unclutter | Member Posts

Well, that sure is 33 inches (84 cm) of snow out there, goodness gracious. (We beat the record from 1978! Wow.)

So far my power is fine, I have baked a loaf of bread and spent the day working my way through the manuscript for crit group tomorrow, which is another snow day. I don't think I've ever had two consecutive snow days?

The windows are completely blocked by snow, I tried to take a peek outside this morning and couldn't open the front door, it is still snowing. Hope everyone else in the path of this nor'easter is safe and warm!

ETA: Ducked out during a lull in the wind and threw some snowballs!

tyger

I did manage to go and get dust masks first thing, so that was good!

I did not get all the stripping done. I got maybe about half? I was hoping it'd go a lot faster than it has been, but I also got way more done than I was doing the skirting boards last year (not having to go out into the cold helps with that! Weather is SO much nicer!), so I can't complain too much.

Hopefully I'll get all the stripping done tomorrow! Ideally also the filling, buuuut I have to go down the shops because... I got a text! From the optometrist! Apparently my glasses are ready??? I didn't reply with 'bullshit', but I sure as fuck said it because uh. They are NEVER ready that fast? Not ever?? It hasn't even been two weeks!

Still, I'll go down and check! I need more food again anyway. Shockingly enough, all this painting-related work uses up a lot more energy than my standard stuff, so I've been going through my food quicker than usual, I keep getting really hungry. XD;;; Not really a BAD thing, just means my planning doesn't work out the same as usual, hahaha.

But first, a nap! How'd it get so late... oh. Right. I was taking a break from stripping, thinking I'd go back and do another session and it was after midnight already, that's what happened. And needed to shower etc. etc. And then distractions. Yes. That makes sense. Time!!!

Current Mood: sleepy

paperghost

Pony plushies are apparently a status symbol at cons, but they're expensive for obvious reasons. But luckily there are patterns online to make one at home? I'm not sure if I want to get into sewing, but I'm curious how easy/hard a very small one would be to make.

https://make.smol.horse/ (I can't archive this, but I saved an offline copy of the pdf.)

https://imgur.com/a/tiny-pone-ep-pattern-K4L3Q (archive)

derpibooru.org/images/152249
https://www.deviantart.com/cavelupa/art/Updated-Pony-Plush-Pattern-337440530 (archive)

Thinking about using the access-only features to post about serious and more private things, like the room party I had last weekend. I figured I was going to have an "anyone who adds me to their circle gets added to mine" but I haven't gotten around to it. So I guess you can comment/ask if you want to see more personal and less mundane postings. I mainly have meta related stuff in mind.

wychwood

( 1. Hogfather - Terry Pratchett ) Pratchett at his best balances the comedy with really meaningful moments, and this is definitely one of those.

( 2. The Book Eaters - Sunyi Dean ) Definitely not my jam.

( 3. Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us - Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman ) Very light, sometimes questionable, but packed full of fun anecdotes (and a surprisingly good examination-in-passing of how scientific research works).

( 4. Ocean - Colin Butfield and David Attenborough ) Not life-changing, but well worth a read.

( 5. Common Goal, 6. Role Model, and 7. The Long Game - Rachel Reid ) I wasn't keen on CG, but I liked the other two a lot - and I'm looking forward to the seventh book coming out later this year! More Ilya and Shane: give it to me.

( 8. The Fifth Form at St Dominic's - Talbot Baines Reed ) Worth a read! But it's not going to shoot up my list of favourite school stories.

( 9. Time to Shine - Rachel Reid ) Not brilliant, but sweet.

( 10. Identity - Nora Roberts ) Mostly you know what you're getting with Roberts! This was very heavy on the wealth porn, but despite all my mockery I did enjoy reading it.

( 11. Persuasion - Jane Austen ) A delightful story as always.

( 12. Strange Pictures - Uketsu ) Short, weird, and interestingly different.

( 13. The Snow Tiger - Desmond Bagley ) This has aged much better than I expected; I was genuinely gripped.

( 14. Swallowdale - Arthur Ransome ) These are just such good books.

( 15. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo ) Interesting to read the original after all the cultural osmosis, but actually I disagree with her quite a lot! I'm not sorry I read it, though.

( 16. Sassinak - Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon ) I did still quite enjoy this, but it was a distinct let-down from my much-better remembered version!

kaberett

Reading. Finished The Rose Field (Pullman)!!! I am Making Arrangements for it to Leave My House. ( Read more... )

ANYWAY. I finished it. It Is Done.

Then read the first few pages of Dead Hand Rule (Gladstone; latest in the Craft Wars) before deciding that actually I need to reread at least the end of Wicked Problems in order to remember what's going on...

Writing. Progress continues both glacial and extant.

Listening. My relisten-while-actually-awake of the first chunk of The Hidden Almanac continues, slowly.

Playing. We have finished an Exploders run on Hard in Inkulinati. I am contemplating, given how smoothly that went, whether I want to have a try at Very Hard...

Cooking. It's not quite "this week's breakfast dal, and a loaf of bread", but it does sort of feel like it was. Partly because for reasons we did not get our usual box of veg on Monday last week, which meant that we were scrabbling around using up Shelf Things and the occasional Supermarket Discount Item...

NO WAIT, I also DID make buckwheat pancakes, and inspired by lnr combined Tinned Pear and Stem Ginger with Vanilla Essence and also Ground Cardamom to go in same. V good. Will repeat.

Eating. My mother acquired for us, as A Special Treat, a variety of Baked Goods from The Fancy Bakery In Eddington: my favourite is still the fig-and-?ricotta, but the blueberry-and-?ricotta is also very good, as is the fougasse. A was extremely pleased with the pain aux raisins. AND my mother made some excellent baba ganoush, eaten with said fougasse.

This week also feat. rainbow bagels (which we got to watch some of the manufacturing process for!) as well as misc other foodstuffs from Shalom Hot Beigels.

A has some coffee and butterscotch cake (leftovers from a test bake!) from Flour Arrangements; alas by the time I got my act together to actually collect Excess Test Cake the apple pie and lemon had both all gone...

Exploring. I got to spend a little time in the City of London Cemetery, which is currently ablaze with (among other things) purple crocuses; we also (on our second attempt) managed to go on A Snowdrop Walk Around Anglesey (with thanks to aldabra for reminding me that it is That Time Of Year still!). Snowdrops excellent. May or may not get around to sharing some photos. (Our first attempt at A Snowdrop Walk Around Anglesey Abbey wound up mutating into a poke around the back of Churchill and Astronomy to peer at bulbs and other plants misc, which was also very enjoyable even if I did once again fail to take A to see the Barbara Hepworth.)

Growing. ... I bought a bag of snowdrops In The Green at Anglesey, to go into the ground around the cherry tree at the allotment? The lemongrass seedlings haven't all died?

mekare

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umadoshi

Reading: Last week I finished Stephanie Burgis' Wooing the Witch Queen (fun!) and read Heated Rivalry. I opted to just skip straight to the actual HR novel rather than first reading the Scott/Kip novel, which worked out fine, since I also had that context from the show. I enjoyed it a fair bit, but now I'm in the awkward position of wanting to see the next chunk for Shane and Ilya but no more urgently than after I finished watching season 1 of the show. The choices now are a) read the entire series (presumably doubling back to actually read book 1), b) skip ahead and read The Long Game, or c) hold off entirely and wait for season 2 of the show.

I also read a few more volumes each of Hikaru no Go and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, but I'm still in rereading territory with both. (I think I've already read up to vol. 12 of Kurosagi, but for Hikaru, I think the odds are against me really realizing when I've hit new territory until I go to enter a volume in Goodreads and find it's not already on my Read list there.)

Watching:

scruloose and I are caught up on both The Pitt and Frieren, and we finished Midnight Mass last weekend (a very solid, intense ending).

With my crunch time at work starting, it's not an ideal time for us to start a show that's a significant time commitment or that's going to leave me desperate to see a next episode when work is eating most or all of my evenings. It's possible this will result in me just showing

scruloose Heated Rivalry, since it's apparently our key cultural export of the decade and all. *g* Only six episodes and I don't have to worry about being impatient to see what happens next or about being spoiled.

(I still don't feel actively fannish about HR at all, but am enjoying being adjacent to it and seeing all the fannish excitement and meta and such. I have saved many fic recs to my read-later list on A03, but have yet to actually read a single one [and may never, given how slowly I go through fic--there's still a steady stream of Guardian fic I haven't read that also goes on that list].)

Weathering/Working: We have what sounds like a significant nor'easter blizzard arriving at some point tomorrow, with heavy wet snow. Will this be where our luck fails for the season and we lose power for the first time? (I'm completely astonished that it hasn't happened yet. Probably it's not really because the generator and backup power are warding that off, like carrying an umbrella around...)

And of course the spring crunch is set to start tomorrow in the late afternoon, right around when the storm is likely to be in full swing. Will the weather have much impact? (Mainly, I guess, in terms of Those Who Speak all being able to make it there safely; I kinda hope that there's some kind of backup power in their actual building, but I don't know for sure one way or the other.)

tyger

So I didn't end up doing any work when I got up to feed the cats, I was too pancake, but it was okay! Because! It rained all day, more or less. Not much, but enough that the actual air was a lot drier! (Would've been extra annoying if I was working outside, of course, but as I haven't been... Lucky day for me!)

I also did manage to get the rest of the sanding done, as planned! \o/ It more or less went as expected, hahaha, which is always nice.

Tomorrow will be... hmm. It'll depend on the weather actually. I need to get more dust masks - I thought I had enough, but it turned out that the ones in the second packet had elastic that has degraded badly so they're uh. Better than nothing buuuuuut not good - so if it's not raining I might do that first? Those I know they have at the closest hardware store, so might as well do that first thing when I'm still clean from my shower.

Otherwise, will be filling and stripping, tomorrow! Theoretically I could also get some sanding done, but I doubt I'll have time. There's quite a bit of stripping to do, though I think the filling will mainly be annoying due to having to move the ladder around so much, rather than time consuming. I think I'm getting better at it! Hopefully...

Current Mood: sleepy

nanila

Last weekend, we stayed in a Landmark Trust property a mere half-hour journey to Bletchley Park. We were surprised by nice weather on the Saturday, so we made the trip. Below is an assortment of photos from the selection of buildings we managed to visit over the course of five hours. I don’t think we saw more than a third of it, so we’ll definitely take advantage of the year-long entry that the steep admission price gets you to see the rest.

The dingy basement has had a lick of paint and yet somehow doggedly retains its character.

Listening stations.

Keiki does some Morse code-breaking.

Humuhumu does some Enigma encoding.

A surprisingly dry and sunny day after all the rain we’ve been having.

Daffodils were not quite ready.

The Mansion seemed like it was a bit of all right.

Not so sure the Intelligence Factory needs this.

Humuhumu and I spent quite a while on this interactive exhibit, plotting the locations of various maritime assets and enemies.

Many of the personal testimonials in the exhibition mention how boring and repetitive some of the intelligence work was.

You can see why they resorted to putting frogs in the pneumatic tube system to liven up the day.

The Park is beautifully maintained and the interactive exhibits are well designed and engaging - I’d say from the age of about 10 on up - so well worth a visit. I restrained myself to one book in the gift shop (The Walls Have Ears by Helen Fry) but could easily have brought home a stack.

stonepicnicking_okapi

I did two collages but I am only happy enough about the card for my sister to share. Made with Michael's craft store packet of Chinese New Year stickers. The black is actually gold, I just closed the lid of the scanner so it's black. And the print under the lower left side is Japanese, but I am 100% certain my sister won't know the difference.

stonepicnicking_okapi

( 1-19 )
20. infatuation
21. maternal love
22. obsession
23. agape
24. love of animals
25. unconditional love
26. forbidden love
27. ecstasy
28. the beloved

---

Here is a snippet from At Bertram's Hotel which inspired the double drabble below with the theme of infatuation and the second part ties into Nemesis and the theme of maternal love.

...Jane Marple, that pink and white eager young girl...Such a silly girl in many ways...now who was that very unsuitable young man whose name—oh dear, she couldn’t even remember it now! How wise her mother had been to nip that friendship so firmly in the bud. She had come across him years later—and really he was quite dreadful! At the time she had cried herself to sleep for at least a week!

Nowadays, of course—she considered nowadays...These poor young things. Some of them had mothers, but never mothers who seemed to be any good— mothers who were quite incapable of protecting their daughters from silly affairs, illegitimate babies, and early and unfortunate marriages. It was all very sad.

---

Day 20: Infatuation

Title: Mother's Wisdom
Fandom: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Rating: Gen
Length: 200
Summary: Jane Marple bumps into a crush years after.

( Read more... )

---

Day 21: Maternal Love

So for this I am doing my All of Agatha review of Nemesis. So this is the last Miss Marple novel written (though Sleeping Murder would be published later, it was written in the 1940's and put in a vault), published in 1971.

Nemesis is a brilliant story with so much lovely foreshadowing and character exposition and misdirection. And it also evokes a nauseating amount of cringe and revulsion for the modern reader.

So the plot is that Miss Marple gets a vague assignment from Mister Rafiel (the rich man of A Caribbean Mystery) after that man's death and she goes on a tour of homes and gardens and eventually works out that Mister Rafiel's no-good son who is in prison for killing his girlfriend didn't actually kill her. The plot is very well done, and it has many great elements, foreshadowing with the use of plants, harkening back to Miss Marples earlier cases, interesting characters including the lawyers who think this is all crackers and the best lesbian duo in canon after Hinch and Murgatroyd of A Murder is Announced (Cook and Barrow, the women hired to protect Miss Marple). So many wonderful things and I love the story.

But...

Agatha Christie is the very LAST person in the world you want to get love advice from, ANY kind of advice for ANY kind of love. And she has definite opinions about what a 'real mother' is. Adopted mothers are not real. And adopted mother love can never match biological mother love and is, in fact, twisted and warped and deserves punishment (and is punishing). But then (as in the quote above) she says that the problem of 'modern' girls is that their mothers are no good. She has a lot of very old lady 'get off my lawn' ideas about young people and their sexual behavior.

And she has extremely warped ideas about marriage, why people should get married, the expectation of infidelity, roles of husband and wives. There are two sections that proffer undiluted rape apology. Really, I was beginning to think she was getting worse as she got older but then I remember The Man in the Brown Suit and decided she had always been like that.

But...

it's a great plot and Miss Marple saves the day and wins 20,000 pounds and probably enjoys the partridge she buys with her winnings very much.

rmc28

Zach Sullivan was interviewed on the "Duke's Download" podcast about being openly queer in ice hockey, and his decidedly mixed feelings about Heated Rivalry. I liked listening to what Zach had to say, and was impressed by the thoughtfulness that obviously goes into his answers (I think the podcast host could stand to say less and interrupt less).

kalloway

On Wednesday, my father pulled up a flyer on Facebook for a nerd-show next weekend and incredibly nearby. Even though I have a fairly strict no-winter-shows rule because, uh, weather, this is close enough and cheap enough that I figured if I get a table and nothing comes of it, I at least got to hang out with other nerds for a few hours. Anyway, got a table, lol, and will spend some of this weekend/coming week sorting out some stuff to take. This looks like it might become ~monthly and if it takes off and I can maintain a table, it'll really help the clear-out. (The only other table I have booked this year is Semmex and that's not a personal table. I also don't want to spend every weekend this year trying to sell my stuff but I really do need to do the cleanout. Blrgh. Blrrrrgh.)

Finished up the KO GM and it's... okay. Some parts sucked to build but overall it's fine. I was thinking he needed a friend and was looking up other GMs and then suddenly remembered maybe I had one in the back of a cabinet? Sure enough... It is a very old HGUC kit and the nubs have yellowed like I've seen on a lot of old Gundam Wing kits. Since this GM has probably been in the back of the cabinet since being built, I can only assume it's age + plastic quality. Anyway, the GMs can be slightly messy friends, lol.

Going to work on the Destiny Astray today and maybe get the body done this weekend? I'm hopeful. IDK what my next kit will be but it will be Bandai so it at least will go together without extensive modification and/or pain.

svgurl

candyheartsex had creator reveals and this is what I wrote. :)

Title: i don't want anybody (but you)
Fandom: 9-1-1 (TV)
Pairing/Characters: Buck/Eddie
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1821
Summary: The real reason Eddie doesn't date.

Title: not an ending (just a new beginning)
Fandom: 9-1-1 (TV)
Pairing/Characters: Buck/Eddie, Christopher
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1565
Summary: When Buck watches Abby leave, he doesn't expect to immediately run into the two people who will be his future.

stonepicnicking_okapi

I am doing the book bingo set up by

kingstoken. More information here: https://kingstoken.dreamwidth.org/122578.html

I'm attempting to fill each square with a different author so only 4 squares at the moment.

B-3: Figures Without Facial Features on the Cover: A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin. The next-to-final book in the Inspector Rebus mystery series. Rebus is a Scottish detective with every single cop stereotype present. The plot starts off with a domestic violence case involving a cop and leads to police corruption and, in the end, Rebus attempting to murder his archnemesis crime boss.
B-4: Pet/Animal Companion: And to All a Good Bite by David Rosenfelt. This is in the Andy Carpenter mystery series. He's a defense lawyer who also runs a dog shelter in Patterson, New Jersey. The plot involves a case, a client falsely accused of a crime, and art forgery and a dog named Rebus. Full of quirky characters. Audiobook narrated by Grover Gardener.
G-2: Author You've Never Read Before: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. In the romantasy genre. A sheltered librarian has to flee a capital city in revolution with contraband spell books. She flees with a sentient, talking plant to her home island. Audiobook narrated by Caitlin Davis
O-5: Job/Profession in the Title: The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey. This is a Peter Diamond mystery, a police detective in Bath (UK). The case involves couples being hanged. Diamond is a widower who starts dating again. Audiobook narrated by Simon Prebble.

nanila

When did you last…

Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?

I honestly can't remember. So many places are cashless now that I often don't carry any. It must have been pre-Covid.
Visit a dentist?

Five months ago. My next clean is in March.
Make a needed change to your life?

The most significant recent change was changing to a gym I actually want to use, at the start of the year. I really needed that. I feel so much healthier.
Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?

Most nights, tonight included. We have to plan because of the kids. Most days we eat breakfast and supper at home as a family because we have the luxury of schedules that allow us to do so.
Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?

No idea. I hardly ever do this. It's flippin’ cold here most of the time. For those who say the UK temperatures are mild, okay, maybe to you, but I spent most of my life in the tropics before I moved here and I wasn't wandering around naked there either.

corvidology

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tyger

( This is entirely sanding-related babble. )

Not a lot other than that, really. It was super humid today - my hair was wringable again - but I still managed three work sessions, so probably about three hours? Which doesn't sound like a lot but it took me a stupid long time to recover each time. :/ Humidity is not my friend!!! :(

Looks like it's gonna be stupid humid tomorrow, too, so should try and get in a couple of work sessions in the morning/early afternoon. Maybe get up, feed cats/let out chooks, do a session? Will try that, I think. Supposed to be the least humid part of the day. (Still over 30% though. Ugh, so gross. But it's at 89% right now, so... yeah. Worth trying.)

Anyway! Now is naptime, yessss! >:

Current Mood: sleepy

rmc28

February is flying by, the university term-time intensity is very high, my life is work, ice hockey, occasional time with my family. I did switch things up and also try out a couple of kpop dance classes in a relatively light week (the university has a KPop society!) and they were exhausting and fun in the best way. Now to find the time to go back before the end of term.

Ice hockey

( Read more... )

Driving

( Read more... )

Percy Jackson

( Read more... )

kaberett

Breakfast dal. This experiment continues to work extremely well.
I have definitely reached the point with the Incomplete White Puzzle where it's speeding up significantly on account of enough pieces are in place to significantly reduce the number of possible combinations that need checking. Today's decision was to start filling in from the bottom edge, where I still had a chunk that was just edge and no middles, because I think that up in the top left (interior) corner I've identified The Missing Piece, and will get annoyed if I wind up with non-contiguous gaps...
Today alternating Locate One Puzzle Piece with Do One Useful Job has been nice and smooth and easy. I have got Several things done. Is pleased.
Really really enjoying my ridiculous washi tape collection. Today I self-indulgently Added More Week Dividers, including replacing some pre-existing ones that I was Not Enjoying, Actually.
( Exercise & embodiment. )

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uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

Member Posts

(no subject)

No fill, only strip.

pony plush patterns

january booklog

vital functions

Update

Weekly proof of life: recent media | Spring Crunch Eve

Sanding! In less humidity today!

Bletchley Park

Collage Journaling: Chinese New Year

February LOVE-fest: Day 20 & 21: Infatuation & Maternal Love

Zach Sullivan again on Heated Rivalry

(no subject)

candyhearts ex works (2 buck/eddie)

Book Bingo: February 2026

The Friday Five on a Saturday

An extremely low pressure challenge

Sanding begins!

Quick catchup

some good things

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February 2026

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