 weeks in the year, then double it for two day weekends, then multiply by four hours per weekend day, I've got maximum of 832 hours working on it, which is about 21 full 40 hour workweeks. It's a lot for a car that's still not running and has been moved to different places thrice.
At multiple points I've hit a roadblock and needed to find a solution. Original engine exhaust was on passenger side, now it's on the driver's side and the clutch cable exists where the exhaust manifold does as well. Original carburetor throttle plate rotated clockwise, new throttle body rotates counter clockwise with a spider's nest bracket to change its direction. Original brakes are unvented, small, and underpowered, new brakes were never meant to be on this car and required parts from four different vehicles to work properly. Original fuel pump is engine driven, new is in-tank, doesn't fit original tank, lines are too small and go right where the new exhaust will be and are on the wrong side of the engine bay. The list goes on and on and that's just the latest on my mind...
Ultimately, it'll be a car I've touched on nearly every single aspect of in order for it to be as new and refreshed as possible when it is completed. Every suspension component is new, every bushing replaced with polyurethane, a new engine that's never been installed in this chassis, larger brakes, fuel injection, new wiring, custom-made-or-adapted-by-me nearly everything on the car to make it as close to an OEM+ build as possible and all done properly.
At the end it'll be a fully restomodded classic car, but it's still one long ass road for what amounts to a funky Japanese econobox off-roader that I got for the low low price of "come and get it".
Did I mention I have a racecar waiting in the wings for a similar treatment?
Hey, I'm in the same position, except with my 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
I pulled the engine in December 2019 and then through COVID didn't do much on it, because the motor was at my friends house. I finally completed the rebuild and dropped it back in in May 2025 and since then, the only thing I've actually done is reassemble the intake and bolt it back into place.
I honestly I don't have that much more to do, just reassemble the front of the engine, install the radiator, fan, etc, put the transmission, transfer case and drive shafts it and that should theoretically be it?
But...I'm just not interested in doing it. The only reason I've really made any progress on it at all is my wife encouraging me and pushing me to keep going with it. In the interim, I've been working on a second project car, which ended-up being my daily. It's not necessarily a full blown project car, but just an old van we bought for our (at the time) growing family and I've been enjoying just getting things sorted on that and making it a solid, reliable daily for us. It's been hard to motivate to finish up my Jeep especially given I'm not terribly interested in camping with it anymore; I still want to go hit the trails with it, but if I'm honest, I've kind of lost some interest in that.
But it's still sitting there, waiting for me to finish it and it doesn't have that much more to go. All my family and acquaintances are often asking, "How's the Jeep going?" and at this point, if I could stop, I probably would. But for my own pride, I need to see it finished. Anyway, once my kids are back in school in January here and I finish up some other projects that I need to have done by February, I'm going to try and get back to it and finish reassembling the front of the motor, because that's the last major roadblock; getting the tranny/transfer case and driveshafts (well, I do need to rebuild them. I have all the parts) should be easy peasy.
Edit: I should say that I've also touched most parts of this car. The suspension is all new (and upgraded), ditto the steering, I've done all the general maintenance, wheel bearings, refreshed the gears in the axles, etc, etc. It's all ready to go, it just needs motive power. Though I am worried a lot of the rubber bushings in the control arms and stuff are rotted at this point from not moving for 6 years.
I moved into the new house with my wife two months ago. Both of us have been introduced to the couple next door and both of us immediately forgot their names. It's now too late to ask again without it being awkward. This is just our life forever now.
If they own the place, you may be able to find their names from property ownership records.
this is how I knew a neighbor's name months before meeting them, and then when I met them I had to consciously avoid calling them that name before they told me
Just pretend you have some memory issues
hey! aren't you my new neighbor by any chance? let me introduce you to my wife!
Classic equinophobia situation
Brewing beer.
It started as a hobby back in 2009. At the ripe young age of 19, my American friends and I were unable to buy beer. But we figured out there was no age restriction on the ingredients to make beer.
Our first few batches were pretty bad. But with time, we learned, and improved. By the time we turned 21, we kept going, it was fun and more cost effective. The basic starting kits were quickly outgrown for equipment that was better for bottling, better for transferring among vessels, easier to clean, easier to measure. More precise fermentation measurements and control were bigger costs (A Tilt Hydrometer, along with a chest freezer/raspberry pi/ardiuno to run Fermentrack). Then moving from bottles to kegs, and the equipment costs of building my own keezer (Chest freezer converted for use with kegs). I'm probably $2,000 in equipment, on a hobby I now only get in to 2-4 times a year, now that I'm in the swing of being a dad with three young kids.
But I keep telling myself I'll get back to it...eventually.
Use your kegerator for juice pop in the meantime :P with recent findings that no amount of alcohol is totally not harmful, and with liquid calories being a thing, maybe it's just as well. For now.
(Husband was into home brewing, fun times)
Eh, I still drink socially. Not nearly as much as I did back then, I'm good for zero to three beers a week, average of one. I did throw together a keg of Brulosophy's non-alcoholic H-brü-O Hop Water last year. It came out pretty nice, I'll put together another keg of it soon. But my brewery is crafted to five gallon batches, which is a lot of beer for someone who doesn't drink very much now a days. That's probably my biggest barrier to trying to really get back in to the hobby.
A few months ago, I watched this George Carlin interview by a young, smokin' hot Jon Stewart. At one point, Carlin mentions that his profession is nothing more than rhetoric (then he does a fun little bit).
I was familiar with the idea of rhetoric, but for whatever reason, Carlin's words really intrigued me. So I start researching a bit, and Wikipedia very quickly sends me down the Aristotle rabbit-hole. Before I knew it, I read all of Aristotle's books on Rhetoric and Poetics, but I didn't stop there.
His way of thinking really clicked with me, and I became obsessed with applying his ethical and metaphysical frameworks to different aspects of my life. I was particularly fascinated by his ideas around causality, potentiality, and actuality.
Something about the idea of deriving meaning from the world using purely deductive reasoning was so satisfying to me. I now have pages and pages of my own notes on Aristotle's ideas, and it has been very fun trying to reconcile his "wrong" theories with modern theories on physics, biology, and mathematics. (Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on any of those things, I'm just recreationally fascinated by them, so I don't claim to be qualified to perform these mental exercises. Still, they are fun nonetheless).
Over the course of a few months, Aristotle easily became one of my all time heroes. I have so many questions I wish I could ask him, and I lament that we are missing so many of his works (I believe the list numbers in the hundreds, mostly lecture notes, etc., but still.
He opened up my mind in a way I did not know possible, and completely changed my approach to learning and how I view the world. I am so grateful to a single man that lived and died thousands of years before I would ever exist. And I guess I'm pretty grateful for George Carlin too, for sending me down that rabbit hole to begin with.
Skiing.
My wife has wanted to get the kids into skiing for a few years now. I always dismissed it as too expensive --there are some other personal reasons I was avoiding it but not getting into that because cost was always reason enough.
A month ago I was working with an Indian guy who's pretty new to the country and he was talking about how he has all these plans this winter like getting swimming lessons and ski lessons. It got me thinking that maybe it's time I actually consider it. We hadn't done christmas shopping yet so I talked to my wife when I got home and commited to doing ski equipment/lessons/seasons passes to the local bunny hill.
I used to ski as a kid/teenager so I'm not going in totally blind here but its been quite a few years and now I'm the one paying the bill... my wife never skied and had no idea.
We're into this for at least $4k for this year (not including equipming my wife but that's a seperate discussion) but the big spend doesn't end at this year of course. Exery single year we'll have to buy lift passes and/or seasons passes. Each trip to the bigger hill will be $200 for me+kids. Trips to the really big hills are more money. My minimum spend per year going forward is $2k PLUS replacement gear as the kids get bigger. I won't buy new gear every time again but still.
I've basically commited myself to the equivalent of another car payment (maybe an econobox 20 years ago). I used to like skiing and I probably should get outside more but holy shit man.
A couple years ago I started snowboarding. If lift tickets were cheaper, I’d probably be more than still a beginner by now. This is an expensive hobby! I ended up going a lot the first winter but then no more than 2-3 times.
Yeah, expensive is right. My brother was recently talking about going snowboarding around Las Vegas, where he lives. There's a little place called Lee Canyon nearby to him and he was planning to go like Christmas Eve or even like NYE. He said they were charging $95! For this little tiny ass resort with like 28 trails. That's crazy.
My parents, who also live in Vegas, still try to go snowboarding at least once a season. And they're willing to drive to Utah, even SLC, or Colorado, or California. But the prices they tell me are insane. Like $200-300 for a single day! Wut.
I still have a snowboard and all my gear at their house, but...that's a lot of money for one day of playing on the slopes.
Yeah, it's gotten nuts. Most the resorts got bought up by Vail Corp or Alterra and they're both pushing people into passes. So while a day at our local is $220, my season pass is $450 (granted with major blackout days over the holidays and ski week, but then again who wants to be in that mess anyway). It's fucked unless you go a lot and in that case it's gotten cheaper. They brought the adobe subscription model to the mountain! Fuck them and fuck private equity!
I mentioned in another comment, but we have access to a small local hill that's cheap an accessible to us. After a quick couple of hours of the hill last week I'm still decent at it but I'm very out of shape for spending a full day on a real hill.
Yeah, skiing is less and less approachable. Lots of thoughts inbound. Take what you're interested in, leave what you're not.
I stopped from 20-29 because I just couldn't afford the pass, the gas, a place to stay, and all the bits and bobs. I only started again because my wife's parents lived in Tahoe and we had a free place to stay. Accommodation sucks, and has been getting much, much, much more expensive in the last 2 decades. All the little, cheap motels are closing and the mega resorts are opening in their stead. That sucks. My mom got around it by dragging us into the car at 8am, dumping us on the mountain at noon, and then hauling us all home again at 4pm. It's a big day of driving for a half day of skiing but she always preferred it to a full weekend. Not sure where your at or if that's possible, but it'll be a consideration for me when our kiddos are old enough to ski.
Gear though feels the opposite. You can sit on gear for a long time (minus the kids who will need updates every few years) and once you know what you're getting, you can really shop the deals. I've snowboarded most of my life, but recently got into backcountry skiing (partially because costs are so high on the mountain). I ended up with a full backcountry package (split board, bindings, pucks, skins, poles) for like $800 by paying attention to demo/factory seconds/defects sales. Normally it would be like $3000. I know that's a bunch of time to look into deals, but if you're keen the deals are out there. For my resort gear, I ended up updating all my hard gear (board, bindings, boots) in 2023 - which again was like $1500 with far less deals (I just went to the local mountain shop) - but before that I hadn't bought anything new since like 2007, so a little over 15 years. Gear has gone down in price, quality has gone up, and things are built to last a good long while. Minus entry level boots, those fucking suck.
Also, also this is kind of area specific, but in much of the western USA, if you're really getting into it, passes have gotten much cheaper. If you buy early and buy the local versions you can get yourself on the mountain for like $400-500 dollars a year. I'm not sure what the kids prices are doing these days (but I should find out with baby on the way). When I was growing up if you were under 13 and wore a helmet you could get a day pass for $5. We pushed that until about 16. I'm sure those deals are dead, but I'm sure there are discounts to be had.
And just to validate your feelings, this was a recent article from a Nevada based satire magazine. It's satire, but it only hits because there is an unbelievable amount of truth behind it. Hope you're able to enjoy it and find a way to participate that doesn't feel like taking a second mortgage!
Ya theres nothing like that. We do have a sort of local bunny hill that's affordable. I did a family seasons pass and they're open 7 days a week with night skiing Monday-Friday so it's easy to pack in a lot of learning.
Edit: my parents afforded it by having hills closer by and occationally doing trips to big hills. I think they may have spent more money than they had at times because my mom was into it.
Romance anime, as the people who saw my comment in the year in review thread found out. I've seen more than 40% of all TV anime in the romance genre according to the popular database sites like MyAnimeList and Anilist that try to cover everything that isn't a super-niche indie project.
As I continue to go further into the depths of forgotten titles from the past decades, are the ones I'm finding and watching now good? Nope, not really. Am I going to continue for the foreseeable future looking for hidden gems? Yeah.
By extension I've done a lot with my home server as well; the amount of anime with no legal availability is significant. That's not the only reason as I first tried cable cutting around the time Netflix began streaming and well before I got back into anime, but it's certainly contributed to my ongoing efforts. I've made a conscious effort to start pruning some things off my NAS that I definitely don't need like an archive of reddit comments but I still have something of a digital hoarding problem.
When you feel like you've hit the bottom of the dredges, wanna stay into Japanese romance dramas?
I've neglected enough other hobbies that I don't need any new ones, but I imagine I'll still want something to scratch that itch so maybe. I'm not a huge fan of manga as a medium but I know a lot of shoujo and josei stories have live action adaptations which might work better for me.
Hi, it's me, the nail polish person. I started this journey in August or September, and now have spreadsheets for my inventory and polishes worn. The spreadsheets interact with each other to help me keep track of everything. I have barely dipped a toe into the nail polish world, and I already feel like I'm heading in the "in too deep" direction. I spent a respectable amount of money on getting into the hobby, as many do when first getting into something, getting tools and supplies, etc. I'm cutting down on buying stuff now, but this is so fun. It's absolutely bewildering to my parents. Mr. Alpaca is a good sport and occasionally assists with picking colors. The cat has also been known to help pick colors.
Note: this is not "gel polish." We're talking regular nail lacquer. Untrained folks doing gel manicures at home are likely to make themselves allergic to the ingredients, which is a big nope to me.
It started with picking out a nail polish for my wedding with the help of my coworkers - and then I found out how much nail polish they own and what variety exists out there. They have ways of keeping organized (swatch sticks and filing cabinets and display shelves, oh my). They have favorite brands. They have magnetic polish, thermal polish, polish with glitter and iridescent flakes and shimmer so bright it glows. I've adopted some of their habits (swatch sticks) and begun forming some of my own.
Now, while my collection is comparatively small (it's not unusual for people to have 300 polishes), I have gotten pretty ensconced in the knowledge of the nail polish world. I've joined a nail polish discord, and I've looked into making my own polish. I'm figuring out what I like and don't like, and I'm coming up with new ways to use my polish. For example, I just figured out a way to do the "fridge magnet look" tonight, without making my nail polish into decals to stick to my nails, which is usually how it's done. This effect was done directly on my nail with the help of a fridge magnet and a laptop stand. I'm doing a lot of trial and error. Error: allowing the furnace vents to blow in your general direction while painting your nails.
I own about 40 polishes, 8 of which are on their way to me. My original goal was to have a jewel tone of each shade and just live on those 10 or so polishes. I started with ordering most of a drugstore collection that I liked that came in a variety of colors and finishes. But then I discovered pharmacy coupons would let me get polish for free. I have now given these up because I ran out of polish I wanted from there. Then, I discovered some boutique brands and indie brands. This is where I'm at now - trying not to buy too many things. Where can I go from here? Supporting indie brands that do charity polishes, maybe making my own polish. Discovering what types and colors of polish I like, vs. what I will actually wear. I just started shaping my nails, which is a whole separate aspect of this. My goal for the moment is to work my way through my drugstore polish (which are surprisingly delicate flowers when it comes to the environment in which I apply them) and my thermal polish (which stop functioning 1-2 years after first use). Honestly, at this point, I think polish is around to stay. My spreadsheet says I already have at least five years' worth of polish, which is probably an underestimation. I'm looking forward to emptying my first bottle sometime in the next year, lol.
I don't know if this was intentional, but it made me smile :)
I (he/him) have had my fingernails and/or toenails painted a few times by my daughter. In theory, I'm not opposed to the idea of painting my nails, but the thing that weirds me out is that I look down and feel like it's somebody else's hands or feet. Does that ever happen to you? If so, did it go away?
It wasn't fully intentional, but it seemed like a fitting metaphor to me!
I can't say I've had that feeling when it comes to nail polish, as I've had it applied to my nails every once in a while for as long as I can remember. My mom and I would do our nails, or maybe she would just do mine... I remember these mini polish bottles kicking around forever, but I think she probably had some for herself, as well. I don't actually remember ever doing that or wearing polish, though. It's probably just normalized for me, as a she/her/AFAB person. However, I shaped my nails for the first time yesterday, and that is definitely giving me the "whose hands are those" feeling. The different nail shape makes my fingers look different, as well. I'm hoping I'll get familiar enough with it that it goes away, or change them up enough that my brain is less attached to what my nails "should" look like and becomes more adaptable to what it sees.
I hope you and your daughter enjoy nail time! In my experience, it takes some time and energy and concentration, which means you are living in the present for those moments with her :)
I've spent about 3582 hours learning how to build an app, building the actual app, and trying to turn it into a business. So, if we value my time at, let's say, a lower-range $40/h, then I'm $143'280 deep into it 💀
Do you mean starting from zero or did you already have programming knowledge?
I already had some programming knowledge, I was studying computer science at uni before dropping out after a year and a half, but I didn't know any Javascript or Typescript for example.
The project now uses Javascript/Typescript, React w/Redux, Next.js, Postgres (Supabase), Effect TS, so the time spent learning things inflated the total number of hours.
Then, there's all the non-technical aspects as well, such as working with a designer to create nice illustrations and videos, and other things, which also contributed to the tally.
What’s the app?
I'd like to launch in a few weeks so it's not yet available publicly but you can have a look at it here. Happy to take any kind of feedback! (Even if only on the concept since it's not yet available)
Wow, this actually looks like a really cool idea and I will be happy to try it out when you launch.
That's awesome to hear, thanks!
I am way, way too into tabletop RPGs. I started playing a little of AD&D back in Boy Scouts when I was young, then played some 3e back in my teens. I had a very long break where I didn’t play anything until 2018, then started running 5e as a DM for several campaigns until a couple years ago. I found that 5e seemed overly complicated to run and stressful (I was also having panic attacks around that time, probably unrelated) and started expanding into other games, and heavily into AD&D, B/X, and other OSR games. I’ve also acquired a lot of the 3e books, tons of Call of Cthulhu, Traveler, Warhammer Fantasy, etc. Whenever I find or get into a new game, I tend to obtain every single book for that game and/or edition in new/mint/near mint condition, and definitely try to get any special editions of a book, even if the game likely won’t see play at my table because others I know tend to be a one-game type of person. I bought a Wyrmwood modular gaming table during their first Kickstarter, and all in all I’m probably 10s of thousands of dollars into the hobby.
I joined a derby league at age fo^H^H^H way too old. I was literally starting up roller skating 30 years after I last skated as a teen.
It's a cult. Seriously. But, not a bad cult... until I break something.