Life, One Day at a Time

Passionate about culture 25+, USA, she/hers

[exhaled-spirals]

“A book is a piece of silence between the reader’s hands. The person who writes it is quiet. The person who reads it doesn’t break the silence.”

— Pascal Quignard, Petits traités

[bashcrandicoot]

Based on a true story

[valerie-jeanne]

Fairy house built in the base of a tree.

[ramosotero]

even if you feel like you aren't qualified for something, my best advice is to apply anyway. it's up to the people behind whatever you apply to to decide that, not you. apply to that fellowship, send in that abstract, send that application to that school or that summer program. you'll be surprised with all the doors that open when you do.

[batrachised]

TIL that in medieval times trebuchets were sometimes used during tournaments to bombard the watching ladies with roses, and there is something so inherently comedic about this to me. picture me blasting roses at my lover's window with the force of a battlefield assault to win her hand

[zingring]

T-shirt cannon

[mothprincess]

many of the ppl who are good at something have practiced copiously. practice copiously!!! you do not have to be naturally talented at something to do it well!!!!

[icecreamwithjackdaniels]

Carl Frederik Sørensen (Danish, 1818–1879), "Danish Ships in Rough Seas" (details), 1877

[mourningfictionalcharacters]

”potentially mature content” what the hell, sure

[satis-eloquentiae]

[sixappleseeds]

[ID: ten of swords tarot card with hockey sticks instead of swords]

[roycohn]

idk man when i was a kid i remember a lot of adults saying "if you can read and follow directions, you can cook" so i was like yes i can do these two things. doesn't seem that hard. and it wasn't! so it just always surprises me when i see people of any age who are capable of reading and following directions bemoaning how impossibly hard cooking is. like i know i'm always on this hobbyhorse but it just seems like a lot of people have never developed basic life skills and instead of going "oh wow that's embarrassing, i should learn and catch up" they instead get defensive and turn it into a learned-helplessness thing where they CAN'T POSSIBLY be expected to learn something that's SOOOO HARD. and suddenly somehow we're the oppressors for thinking it's weird that a grown adult can't grill themselves a cheese.

[chillyfeetsteak]

there should be more options than suffering via employment and suffering via unemployment

[melmili]

just wanna say i am a big fan of this trope specifically

[tatsumi-rin]

[toastyglow]

"everyone is paying super close attention to everyone else all the time" actualy statistical error. hypervigilance georg, who enters fight or flight when someone starts breathing differently, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[bakurapika]

#this one's for the people who hear 'people aren't paying that close attention to you! I mean do YOU pay that close of attention to them?'#and go: unfortunately yeah!!!!!!!#you are georg hope this helps. love u#hang in there one day u will be able to pay less attention all the time

[spacecamp1]

Barbara Takenaga, Too, 2017, Acrylic on wood, 24 x 20 in.

[nineinchmales]

Did you know that um…. (remembers that words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm) …………

[vincentbriggs]

Friend was getting frustrated at hand sewing because the polyester thread was twisting a lot, so I gave him some cotton thread and he went wow this is so much better. now I'm wondering if perhaps a lot of the people who hate hand sewing have never tried it with a well behaved thread. If you've only ever hand sewn with polyester thread try cotton or silk, or linen with some beeswax! (And read this blog post with more advice.)

[dollsahoy]

I have given similar advice in regard to machine sewing--cheap polyester thread creates varying levels of frustration that nicer polyester thread does not, and I wonder how many people who have problems with machine sewing are actually dealing with uncooperative thread.

(I discovered this on accident, when I switched from my usual Saba or Gutermann thread to a no-name 2/$1 store brand thread that once was my main thread, thinking it was nothing more than a silly act of nostalgia, but, no. All of the issues I used to have sewing knits immediately reappeared. I switched to a better thread--in a worse color match--and the problems vanished. And I'd thought the problems with sewing knits had gone away because my sewing skills had improved! Nope! It was spending more money on thread!)

[smallerplaces]

This is giving me flashbacks to the time in the 2010s when I thought I'd save time and money by picking up some cheap off-brand thread at the convenient SAS Fabrics (a discount mill-end store). I went from having no trouble sewing a nice seam to have endless and varied problems.

That also reminds me that at some point, I'll need to side-eye the current thread stash, as all but two spools are from my mother's stash, so they are a minimum of six years old, probably much older. Here, therefore, is a link on how to test if your thread is too old. (It's one thing I don't buy at estate sales!)

Is my sewing thread too old to use?

Even though you may think that buying a large box of vintage thread on sale sounds like a like your saving money, it may turn out to be quit

[vincentbriggs]

I like old thread, but I do always pull on it to make sure it's strong enough! I figure if it can last for decades in a garment there's no reason a properly stored thread can't last just as well on the spool. And the weaker stuff is great for hand basting, so I keep it too, as long as it's a decently smooth cotton. (At my first tailoring job I learned that you can actually buy specially made hand basting thread that's designed to break easily so it's easier to pull out.)

But oogh, yeah not the cheap fuzzy stuff. If a bunch of secondhand thread comes with any of those thin cheaply made spools that have that very visible fuzziness they get tossed immediately. Serger thread is the only stuff that's allowed to look like that!

[charnel-grounds]

“The Mistletoe-Web”, (Jeanne Dirys)

by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, c. 1900

from ‘The Sketch Vol. 3: Worser Than Death’

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Just for fun, if anyone is bored/in need of distraction, and wants some excellent animals, here are two of my personal favorite Youtube channels:

EVNautilus- famous for such classic hits as "a bunch of scientists make fun of an octopus" and "scientist gets to watch her favorite animal get one-shotted by an anemone".

NamibiaCam- live cameras set up at watering holes around Namibia! My favorite is the desert; there's often oryx, jackals, and always tons of sandgrouse.