I just spent $7 for a pound of Ontario greenhouse strawberries instead of $1.99 for a pound from California. Just as an example. My brothers and I keep texting each other Canadian products we’ve found to replace US options. We’re far from alone.

What American media is downplaying is that this is about way more than tariffs. This is about a friendly neighbour suddenly deciding that it would like our stuff/land/people and making real threats about taking it. It’s about a bully threatening our national sovereignty and everyone in his country either going along with it or throwing up their hands in despair. It’s an incredible betrayal and Canadians are enraged.

(As an acquaintance of mine put it: do you know how hard you have to work to get Canada to boo your country? That’s a real accomplishment, you guys.)

In terms of how things are going, here are some recent pieces from our national media:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/article-buy-canadian-movement-starts-to-take-a-sizable-bite-into-us-business/

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6679836

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/decline-travellers-driving-from-canada-u-s-february

Cozey.ca for things like couches and ottomans – founded & made in Canada, and free Canada-wide shipping! We bought a couch from them earlier this year & it’s fantastic. (It’s all modular which makes it easy to get places like down the basement stairs, and very easy to assemble.)

How old is your sibling?

Making squares into a blanket is a great way to do it :) And the squares themselves can be very satisfying just because they go from casting on to finished so quickly. It’s nice to have something that works up fast, especially if you’ve got bigger things also on the go.

Here’s a close-up of part of the underside:

And you can see a little more detail here (the flowers are the centre parts of big squares for the border that I’m working on adding):

Well, I’ve made about a zillion baby blankets, so making a really big one didn’t seem like too much of a step. Clothes, though, that’s something I’ve yet to attempt!

Very nice! Is that bernat blanket yarn? How did you find it to work with?

I threw up during pregnancy once when I had just had OJ and brussel sprouts. It was years before I could take even a sip of orange juice without feeling nauseated all over again.

OP seems to be in Europe, so I’m not sure how much of your second point applies.

Cute! I saw that you used RH self-striping yarn – what is the colourway?

Just three stitches! Well, technically, four, but the last one is just a very simple variation on double crochet (going around the post instead of on top of the stitch).

I’ve done it in a couple of different yarn weights & blends and it’s a very forgiving pattern as long as your hook is suitable to the yarn. I recommend a single-colour yarn or one with a very long gradient to show off the stitching; shorter gradients will look a bit mottled.

Here’s the first one I did, in a 2-weight 100% cotton:

And a rectangular version in progress which is 100% merino and probably about a 4-weight:

I don’t see them with boost.

Aw dude, no, flip it around: I can’t imagine having a sexual relationship with someone I’m not romantically entwined with. Real intimacy is about so much more than sex – sex is part of it, but it’s also about trust and openness and what you’ve lived through together… It’s a whole package and you’re focusing on one small aspect & not even looking at the rest.

I’ve been married 13 years. We’re aging. I birthed three kids and my stomach looks bizarre now. We’ve got grey hair, we’ve both had a variety of body shapes and sizes over the years… our love has only grown and the sex has never been better. Don’t take your friend’s anecdote as something that happens to everyone. It doesn’t. (You should talk to someone who works in a senior’s home sometime; people our grandparents’ age are still sexually active despite being pretty far from the bloom of youth!)

I agree with a lot of the other commenters that people in their 20s are nice to look and and can be fun to talk to but also seem like children to me at this point. I couldn’t even imagine pursuing someone so much younger than me; mentally and in terms of experience we’re way too far apart.

Ps. Don’t look at who you’re most physically attracted to & assume everyone feels the same way. I’ve always thought that men hit their peak around age 55.

I love it!

I’m currently working on an afghan for our queen bed. It’s mostly finished – it’s 5x5 feet right now so big enough to use – but I’m working on cranking out the border. That’s going to be 24 12x12" squares that will be sewn round the edges for a final size of 7x7 feet! Wish me luck haha.

I love all of those things! Whenever I hit up a thrift store, the media section is my first stop. I’ve gotten so many great CDs and movies for next to nothing that way.

The Rest is History (history podcast with both mini-series… serieses… series… and one-off episodes)

Clear Eyes Full Hearts (Friday Night Lights rewatch)

The Line (Canadian politics – there are a number of podcasts with this or a similar name, so you’re looking for the one by Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney)

Stories Podcast (short stories for children; my kids like this a lot for road trips)

Old Books with Grace (old/very old book talk with a medievalist)

You’re Dead to Me is a great one. I also really like The Rest is History in a similar niche.

I started consciously trying to read more old books in the last year or two and I’ve discovered that I love adventure stories! Jules Verne, Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly novels… Winston Churchill’s “My Early Life” is nonfiction that might as well be an adventure story, haha.

For humour it’s hard to go wrong with P G Wodehouse; he wrote much more than just the Jeeves stories.

Recently I read through all of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s collected short stories (the author of Anne of Green Gables among many others).

Dracula was a great read and genuinely spooky, ditto Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.

Sometimes I go to Project Gutenberg, hit “random” and download anything that catches my eye :)

Great job! Your first real project is a huge accomplishment :D

Can I suggest an alternate as you work up to this? The Klaziena Shawl is a free, beautiful pattern that looks far more complex than it actually is: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/klaziena-shawl

There are really only three stitches to worry about (chain, single crochet, double crochet), the pattern is extremely clear, and it has both written instructions and a chart. This could give you great practice reading charts as well as with general shawl construction. (I’ve made it four or five times now!)