technomom | Recent Entries

Fibromyalgia finally gets a genetic fingerprint

A massive global study links the chronic pain condition to 26 genes associated with brain signalling, marking a turning point in understanding its biological roots.

Researchers say they have identified the first genetic risk factors for fibromyalgia, offering compelling evidence that the chronic pain syndrome is fundamentally a disorder of the central nervous system.

FMS has long been posited to be a disorder of the central nervous system, but identifying the genetic markers strengthens that argument. This discovery could lead to tests for FMS!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Dead End by Annabel Chase
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I got through eight books of this nine-book series. The main character makes the same very serious mistakes over and over again, but there was enough progress that I kept reading.

HOWEVER, in book nine she started to make the most serious of those mistakes AGAIN, and I was done. I no longer care about her fate or that of the many lives entwined with hers.

You win, Annabel Chase! This is the second of your series that you ran me slap out of, and it was with exactly the same issue: the main character being too stupid to breathe. If these books weren’t available on Kindle Unlimited, I wouldn’t have given you a second chance. I’m sorry that I did so, now.

View all my reviews

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Diviner’s Bow by Sharon Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stretched this one out as long as I could manage it, because I was enjoying it so much, and I never want any of the Liaden Universe books to end. I love this series and its authors!

The prose in these books is always just perfect to my ear. The plot involved some bad guys, but they seemed almost irrelevant most of the time. It was mainly a sweet visit with lovely people having intelligent conversations. I want to live in this universe.

This novel does not offer a jumping-in point to the new Liaden reader. To understand it, you must be conversant with the events of the last few books, and it helps to have read all that came before. Don’t worry, it’s all delicious!

View all my reviews

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Diviner’s Bow by Sharon Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stretched this one out as long as I could manage it, because I was enjoying it so much, and I never want any of the Liaden Universe books to end. I love this series and its authors!

View all my reviews

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Why do most women give birth (in the United States, anyway) while lying on their backs? Is it the most comfortable way to do it? Nope.

It goes back to Louis the XIVth and his thing about watching his mistresses deliver his offspring. He didn’t like having anything obstruct his view, so he insisted they lie on their backs.

It came to be the standard in the U.S. around 1900. Many women had started delivering babies in hospitals attended by doctors, and the supine position was more manageable for doctors than other positions.

This is a good article about some of the history: The Bizarre Reason Why Women Started Giving Birth on Their Backs.

I already wished I could have had a midwife and a doula to help when my daughter was born. This knowledge makes it that much more of a wish!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

There’s a WordPress Daily Prompt that I’ve never really noticed before. Today’s question caught my eye, though.

Yes, I’m sure that I’ve unintentionally broken the law at some point in the past.

Our ridiculous tangle of city, county, state, and federal laws mean that there’s absolutely no way for anyone to truly know every statute, much less to understand them and how they interact. I don’t think lawyers can really accomplish that. I’m sure law enforcement personnel don’t know them all. Judges? Well, they have staff to help them, but no, I don’t think they know all the laws for every situation.

I’m not going to confess to anything, even possible offenses for which the statute of limitations is long past. I’m not looking for trouble, and that sounds like a good way to find it.

We definitely need to simplify our legal code.

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I’m off to enjoy the rest of the evening with my husband. Have fun!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I created a new article on my professional site today, Useful skills for growing in tech. I’d love to get some feedback on it.

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I’ve had a Google account since 2004, when you needed an invitation to join. I had previously used an email on this domain, and I have been transitioning most of my email back to that for the past year or so. Current events have me looking at how I can get off Google Calendar and any other services.

Google Calendar removes Black History Month, Pride, and other cultural events

The problem is that Rick needs a Google account because he uses an Android phone. He’s not open to transitioning to the Apple ecosystem. (I’m firmly in it.) We need interoperable calendars.

Proton and iCloud are options. I don’t know how well they interact with Google, but I’ll find out.

And then there are all those sites where I’ve chosen to “log in with Google.” I’ve begun to track them down and switch to other login methods, but many don’t make that easy.

What calendar do you use? What other alternatives do you know of for Google services?

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I’ve only been crocheting for a little while. Apparently, February is National Hobby Month or something similar, so the leader of the Women’s ERG at work asked us about our hobbies. Another woman and I mentioned crochet, and we found ourselves volunteered to teach. Every Monday this month, we’ve gathered to crochet during or just after lunch. Fortunately, the other woman is much farther along the process. She’s been crocheting for over a year and has made some fantastic things. I’m still limping along and looking up how to do each stitch.

Anyway, I’ve come to look forward to Mondays because of our gatherings. They’re lovely. We’re talking about continuing them after the month is over. I hope we do!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Yeah, 4:30 am was a long time ago, especially since it came after a night that was interrupted for an hour.

I have a lot of trouble with hypoglycemic episodes in the middle of the night. I wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) because my sugar is volatile, and I have hypoglycemic unawareness. It’s a damned good thing I have the CGM. Without it, I wouldn’t have known that my sugar was going dangerously low.

Hypoglycemia is defined as a blood glucose level lower than 70 mg/dL. There are three levels: Level 1 is under 70 but above 54. Level 2 is under 54, and according to the CDC, that’s defined as severe hypoglycemia. The American Diabetes Association explains level 3 as: “Your blood glucose has affected your ability to think or control your body, so you need help to treat it.”

My CGM occasionally gives me crazy readings. It has to be calibrated using an old-fashioned meter that works by pricking my fingers, so I still have one on hand.

When I woke up to the CGM alarm around midnight last night, the CGM said my sugar level was 53. I got some juice and a snack, then tested using the old-fashioned meter. It said my sugar was at 33.

My endocrinologist got excited (not in a good way) when I reported some measurements in the low forties last year. I don’t think he would approve of 33. I have a Glucagon kit, but I’m not supposed to use it unless I can’t take in carbohydrates by mouth. Rick has been instructed in its use in case I pass out.

I try very hard not to wake Rick when I get up in the middle of the night, but we’ve agreed that I will always wake him for any measurement under 50. Of course, I had to wake him. Happily, the juice did its job. Eventually. We were up for about an hour.

The CGM alarm went off again at 4:30. I got up and ran the whole drill again. This time, at least, my sugar only went down to 44. I had to wake Rick again. He went back to bed around 5:30. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I just got coffee.

There were three things on my calendar today. I made it to all three, although I was dragging. I’m grateful that the last one ended early.

Because now, I can go to bed!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

How to get started on getting started

“I signed up to volunteer with a tribe in southeast Michigan who need help transcribing archival documents”

“I’m planning to start a monthly (themed?) karaoke night with my pals”

“Working on a multi faceted project around police accountability/reform/ abolition”

“I sent out another round of invitations to our potluck, and I used Elise’s ideas to help create a handout for the potluck for a whole range of commitments people could make.”

In mid-January a bunch of us took an hour to cowork on something, anything, that would jumpstart our next community practice1. This was the whole and only point of the gathering. The quotes above are from what folks used the time to work on – literally everything everyone did was cool and inspiring. In the days leading up to it, I stressed about shortening the time and/or adding more activities to the event, but the time itself was the point.

When getting started on anything involving other people, time might always be the point.

This isn’t about time in the sense of having oodles of it, but time in the sense of dedication. Protection. Devotion. Setting the intention: research your library board, call around to local halls to see about space rental fees for a weird party you want to throw, pressing send on the volunteer form for the grocery delivery org that redistributes donated food.

…And then setting aside the holy time to do this.

I use the word “holy” because it feels that way whenever we devote space, time, and attention to something. I know I’ll usually shove a task like signing up to volunteer between “unload dishwasher” and “stare at sun” but there is something about letting it stand on its own for even 15 minutes that elevates its beauty, importance, and chances of actually getting done.

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I didn’t even have time to read my personal email today until after work, when I usually do that before the workday starts. Despite meetings, I wrote and published a whole section of knowledge base articles. However, I wasn’t able to crochet through today’s meetings.

I love my job. My employer is great, and they treat me well. There are days, though, when I remember being at home with Katie and my stepkids and miss it. There were other good things about those years, too. But now is pretty damned good.

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

The dumpster fire that is our country has me spending more time thinking about self-care. How can I care for myself so I don’t burn out or blow up? What do you do?

I’m going to try limiting my exposure to news to earlier in the day. Hopefully, that will help me ruminate less when I should be sleeping. If I just do pleasant things each evening, that will lead to better sleep, right?

Rick and I are watching the old Xena series on DVD. The show was special for me and my daughter when she was little, and she’s watching it with her daughter now. We didn’t have cable TV,¹ so we never got to see all of the episodes or see them in order. It’s interesting to remember seeing the later episodes while watching the early ones.

I’ve put my latest crochet project next to my desk. If I’m in a meeting that doesn’t require taking notes, I pick it up to keep my hands busy. That’s calming. I received the fibers for a blackwork project, but I need to prepare the fabric and get started.

I’ve been reading more, and it’s all pure escapist fiction. Okay, not 100%. I’m listening to Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution for a book club at work. But Goodreads says I’ve read 19 books so far this year, and most of it has been fiction. That’s way ahead of my normal pace.

I want to fit more music into my life this year. I joined the mailing list for a new-to-us house concert series, and I put all the local coffeehouses on my calendar. That makes it more likely that we’ll make it to one or two a month.

My D&D group is only meeting monthly, but I’m not sure I could fit a more frequent game into our schedule. I still miss playing more frequently, though, and if I find another game that I can work in, I’ll do it.

We’ve been playing other sorts of games more frequently at home, too. One of us grabs a random game off the shelves at least once a week. The most recent one was Recipes for Disaster by Exploding Kittens, which Rick gave me for Yule. We need to have some folks over to play some of our other games, which really need more than two players. I gave Rick Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats a while back, which can be played by one or two players. It would be more fun with two or three more people, though.

Rick was doing his dailies for Diablo, but now that he’s done, it’s time for me to log off!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I feel like I need a news break. I do that periodically to stay sane. There’s so much happening right now that I don’t feel I can take such a break. It’s frustrating. My anxiety level is pretty high, though.

There’s some really good material out there, at least. I try to be judicious about what I consume. These are two of the pieces I read today.

BlueTeamSherpa brings us Professor David Honig of Indiana University

The best, most cogent and elegantly simple explanation into the inexplicably destructive negotiating processes of the president,by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University.

Everybody I know should read this accurate and enlightening piece…

“I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don’t know, I’m an adjunct professor at Indiana University – Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of “The Art of the Deal,” a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you’ve read The Art of the Deal, or if you’ve followed Trump lately, you’ll know, even if you didn’t know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call “distributive bargaining.”

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The rest is worth reading.

This next piece comes to us from the author of On Tyranny, historian Timothy Snyder.
The Logic of Destruction (and how to resist it)

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together.

The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. For them, only a few people, the very wealthy with a certain worldview, have rights, and the first among these is to dominate.

For them, there is no such thing as an America, or Americans, or democracy, or citizens, and they act accordingly. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions.

Again, all of it is excellent.

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Two excellent articles about things we should all be doing:

Democracy Playbook 2025: 7 Pillars to Defend Democracy in 2025 and Beyond
The article expands on why to defend each pillar and how to do it.

Protect elections

Defend rule of law

Fight corruption

Reinforce civic and media space

Protect pluralistic governance

Counter disinformation

Make democracy deliver

10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy
These are the ten things. The article goes into detail on each.

Stay engaged

Help Democrats

Don’t do Trump’s work

Don’t grade on a curve

Believe in the courts

Beware of false attacks

Support independent media

Use your town square

Prepare for a long fight

Don’t give up hope

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

For about six weeks, I’ve spent Sunday mornings participating in a video gathering for an hour or two. A friend started it to build and maintain personal connections. I look forward to it each week and always learn something. Today, I had more energy after the meeting than before, which is astonishing for an avowed introvert. I also got a chance to crochet during that time, which was rewarding.

I spent much of the day reading while we did laundry, so I finished one book and started another. According to Goodreads, that makes 17 books for the year. That feels a little high, but I have been reading a lot.

We just had some delicious Chinese food for dinner. Now I’m off to get ready for the week ahead!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

Rick and I had a productive day, though we didn’t accomplish one thing I needed to do. That was dependent on another person, and he let us down.

We started by going to the Artist Alley event at Giga-Bites Café. It’s been a while since I visited the store. They seem to have expanded their merchandise while reducing the number of gaming tables. They also put up an interior wall that baffles some of the noise that rises from the tables. It’s been a decade or so since I tried to play a game there because that noise was overwhelming. There weren’t a great many vendors, but those who were present had some cute merchandise.

We ate, then ran a couple of other errands. Because it wasn’t far away and I needed some yarn for a project, we went by Eat, Sleep, Knit. I got out of there for less than $100, which is nothing short of miraculous. I didn’t find precisely what I wanted, but I found an acceptable substitute. And I learned that they carry my favorite crochet hooks! (Of course, they’re hard to find. My favorites often are.)

Finally, we stopped by Home Depot. Rick was in and out in less than 30 minutes, even though he had a gift card burning a hole in his pocket!

I’ve been having dreadful sneezing fits which necessitate taking diphenhydramine. It doesn’t seem to make me sleepy, but I don’t want to take chances. Anyway, that means he had to do all the driving, so when he got tired of that, we came home.

When we got home, we found packages on the porch, including a new smart thermostat I ordered a while back. Rick had never done any HVAC work before, but he jumped right in to install it. At first, it wouldn’t acknowledge the heat side of our system, but he got it working properly. (We both missed Daddy’s wise counsel, though.) Now, the temperature keeping the house in just the right temperature range. We’re hoping to save money on our electric and gas bills.

Edited to add: for some reason, this entry didn’t post last night after I wrote it, so I’m trying again. Sorry!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

We’ve had SUCH an exciting Friday night of pizza and Black Doves¹ on Netflix. Yep, I can feel us getting older all the time.

But then, I’ve been awake since 2:30 am. That entitles me to a lovely, comfy evening at home doing nothing that requires effort. I’ve been having sneezing fits here and there lately. They come upon me with no warning and, until now, they’ve stuck around for 10-15 minutes, then gone away again. Last night, one woke me at about 2:30. I was sneezing and blowing my nose for most of an hour! This despite me living on Claritin-D 24x7x365!

I was just about asleep again when my CGM² alarm went off, saying I was hypoglycemic. That had happened at about half past midnight, too, and my sugar went down to 43 (below 70 is hypoglycemic), so I had to wake Rick.³ I (mostly silently) swore a blue streak about that alarm at 4 am. I was set to get up at 5 anyway, so I went ahead and got up for good. It’s impressive that I’m still upright now. I wouldn’t be if I’d had the hard lemonade I wanted with the pizza, but one of the perks of age is knowing things like that: no alcohol if I’m operating on less than four hours of sleep.

I managed to get an appointment with an allergist for Monday, which is pretty remarkable. I can’t handle many more of these episodes. I don’t want to have to handle them.

I looked through some photos of Daddy tonight from the early oughts (~2000). I don’t have most of the older ones from when I was growing up. I want to get copies of them from Mom.

I don’t think I mentioned it, but we received our Girl Scout cookie order this week. That was very fast, considering we placed the order just a few days ago! I guess the warehouse is staying on top of things.

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

I had three straight hours of meetings today. That simply should not happen. I didn’t schedule any of them. Two hours of them were three standard meetings that happen on regular cadences. Thankfully, they don’t often fall on the same day. The third hour was a product webinar that occurs mostly monthly but moves around to accommodate other events. Today, it was from noon to one. I don’t believe in scheduling meetings during the lunch hour, or what is the lunch hour for most folks in the company. On days that have hours and hours of meetings, I end up exhausted but feeling that I’ve accomplished nothing.

One of the people who works with our media partners set up a task for me in Jira a few days ago. It was assigned to the wrong person, so it didn’t appear on my board. I had a vague memory of her saying she needed something done, so this morning I ran a search for issues she had created. There was the little bugger! And, of course, it needed to be done today.

The task was to style our polling widget to match a new publisher’s site. That should have been simple. Of course, something wasn’t working correctly. And our “widget guy” (he was much more than that!) was laid off back in October. I finally gave in and asked one of our developers for help. He compared what was happening on the site with the CSS I had entered and verified that styles were coming from somewhere else and overriding my work. Then, it was time for my biweekly one-on-one with my manager, so I left that developer to keep looking (he was as committed as I was by then). I mentioned the struggle to my manager, who dove in. He finally spotted the issue! I was able to style the widget with a workaround. The publisher is happy. Yay!

I did get other things done today, it just didn’t feel like there was enough of it. There are always more tasks than there are hours in which to accomplish them.

I finished some good books, but I haven’t been feeling like writing reviews. I need to get back to reading Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution for the book club at work. It’s a long one! I normally listen to non-fiction in the car, but I don’t drive very often since I work from home. Maybe I can get used to listening while I do needlework.

I’m still keeping up my French study via Duolingo and Babbel, but to really learn something new every day takes a decent chunk of time. Duo says I’m at the high B1 level of the CEFR, but I have my doubts. Duolingo sucks for grammar, but Babbel is strong in that. Part of the problem is that my auditory processing delay is much more noticeable when I’m listening to a French speaker than it is with an English speaker!

Oh, well. I’m just learning for fun.

Off to get ready for tomorrow!

Mirrored from TechnoMom.

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Enemy of Entropy

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Purposeful Perversity

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Recent Entries

Good news for fibromyalgia patients

Book Review: Dead End (Crossroads Queen series) by Annabel Chase

Review: Diviner’s Bow by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Book Review: Diviner’s Bow by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

I learned something infuriating today!

Have I?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

A new article!

Bad Google!

Monday means crochet

It has been a long day!

I needed this tonight

What a day!

How do you relax?

News explanations

Defending democracy

Happy Sunday

He fixed it!

TV on Friday night

It was a very Monday Thursday

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November 2025

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