Morning all
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Morning.
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I are still alive, barely but I am
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Morning all. Happy Hump Day.
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Morning all
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Is it just me or has MEW seemed to have gotten quieter over the past few months, and getting quieter?
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It has definitely been quieter, but also, life is just a mess and is hard and an emotional rollercoaster and I don’t really know anyone who is smiles and rainbows and happiness right now. There are a few moments of brightness and joy here and there but anybody who’s punting how awesome and amazing life is, is lying and only showing you the nice bits, or making it look like life is amazing. It really isn’t. Inflation is killing us financially, the job market is a mess, people are underpaid and overworked, and even if you have a decent job with decent pay, the state of the world is downward spiral. Social media is a cesspit of deception, clickbait, self-doubt and fakeness. The Internet is full of bots and AI straight up lying to us to push an agenda.
Everything is crazy, yo. And I’m actually doing relatively okay in terms of finances and such. I can afford occasional luxuries and takeaways and run my fan 24/7 to help survive this insane heat, and that is more than 95% of the world can do. I’m one of the lucky ones.
Okay, rant over. I hope you all are doing okay as well. I know we are all tired. The kind of tired that 12 hours of deep sleep isn’t going to cure. The kind of tired that lives in your soul. But we’re still here, and still kicking.
Virtual icecream/froyo 
for everyone, because you all deserve something nice and cool.
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It has been getting quieter and I am partly to blame. I fall into the (trap?) of just reading and pressing a heart instead of responding. I should stop that and make proper contributions 
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Wow! Quite the impactful comment there, thanks for that.
While I agree with your overarching sentiments, life is hectic for all the reasons you mention. I did some introspection on my financial situation and in doing some research discovered that there is a common “50/30/20” principle that states your income to expenditure as a needs/wants/savings guideline respectively. I don’t know about anyone else, but who the FUDGE has 30% of their income to spend on luxuries, that is not even taking into consideration savings.
But yeah, not complaining at all and once again agree with you in that we are still more fortunate than many others out there. Simply expressing some of the challenges that we are facing, though I believe we are not the only ones and that many others all around are likely facing the same struggles.
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In the same boat.
We decided that our building project in a desirable estate of a desirable suburb is our “forced” savings plan. By the time we retire, the bond would’ve been paid off and we can sell the property for a fair amount of money and downscale to something much smaller.
Right now we have 5 people in the house (and 6 on weekends and holidays when the niece’s b/f visits), so we need a bigger space to accommodate people ranging from 6 to 71, each with their own privacy and noise (regulation? amplification?) requirements. So when we retire it will just be my wife and I and a 1-2 bedroom space will be sufficient.
Other than that, I’m still banking on my company being worth something close to retirement so I can “sell out” and retire comfortably. So between those 2 assets and some meagre RA contributions I don’t have other plans.
But for luxuries - hell no. Supporting 5 people, especially a grade 1 kid, is expensive enough. My only luxuries are subs to Game Pass and a couple of streaming services. No other hobby funds available at this time.
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Morning all
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/me greets
Molo me mates.
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Morning everyone. Seeing yesterdays posts, yeah, its been really busy. Jumping around at work it seems there is not enough time to do anything/everything.
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Morning! First day with power after a 3 day dark stretch since Sunday’s huge storm that broke decades old trees in our yard in half. Still finding pieces of our solar heater scattered in the bushes 500m away.
Nature is angry out here.
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Hi all,
Yeah, I’m feeling the year-end fatigue, and it’s barely Feb! Not enough hours in the day, and feeling frayed at the edges.
That said, I’m looking forward to the remaining two months of the year - busy with plans and toiling!
@Shrike: I lived in Pmb for two years. Having just moved there from Pretoria with it’s famous Highveld thunderstorms, I was surprised at experiencing a lovely Sunday afternoon thunderstorm around end Jan 2013. A little bit of wind, a little bit of thunder, just enough to make a recent transplant miss home and proper thunderstorms. That little storm made the papers, with big areas without power, roads closed, etc. 
Turns out the Pmb trees were not used to the same storms I was! 
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Oh, second bit!
As an engineer, we were taught physics and chemistry and material science and things, where we try to build things to withstand all sorts of load cases. We try to control for external forces and nature.
And then Mother Nature will decide on a random day, nope, that dam/building/structure/plane/machine that you built is not part of my plan, I shall move it elsewhere with vigor. All the combined engineering knowledge in the world can only do so much to resist her.
(Spelling folks that does Wordle, is it vigor as per autocorrect, or is it vigour as my brain wants it spelled?)
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The correct spelling is “vigor” in American English and “vigour” in British English
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My South African teacher / editor brain kicks its stall like a pissed off mule when I see “vigor”.
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