#handmade

My junior year of high school someone taped a love letter to my desk before my first period class. The letter was written on patterned paper in red thin tipped marker. It mentioned how pretty I was and how I had a great sense of humor and a really nice smile, and that my laugh was infectious. The writer said that they really liked me, but I never gave them the time of day. It was signed, "Your Secret Admirer." To be honest, I was horribly creeped out. I didn't find it sweet or endearing, I found it unsettling. I asked my teacher if he knew who wrote it, which he did, but said he wouldn't tell me, but that the individual was in our class. My teacher finally ended up telling me after several days that it was this kid that I had little to no interaction with. It creeped me out even more to know that this kid I barely knew was lusting after me and thought that this juvenile display of interest was the best way to win my affections. I have a box full of them back in my old room at my parent's house. Ahh, high school! I love them all. They were all from serious boyfriends, telling me how much they cared about me and how I made them feel. The most important thing is that they were sincere and from the heart. Each one is unique, because each person and each relationship was unique. I still read over them every now and then and smile, because we had great times while it lasted and learned valuable lessons. No regrets, even the scumbags and idiots. When I first got them, I thought they were adorable and I would read them all the time when I was missing my boyfriend.
I received quite a few really beautiful ones from my significant other, primarily when we first started seeing each other. The part that stays with me from those is the glimpse into how he really felt and that he shared the wonderment I did about falling in love. I do still have them, but wouldn't feel right about sharing the details of something only meant for my eyes originally.
I have had love letters written to me. My first was in 7th grade. Pretty sweet, but I thought at the time it was a tad creepy too. More recently, my ex husband wrote them to me before we started dating, and they really made me feel special. These love letters included poems he wrote about me. He stopped writing them right after we began dating and never wrote another one. I still have those he wrote me though, somewhere.
I've never received one. The closest I ever got was because of an assignment in my honors humanities class in high school. Everyone had to write a valentine poem to whoever's name they drew out of the hat. The guy who drew my name made a giant card and a handmade mirror in the shape of a heart. Unfortunately, he was just an overacheiver as I actually had a crush on him.

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@musicalprincess5491 Figured I'd tag you since you both basically asked the same question 😄

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I had a great day thank you! On my actual birthday I had a delicious dinner together with my closest family 😋 I got an activity watch and an assortment of various other things from my parents, chocolates from my sister's boyfriend and last but not least: A set of handmade Dungeons and Dragons dice from @LunarHuntress and her boyfriend! They had tiny ships inside to reference the pirate game Sea of Thieves which our friendship strengthened around 🥺🥰

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@kittiemeowsie Might as well share this with the only one on here who I know also plays D&D Haha These will for sure be my go to dice from now on! 😄

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The Saturday after I celebrated with the rest of my family, got some clothes, a board game and a new large mouse pad. We had ordered chinese food through catering and after that we had cake 😋 Sunday I went to my grandma and had a small coffe break so she could get to give me her congratulations in person 😊

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How long do your shoes last, and at what point do you "give up" on them?
I'm trying to pare down while also upping the quality of my wardrobe but I feel lost on shoes. How long do your "nice work shoes" last? How about your every day flat? Heels? Do you take your shoes in for repair, and at what point do you give up and buy a new pair? What’s the longest amount of time you’ve had a pair of shoes for?
My boyfriend and I were getting ready for an art gallery and he told me to guess how old the shoes he was wearing were. I guessed 5, and he told me he’d had them for 12 years. He got those shoes when he was seven. My oldest pair is 4. So, what’s the longest amount of time you’ve had a pair of shoes for? How long does a pair of sneakers last you?
I wear the same pair almost 3 to 4 days of the week and noticed that they wear down to the logo (the logo on the heel from converse, vans, etc) within half a year. I have flat feet so they wear down unevenly too. I have to get a new pair every year. I'm not sure if it's the way I walk or the shoes I buy not being of good quality that causes them to wear down so fast. I was wondering how long these sneakers last for the average person with moderate to heavy use. Do you notice them wearing down? Do they normally wear down evenly or unevenly? And how long do these sneakers last you? I had a nice pair of Footjoy's that I wore all the time and they last a year or two before I had to begrudgingly give up on them. But I have alot of shoes that have lasted for years that I wear not so much. I have to replace shoes once or twice a year. I wear boots for work, and they wear down and break apart. My running shoes start to hurt my feet when they’re ready to go.
My shoes last ten years or so. Hand-made quality shoes. I never buy any "fast fashion" stuff.
My favorite industry-made ones are Birkenstocks. They may not look sexy but they will keep my feet pretty and healthy, as opposed to "sexy" high heels.

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Last May my partner and I went to Iceland for a month. We were recommended this restaurant in Ísafjörður, a town on the north-western coast. The restaurant was called "The Tar house" and basically, it was a grilled/fried fish restaurant where you ate whenever the ship came back in with the day's catch. It was absolutely unreal. We ate cod, haddock, wolffish, rockbiter and many more I can't even remember. I like fish quite a bit, but I never new fish could have such different textures from each other... The sauces and spices... Halfway through the meal when I started getting full a sadness came over me as I realized I'd never eat this good again. So I doubled down and ate till it hurt, spent the night breathing heavily on my side. 10/10, would do again.
My fiance's family is from Puerto Rico. We went and visited them for Christmas 2016. Her cousin knows a guy who runs a burger stand. The burgers were huge and they were far and away the most delicious burger I've ever had. You can put up Five Guys, Jack in the Box, and fancy steakhouse burger you've had. I guarantee you could have one of these burgers and these would become your favorite burger. I'd put money on it. The quality of the meat they use and the way they grind and grill the meat is far superior.
It's probably going to sound crazy, but our very last night in Japan, we went to Torikizoku. It's a place where everything (food, drinks, EVERYTHING) is 280¥ and it was just incredible. It's almost all yakitori and my god. It was just an endless parade of delicious, tender kinds of meat on a stick, several drinks, and then a delicious dessert of vanilla ice cream with roasted soybean syrup and matcha powder over it. But if I had to pick a single thing... we went on a food tour of Osaka and the last thing we got was something so simple. It was shaved ice (so fine it was like eating snow) covered in roasted soy bean powder and then you poured condensed milk over it. It was a little bitter, a little sweet, just absolutely a perfect delight.
Miyabi 45th in Wallingford, Seattle. Just a transcendent experience. Started out with 5 bites of sushi, each with the most screamingly fresh fish. One tasted so much of "flowers" in my brain that I just started laughing. Next we had steak tartare with wasabi creme and fresh rice puffs for dipping. The perfect texture and the perfect heat. Main course was soba with foie gras sausage, smoked duck and a sous vide egg. The standout was the noodles. You could tell they were handmade, and taste the actual grain they came from. These were a part of the dish, not just a sauce delivery platform. We left happy and giggly.
We were holidaying in Sweden and my parents took me to a pizza place where they served the thinnest pizza I'd ever seen. I don't remember the toppings, but I think it was red, so it might have been made with just sauce and ham.

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The lack of common sense.
I wish people were kinder. Everybody is sarcastic and mean.
Cooperation. Just look at how, we, as societies, evolves in 50 years. Now, imagine if all of us would actually cooperate. There's no telling what we could accomplish. But that's impossible and that's sad. At least in the US, our obsession with work. We do not need to be working as much as we are. We do not need to measure the worth of ourselves and others by how much we work ourselves to death.
The social acceptibility of white lies. There are delicate ways to tell the truth ('that haircut doesn't flatter you') without lying. Truth is good, I'd like to see more of it.
The education system is seriously flawed at least in the United States. Like you said, trade schools are a great way for people with lower grades to get really good at something and be successful with it. For example, in Germany, a large percentage of students become apprentices in a certain trade rather than going to university. Socialization. Of all the basics, not just libraries and roads. Food, water, education, healthcare. Leave luxury products on an open but regulated market with demand for higher standards, repairability and zero waste as a goal.
I know people will hate me for saying this, but if everyone went vegan, it would reduce a lot of air/water pollution, cut methane emissions that are contributing to global warming, and allow us to make MUCH better use of arable farming land & fresh water. Meat production is pretty wasteful and polluting per calorie of food it provides.
Slowing people down - even slightly - might create an environment where the BUYBUYBUY marketing technique isn't nearly as effective. This would lead to (hopefully) a balanced and useful approach to advertising focused on the merits of a particular product or service. Following that, if consumers are looking more into the actual benefits of any given thing the demand for quality will likely rise, over-consumption will drop and with it the culture of excess and waste, and the world will be a better place.
My mom was a teen mom, my grandparents who raised me were subsistence farmers, and we were POOR. Our clothes were hand-me-downs or handmade, most of what we owned was ancient and we recycled things over and over again. My favorite toys were blocks of leftover wood that my Grandpa had sanded and painted bright colors. But we were clean. We didn't litter, because it costs nothing to throw your litter in the trash can instead of on the pavement ten feet away. It costs nothing to refrain from tagging all over the businesses in your neighborhood (in fact, it drives business away, making your neighborhood more crime-ridden and poverty-stricken than ever.) It costs nothing to refrain from breaking windows. We certainly never went around doing that. It’s obsession with finding someone else to blame. Fewer people decide to be an example of something good.

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