wispfox | Reading

The Paperwork Problem Behind the Housing Shortage

In more and more places, the rules technically allow incremental housing. Backyard cottages, accessory dwelling units, and small infill homes are legal on paper; beautiful, glossy images of these homes are shared on city websites and included in planning documents. Yet these homes rarely get built—not because of public opposition or failed rezonings, but because routine procedures treat small homes like major developments.

What we have is not a failure of vision, but one of process.

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ysabetwordsmith

The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine Cookbook
Paperback – January 1, 2000
by george-foreman-connie-merydith (Author)

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ysabetwordsmith

Today we went up to Champaign-Urbana to celebrate Black History Month by visiting black-owned establishments, along with some other stops.

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china_shop

Previous poll review
In the Fourth walls poll, 68.2% of respondents said "the one-way glass that stops TPTB seeing fannish activity" is important to them; 65.9% said "the one that shields fandom from public/media attention", and 61.4% said "the wibbly-wobby physics-defying thing that means celebs and fans exist in separate universes that just happen to occupy the same space-time". About one in five respondents love ALL the walls.

In ticky-boxes, ballooooooooons and golden sparkles won 54.5% of the vote, coming second to hugs (77.3%), but the other tickies made pretty good showings too. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
I finished Courtney Milan's The Marquis Who Mustn't and enjoyed it very much. Such a kind, good-hearted series with a lovely sense of community and a spark of mischief. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Then I ploughed through one of my randomly selected library books, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman. I found this a delightful read and very moreish. It's voicey, with a distractable, occasionally omniscient 3rd POV scattered with pop culture references. I appreciated it's acceptance of introversion and valuing of alone time. Also, the main character has anxiety, and it didn't really try to fix her.

Andrew and I are still slowly listening to Barrayar by Bujold, read by Grover Gardner.

Kdramas
Juuust enough has happened in One Spring Night that I'm into it. I mean, it's still going around in circles, but I'm most of the way through episode 14, and I'm definitely going to finish. The story relies heavily on respectability, parental authority, and conservative attitudes for its conflict (the leading man is a single dad, OH NO!!), which took me a while to get my head around.

Other TV
Our journey through Middle Earth continues. We're on the second disc of extras for The Two Towers, and the actors seem a bit punchy in their interviews, lol. Other than that, just The Pitt. ♥ (My brother watched a few episodes of The Pitt and said it doesn't have a plot, and I... don't know how to answer that. There are mini-storylines with the patients. The capital-P plot, maybe? such as it is? has kicked in at episode whatever-we're-up-to. I feel like it totally works without a driving plot arc, because there are character/relationship arcs, and rising tension/pacing, and theme. Maybe that's all you need?)

I'm amused that I have three streaming service subscriptions and we're spending so much time watching DVDs.

Audio entertainment
More Better Offline, Tech Won't Save Us (the one about humanoid robots), Writing Excuses, Letters from an American, Pod Save America, Cross Party Lines, Fansplaining.

Online life
From you I have been absent in ~~the spring~~ February, quite a lot. My reading page seems pretty quiet, and I'm still having trouble keeping up; open tabs proliferate (that's the middle line of a haiku).

Writing/making things
I'm subsisting on alibi sentences. My creativity is sitting on a bench somewhere, staring blankly into the sky.

I keep failing to post the meta about adverbs in speech tags because it's so prescriptive, and who am I to say anything?

Life/health/mental state things
I don't know what I'm doing with my life. The world (mostly as presented by the above podcasts) is freaking me out. Yesterday I made fifty chicken dumplings and talked to my brother in NY.

Good things
Dumplings. Creativity is a tide. Sunshine. Grapes. Library books. Black cat lying on the very edge of a sunbeam. Independent media and reporting.

Poll #34285 spam SPAM spam

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 32

View Respondents

How often do you check your spam folder?

View Answers

daily
4 (12.5%)

weekly
3 (9.4%)

maybe once a month?
7 (21.9%)

only when I'm looking for a specific thing
17 (53.1%)

never have I ever
1 (3.1%)

other
3 (9.4%)

ticky-box full of prescriptive writing advice
3 (9.4%)

ticky-box full of blanket cocoons and comfort food
20 (62.5%)

ticky-box full of putting clutter in boxes instead of sorting it
17 (53.1%)

ticky-box full of koalas in gum trees, chewing eucalyptus and judging us all
20 (62.5%)

ticky-box full of hugs
24 (75.0%)

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: working on feeling better

lb_lee

We’re sick again. :( Third time since Day of the Dead. This is getting really old, guys.

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: https://lb-lee.insanejournal.com/17713.html

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: sad

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly cloudy and cold.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

dialecticdreamer

Welcome to the Feathering the Nest prompt call for February of 2026

At the moment, I am sitting in a puddle of existential dread waiting for a Very Important Phone Call.

I can’t go do dishes, because I’ll probably drop the phone trying to answer it if my hands are the least bit wet. I can’t go fold laundry because I don’t want to risk dropping the phone, sitting on it, or losing it in the laundry pile, ALL of which are likely to happen, and probably more than one of them.

So, what am I doing instead?
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Current Mood: artistic

duckprintspress

An image with text that reads 2/28/26 11am - 5pm Indie Book & Comic Expo. Text below this shows a wizard in a blue hat and ropes with long white hair, a pipe between their lips, reading a yellow book. They sit among simply ruins and a bird perches beside them.

The last day of February, Saturday the 28th, come find us and 50+ other upstate New York authors, comic makers, indie publishers, and more at The Shirt Factory in Glens Falls! This awesome event is organized by Black Walnut Books and Beldame Books. You can shop the local small businesses in the building, and find all of us at our tables throughout the hallways. It’s gonna be a great time.

(and I promise I’m not gonna get sick this time if I can possibly help it. )

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: curious

degringolade

Third three cards (the future):

>>> Queen of Wands

>>> Ace of Coins

>>> Ten of Wands

Two wands and the Ace of Coins

Queen of Wands

Wang says that when she is “well aspected” she is warm and attractive, the other side of the coin is that she is also capable of violence and tyranny. To use a current meme, sounds like a mean girl to me.

Crowley appears to agree with Wang for the most part.

Robinson is off in her usual “only positive” and does seem to agree with the warm and attractive part.

Ace of Coins

Robinson talks in a roundabout manner about how to optimize the physical, maybe I am just cynical, but what I read into it is that it is about the money.

Crowley says it more bluntly, it is all about materiality in all senses: Material gain, labor, power and resources.

Wang agrees with Crowley in a roundabout way, but he also says it is “that which brings about the fruition of the matter, rather than being matter itself”.

Ten of Wands

From what I have read about Crowley, he must have loved this card. He called it the “Lord of Oppression". Cruel and overbearing force and energy, but applied to material and selfish ends, sometimes shows failure in the matter with a too-strong opposition.

Wang calls it the most destructive card in the deck.

Robinson seems to be full-on kumbaya on this one, what I read from her is that the force implied can be bent to good.

Current Music: Grateful Dead: Casey Jones

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds"
Poem: "Embrace My Fate"
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order
Poem: "The Spectrum of Your Being"
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bricolage
Today's Adventures
Science
Birdfeeding
Meteor Shower Calendar
Philosophical Questions: Life
Edible Landscaping Order
Meme
Photos: House Yard
Water
Birdfeeding
Books
Follow Friday 2-20-26: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Winter 2025-2026 A-I
Energy
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Photos: Flowerbeds
Books
Birdfeeding
Hard Things

Safety has 49 comments. Food has 53 comments. Wildlife has 39 comments. Food has 67 comments. Robotics has 146 comments.

Last week's half-price sale in Not Quite Kansas went well. All sponsored poems have been posted, so you can find those via the title links on the sale page.

The 2026 Rose and Bay Awards are now open for excellence in crowdfunding. It's time to vote for your favorite projects!

The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31, 2025.
The nomination period spans January 1-January 31, 2026.
The voting period spans February 1-February 28, 2026.

These are the handlers for the 2026 award season:

Art: gs_silva Nominate art! Vote for art!
Fiction: fuzzyred Nominate fiction! Vote for fiction!
Poetry: gs_silva Nominate poetry! Vote for poetry!
Webcomic: curiosity Nominate webcomics! Vote for webcomics!
Other Project: curiosity Nominate other projects! Vote for other projects!
Patron: fuzzyred Nominate patrons! Vote for patrons!

"The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds" belongs to Not Quite Kansas and needs $34.50 to be complete. Raymond and Gideon get attacked on the way home from research.

The weather has been variable here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, several starlings, one male and two female house finches, one female and two male cardinals, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. I flushed the great horned owl from the ritual meadow when I went out there. A skein of geese flew overhead, going north. Currently blooming: crocuses.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

These are the notes for "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds."

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ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the October 2020 Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from

wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "demons" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, an unprovoked attack, hellhounds, violence, gore, unexpected rescue, playing with prey, fatally injured opponents, minor injuries to main characters, awkward discussions, willing sacrifice, intimate magical healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $0.25/line, so $5 will reveal 20 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses. So far sponsors include:

fuzzyred,

355 lines, Buy It Now = $44.50
Amount donated = $10
Verses posted = 13 of 118
Amount remaining to fund fully = $34.50
Amount needed to fund next verse = $0.25
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $0.75

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ysabetwordsmith

Here are the notes for "Embrace My Fate."

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ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the October 6, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from

librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, sorting through a lair acquired by combat, reference to past abuse, cursed artifacts, damned souls, worry, magical body modification, restraint for safety, awkward emotional discussions, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

I picked out what I wanted from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. This catalog has the Safe Seed Pledge, meaning everything is non-GMO/toxin-free. My partner Doug further notes that they have the best, easiest ordering system of all the catalogs we use. Call up the Smart Order Form and when you key in the product number, the rest autofills, tells you if it's still in stock, and lists the price. \o/ Somegeek earned their coffee today!

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dialecticdreamer

Late Arrival
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 2
Word count (story only): 1108
[Friday, May 15, 2020, 9:15 am]

:: On Friday morning, Garegin and Leto arrive late. Part of the Edison’s Mirror (Teague Family) story arc. ::

Back to Fresh Morning Air (part 1b)
To the Edison's Mirror Landing Page
On to

Aidan looked away from the sheet of paper that Ed had been scribbling on when someone opened the front door downstairs. “That’s odd,” he mused.

Ed folded the paper and stuffed it into a pocket. “Go see,” he suggested. “Are you late for work?”

Narrowing his eyes, Aidan checked out the window, frowning at the thickening cloud cover. “Not yet, but I should leave in only a few minutes.”

Vic tapped the bedroom door in sharp strokes. By the time Aidan opened the door, the teen had his arms crossed, and his weight centered on his heels. “Rory rushed downstairs to open the door despite me asking her to wait,” he murmured.
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