Expanding on this: it’s a great time to challenge your assumptions and try building ip different routines! Be mindful to not “get stuck” on routines and habits you don’t like

I’m in temporary leave from my job (that, as far as job goes, I really like) and I really dread going back…

Small example: in my job, there is a well known first application of some stuff. That was a groundbreaking program written in the 70s. Most copies got lost/broken, one is known to remain, but anyways no one had a compatible OS, so it is effectively unusable. (Don’t ask more details, I don’t know them)

I still mourn the fire of the Library of Alexandria as the symbol of such a loss. Heartbreaking

Same here. With my kids, I really struggled to get stuff ready for their birth because it gent like tempting fate. Cue scrambling to get everything ready once the baby was back home.

In smaller stuff, always knock on wood. Fake wood counts as wood.

Heartbreaking

EU here, I was pregnant and gave birth both in Germany and in France.

In Germany, the overall cost was 0€. It included monthly follow ups with a gynecologist, many blood exams and echos, the birth, MUCU for baby for three days, hospital stay for both of us for four days, at home visits for ten days, monthly visits with the gp for a while. Health insurance is through your work, so you pay for it via taxes but significantly less than in the US (I think my partner and I were paying just under 200€/month? It’s a percentage of income) I had 3.5 months of maternity leave at full pay, then I could stay home longer with 60% pay for up to a year cumulative with my husband.

In France, the overall cost was a bit higher (~50€) because not all blood exams are completely free, so over the first 6 months of pregnancy I payed less than 10€/month for some blood tests. Gp and gynecologist visits are free, so are the ecos and the hospital stay. I decided to pay a little extra (50€/day) to have a private room after the birth where my husband could stay overnight. It should still be conferred by my extended health insurance (not mandatory). I was also in sick leave for the white pregnancy, and for the first 3 months I had full salary, then it dropped to 1/3, the got back to 100% when I went in maternity leave (~4.5 months). I decided to stay home a bit longer, without pay. My husband can also choose to stay home without pay, and has one month of paternity leave.

I also lived in the US. Incomparable. On top of not having to pay, when there is a charge it is always stated clearly upfront, while in the US knowing what you’ll have to pay is a wild guessing game. Overall: I moved back to Europe for a reason.

This gives me flashbacks to the one time in my life I really wanted to answer “okay boomer”

My father in law was supporting the claim the climate change might exist, but it’s nothing we have to concern ourselves about because it’s going to take decades to do anything.

And I was like: you have grandkids, they will be there in decades! And: you just experienced the first drought of your country, how is that not climate change??

After half an hour going in rounds I gave up and bit my tongue to not torpedo our relationship. Two years later he admitted that maybe there was something about climate change nowadays…