Happy to help!

Interesting! I always use the Latin when talking plants for that reason. Common names can get so confusing. I had no idea they even called them “snowflake” here in the US - they have always been leucojum to me!

I concur with the bot. It’s definitely a leucojum, not a galanthus (aka snowdrop). The flowers are more rounded and circular in leucojum and they can often branch on one stem. Snowdrops have more separated, oblong petals, and only one flower per stem.

Here is a good article (with dissected blooms) to help differentiate between these two early spring beauties! https://www.morrisarboretum.org/blog/snowflakes-vs-snowdrops-pendulous-beauties-early-spring

Happy spring!

People seemed to appreciate the conversation in this thread about balancing privacy with the realities of wedding business marketing: https://lemmy.ml/post/7435311

Her portfolio is incredible!!! Thank you for sharing this link. (And thanks OP for a new artist to follow!!)

No, we didn’t stop the war. I marched with 300k people in Washington (a lot of veterans) and we still didn’t stop the war. But I think the widespread and global protests of the Iraq war made it clear that the US was going to wage war despite its unpopularity, evidence, allies backing out, etc. A similar thing appears to be happening now with the backlash to Israel’s Hamas response.

Here’s a good column about what those protests writ large “accomplished.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/20-year-anniversary-of-iraq-war-protests

FWIW, this is one of the most common forms of protest in Seattle since BLM. It’s not necessarily newsworthy to us locals! And yes, to confirm, most people in the city get pretty annoyed with protestors when it happens. A lot of people late to work, missing medical appointments, stranded with kids in the car, etc.

Sometimes keeping a symptom journal or diary can help your medical providers piece things together. They are only seeing you once for 10-30 minutes, but you’re living in your body and experiencing symptoms way more frequently. Don’t log obsessively, but maybe once a day review your pain (rated 1-5) and write down any noteworthy symptoms or episodes. And as someone else mentioned, get good at condensing your medical “story” to date, including your current symptoms.

Doctors will always go for the simplest explanation, even if it’s wrong. This is how they are trained (in the west, anyway). So don’t give up! Continue insisting on a proper diagnosis. Get another opinion. See a different specialist. If you find it difficult to advocate for yourself, imagine if this was your friend. How many mountains would move to get the same answers for a dear friend? And apply that logic and compassion to yourself. Have a bestie come with you to appointments if they are willing to.

A big part of the “suck” in this process is the not knowing. Will you be in pain forever? Will you get better? Will you get worse? Is it really a mystery illness? Will you ever get a diagnosis? With chronic pain you’ll find yourself exhausted often with the effort required to ignore the pain. So feel the pain sometimes. Lean into it. You may find it’s a relief to feel it instead of trying to block it out.

It’s maybe also worth accepting that these issues may never totally resolve. If they do, great. But what if they don’t? How can you live a happy and fulfilling life (which millions of people do with chronic pain/disability) even if it stays the same?

Lastly, I want to say that you have a separate problem, which is the lack of social support you are getting from your family. They are gaslighting you about your illness - of course you know your body best and are experiencing what you say you are. You are young and may depend on them financially, so that’s a needle you have to thread. But I’d encourage you to spend more time with friends who love and believe you.

If you have access, it’s worth working with a therapist on all of this. From what you’ve described, you have been left all alone to grapple with a disability that no one can even explain. That is an awful lot for someone to hold by themselves. Whatever happens with your illness, I hope you are able to get the love and support you deserve - which may never be offered by your family.

Yup, that too! I can’t imagine being so online that a walk under the stars with your kid is somehow mind-altering. Pretty sad.

Truly ghoulish that this mother included a picture of her child at the end of this article. The child was explicitly described as not enjoying seeing their own pictures online, and wryly telling his mother that he “never signed a waiver for his likeness to be used for promotional purposes.” What a smart kid; what an awful parent.

I totally agree. I remember when being in the phone book was enough for people to run a B2C business! The current marketing landscape for small biz owners is a nightmare, both in terms of privacy and the number of places online we are expected to “be active.” A lot of people get really burnt out on it because they also don’t realize that marketing and sales is like 80% of the work, and the fun thing you love to do is like 20%.

Come hang! Sorry, I also thought you were OP when I responded, so ignore references to wedding biz things that don’t apply to you!

Absolutely! My pleasure and I’d welcome it!

Me too! Unfortunately, most people have traded convenience for privacy at this point. Which means both your potential clients and fellow wedding pros will be in all the places you don’t want to engage with.

But I will say, the nice thing about owning your own business is that you make the rules! You don’t have to do things that don’t align with your values. You can still market your business ethically, you just might need a longer timeline for profitability.

Hi! I’m a wedding florist and educator in the US. I also have PiHole running at home (thanks to my partner) and feel the same way about social media - absolutely hate it, no personal accounts, and it’s only for the business.

Edited to add: I draw a hard line in my business with paying Meta or Google to advertise. I have never paid Zuck a dime. I also refuse to use TikTok because it’s a privacy nightmare.

Here’s how I handle different marketing channels:

SEO - my bread and butter - allows me to blog useful things and not feel slimy. Try to blog about things “upstream” from your services that couples would hire first - venues, planners, caterers maybe.

Instagram - I’m a florist, it’s a must. I used to use a separate device but after forgetting it at a wedding for behind-the-scenes shots, and the having to transfer everything over, I just gave up. I have Instagram on my main phone and it annoys me. I have mic/photo permissions turned off unless I post a story/reel. I use Tailwind for IG and Pinterest static posts.

Facebook - I don’t use the app, just desktop. have a FB page but I rarely log in. Tailwind allows me to post my IG post to FB without logging in.

Pinterest - I don’t use the app, just desktop. And I use Tailwind to schedule. To be honest I do not get any leads from Pinterest, so I stopped caring about it.

Networking - This is another key source of leads for me. We have several local wedding vendor groups here, and I belong to all of them. And I go to meetings regularly. I highly encourage you to go out and meet the people who will eventually refer you! (But never ask for a referral/preferred vendor until you’ve worked together at least once.)

The Knot/WW - Worth having a free listing. Only worth having a paid listing if your service is low cost and you’re interested in volume. Are there French sites like those you could be listed on, some kind of directory?

Wedding shows - I’ve never done a wedding show but some people have lots of success. Whatever you do, make sure you make them book a consultation with you right there at the booth. Otherwise you will lose them. It’s not enough to gather emails (although, do that too) because they will be getting a billion emails after the show from vendors. Be the first in their inbox. Have an incentive for scheduling their consult that’s not a discount (e.g. bigger photo book if they end up booking with you or something).

Hope that helps! Never keep doing a marketing method that isn’t bringing you the right people. It’s a waste of your time and you can’t do all these things, you’ll go mad! Please DM me if you have questions or wanna chat more, I’m happy to help. Je parle français aussi, mais seulement après café :)

It’s very cool to see so many of our local (PNW) seed farmers quoted in this article! It’s true that they are doing incredible work. Some of our farm friends are growing seed, sourcing heirlooms from other countries to trial them here (including all the customs logistics involved), and saving their own mutants. Some great companies to support for your winter seed buying:

Osborne Seeds Wild Garden Seed Uprising Seeds Baker Creek Seeds High Mowing Johnny’s Seeds

I don’t manage our PiHole, so easier said than done. I’m the non tech spouse (although not clicking ads or on TikTok all day, lol) but I can’t bug my spouse in the middle of the day to whitelist something for me. I can easily disable it myself and it takes 10 seconds. I could learn how to whitelist, but TBH I have enough tech to keep up with for the business already.

My most frequent issue is that links created through an email service provider like ConvertKit will get blocked by PiHole.

I’m a small business owner and so I get a lot of other people’s newsletters, on purpose. I like seeing what mentors and colleagues are doing with their businesses. But a link to their website, a blog post, anything really will almost always be blocked by PiHole if it’s sent via an ESP. This kind of “tracking” (email clicks from a small biz I know and trust) is something I am totally fine with.

It’s easy to disable for 1 minute to click through, but sometimes I forget that the PiHole is active and I can’t figure out why the links aren’t working.

I had no idea this was a thing. How awful. We have a family member in a short-term rehabilitation facility right now and it’s extremely chaotic there, lots of turnover. I wonder if they are using these apps, which would add to the chaos. Definitely something to ask about if you have an older family member who will need assisted living or a skilled nursing facility…as if those decisions aren’t hard enough.