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Oct. 11th, 2025 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dustbunny105I shouldn't be allowed to look at new crafts, I think. I happened to come across a video about lace-making and then I watched some more videos about lace-making and now-- bet you couldn't guess it-- I really want to make lace.
Up at the Cabin, Quilt Show Edition
Oct. 11th, 2025 04:16 pmlydamorehouse
Image: Buckeye butterfly
My family and I are up at our friends' cabin for the weekend.
These are the friends of ours who have a lovely place with a natural shoreline (which they planted and meticulously mantain) on Crooked Lake in Siren, Wisconsin. At the far end of their property there is what I believe is a "smooth aster" (the native version of a purple aster.) It has attracted so many butterflies this year, it's not even funny. We've seen the buckeye pictured above as well as a painted lady, a clouded sulpher, and (and this might sound strange,) my favorite, this chonk of a moth, the corn ear worm moth.
Yep, total pest. Turns into chonk floof, baby mothra.
The dock is all pulled in, of course, so we've been amusing ourselves in other ways. In the nearby town of Weber, there is a quilt show. Ihave reported on this event in the past. It's very small town, in the best way? We're talking about tables set up in the local high school, staffed by little old ladies and a (bad) taco bar serving food for $5.00 in the cafeteria. The whole event kind of smells like Oretaga taco seasoning, but there are rows and rows of quilts with "artist statements" like, "I thought this pattern would be fun to try. WRONG. So I put it in craft jail for a few years, but this year decided to finish it. So here it is. Enjoy." These ladies (and some gents) really don't mince words when it comes to their quilts. Another one read, "Not much to say. Just need to use up my scraps." Then it will look like this:
Image: complex, bright yellow quilt.
Mason and I then went for a drive to check out Clam Dam, which, frankly, is the best name for any dam, anywhere as far as I'm concerned.
So far, a nice, chill vacation. Just what we needed post-Gaylaxicon.
How about you all? Up to anything fun?
Whumptober 2025 Day 11: Laceration
Oct. 11th, 2025 07:54 pmrosanicusNo 11: "Can you get through all the pain inside you?"
Hidden Injury | Laceration | Forced Reveal | Alt Prompt: Concussion
It's Ted Scott! He's a fantastic pilot! A fearless mailman! A bearer of plot armour so thick he could jump out of a space shuttle and land with barely a scratch! And today I gave him a concussion <3
This is a sort of alt-canon for an early scene in Flying Against Time, the NINTH Ted Scott book. God. There's too many of them.
( Ted Scott & Walter Hapworth, 1047 words )
Hidden Injury | Laceration | Forced Reveal | Alt Prompt: Concussion
It's Ted Scott! He's a fantastic pilot! A fearless mailman! A bearer of plot armour so thick he could jump out of a space shuttle and land with barely a scratch! And today I gave him a concussion <3
This is a sort of alt-canon for an early scene in Flying Against Time, the NINTH Ted Scott book. God. There's too many of them.
( Ted Scott & Walter Hapworth, 1047 words )
Saturday mishmash, with the second half largely food-related
Oct. 11th, 2025 02:04 pmumadoshiscruloose and I have our covid/flu shots booked for next weekend! There were earlier slots available, but not in walking distance. It'll take us right to the little corner market, and next weekend is its final day for the season. Convenient!We finished season 1 of Silo a couple nights ago. (I've been intermittently earwormed with its OP theme music, which is fortunately a good piece, but I still would rather not have it [or anything else] stuck in my head.) That was a very solid season finale. Now to decide if we want to immediately go to season 2 or watch something else first/alongside. (Can anyone tell me, without spoilers, a] how much of the book[s] season 1 covers, and/or b] if the show is finished or if a third season is expected/hoped for?)
I went along for the drive when
scruloose ran a few errands this morning: a purchase return, two stops for local produce (blueberries, cranberries, broccoli, and a giant sweet potato; no luck getting baking apples), and picking up an order of Thanksgiving baked goods from Sully & Porter (née the Old Apothecary). We are now in possession of six adorably tiny tarts (half pumpkin, half lemon meringue) and six hefty cookies that I hope will freeze reasonably well so that they can be eked out.Tomorrow evening will probably be when we throw together a Thanksgiving dinner of ham*, cranberry sauce, and some mix of roasted veggies. I consulted How to Cook Everything on the matter of the ham, and it gives an oven temperature and an estimated cook time and basically says "heat until hot, then eat", and it doesn't get much simpler than that.
*The most token little ham! I'm not actually sure how much I'll like it, as ham was never my thing growing up, so we didn't want a huge one to swamp us with leftovers. We'll see! I know it's possible for me to enjoy ham, as we've been to a couple of group meals where I did. (I can think of one here and one in Toronto, so the hams in question were cooked by two very different friends.)
Recent reading
Oct. 11th, 2025 12:54 amtroisoiseauxRe-read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, primarily to reset my brain by reading something for which I had zero expectations, although maybe it was the inevitable next step of this year's not-quite-project of re-reading 2000s YA. (I was in middle school during the Twilight era; I was never really into it, but I did read the first two or three books and declared myself to be on Team Jacob solely out of a sense of preteen contrarianism.) I ended up basically live-blogging this to a couple of friends, and the key takeaways from those conversations were:
( In which I give this book way more thought than necessary )
Anyway, I somehow ended up agreeing to read Midnight Sun, Meyer's cash-grab rewrite of Twilight from Edward's POV, for science, so stay tuned for that, possibly.
( In which I give this book way more thought than necessary )
Anyway, I somehow ended up agreeing to read Midnight Sun, Meyer's cash-grab rewrite of Twilight from Edward's POV, for science, so stay tuned for that, possibly.
(no subject)
Oct. 10th, 2025 08:59 pmdustbunny105Idk what I've done wrong with the sweater I'm crocheting. I undid and redid this round twice and I'm still coming up short on my increase. I even went back and counted the stitches in my previous round-- all mother-lovin' two hundred ten of them. The math wizards in the crowd will note that two hundred ten is divisible by ten. The way my increase rounds go, I should be adding ten new stitches, one for every group of-- I'm sure you guessed it-- ten. And yet both times, I've got only eleven stitches left after my previous increase. I don't get how I could've not only done it wrong twice but apparently done the same thing wrong twice. Are my stitches frikkin disappearing whenever I don't count them??
Update: I miscounted. I misremembered the which increase row I'm on and then I frikkin miscounted the previous row. It's two hundred stitches, not two-ten. Ffs.
Update: I miscounted. I misremembered the which increase row I'm on and then I frikkin miscounted the previous row. It's two hundred stitches, not two-ten. Ffs.
Whumptober: there's nothing you can do, nothing you can say
Oct. 10th, 2025 11:31 pmphilomythaThis one is part of the Marie/Erich married-with-children AU I wrote last year for FIAB. And I apologise for doing this, but the trouble is I wrote the story in the wrong order and this was part of it in my head before I wrote the scene where Leo was born. So now it's extra horrible, but here it is.
( double drabble, WW2 and child death warning )
( double drabble, WW2 and child death warning )
rereading older fic...
Oct. 10th, 2025 12:22 pmmuccamukk(yes, I am working on an English paper, I swear)
...and noticing that not only did my smut scenes tend to be a bit abrupt (which had been mentioned, and is something I've worked to improve), but that I can be a bit continuity intensive.
Just because I have read every comic this character is in, or read three books and a number of academic papers on this topic, does not mean all of those details have to be in the resulting fic.
The iceberg theory of research really is something I could stand to take on board.
...and noticing that not only did my smut scenes tend to be a bit abrupt (which had been mentioned, and is something I've worked to improve), but that I can be a bit continuity intensive.
Just because I have read every comic this character is in, or read three books and a number of academic papers on this topic, does not mean all of those details have to be in the resulting fic.
The iceberg theory of research really is something I could stand to take on board.
Recent readings: A stab at reading seasonally for Hallowe'en
Oct. 10th, 2025 03:41 pmumadoshiIt's a Friday off and I got some manga work done, so here's a bit of book-logging:
Her Halloween Treat (Tiffany Reisz) is a straightforward, enjoyable romance that has almost nothing at all to do with Hallowe'en. It takes place when the female lead is home for her brother's wedding, and his partner has always wanted a Hallowe'en wedding, so they're having a themed costume Hallowe'en wedding. It's also the female lead's birthday, but they checked with her and she's fine with it, so there's no drama there. Nothing of what I've just written is at all spoilery for the main plot or emotional arcs or anything.
The Drowning House (Cherie Priest) is almost not a ghost story at all--the supernatural elements are something else--but ghosts flicker around its edges. I enjoyed it, although there's a piece of the story that I feel the epilogue was intended to shine a light on and...it didn't do that. (Alternatively, that wasn't the author's intention, but if so, I feel like it should have at least nodded to that specific thing? Or something?)
Specifically [ROT13], gur rcvybthr vf n tyvzcfr onpx ng gur '50f jura gur gjvaf ner cynaavat gb xvyy jung'f-uvf-snpr, naq vg qbrfa'g fnl nalguvat nobhg jul Zef. Phycrccre (arneyl) frag ure fvfgre gb ure qrngu, be vs fur npghnyyl zrnag gb qb gung, naq qbrfa'g tvir nal uvag gung gung'ftbvat gb unccra, vagragvbanyyl be bgurejvfr. Vg'f whfg na vagrenpgvba orgjrra n cnve bs fvfgref jub qba'g ernyyl trg nybat nf gurl cercner gb qb gur guvat gurl'ir qrpvqrq arrqf qbvat.
It's one thing that I'm not really a horror reader but read the occasional horror novel anyway, and quite another that I'm deeply squeamish about eyes (and just about everything to do with eyes) and yet after someone recced it, I bought The Eyes Are the Best Part (Monika Kim) a while ago when it popped up on sale...and then proceeded to actually read it this week. This book is very clear from the cover alone that it involves cannibalistic eyeball consumption in loving detail. It is not the book's fault that I am 1000% not the intended audience and yet read the whole thing in one sitting anyway when really I should've just read the rec (whenever that was) and not bought the ebook, sale or no sale, never mind read it. (But I don't begrudge the actual sale, however much an on-sale ebook purchase actually helps an author.)
Now I'm taking a bit of a break from trying to read ~seasonally~ and am a few chapters into KJ Charles' All of Us Murderers.
I've also finally finished Daniel Sherrell's Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, which is...fine? I forget if I've actually mentioned that this book is a letter to a future child Sherrell may or may not ever have (a question he's wrestling with the ethics of), talking about the climate catastrophe and his work as a climate activist and how he tries to fortify himself and find meaning in the face of it all and what he hopes to learn/pass on to any child he may one day have.
Her Halloween Treat (Tiffany Reisz) is a straightforward, enjoyable romance that has almost nothing at all to do with Hallowe'en. It takes place when the female lead is home for her brother's wedding, and his partner has always wanted a Hallowe'en wedding, so they're having a themed costume Hallowe'en wedding. It's also the female lead's birthday, but they checked with her and she's fine with it, so there's no drama there. Nothing of what I've just written is at all spoilery for the main plot or emotional arcs or anything.
The Drowning House (Cherie Priest) is almost not a ghost story at all--the supernatural elements are something else--but ghosts flicker around its edges. I enjoyed it, although there's a piece of the story that I feel the epilogue was intended to shine a light on and...it didn't do that. (Alternatively, that wasn't the author's intention, but if so, I feel like it should have at least nodded to that specific thing? Or something?)
Specifically [ROT13], gur rcvybthr vf n tyvzcfr onpx ng gur '50f jura gur gjvaf ner cynaavat gb xvyy jung'f-uvf-snpr, naq vg qbrfa'g fnl nalguvat nobhg jul Zef. Phycrccre (arneyl) frag ure fvfgre gb ure qrngu, be vs fur npghnyyl zrnag gb qb gung, naq qbrfa'g tvir nal uvag gung gung'f
It's one thing that I'm not really a horror reader but read the occasional horror novel anyway, and quite another that I'm deeply squeamish about eyes (and just about everything to do with eyes) and yet after someone recced it, I bought The Eyes Are the Best Part (Monika Kim) a while ago when it popped up on sale...and then proceeded to actually read it this week. This book is very clear from the cover alone that it involves cannibalistic eyeball consumption in loving detail. It is not the book's fault that I am 1000% not the intended audience and yet read the whole thing in one sitting anyway when really I should've just read the rec (whenever that was) and not bought the ebook, sale or no sale, never mind read it. (But I don't begrudge the actual sale, however much an on-sale ebook purchase actually helps an author.)
Now I'm taking a bit of a break from trying to read ~seasonally~ and am a few chapters into KJ Charles' All of Us Murderers.
I've also finally finished Daniel Sherrell's Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, which is...fine? I forget if I've actually mentioned that this book is a letter to a future child Sherrell may or may not ever have (a question he's wrestling with the ethics of), talking about the climate catastrophe and his work as a climate activist and how he tries to fortify himself and find meaning in the face of it all and what he hopes to learn/pass on to any child he may one day have.
Whumptober 2025 Day 10: Secrets
Oct. 10th, 2025 07:19 pmrosanicusNo 10: "There's nothing you can ever say, nothing you can ever do."
Without Consent | Lips Sewn Shut | Secrets
So in the Steeley book Murder by Air there's a side character called Helene who is [SPOILERS] almost immediately supposed (by Steeley) to be a man crossdressing as a disguise. However, within the canon of the book there's plenty of opportunities for Helene/Constantino to pull back the curtain and return to dressing in a socially expected way, and they don't! So I have adopted the headcanon that Helene/Constantino is exploring some transgender feelings, which is the point of this fic.
( Helene, 743 words )
Without Consent | Lips Sewn Shut | Secrets
So in the Steeley book Murder by Air there's a side character called Helene who is [SPOILERS] almost immediately supposed (by Steeley) to be a man crossdressing as a disguise. However, within the canon of the book there's plenty of opportunities for Helene/Constantino to pull back the curtain and return to dressing in a socially expected way, and they don't! So I have adopted the headcanon that Helene/Constantino is exploring some transgender feelings, which is the point of this fic.
( Helene, 743 words )
Recent Music
Oct. 10th, 2025 09:39 ammuccamukkI listen to music a lot while studying, and often just click on whatever whatever on YouTube Music's "new releases" page, which has been more or less working out.
I'm still listening to Something Beautiful (Deluxe) by Miley Cyrus a lot, might be my favourite album this year. Though Noah's new album is up there (haven't listened to the Deluxe of that yet, which is still a concept I hate).
Vivek Shraya has a new... whatever her style is... EP out, New Models, which has been enjoyable, though I've only listened to it a couple times through. It's refreshingly direct, which is kind of her thing.
I don't have Taylor Swift thoughts, other than I enjoy that "Cancelled" seems to be about Blake Lively, that's giving a lot of people a big mad, and now Blake and Taylor are wearing each other's jewellery like exceptionally rich twelve year old girls.
Doja Cat's Vie has been a lot of fun! I don't think I like it as much as![[youtube.com profile]](https://youtube.com/favicon.ico)
OlurinattiMUSIC does in her review, but it's fun to vibe along with. I like Doja Cat's rapping a bit more than her singing (which is lovely! I just find her rap style really compelling, and would like more of it), so didn't like this as much as Scarlett, but still have it in rotation. "Paint the Town Red" is still the one stuck in my head, though.
I think William Prince is leading up to a new album, which I'm very excited about. I wasn't that into his last couple projects, and am hoping this one will be more like Reliever. The first few singles are promising.
Might be getting something new from Burnstick, also \o/
I'm still listening to Something Beautiful (Deluxe) by Miley Cyrus a lot, might be my favourite album this year. Though Noah's new album is up there (haven't listened to the Deluxe of that yet, which is still a concept I hate).
Vivek Shraya has a new... whatever her style is... EP out, New Models, which has been enjoyable, though I've only listened to it a couple times through. It's refreshingly direct, which is kind of her thing.
I don't have Taylor Swift thoughts, other than I enjoy that "Cancelled" seems to be about Blake Lively, that's giving a lot of people a big mad, and now Blake and Taylor are wearing each other's jewellery like exceptionally rich twelve year old girls.
Doja Cat's Vie has been a lot of fun! I don't think I like it as much as
I think William Prince is leading up to a new album, which I'm very excited about. I wasn't that into his last couple projects, and am hoping this one will be more like Reliever. The first few singles are promising.
Might be getting something new from Burnstick, also \o/
sunk cost fallacy sweatpants
Oct. 10th, 2025 10:03 amapplenymA few weeks ago I bought very comfy sweatpants at a consignment shop, even though the floral detergent they had been washed in made my eyes water.
But they were so comfortable! So I thought, "I can get that scent out! A couple washes should do it. Maybe a soak in unscented OxiClean?"
Oh foolish past self!
Here is what I've tried (the fabric is 94% polyester / 6% spandex):
- Washed a couple times with my usual unscented laundry detergent and added Lysol Laundry Sanitizer Free & Clear to the rinse cycle
- Hung outside in the sun for a few days
- OxiClean soak
- Vinegar soak
- Original Blue Dawn dish detergent soak (because they use it to clean wildlife affected by oil spills, right?)
- Super washing soda soak
- Sprayed with unscented Febreze and hung outside
- Rubbing alcohol soak (I had a couple bottles lying around, so why not?)
- Baking soda soak
- Ammonia soak (ugh! worse than the perfume smell, but at least ammonia washes out)
I also searched Reddit for unconventional methods and tried:
- Tween (polysorbate) soak
- Synthrapol soak
- A mixture of tween and soy lecithin soak
NOTHING WORKS. The scent is maybe slightly less eye-watering, but I still can't stand it.
One more suggestion I have yet to attempt: hand scrub with a bar of unscented soap. I'm at a loss if that doesn't work, but I can't stop now!
Are the Newbery books kid friendly?
Oct. 10th, 2025 08:33 amosprey_archerhedgebird asked: Do you think the books generally are actually kid-friendly, if kids aren't put off by the dead dog rep?Well, obviously I’m hugely biased, given that I started the Newbery project when I was eleven, so clearly they were friendly enough that I at least decided to try to read all of them. After I had read Out of the Dust, too, which doesn’t have a dead dog but does have pretty much everything else that a child could find off-putting in a Newbery book.
My impression is that for the first few decades of the Newbery, say 1920-1970, either the Newbery committee or American children’s publishing as a whole was committed to kid-friendly children’s books. This is not to say that nothing bad ever happens to anyone - in fact, I can think of two books off the top of my head where the ending is “Well, a volcano just blew up our civilization” - but I never finished any of those books with the feeling that the author had intentionally taken a crowbar to my soul just to watch me bleed.
This is not to say I would blithely give the books from these decades to children today, as some of them have other content (e.g. racism) that you might not hand to a modern eight-year-old. But with the sole exception of Old Yeller I don’t think any of these books are so sad that they’d make a kid want to forswear reading.
Then around 1970 Newbery committee and/or American children’s publishing discovered animal death in a big way, closely followed by relative death and general “something bad happened in my life and this whole book is going to be about my misery.” So after that point there are some books that are great which I loved as a child (Catherine Called Birdie, Ella Enchanted, The Thief) and some books that are scarring like Out of the Dust and Jacob Have I Loved.
Although I HAVE met some people who loved Jacob Have I Loved in their youth, so clearly “kid-friendly” can be quite subjective. Some kids love misery! I myself loved The Long Winter best of all the Little House books! It’s just a different kind of misery than Jacob Have I Loved’s “Waaaah everyone loves my twin sister more than me because she is better than me in literally every way and frankly even the reader can see it so shut up and stop whining and maybe people will like you more, annoying protagonist.”
(no subject)
Oct. 9th, 2025 08:59 pmdustbunny105Oh, hey! What with the power outage update, I forgot to tell you guys about my latest collecting news.
So, I told you that I went ahead and ordered MP Rattrap and the ML Arcees from Deep Discount, right? And how I was super jealous of everyone who already had theirs because I wasn't expecting to have mine until December? Well. While I was on a break at work yesterday, I checked my email and found a shipping notice for the Arcees. DD got them in early! The notice said to wait twenty-four to forty-eight hours for tracking info and so I didn't even bother to check. I was just excited to be getting them so soon! Aaand a little annoyed because I'd already written them out of my budget until, y'know, they were supposed to be out. But mostly excited!
And then, would you believe it-- they were already waiting for me when I got home! :D I haven't opened them yet because my room is still a mess with the rearranging I've been doing but I'm just stoked that they're in my hands ♥
So, I told you that I went ahead and ordered MP Rattrap and the ML Arcees from Deep Discount, right? And how I was super jealous of everyone who already had theirs because I wasn't expecting to have mine until December? Well. While I was on a break at work yesterday, I checked my email and found a shipping notice for the Arcees. DD got them in early! The notice said to wait twenty-four to forty-eight hours for tracking info and so I didn't even bother to check. I was just excited to be getting them so soon! Aaand a little annoyed because I'd already written them out of my budget until, y'know, they were supposed to be out. But mostly excited!
And then, would you believe it-- they were already waiting for me when I got home! :D I haven't opened them yet because my room is still a mess with the rearranging I've been doing but I'm just stoked that they're in my hands ♥
Hospice Volunteering Meeting
Oct. 9th, 2025 03:43 pmlydamorehouseThis morning was my meet-up with Ashley, the hospice volunteer coordinator. We met at my favorite coffee shop, Claddagh, on West 7th. The meeting was half paperwork, half get-to-know you interview.
I guess the things of interest are these: I found out that a lot of people never make it through training. They start reading/viewing (most of it is online videos) the material and decide that hospice work is not for them. I told Ashley that could very well be me. I have no idea where I’m going to fall in all this. This did not faze her. Apparently, that reaction is common enough that they don’t even start processing the paperwork until you make it through everything online. Smart.
One of other things I found sort of fascinating is that I’ll need a couple of references. People who are willing to vouch for me. I think a lot of people use co-workers because she noted to me, specifically, that they could both be personal. Also? Drug and health tests/screening. Including, she said apologetically, marijuana. I laughed because a more teetotal person than me you will rarely find. They can ask me to pee in a cup and do a deep background check, but they can no longer legally ask if I’m up on my COVID and flu shots. How screwed up is that? Apparently, you can volunteer your immunization records at least. That one was a head shaker. You’d think that of all organizations that could require people be up on their vaccines are places that work with end of life. How rude would it be to pass on COVID to someone already dying? Make someone extra miserable on the way out. WTF. Worst timeline.
The materials have arrived in my in-box. I’m looking forward to checking them out, but I have to wait for a little while. I’m actually composing this off-line because Mason is taking the last portion of his LSAT right now, the dreaded essay. Cross your fingers for him. His score will determine a lot of his choices for law school.
Also, we're headed up to our frends Ger & Barb's cabin for the weekend. There's a quilt show in the nearby town of Weber that we're excited to see again. Should be a relaxing weekend.
If I don't write again for a while, I hope you all have a good weekend, too! Any fun plans?
===
EDITED TO ADD: As I am posting, I'm obviously back online. I'm going to go peek at the info now!
I guess the things of interest are these: I found out that a lot of people never make it through training. They start reading/viewing (most of it is online videos) the material and decide that hospice work is not for them. I told Ashley that could very well be me. I have no idea where I’m going to fall in all this. This did not faze her. Apparently, that reaction is common enough that they don’t even start processing the paperwork until you make it through everything online. Smart.
One of other things I found sort of fascinating is that I’ll need a couple of references. People who are willing to vouch for me. I think a lot of people use co-workers because she noted to me, specifically, that they could both be personal. Also? Drug and health tests/screening. Including, she said apologetically, marijuana. I laughed because a more teetotal person than me you will rarely find. They can ask me to pee in a cup and do a deep background check, but they can no longer legally ask if I’m up on my COVID and flu shots. How screwed up is that? Apparently, you can volunteer your immunization records at least. That one was a head shaker. You’d think that of all organizations that could require people be up on their vaccines are places that work with end of life. How rude would it be to pass on COVID to someone already dying? Make someone extra miserable on the way out. WTF. Worst timeline.
The materials have arrived in my in-box. I’m looking forward to checking them out, but I have to wait for a little while. I’m actually composing this off-line because Mason is taking the last portion of his LSAT right now, the dreaded essay. Cross your fingers for him. His score will determine a lot of his choices for law school.
Also, we're headed up to our frends Ger & Barb's cabin for the weekend. There's a quilt show in the nearby town of Weber that we're excited to see again. Should be a relaxing weekend.
If I don't write again for a while, I hope you all have a good weekend, too! Any fun plans?
===
EDITED TO ADD: As I am posting, I'm obviously back online. I'm going to go peek at the info now!