Reading my poem about the Lao frog who eats the moon

In the last few days I've finished chores that have been sitting half- or not-done for weeks. I even got reflective film (in a bag in the hall since mid-June) on the remaining windows while it could actually do some good.

Will it work forever? Probably not. But it works for now & I'll take that

Counsellor asked me to try a different way to handle my ever-growing, never-getting-done 'to do' lists: Only 3 things on the list at a time. No secret list behind the main list to draw from. I was skeptical--my lists keep the brain squirrels from taking over--but hot damn, it's working.

#ADHD

Wooooo! I have, of course, backed it. I thought I knew pretty much all I need to know about yarn structure, but then I remembered that I've always learned something from Michelle's PLY articles, and I bet there will be stuff in there I did not know and will find very useful.

blast beats bicycle club sticker and anti fascist knitting action sticker which reads “Nazis stay cold”

This is amazing! “Nazis stay cold” LOL

For example, meet Fern. "Her favorite music is definitely NOT inuit throat singing. That scared her a bit. She definitely prefers the mongolian style."

cowichancream.ca/fern/

Made the mistake of buying butter from a local dairy farm/cheese maker and damn, that stuff is so good it's turned me into a special-butter-beside-the-daily-use-butter person.

Their cheese is ridiculously good, too. The website is worth it just for the cow profiles. cowichancream.ca )

If you like your sci fi with octopuses in it, may I also recommend Children of Ruin, the second book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series? (The whole series is great, IMO, so it's worth reading the first, octopus-free book to get to the second.)

Against a background of purplish yarns, the mocked-up cover of a book titled, "A User's Guide to Yarn: Harness Fibre, Twist, and Structure to Make the Cloth You Want," by Michelle Boyd. A green banner across the top says, "Nearly Funded: Kickstarter." Text at a diagonal and slighly overlapping the bottom of the book cover reads, "We're so close to our goal! Will you be the yarn lover to get us over the line?"

Halfway through the campaign, we're about 25 backers from meeting our goal to cover the minimum printing cost of A USER'S GUIDE TO YARN, by the brilliant @spindleprincess.bsky.social. Will you be the yarn lover to get us over the line? Choose your rewards at www.kickstarter.com/projects/nin...

Thanks for the recommendations! I am always here for books about octopodes. The Vancouver Island Library doesn't have the ebooks, alas, but they're now on my Kobo wishlist.

33 here. I am not looking forward to it.

Well, damn. At least you got some nutrients out of it? Hopefully? It looks freakin' delicious.

I hope your body stops being so awful to you soon.

Also it plays to my weakness of buying too much fruit during the season of all the cheap, delicious fruits: slightly bruised/overripe fruit is perfect for shrubs, apparently.

and then your hands smell amazing, I bet.

I think this may be the summer of shrubs. We don't really eat jam, and will only consume so much frozen fruit. I drink an ungodly amount of fizzy water, though, and am looking forward to experimenting with the basic 1:1:1 fruit:sugar:vinegar shrub formula to see what fresh deliciousness I can make.

Yesss. This week my favourite veg & egg folks had slightly bruised tomatoes for a buck a pound, and another farmer had jalapeños, cilantro, and Walla Walla onions. Can we eat a quart of pico before it turns? I am up to that challenge.

Also turned slightly past it strawberries into strawberry shrub.

Oh, myyyyyyyyy.

Bye Bye, Google AI: Turn off Google AI Overviews, Discussions and Ads - Chrome Web Store Filter Google search results to hide AI overviews, ads, discussions or videos. You choose.

I found a Chrome extension that you can use to block the Google AI information at the top, you can also use it to block some of the other page elements like "people also searched for"

Same.

Ooooohhhhhhh.

In related news, I have plans to make peach ice cream this week. Peach season is the best season.

I'll be waiting by the phone.

Side note: This is not a 'we're feeding you after we proselytize at you for an hour first', judgy church meals. From what I've seen, these folks do genuine, heartfelt, no-strings-attached community work, & while I am decidedly not Christian, I have respect for those who live their belief in this way

Ohhhh, that face! Those eyes! Minerva is the perfect name for her. I swear, at the risk of sounding very woo, every happy cat contributes to the sum total of happiness in the world, and feels like a little victory.

Indeed there does not. It was refreshing!

I'm also very glad she was open to another view of things. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to just, you know, talk things over and listen to each other and change someone's opinion through calm and reason and caring.

You know, like reasonable people do when they're not entrenched in their positions and genuinely care about finding a solution.

Aha! But read on! She doesn't feel that way anymore! Because yeah, my first reaction was "Who the fuck hurt you so bad that you'd deny food to people with nothing?" but instead I just gave her an alternative view, and she considered it, and decided I had a point.

Simple as that. No shouting, no point-scoring. Just a conversation with a woman who was willing to have her mind changed about something.

Damn, I need to spend less time in the firehose.

And maybe, over time, that caring helps them to find their way to something better. And if it doesn't, well, at least they're not being left to starve."

"Oh! I hadn't thought of it that way. I think you're right."

3/4

"Or maybe, maybe they get a chance, at least once a day, to interact with people who say, 'I think you're worth something. I care about you and want you to live.' And maybe they get information about services that are available when they're ready to get help....

2/x