World Book Day

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:10 am
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[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The official theme for World Book Day 2025 is:

"Read Your Way: Diverse Books for Every Mind"

This theme emphasizes the importance of inclusion and diversity in reading. It encourages readers to explore different voices, perspectives, and cultures through literature, promoting empathy and global understanding
.

Read more... )

Good News

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:09 am
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[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Good news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.

What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?

Today's Adventures

Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:08 pm
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[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went out shopping.

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Insect Apocalypse

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:29 pm
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[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Insects are disappearing due to agriculture -- and many other drivers, new research reveals

New paper highlights 500+ interconnected drivers behind global insect decline.
Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide, but why? Agricultural intensification tops the list of proposed reasons, but there are many other, interconnected drivers that have an impact, according to new research
.

Read more... )

Happy Earth Day!

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:13 pm
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[personal profile] wyld_dandelyon
I've been under the weather. This time I managed to get Bronchitis just from the end of the winter heating season (unless a friend with a congestive heart condition was actually sick, and not just coughing because of the heart condition). But I think this was coming on earlier, and the med regime my former allergist suggested was keeping my lungs and sinuses a lot clearer than in the past, but not enough for my body to clear out the infection.

Well, I came to this conclusion Friday, with (among other things) singing at the Eurofilk showing me I was unusually short of breath for singing; I already had an appointment with my newish primary doc who I really like on Monday, and when I tried to call the allergist last month to set up an appointment, there was no answer or answering machine on his number, or on the alternate number I found on Google. I did find an article about him listing him as 81 years old, and I'm not sure how long ago that was written, so I'm assuming he died or retired. So, I waited out the weekend and got tireder and tireder, and shorter and shorter of breath.

Happily, she was willing to prescribe antibiotics and steroids (if I'd gotten antibiotics on Friday, that might have been enough), unhappily, when they figured out that the only way they could give me the meds the doc thought most appropriate that didn't have corn in it (kids' liquid, again), it turned out that the pharmacy couldn't fill it until today. It was too late to try to talk the doc into prescribing something different, as the clinic was closed.

So today I woke up way too early, and was NOT falling asleep again (my body does insist on waking when I really need meds, which freaked out my RN mother when I was first sick enough to always be awake when she came in to wake me up to take them). This was handy in that I was able to deal with a bank overdraft for my grown-up kid (she's still using the account I got her when she went to Denmark in 4th grade so I could easily transfer money to her if there was an unexpected need, so, being awake I saw the text notification) (Her birthday is later this month, so an early birthday gift was perfectly reasonable).

And then I had food and called the pharmacy, because I WANTED those meds before the rest of the day's errands, which included getting My Angel to her PT appointment, mailing a thing (in a post office, since there seems to be no more drop-off boxes outside our regular post office any more--WTF, government?--and going to pick up meds at a different pharmacy too.

The strip mall the post office was in had one of the closing JoAnne Fabrics, which had almost no fabric left, and not much of anything else either. I did find some things to buy, including two substantially marked down big bags designed to hold a sewing machine and sewing stuff, but which I plan to use one of for author stuff (books, display, etc.) on the assumption that I'll do signings at cons again, and the other for acrylic paints, brushes, and the like since my current bag and plastic bin plan isn't working out as well as I'd like, and because having that stuff on wheels will be very convenient.

I also got some beads, wire, a thimble and multitool, sewing machine needles, an ironing pad to put on a table, some tape, a couple of pillow forms for planned gifting, and, surprisingly, a basket of tumbled stones to put in the fishtank. Sadly, the heavy-duty dolly they had pictured in the front as available had already been sold. I looked at the jewelry making stuff, thought about the heavy duty crimper and some of those beads, but I haven't been making jewelry lately and can use the hemostats I use for holding autoharp strings to crimp things, so I left those behind. I did also get some very discounted project boards, so if we decide to go to one or more protests, we can take signs.

And I took photos of our daffodils in the middle of all that.

I am cheered by all the photos of protests I'm seeing, and by how badly Elon's car company is doing. It gives me hope. Keep contacting your elected officials, we've got to wear them down until they stand up to our very cruel and foolish leader.

Now I am going to hit post and go watch Rachel show all those pictures of the signs again, and do Duolinguo, so I don't miss a day, and fall in bed. Maybe I'll manage to post Daffodil pics tomorrow.

Birdfeeding

Apr. 22nd, 2025 02:17 pm
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[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is mostly sunny and warm with a light breeze, a beautiful spring day.  :D

I fed the birds.  I've seen several sparrows and house finches, two brown-headed cowbirds, a mourning dove, and two fox squirrels.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 4/22/25 -- We went out shopping.  I picked out roughly 5 flats of plants at DeBuhr's.  We found a garden hose, nozzle, and reel plus a gas can at Home Depot.  Also at Home Depot I spotted a modular garage storage system that looks very promising.  It has mounting rails for shelves and a wide variety of hooks.  That ought to combine well with a pegboard.

EDIT 4/22/25 -- I planted a 'Sugar Snack' cherry tomato and a 'Yellow Pear' tomato in the large pots by the septic garden, each with 4 marigolds around it.

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

great news

Apr. 22nd, 2025 12:17 pm
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[personal profile] paperghost
I didn't want to give too much away about my IRL situation, but the fence has been busted for a long time. In 2020 there was going to be a community/city project to fix it, but the pandemic happened. Then various storms and whatnot made a piece of the fence just fall over which is a huge safety hazard I've lost sleep over lol. But it costs thousands to fix and we don't make that money, which is really bad because the city has been getting on us about how if it isn't fixed by a certain span of time, they might take the house and shit. (I don't know the legalese but yes, they can do this...)

So we're fucked. UNTIL. Some lady moved in next door and my mother was dead convinced she hates us because she built a mini fence in her front yard to divide our lawns (?!???) (our lawn is ugly lol). But then last week she was outside, saw my mother in the backyard, which isn't hard because... a part of the fence is gone... she just said that fence needs to be fixed and she'll bring her friends over to do it next week. That week is now and they've been helping a lot. Holy shit. My paycheck doesn't come until later today and it isn't much, but I am going to be giving these guys money in two weeks.

Costume Bracket: Round 3, Post 16

Apr. 22nd, 2025 06:49 pm
purplecat: The Tardis against a sunset (or possibly sunrise) (Doctor Who)
[personal profile] purplecat
Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

FAKE Quadruple Drabble: One Shot

Apr. 22nd, 2025 05:36 pm
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[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: One Shot
Fandom: FAKE
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, Dee, OC.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Ryo waits for the order to fire.
Written For: Challenge 441: Amnesty 73 at 
[community profile] fan_flashworks , using Challenge 152: Shot. Also for the dw100 prompt ‘Fire’.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Quadruple drabble.
 
 


Doctor Who Drabble: Desert Nights

Apr. 22nd, 2025 05:26 pm
badly_knitted: (Eleven & TARDIS)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: Desert Nights
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Ninth Doctor, OCs.
Rating: G
Written For: Challenge 916: ‘Caravan’ at 
[community profile] dw100.
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Jack, Rose, and the Doctor spend some time on a desert planet.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who, or the characters.
 


 

Double Drabble: Dwarfed

Apr. 22nd, 2025 05:17 pm
badly_knitted: (Pretty)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: Dwarfed
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 862: Small at 
[community profile] torchwood100.
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Large as the Happy Wanderer is, right now it seems tiny and fragile.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble. Set in my Ghost of a Chance ‘Verse.
 


 

Ravelry

Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:06 am
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[personal profile] yarnandglue
I updated my Ravelry account with my latest projects. Feel free to add me if you are also on Ravelry :)
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The following is a growing reading list for the ReadPalestinianSpecFic challenge. This is a work in progress to create a list of all available Palestinian speculative fiction.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Recently I bought a little fern, so I'm making a new terrarium. You can also see the previous Antique Jar Terrarium.

Read more... )

Monday Update 4-21-25

Apr. 21st, 2025 01:36 pm
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:
Birdfeeding
Spring Friending Meme
Intro to the Web Revival #1: What is the Web Revival?
Books with Queer Autistic Characters for Autism Awareness Month
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Immigrants
Creative Jam
Vocabulary: Ladramhaiola
Join the Fictionfolk Webring
Safety
Read "The Greater Good"
Birdfeeding
Safety
Food
Where are the trans people toilets?
Jug Crafts for Gardening
Frugal Friday
Never Forget
Follow Friday 4-18-25: Graphics
Reality Imitating Art
Navajo Peaches
Birdfeeding
Anosognosia
Hobbies: Creative Writing
Gilda and Meek and the Un-Iverse
Success!
Transgender
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party

"Not a Destination, But a Process" has 127 comments. "The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean" has 75 comments. Joann Fabrics going out of business has 56 comments.


Watch for Three Weeks for Dreamwidth coming April 25-May 15. People will celebrate the anniversary of the platform by posting things only on Dreamwidth and doing other blog activities. Think ahead about what you'll want to post while the traffic is higher.


"Babes in the Pineywoods" belongs to the Big One. It belongs to the Big One thread of Polychrome Heroics. Bo-Art and Creamjeans talk with the Black Doctor.


The weather has been variable and wet here. It rained last night Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a flock of grackles, a flock of brown-headed cowbirds, several blue jays, several starlings, two mourning doves, a male cardinal, a brown thrasher, a robin, and Nipple Squirrel. I've heard red-winged blackbirds and woodpeckers. Squills, pear, forsythia, and serviceberry are done. Currently blooming: daffodils, violets, blue grape hyacinths, tulips, dandelions, trilliums, snowbells, crabapples, lilacs, bleeding heart, redbud, columbine. Peonies have flower buds.

Birdfeeding

Apr. 21st, 2025 01:32 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy, breezy, and cool.  It rained for hours last night.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches, plus a brown-headed cowbird.

I put out water for the birds.

The single yellow violet (which might be a hairy yellow violet) that I planted in the forest garden has seeded a whole new plant!  :D 3q3q3q!!!!  I am so excited.

We measured from the spigot to the old picnic table and the new picnic table.  We'll need to acquire a 75-foot hose.

EDIT 4/21/25 -- The plumbers have come and gone.  We have a working outside spigot!  \o/  It has low water pressure for reasons that are not feasible to fix, but at least water comes out of it.  

We dug up the old hoses.  The yellow ones were in pieces so we threw those away.  The green is still attached to a different spigot that it won't come off.  But at least the yellows are gone.  Progress.

I started working on a new cookie jar terrarium for the potted fern, but other things intervened so I haven't gotten very far yet.

I've seen the tufted titmouse!  :D  I haven't seen him in weeks, so I'm glad he's still around.

EDIT 4/21/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 4/21/25 -- I picked up more sticks for the firepit.

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

Voter Suppression

Apr. 21st, 2025 01:28 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Indivisible reports that these Democratic senators in particular need to hear from their constituents right now to oppose HR22, a bill which would disinfranchise millions of people, mostly women, from voting.

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