Member Posts

Trapezoid Shawl Pattern

I finally wrote out the pattern for the trapezoid shawl I made earlier this year. It's my first time writing out a pattern, but I *think* it all makes sense.

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Current Music: Nice Weather for Ducks

I'm not looking forward to this.

On the other hand, I wasn't thinking with some of the usual parts of my sense of humor when I was picking out my non-red jello for Liquid Diet Day (24 oz food service pack) and rolled the wrong citrus out of three: orange.

I could have had lemon jelly.
https://youtu.be/ioudby-xooc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_Jelly

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Rosie is getting married tomorrow, so today was the last class for a fortnight. She was going on annual leave after our class finished, and was such a happy mood. So, while she was still evil!Rosie, she was being so while full of joy which was lovely to see. The class got her a signed card, which she seemed touched about, then she was off, checking out of work to do some last minute wedding prep.

I was also at the doctors this morning ( cut for medical stuff )

We did a craft fair on Saturday gone. Sadly, it wasn't the best attended, and we only made a profit of £35 after paying for the table. But, that was £35 more pounds than we'd had that morning, and stock was sold, which was great. Even better, the organiser offered us a regular spot at the makers market in our town. Funnily enough, that happens in the same hall we use for weight management class, on the third Saturday of each month. So, that's this Saturday coming, where hopefully, more people turn up and more stock will be sold. And if it's quiet, I've told James I'll sneak away and leave him to it and have an hour in the gym *g*

We also went to see the new Downton Abby film on Friday. The clientele amused me as the screen was full of ladies carrying in their glasses of wine, but they were all so excited, it made for a lovely atmosphere, especially as nearly every seat was full. ( cut for spoilers )

why we stand as one in harmony

We had our fairly epic concert on Saturday night. The Octagon (a Unitarian church) is a handsome space lined with dark wood, with bright green pillars(!). We looked amazing in our orange and pink outfits!

It all went really well. Having sold literally half the available tickets online, we ended up with a pretty full house, so I think our charity will have a good contribution from it. The chorus sang 16 songs, with four solo or small groups in between, and we sang *well*. Which is nice. I was quite surprised my voice held out, particularly since I sing Tenor for at least part of three different songs, in one of which I am the only person singing that line as the other two who know it were not there! But I managed, and even had a voice on Sunday.

My poor Beast, whom I had volunteered for catering duty, missed quite a lot of the second half washing up with his co-caterer, but my daughter and her man and a couple of friends were there, which was particularly nice as I'd thought Bun was away for the weekend!

Anyway. Spent much of Sunday not doing much, though I processed a bunch of apples from the garden which, having cooked them, I have decided are mostly cookers. They fluffed nicely. And are, indeed, quite large. We have been having baked apples for lunch, too. The russets and the small, light green ones remain unpicked, but I shall have to get to it, I don't want to waste them. Meanwhile the other crops are coming to an end. There are a couple of small courgettes which I am letting burgeon for a day or so, but the beans are pretty much over. Still kale, and the spinach is replenishing itself in a satisfactory way. There are, somewhat to my surprise, two corn cobs, very small but there, and I'm holding off as long as I can before taking one in.

🍾🥂 About 24⅔ years of good fucking riddance

Goodbye to bad rubbish BJ, who could make simple things like Madonna being active in the music industry longer than most people of our generation being aware of, plus she didn't look in her early 40s at the time, into some kind of sinister conspiracy theory situation.

You were an absolute jackass, and I honestly don't care if you're alive or not except that I might need to avoid you.

Thanks to Votania and Darkside, who helped me realize what a bad friend BJ was, never mind as a prospective life partner and spouse. Bleck.

This random thought brought to me by the death of Charles Entertainment Kirk, which would probably have been making BJ's circles flail in panic, and hearing a Madonna song on the Doof. (A back episode, we didn't have a SunDoof that I'm aware of.)

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me: life

Week 38/52 - day 48 of Project 65 days

Look at me doing a timely update.

I know lots of people aren't doing great right now and it feels pointless to crack on with the mundane aspects of living when the world seems to be on fire on all fronts. Not sure how everyone else is coping but I'm trying to channel my anger, rage and frustration on other slightly more visible platforms and pointing it at people who might be able to do something. So I'm aiming to keep my DW as a bit of a refuge.

#ORJENISE100 run by the lass on Insta is happening again this month. I'm 3 days behind but have already shifted 114 items. Not sure I'll beat my January total of using, donating or chucking 401 items but I'm well on the way.

HOME: chaos still reigns in my bedroom and living room but my kitchen, hall/stairs and bathroom have been cleaned and tidied. Still need to fix the new airvent in the bathroom but that will be done when I've finished sanding and varnishing the external side of the bathroom - which is why I hope the forecast for a sunny Friday will hold! Also on the docket for external fixes are sanding and painting the front door and front gate before the weather gets too bad. I've also still got winter pots and window boxes to finish planting.

HEALTH: overall pretty good though my arthritic knees are not happy. I took a tumble on site last Monday and despite landing on my padded posterior I apparently wrenched my knees and hit a pipe on the way down which has left a gigantic bruise on my shin. Ouch! For the first time in my life I filled out a proper accident form at work just in case my knees get even worse.

LIFE ADMIN: slowly picking away at long outstanding tasks like a grown ass adult.

GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: I spent a chunk of last Saturday and Sunday afternoon down on the plot (not this weekend which has been too wet) and harvested courgettes and started the great pre-winter clear up. Still need to pick up windfall apples and harvest the rest when ready. Hoping to get the shed,tidied and sorted if we have a sunny weekend in October!

COOKING/EATING: doing a bit of a pantry/freezer challenge this month and using up items. My storage boxes are staring to look a bit depleted but I really DO NOT need to buy ground coffee or honey for a good few months. The coffee will go down quickly especially if I replace my morning cafe coffee with home made. The honey situation is out of control. I haven't counted how many jars but I estimate around 30. Apparently when I go away or visit a farmers market I buy honey, lots and lots of honey,

READING/LISTENING: Not reading/ listening at the moment - have run out of processing power! Have bought some good books from Bookbub and Bookdrop though and am going to try to get back to reading for 30 mins every evening to wind down.

WATCHING: all my usual weekly shows. Summer feels like it's been a bit quieter for new TV. Having said that I am loving Chief of War and S3 of Foundation and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Very sad that we only have 16 eps of ST: SNW before the show ends.

CREATING/LEARNING: summer has been nuts at work so hardly any time for crochet club or other creative endeavours.

CATS: all good.

VOLUNTEERING: all few committee meetings but no work days and we had to postpone the end of seasons BBQ because of the weather.

SOCIALISING: it's been a busy summer at work so social activities have beens bit limited. At work the allotment group did a show allotment at Hampton Court which was a 5 day build, exhibiting for 7 days and then a 1.5 day take down. They won best allotment and I am very proud of them. I was there for most of the build and take down and helped out on one show day. Tremendous fun. I helped out

gingerpig with Steve Carlson's summer gig, again fun and a chance to catch up with friends, and I went to see Born with Teeth the Marlow & Shakespeare play with Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel. Which I have many thoughts about but can be summarised as I thought the writing was weak in places but Ncuti and Edward were obviously having heaps of fun with it. I may see if I can pop back at the end of the run.

WORK: Summer has been very stressful and - for the first time - I seriously wondered about quitting or taking retirement. I like the job most of the time, love the people in the Parks team and and the volunteers on the sites but I've taken on triple the amount of work my predecessors did and we're chronically under resourced. All of which led to a bit of a meltdown over the last 10 days. I'm getting too tired to work ridiculous numbers of hours in excess of my contracted hours and I want a life back!

Next week is a busy week too with a potentially challenging meeting on Thursday night but I plan to take Friday off because - as usual - I'll be about a day in hand by then!

Current Mood: tired

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Here's a new one

Inspired by talking with a newly-hatched Jewish trans woman.

Tikkun

Each of these pains
Is the jagged edge
Of a cracked
Vessel

You are not separate
From a wounded
Creation
The light you find
In your own curves
Is also divine

To become holy
Is
To become whole.

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viva la revolucion, carl

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman

Carl and Princess Donut ily. I haven't had this level of reading obsession in awhile. I'm over here going through like 200 pages a day. There's one more book published and technically I could buy it on Kindle immediately but it comes out in print on the 23rd and I need to actually get some things in my life together before I lose another week to a 900 page book.

This week also finished out my two current weekly TV shows:

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (season 3): ( spoilers )

Foundation (season 3): ( spoilers )

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dear author letters

FFFX 2025

TBA

Current Mood: productive

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ML fic: Creatures of Habit

Written for the prompts, 114 Lucifugous, 137 Will-o'-the-wisp, 147 Connotations, 154 Liminal, at

vocab_drabbles
Title: Creatures of Habit
Fandom: Moonlight (TV)
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: R (for brief, non-explicit sex)
Words: 965
Characters/Pairings: Josef/Shane
Summary: Josef contemplates changes in the status quo, dances, and does some star gazing. Shane is unpredictable.

( Creatures of Habit )

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quarterly report?

Still not king. Very far from being king, in fact.

I haven't posted here for a variety of tedious reasons, including: my laptop is barely creaking along, but I hate trying to type long posts on a phone; it was summer and the heat makes me miserable; not really feeling fannishly engaged and not wanting to bore you all with posts about my boring life; the general state of everything.

But all of you here are important to me, even when I go silent. So I'll keep trying not to go silent so much.

All right, first, the boring life stuff.

( health, job, OMG MY FUCKING JOB )

Fandom: Not much happening. I enjoyed the Murderbot TV show a lot and wrote a couple of short fics for it, but the fandom (on Tumblr) immediately started annoying the hell out of me.

I might do Yuletide, just to feel sort of fannishly connected.

Books: T. Kingfisher's latest, Hemlock and Silver, is pretty darn good. I've now read all of her books except the non-fantasy horror, which I'm just not feeling up to. Luckily she's releasing several more new books in upcoming months.

Other than that, I felt like I'd been reading a lot of popcorn books that I wasn't even enjoying, so I went to the other extreme and started Don Quixote, which I somehow have managed to not read despite having a Ph.D. in (English) Renaissance literature. So far I like it, but I'm not getting the greatness, if that makes sense? It's a mildly funny parody of chivalric romance. But I'm only about 100 pages in, so there's a lot to go and I'm presuming it gets more complicated. I did quite like the bit where the story veers into straightforward pastoral, with the shepherdess who makes the impassioned defense of her choice to remain single and her wish for men to leave her the hell alone.

My intermittent urgent to scrape the rust off my French has also returned, so I'm reading Camus's L'étranger for the first time since I was a college freshman. The Kindle app has a built-in French dictionary, which helps.

On the subject of popcorn books I didn't enjoy: I won't name names, but I read a romantasy that purported to take place in a midwestern university town in 1969, but somehow the atmosphere of the campus and the town felt very much like my time in grad school in the 1990s. There are many women professors and they're respected and treated as equals, people are writing dissertations on queer themes in medieval poetry, and the dive bar has stout on tap. Also, somehow, in a world where apparently there's no sexism, no racism, and little to no homophobia, with all the changed history such a state implies, the US is still waging war in Vietnam. Plus, it soon became apparent that only the first chapter had been properly revised and polished, because the prose got a lot worse after that. I finished reading it, but I'm annoyed about it.

TV: Watched the first episode of the 2014 British cop drama Happy Valley, which I'd heard was rough going. It was even more brutal than I expected, while simultaneously being ridiculously implausible, so I haven't watched more.

After the Corporation for Public Broadcasting got defunded, I canceled my Netflix subscription and started recurring donations to my local NPR station and a PBS station (not my local one, but the one in northern Minnesota where I grew up, which probably literally changed my life as a teenager). This gives access to a ton of PBS shows, so I watched the Finnish drama Isolated, about a remote island that suddenly loses all electricity and communications, and all contact with the rest of the world. It too was a not-entirely-satisfying combination of bleak tone and ridiculous plot, but I enjoyed it enough to watch the whole thing.

Podcasts: I mostly listen to nonfiction, because my listening time is my commute and I can't give a narrative the level of attention I'd need to really enjoy it. I recently started If Books Could Kill, with Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri. It's about terrible bestselling (nonfiction) books, what they call airport books, that bring misinformation into the mainstream and cause actual social damage. I started from the beginning, and targets so far include Freakonomics, Outliers, The Game, and The Secret. Sometimes their analysis could go deeper (especially into the underlying ideological positions of these books), but it's pretty good at debunking stealthy bunk.

Other listening: The Mountain Goats have a new song out called "Armies of the Lord," from their forthcoming album Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan. I don't entirely love the song, but I think it may need to be heard in its context--the album is apparently a full-on "musical," as John Darnielle calls it, with a complex plot etc.

Other, or, we take hope where we can find it: New Taskmaster season starting soon! New Knives Out movie in November! I find it . . . helpful to have things to look forward to, in times like this. However trivial they are.

This is now very long, so I'm going to stop now. Apologies for any typos, but I'm feeling too lazy to go back and edit.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Adele - Hometown Glory

It's Autumn and there are apples. And plums. And hope in the darkness.

I've been doing lots of low key self-care this last week. Stress - or perhaps the absence of it, my shoulders coming down from around my ears - has been taking a toll on my body lately, so I've been putting in the effort of doing the little things to take care of myself. I got a haircut, I went for a massage, when one of my knitting ladies offered me apples and plums I said yes and made jam. (And parsnip and apple soup, and an awful lot of apple sauce, some to freeze, some to make muffins and pies with, some to eat on porridge.) I took advantage of these last few mild but breezy days to air out the house, change the sheets and dry them outside for probably the last time this season.

There's a tideline in my flat, you can see where I've been on a tear, cleaning things. Taking everything off shelves, dusting them and putting them back. My little pumkin fairy lights are up, and I've put fresh batteries in the rest of my fairy lights. I've been writing a lot lately, so I prioritised cleaning and tidying my computer corner, so I have a refuge I can retreat to when the deep clean is getting on top of me. I've been doing lots of the small jobs that I keep forgetting, and a couple of bigger ones that I've been putting off have turned up to be easier than expected to accomplish. I've finished a couple of craft projects - strategically, they were getting on top of me - and started others, and it turns out the jumper I just finished has highlights in the perfect shade to match my new favourite skirt. (Neatly turning it from just a summer skirt into an autumn and spring affair, I can wear it now with thick leggings, boots and the jumper.) I started a new craft kit that's been lurking since some time during the second lockdown. It's a little amigurumi style crab. Round and round I go, my tension is tighter than it ought to be but that's okay, amigurumi need to be densely crocheted. I got a small payrise and treated myself to a new LEGO set as a reward.

Everything feels a lot, but I'm working through my to-do list, making progress and trying to be kind to myself. There's more to do but I'm getting there.

There's so much to be worried about. So much to be angry about. But I can only do what I can do and sometimes all that I can do is take of myself and those around me.

Entry tags:

me: life

Weekend happiness

Following a bit of a grey and wet start with an impending chill in the air we've had a few days of sunshine.

Saturday and Sunday were both warm and if not sunny throughout had bursts of sunshine and I was able to spend a chunk of time on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon down on the allotment.

Despite being somewhat neglected over summer there were courgettes to harvest (and a ton of windfall apples which I will be picking up and stewing tomorrow). I got a significant amount of clearing for winter started which made me feel productive. Something about gardening and allotment feeds my soul in a way that few things do.

I also had a bit of a B&Q spree and bought a load more bulbs for the remaining pots at home - which will be planted over the next couple of weeks because gosh darn it I am finally learning to pace myself in the last few days of my 61st year.

I have varnish/stain for the back door and paint for the gate/front door some of which I intend to apply tomorrow as I celebrate the start of my 62nd year riding this burning hunk of rock through space.

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Murphy was at the vets again this morning and was given a clean bill of health. He needs to finish his supplement course, but we can stop giving him the painkillers, which will make him happy. The noises he made on the way there were ridiculous though, so loud and protesting.

We were back in the house by 9:20, and that quick appointment is what I'm blaming for the fact we set out for Rosie's exercise only class far too early. We'd walked to the location and getting close saw the door to the hall was still closed, at which point I realised the class started at 11am, and it was only just before 10.

Because we had walked, I didn't really want to turn around and go home again, so we had a walk in the park and sat in the sunshine a bit. Then called in the library as James needed something printing. It's changed a lot since I'd last been in, and if it wasn't for the fact I'm buried in books that Pauline keeps giving me, I'd be tempted to start going again because so many tempting books.

Also, Rosie is a liar that lies. Last week she told us she couldn't include any floor exercises due to it being an all ability class, today I walked in to see floor mats and one of the stations included planks on the floor. But only if you could safely stand up from the floor on your own. As I can, I opted for the floor planks, and do not recommend.

Now I'm waiting to go for my blood test. That isn't until 7:30, and it's thrown me a bit having an appointment so late. Don't they know I'm usually in my pjs and ready to settle for the night at that time?

Current Mood: sore

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[ gaming ] In which the party and the plot both fall off a cliff and everyone is a deceiver

Three lunatics and a paladin!

Dramatis Personae:

Viepuck, driving this bus accidentally, who gave the twelve-year-old the wheel
Izgil, with the frustrated pedantry
Celyn, mostly just vibing (I had a few moments but I get tired and muzzyheaded easily at the moment)
Robin, who got to be dramatic at the end

When we left off we were on top of a cliff near Veltor, the capital of the barony.

( So we jumped off the cliff, which was the plan. )

Current Mood: thoughtful

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The marriage of ship and plot

Fans on social media who hate romance, complaining about too many fanfics being about shipping.

Why can't it be both? My favorite type of story are the ones that have an interesting plot going on, and also a budding, developing, or complicated romance woven into them.

The stories I enjoy writing the most are the ones where there is a mystery, or something to solve, or a problem to get out of, and it's also furthering the relationship (and that means even the friendships and family dynamics).

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

me: life

Almost a month since my last post

I really need to get back into the habit of posting rather than just reading along!

Update Chez Ruric:

I had 2 weeks off at the end of August where I had plans to achieve things but did nothing because I was mentally and physically exhausted. Then I looked back at the end of 2024 and saw a similar kind of entry and things must change in late 2025/26. So I am making adjustments.

#project65days is plodding along - things are very slowly being sorted. I've started tackling my main Gmail account which at the beginning of the year had some 26,000 archived emails. I've had the account for 15 plus years and there's important stuff to keep in there along with everything else. I'm down to 16,500 stored emails and feeling quite proud of my progress! I mentally lighter with every 100 deletions.

Flat - between #project65days and the current round of #orjenise100 which has just started things are improving. I've started chipping away at the chaos in my bedroom, have bought a load of new houseplants as Lidl had large and medium sized pants at good prices which will make things feel greener. The ex is away mid September which means I can commandeer his washing machine and catch up on a backlog of washing.

Front garden - I got my act together last week and tidied the tiny front garden and pruned the roses. And I resolved not to try and do all my autumn window box and basket planting in one hit - which stresses me out and takes all the fun out of it - but rather space it out and do a few things at a time. So far I've planted a pot of pinks, a hanging basket, a window box of pinks for outside the kitchen window, bought and potted a new hebe.

Still to plant - 2 window boxes and 2 pots and sort out the raised bed in the front garden, 3 window boxes for in front of the living room windows, 2 window boxes and 4 large pots for the porch roof.

Winter prep still to do - sand and varnishing the exterior of the stable door into the garden, sand and paint the front gate and front door, touch up the White paint in the porch exterior and interior.

Back garden - so much pruning and sorting to do. Not worrying about that until October!

Allotment - harvesting and winter prep. I'll be down there for what's left of today, all day tomorrow and Tuesday.

Right - off to make coffee and then down to the lottie.