Jessica's Friday Five: Emergency vet visits and 4 other lifesavers
Published 3 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader,
With an emergency vet visit (more on that below), the weird, constantly changing summer schedules when there are school-aged kids in your home, and a cruel bill that will make healthcare and the economy worse in my country likely to pass, it's been a tough week around here. Pulling together 5 practical tips for you each Friday continues to be a joyful ritual for me to share with you in the midst of good weeks and bad weeks, so let's get to it, shall we?
If you have a pet: This week, one of our cats was acting unusually. On Tuesday night, when she seemed to be especially "off", we opened up the Pawp app and got a video call with a vet within about a minute. She looked at our cat's breathing, gums, asked some questions, and then told us it was worth taking her to an emergency vet because her breathing wasn't normal. It turns out she has a respiratory infection and it's treatable with some medicine, so all should be fine. But that app was so helpful to get some quick, free help and determine if it was worth the vet visit when we weren't sure. We have this Pawp app membership as a free benefit for our Walmart+ account (we primarily use Walmart+ for free grocery delivery), and it costs just over $4 a month. Worth checking out if you have a pet!
Google Vids for screen captures: I have been using Loom to capture videos of my screen, but one of you (thanks Kirsten!) recently shared that Google Vids is a comparable service, and it's included if you're using a Google Workspace account (for example if your job uses Gmail for work email, but unfortunately not if you're using a free Gmail account). Worth checking out if it might save you $ on whatever tool you've been using!
Get the phones out of your gathering: I did this at my tween's birthday party a few weeks ago, and it worked so well. In the comments of that post, some suggested using it for adult gatherings too, and I love that idea. I would love to know if you've ever done that with kids or adults and how it went - hit reply and tell me!
Send me memes, por favor: Many of you already eagerly await the memes I share every Friday on Instagram and Facebook (we call them Friday Funnies). I'll be away from my email and social media for the next week or so (we'll be cruising in Alaska with my college roommate and her family!), so I'll probably fall behind on meme collection. Email me any favorite memes you see to help me catch up, please?
Free workshop on becoming a virtual assistant: My friend Sadie is leading this workshop next weekend on how to earn your first $1k as a virtual assistant. If that's something you've ever been interested in as a side hustle or a flexible way to earn an income, check it out!
P.S. I’m part of Lizzy’s Summer Party — a free bundle of 55+ digital products designed to help online business owners stay visible, sell smarter, and bring in new leads all summer long. 🌞 You can choose the tools that fit your strategy (including my Gmail Cleanup Toolkit) — but only until Thursday, 10th July!
Bonus Sponsor Resource: If you're overwhelmed by passwords, I've created a video for my most recent Joyfully Managed Worklife cohort, addressing questions about how password manager software works. If you haven't set up something like this, it's time to do that. It's not overly complicated. Here's me explaining the basics of how these work. The Wirecutter team (that I trust the most for product reviews) says 1Password is the best option, and it's super affordable and free to start. Your family and work team probably needs one if you don't already have one. This resource is from one of our Friday Five sponsors - thank you to them for keeping this newsletter free for readers!
