Monday Update 12-8-25

Dec. 8th, 2025 02:41 am
ysabetwordsmith: Artwork of the wordsmith typing. (typing)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Holiday Activities
Today's Cooking
Climate Change
Christmas Bird Count
Birdfeeding
Holiday Activities
Affordable Housing
Read "The Sound of Celebration"
Economics
Science
Today's Adventures
Climate Change
Philosophical Questions: Trends
Today's Cooking
Activism
Economics
Birdfeeding
Follow Friday 12-5-25: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Fall 2025 J-Z
Photos: House Yard
Today's Adventures
Activism
Art
Birdfeeding
Wildlife
Poem: "Protect the Inner Core"
Photography
Birdfeeding
Poem: "Never -- Ever -- Quit"
Self-Care Wednesday
Cuddle Party

Trauma has 45 comments. Affordable Housing has 75 comments. Robotics has 101 comments.


The 2025 Holiday Poetry Sale will run Monday, December 15 through Friday 19. This is a good place to spend holiday money or buy a gift for a fellow bookworm. \o/


Winterfaire 2025 is now open! List a Booth for anything you sell that would make good holiday gifts, or comment with what you're shopping for to crowdsource ideas. There are links to two similar shopping events online. if you know others, please pass the word.


"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv. It has 44 new verses and needs $72 to be complete. Shiv and his classmates discuss magical weather, magical geography, natural resources, plants and animals, history, and other aspects of worldbuilding.


The weather has been cold and snowy here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, several mourning doves, one female and two male cardinals, and a dark-eyed junco.

Holiday Activities

Dec. 8th, 2025 12:09 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Fragile Heart’s Guide to Surviving the Holidays

Because I know I’m not the only one facing the challenges that this time of year makes even harder. Perhaps it’s your first holiday after your divorce and you’ll be away from your kids, or you’ve been laid off in this terrible economy; perhaps anticipatory grief won’t let you forget that this will be your last Hanukkah with a beloved relative. Maybe you’re facing a scary health challenge. There are as many ways to be emotionally rocked this holiday season as there are on needles on a Christmas tree.


This article offers some good advice for treating emotional injuries over the holiday season.

Read more... )

Today's Cooking

Dec. 7th, 2025 11:44 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today I'm making Lemon Thumbprint Cookies. :D The first filling is Lemon-Elderflower from Berries & Flour and the second is bettergoods Raspberry, Cardamom & Rosehip Fruit Spread.  We've tried the Lemon-Elderflower first and that jam is quite strong.  Thumbprint cookies are the perfect use because there's only about 1/4 teaspoon in each.  On toast it might be overpowering.  Another good use would be thinning it down to glaze for a fruit salad or tart.

Weekend efforts

Dec. 7th, 2025 06:24 pm
artemisdart: (Nuts)
[personal profile] artemisdart
Over the weekend, I wrote and then scrapped an entire scene for my Holiday Hux-change story, redid the rest of the outline with some new ideas, and then wrote another 1,900 words to make up for cutting that one scene.

I'm still behind my desired pace for this story, but I think now that I've changed the outline, I should be okay... if I'm diligent about my time for the next week. I'm resolutely REFUSING to increase the chapter count!

That's due on Monday, December 15th, at noon my time, but since I'll be at work, it's actually due Sunday night the 14th.

And then, Yuletide is due on Wednesday the 17th! So far I only have one scene and the lyrics to one song, but I should definitely put in another song, or perhaps even two, and firm up / write the rest of the plot!
dray: (Default)
[personal profile] dray
Looks like a little community focusing on original characters is booting up on Dreamwidth, called [community profile] ocrealm! If you have any characters you want to chat about, this looks like a nice little haven for them.

I've tossed up an introduction post here and I'm thinking of popping the occasional prompt in from time to time. Want to join me to play in a slower-paced space than discord tends to be?
ride_4ever: (Fannish 50 Challenge)
[personal profile] ride_4ever
You may know Joyce Hindman as LionHeart Distribution or as Requiem Publications, publisher and seller of zines and as Bast Ravenshadow's publishing partner, or you may know her for her four tables at Media West, or as the artist with the little boxes and jewelry and other fun beaded stuff in the Media West art show, or as the fic writer Sekhmet.

She is now a senior citizen (over 70), and on social security after years on disability, along with her husband who is also a senior with health problems.

This has been a particularly tough year as far as health problems and medical expenses. Her husband was hospitalized with pneumonia. She needed rotator cuff repair on her dominant arm and additionally shortly thereafter broke the humerous bone near her shoulder on the same side.

She and her husband are now trying to cope with many medical bills for surgeries and physical therapy at a cost of thousands of dollars. With fixed incomes, and looking at increases in insurance premiums, food costs, et cetera, and with her husband's part-time job offering no work for two months now, they are very uncertain about how to pay these bills.

If you can donate anything to the Hindman GoFundMe, please do so at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-joyce-overcome-medical-expenses . If you would rather donate privately as I did and you have PayPal, you can PayPal Joyce at jersey dot lion at gmail dot com.

busy week

Dec. 7th, 2025 05:20 pm
mellowtigger: (possum)
[personal profile] mellowtigger

Monday after work, I did eventually walk to the store to buy some whisky. That strategy was good. I slept well that night.

Tuesday morning was a "snow day" at my remote job. I logged in for work and saw the notice that it was called off until noon due to local (in Pennsylvania) snow conditions. I also saw a coworker asking for someone to take his shift, because he needed to help a friend with a bad car situation. I (foolishly?) agreed, so I worked the skeleton crew to continue working on tickets that morning. It was another very busy day, though less busy than Monday.

Wednesday had more people on staff all day, but it was still a busier-than-usual Wednesday workload. I was glad when it was over, though, and my "weekend" began.

Thursday and Friday resulted in almost no accomplishments at all (well, some laundry), which was glorious.

Saturday morning, we had half of our crew out sick. And it was still a busier-than-usual day, so the few of us left were busy all day. On weekends, I usually have some free time to read Dreamwidth or the news, and I never opened the web browser that day.

Today, finally, full crew on staff and reasonable workload. "Normal" is such a nice distraction.

vital functions

Dec. 7th, 2025 10:45 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

(Last week's also now exists and is no longer a placeholder!)

Reading. Pain, Abdul-Ghaaliq Lalkhen. I want to be very, very clear: unless you are specifically researching attitudes and beliefs in pain clinics in early 2020s England, or similar, do not read this book. There are bad history and no references, appalling opinions on patients (), quite possibly the worst hyphenation choice I have ever seen, stunning omissions and misrepresentations of pain science, and It's Weird That It Happened Twice soup metaphors. Fuller review (or at least annotated bibliography entry) to follow, maybe.

Some further progress on Florencia Clifford's Feeding Orchids to the Slugs ("Tales from a Zen kitchen"), which I acquired from Oxfam in a moment of weakness primarily for EYB purposes at a point when it was extremely discounted. It is primarily a somewhat disjointed memoir for which I am not the target audience, but hey, Books To Go Back In The Charity Shop Pile but that I wouldn't actually hate reading were exactly the goal, so that's a victory. Mostly. I'm a little over halfway through it, sticking book darts on pages that contain recipes for easier reference when I go back through on the actual indexing pass.

I absolutely needed something that was not going to make me furious and furthermore that was not going to be demanding, and there's a new one in the series, so I have now reread several Scalzi: Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades completed, The Lost Colony in progress.

I've also had a very quick flick through the mentions of Descartes in Joanna Bourke's The Story of Pain, which is my next Pain Book. She does better than everyone else I've read, but I still think she's misinterpreting Treatise on Man. (Why do I have strongly-held opinions on Descartes now. CAN I NOT.)

Playing. Inkulinati, Monument Valley )

Cooking. SOUP.

smitten kitchen's braised chickpeas with zucchini and pesto, two batches thereof, because I had promised A burrata to go with and then (1) the supermarket was out of it and (2) the opened part-pack of feta wound up doing two days quite comfortably, so the second batch was required For Burrata Purposes.

I have also established that the pistachio croissant strata works very well in one of the loaf tins if you scale it down to 50% quantities because there were only 3 discount croissants at the supermarket (... because you had to wait and watch the person who got there JUST ahead of you taking Most Of Them...), which also conveniently used up the dregs of the cream that I had in the fridge.

Eating. Tagine out the freezer (thank you past Alex). Relatively fresh dried apple. A very plain lunch at Teras in Seydikemer, which was apparently the magic my digestive system needed to settle itself down! And I am very much enjoying my dark chocolate raspberry stars. :)

Climate Change

Dec. 7th, 2025 03:11 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Satellites spot rapid “Doomsday Glacier” collapse

Two decades of satellite and GPS data show the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf slowly losing its grip on a crucial stabilizing point as fractures multiply and ice speeds up. Scientists warn this pattern could spread to other vulnerable Antarctic shelves.

Christmas Bird Count

Dec. 7th, 2025 02:19 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Join the Christmas Bird Count from December 14-January 5. This is a popular piece of citizen science. To participate, see a map of active circles to find one near you. If you're inside one, you can also count birds at your own feeders.

Are you taking pictures of birds in your locale? Share them on [community profile] birdfeeding and see what other folks have in their areas.

Birdfeeding

Dec. 7th, 2025 01:45 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy, chilly, and foggy.  Much of the snow is melting or subliming with the water vapor just hanging in the air.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/7/25 -- I bagged up Pink, Johnathan, and Johnagold apple seeds with damp sand to cold-stratify in the kitchen.

EDIT 12/7/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/7/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/7/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a pair of cardinals.

EDIT 12/7/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Holiday Activities

Dec. 7th, 2025 01:41 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The three act structure and holidays

So, now, I'm thinking of organizing holidays/really exciting events around these three factors:
* buildup appropriate to the event (edit: with a sense of joy and wonder, as a friend points out)
* a climax that is fun/exciting/enjoyable enough to justify all the buildup
* the day of the event should be low enough stress that the participants have the energy to enjoy it



This is a very astute analysis of holidays, how they work, and how to make them enjoyable. While it can't fix the problem of holiday sprawl in the wider culture, it CAN make a huge difference in how you approach them personally or as a family to create better experiences.

I've got a long comment under this post discussing some of my observations and practices too.

Culinary

Dec. 7th, 2025 06:31 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

This week's bread: Country Oatmeal aka Monastery Loaf from Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno's Bread (2:1:1 wholemeal/strong white/pinhead oatmeal), a bit dense and rough-textured - the recipe says medium oatmeal, which has seemed hard to come by for months now (I actually physically popped into a Holland and Barrett when I was out and about the other day and boy, they are all about the Supplements these days and a lot less about the nice organic grains and pulses, sigh, no oatmeal, no cornmeal, etc etc wo wo deth of siv etc). Bread tasty though.

Friday night supper: groceries arrived sufficiently early in the pm for me to have time to make up the dough and put the filling to simmer for sardegnera with pepperoni.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe, 4:1 strong white/buckwheat flour, dried blueberries, Rayner's Barley Malt Extracxt, turned out very nicely.

Today's lunch: savoury clafoutis with Exotic Mushroom Mix (shiitake + 3 sorts of oyster mushroom) and garlic, served with baby (adolescent) rainbow carrots roasted in sunflower and sesame oil, tossed with a little sugar and mirin at the end, and sweetstem cauliflower (some of which was PURPLE) roasted in pumpkin seed oil with cumin seeds.

Reminder to self: Anchor! Visualise!

Dec. 7th, 2025 08:35 am
vriddy: Link from Legend of Zelda taking aim with a bow (taking aim)
[personal profile] vriddy
Dear self, I know you forget every time, so here's reminder #134792. I think there are a few of these reminders as posts on this journal already, too.

1. Your first drafts are pretty bare, and that's okay! Don't sweat it. Conversations and actions in a void, just roll with it. Blank room syndrome, let's go.
2. Of course it seems flat when you reread. The solution isn't to add unnecessary action or vague plot, at least not as a first port of call.
3. Start with ANCHORING the scene! Visualise it! Where are the characters? What are they wearing and doing while speaking or doing the stuff that needs getting done? Can you add any sensory descriptions beyond visual descriptions? What scents surround them? What time is it?
4. As you are rediscovering today for the 358935893th time, this already helps a lot with making scenes more vivid and flow better.

For the cursed witch, during early revisions I literally wrote "ANCHOR!" at the start of every chapter I was annotating so I'd actually remember to do that when making the changes afterwards.

But I forgot again, and was being all sad at the flat fic first draft I pulled out this morning. Now I have ANCHORED and VISUALISED the first scene, and I'm a bit less sad :D And also, having fun. Whee! \o/

Affordable Housing

Dec. 6th, 2025 11:42 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
How Fayetteville’s New Program Makes It Easy To Build Housing

Fayetteville, Arkansas, just gave residents something rare in the world of housing development: a clear, predictable, and affordable path to building.


Any town could do things like these to address their housing issues. Here are some toolkits you can use in your hometown. Now let's look at some things Fayetteville did right, that remind me of Terramagne-America...

Read more... )

Read "The Sound of Celebration"

Dec. 6th, 2025 11:31 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Thanks to sponsorship from [personal profile] gothfvck, you  can now read my poem "The Sound of Celebration" over on [community profile] tfc_musicianships.

Economics

Dec. 6th, 2025 10:46 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Rhode Island's $85 Million Expansion Masquerading as Maintenance

The Ocean State’s roads and bridges are failing. Rather than prioritizing repair, officials pursued an $85 million expansion that will cost decades of future maintenance.

Read more... )

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