Member Posts

(no subject)

What a day, huh? I feel like every time I try to gather my thoughts about it, I stumble across some news I haven't seen yet. I imagine a lot will change in the next few days too. I guess I'll just say for now that it's good, albeit in a bittersweet sense, to see something happening. Just. Some degree of accountability for someone.

(no subject)

I feel sick with anxiety. I don't know what kind of news I should expect to wake up to tomorrow. The naive part of me keeps thinking, someone has to do something now. But of course these last couple of years have shown us they don't.

(no subject)

Hey, y'know what really sucks when you're trying to ride out a headache of any kind? Fire alarms being repeatedly set off so inspectors can make sure they're working in every apartment. Peppercorn wasn't happy about it either, poor thing, but at least I was here for her.

Yeah, I ended up calling out again. Woke up with awful pain even though it was ebbing by last night. It faded before too terribly long to more of a pressure but that pressure was right behind my eyes. I could hardly see, never mind focus my vision. It's too bad since I felt well enough to go in for a half day but looking at things, especially on a computer screen, is kinda most of my job, lol. Took a nap and woke up with my eyes clear but it was too late to bother by then. At least I know I'm good to go for tomorrow.

Not really the point of being home but I was able to get some crochet done even when my eyes were wonky and that helped me to feel less restless. I've started working on turning those leftover mini-skeins into a blanket like I talked about. I think I might get some doll/plushie clothes out of them too. I forgot how much I like some of these colors, tbh, even if I no longer like the yarn itself. Gonna have to try to find similar options in a better quality product.

(no subject)

Maybe I was more worried about the fire safety inspection than I thought because I woke up today with a nasty, nauseous headache that turned into a migraine. Ended up calling out. I still don't feel great now, tbh.

Possibly the worst part, though? I tried to put a positive spin on it, thinking that I'd at least be home to set Peppercorn free after the inspectors came through. Then, when I double-checked the time? I realized I'd misread or misremembered the notice-- the inspection is tomorrow. Go figure!

(no subject)

Fire safety inspection tomorrow. Aaand I've got stuff all over the place because of being partway into reorganizing-- not only my room either. And my mom is out of town, so it's on me.

I wish they would give more advance notice of these things. Be nice if they did them on the weekend, too, even though I get why they don't. S'just frustrating. I hate having to leave the front door unlocked, I hate having to lock Peppercorn up all day and I hate people being in here when I'm not here. Blergh. Might or might not be a good idea but I left the tidying up for the morning. My head was just not there tonight and I knew if I started, I was going to be so inefficient as to keep myself awake later than I should and probably still not get things done to my satisfaction. Even if getting things done mostly means piling the clutter into my closet. Some sleep and the urgency of the morning will help me power through it. Maybe I can convince my sister to hang out here with the kids until the inspectors come and go, so she can lock up and set Peppercorn free.

(no subject)

The Madleen has been hijacked and the activists aboard, including a member of EU Parliment, have been kidnapped by the Israeli military. Their communications were jammed, they were attacked with chemical weapons and they were ordered to throw their phones into the sea. I have no doubt in my mind that the aid they were carrying will be destroyed, if it hasn't been already. I'm unclear whether this assault took place in Egyptian, Palestinian or international waters but the fact either way is that Israel has no right to divert this mission. Not that it frikkin matters.

We all saw something like this coming but it's still so disheartening to see it happen. These activists come from France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Brazil, Netherlands and Turkey. What we all can do now, what they've asked us to do, is to put pressure on their foreign ministries. The more eyes on them, the safer they'll be until their release.

French:
Email: alertes.cdc@diplomatie.gouv.fr & courrier.scec@diplomatie.gouv.fr
FB: France Diplomatie & Jean-Noël Barot
IG:

francediplo &

jeannoelbarot
Twitter:

francediplo_en &

francediplo &

jnbarot

Brazilian
Email: portal@itamaraty.gov.br
FB: Ministerio das relacoes exteriroes
IG:

itamaratygovbr
Twitter: ItamaratyGovBr

Spanish
Bsky:

jmalbares & .bsky.social

exterioresgob
Email: consular@maec.es
IG : [Bad username or site: exteriores @ maec]
Twitter:

spainmfa &

maecgob &

jmalbares

Swedish
FB: SweMFA
IG:

swedishmfa
Twitter:

swemfa
Website: https://government.se/contacts/

Dutch
IG :

minbz
FB : ministeriebz
Twitter:

dutchmfa

Turkish
IG :

tcdisisleri
FB : T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı
Twitter:

mfaturkiye

German
IG:

auswaertigesamt
FB: Auswärtiges Amt
Twitter:

germanydiplo

(no subject)

Okay, now that the lighthearted post is out of the way. I am legitimately a nervous wreck about the Freedom Flotilla and about the protests in LA. I had more to say about this but nothing seems like it's enough. My thoughts are with all those fighting for life and justice right now. Please keep your eyes on them if you can, if you can't do anything else.

(no subject)

Farmers market trip was an overall success. It did rain and I did forget to bring an umbrella but it was never worse than a drizzle. I was more worried about the niblings than myself but no issues to speak of. My sister's littlest refused to keep the canopy of his stroller up and his siblings didn't seem to care at all.

Still no peppers but we got there early enough that we had a good pick of the other produce I was looking for. Got peaches, plums, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, lettuce, green onion and a handful of basil. I wanted cucumbers, too, but it was like they disappeared once I went back looking for them. Pretty sure what actually happened was that the couple of booths offering them were among the more popular and I overlooked them past the crowds that had gathered by then. I also saw two or three people with these big buckets of strawberries that I could not find anywhere and Idk what was up with that, lol. Ah, well, I can try again another week.

We had lunch and then I got dropped off at home. I was inexplicably exhausted-- granted, I got up earlier than usual-- and took what I wanted to be a short nap and ended up being a long nap. Go figure. After that, I got on to my reorganizing and... the results are mixed.

My focus today was my closet, since I'm eyeing some stuff on the shelves to be moved in there, and it took less time than I'd have expected, granted I hit a roadblock before I could be what I considered finished. It doesn't really look at a glance like I did as much as it feels like I did but the difference in how things are situated now feels significant. I put aside a lot of stuff for Goodwill, a few items for the local little free library and got some forgotten recycling out of my way. That'll be dealt with this coming week. I have more "to-sell" stuff taking up space than I remembered and I'm gonna sleep on what to do about that. Most of that is Transformers-related and I was planning to try to unload it at TFcon in October but, well, that's October. It's in my way now. I think I'll go ahead and list the bigger ticket items on eBay, take whatever doesn't sell there to TFcon, then just donate whatever doesn't sell there.

So! Tomorrow's goals are cleaning up my shelves and listing a few things on eBay. Not too many to start with. I tend to get it into my head that I have to list everything or nothing and, uh. As you may have guessed, I tend to pick nothing. I'd rather have something listed than nothing. I'll do some routine tidying up and dusting as I go. I should also fix up my yarn chest, tbh; I've barely crocheted at all this year and it's still gotten so chaotic that it makes me never want to crochet again, lol.

(no subject)

I'm so glad to see the end of this week. It felt like it would never come!

Forecast for tomorrow, last I looked, is optimistic. The rain has been pushed back and so I think I can get to the farmer's market and pick up what I'm after without any problems. Then I can come home and get right to the chores and reorganizing I was planning. Gonna go back to the fifteen minute method, working clockwise, since that went well the last time I deep-cleaned my room. Some things are going to have to be left at "good enough" since I need to reconsider my storage system but that's fine. I think I'll do that for a set number of hours-- haven't decided them-- and then call it a day. Anything that still needs done, I'll get to on Sunday. I want to have some reading/hobby time too, after all.

(no subject)

I want so badly for Trump and Musk to destroy each other. Like, I'm not ignorant of the damage they could do but they're already doing damage, you feel me? I'm also aware that there's a non-zero chance of this whole feud being a charade BUT-- and, yes, I know that none of us actually know these people-- I simply cannot wrap my head around the idea of either of their egos suffering this humiliation. Idk. It's a cold satisfaction I'm feeling but it's still satisfaction.

So help me, though, if the Dems don't shut their collective traps about opening the door for Musk... I am so tired of being roped into whatever weird humiliation kink these fools are indulging.

(no subject)

The forecast for Saturday keeps changing and it's driving me up the frikkin wall. I want to go to the farmer's market but I can't plan for it if I don't know what weather to expect when. If it's going to be raining at what's usually the optimal time, I'd rather stay home and get an early start on my reorganizing instead.

But, hey, there are still two more days to go before then. Two. whole. days. This week has been slooow.

(no subject)

So, it turns out that pre-orders placed at different times on the site I used-- Bookshop.org, if I didn't mention-- do not ship together and there's no mechanism to combine them. Very odd, imo, but such is life. The rep I spoke to was kind enough to cancel both orders and initiate refunds, which I should have within a week. Once they hit, I'll re-order both books in the same order. In the meantime, I'll look around just in case any other pre-orders I'm interested in just happen to be releasing on that same day. Don't want a repeat of this situation!

I'm already about halfway through reading my first book of the month and I plan to read a little more before bed. I'm not too terribly behind on my goal for the year and I feel pretty good about being able to catch up this month. I have four books I for sure want to read off my shelves and then I'll try to tackle one or two of the new ones I mentioned, since those are all under three hundred pages and a few are even under two hundred. I was disappointed to realize one of them is the third book in a trilogy but I'll worry about that later.

(no subject)

Okay, less serious post now. I was able to pre-order the first English volume of Love Bullet from my preferred retailer, so that's good. I couldn't see a way to combine it with my previous pre-order but I sent them a message about adjusting the shipping charges.

Speaking of queer books, I impulse-purchased a lot of ten books from a local Goodwill (side note-- did you guys know Goodwill has an online maketplace?). I'm not sure what made me do it exactly. Maybe I had some internal frustration over extending my book embargo and, like. Was rebelling against... myself? Idk, I feel like ADHD was somehow to blame since my head's been weird lately. I guess it was sort of apt for Pride Month. I'm still prioritizing the books I already had, of course, but I figure if I can finish one or two in a good amount of time, I might as well try to get through at least a couple of these new ones. Gotta be read sometime anyway. I'm annoyed with myself for breaking the embargo again, not even to secure anything already wished for and hard to get this time, but I'm hoping that the books themselves will make it worth having done so.

(no subject)

I truly, desperately need people to stop treating actors as the characters they play, especially when it comes to real life tragedies.

( tw: hate crime )

(no subject)

Happy Pride!

I started this month by not getting as much done as I hoped-- so, y'know, nothing terribly special yet. As usual, I only realize how much stuff I have when I decide to deal with it. So, I got my bed made and sorted a few things but I'm gonna have to commit to spending a little time each night working on this reorganization if I'm going to actually accomplish anything of note. Might try adding it to my Finch goals, see if that helps motivate me.

I think one thing I'd really like to do is open up space on my shelves, mostly so I can space my toy displays out. I've got ideas for setups I'd like to do and I simply have nowhere to put them at the moment. The way I've got things blocked out in my head, I think I can open at least two full shelves. Or, well, one full shelf and the top of one of my units. I didn't even think of it today but if I should have about a shelf's worth of books cleared from my bookcase as well. I don't know that I want to really dedicate bookcase shelf space to toy displays since I do intend to buy new books to replace what I'm "unhauling" eventually... On the other hand, considering my intention to make more use of the library, it may be some time before I have to think much about that and then I can just rearrange things again when the time comes.

For now, I'm going to designate areas of my room into "zones" and make myself a list of priorities. I figure fifteen to thirty minutes a day will get a lot of the smaller organizational tasks dealt with during the week and then I'll just have to make sure I've got the weekend to myself for dealing with more intensive work. I do need to be thinking of another toy purge as well but that'll be for after the rest of the organizing is done. I'm making a stand-- this is gonna be a good week!

(no subject)

I forgot I had plans with my sister and the kids today, lol. I thought it was next weekend. Ah, well.

Probably obvious that I didn't get my custom done but it's actually more because my attempts to fix the warped parts fell through. Didn't really accomplish anything but at least I didn't really make it worse either. Part of me feels like I could've done it if I had more knowledge/experience but I'm actually probably going about it the wrong way and don't have the right tools on hand. Looking over everything again now that I've not touched it in a hot minute, I think I can and should just fill in the gap areas with epoxy sculpt and paint over them. There are a couple issues I can use the heat from a hair drier to fix too. Disappointed but at least I'm learning!

Didn't get to the organizing I hoped to do but that was always a maybe for today anyhow. I've blocked out what I want to do tomorrow. Yes, I'm skipping finishing the custom first. The sculpting I need to do is too precise to do quickly and I don't want to spend all day on it. I'll just move my supplies out of the way to deal with later.

On a happier note, I am just about to finish that book I'm reading! And then I'll be keeping my fingers crossed re: picking up the pace on reading next month.