I got a hand and stone massage gift card to use on my birthday. Birthday came, and I was excited to use it after a summer of oncology treatment. The staff told me that the person that gave me the card had already redeemed it online.

My family flew across the country to visit my aunt. I turned 8 during that trip. She gave me some used office supplies (a used legal pad, some post-its and a tape dispenser). I was a polite kid and just said thank you. Then she said “ok you passed the test, you’re grateful because it’s the thought that counts. Now give them back, I need them for work”. And no, there was no follow up gift.

Worst Christmas we ever had, we were barely able to scrape together a couple gifts for each kid and nothing for each other. My brother and SIL sent us a book on how to manage debt. Not gonna lie, I cried off and on the whole day.....

Honestly? turning your favorite hobby into a side-hustle. we live in this world where if you’re good at something. painting, baking, drawing, whatever people immediately say, "omg, you should sell these on etsy!' DON'T DO IT. the second you start charging money for it, your escape becomes your obligation.

It was a while ago but it went like this:

* Doris used to receive forms by post. She made a copy and filed them in two filing cabinets.
* Forms arrived by fax. She did the same.
* Forms began arriving by email too. She printed 2 copies and filed them.
* The filing system went online and Doris got a scanner to scan in the posted and faxed ones.

I arrived after things had stopped arriving by fax or post. Doris was printing the emailed PDF form twice, scanning it twice, and saving the scanned PDFs separately into two different digital files.