Words and Needles @yarnings - Tumblr Blog

Reblog if it's okay to invade your ask box

Always

It's spring now which means the kids in my city have started drawing hopscotches on the sidewalk and as a rule I do every hopscotch I see because 1. Use it or lose it (ability to scotch) and 2. If a child got down on the hardscrabble streets of Boston Massachusetts to draw a scotch the least I can do is use it, but in doing the hopscotches, I've learned that about 50% of them are the typical 8-10 step scotch and the other 50% are. Somewhat avant-garde. And of course I'm not vetting the entire scotch before I start it so sometimes it's like haha 8 steps woo! Childlike whimsy! And sometimes they're 20 steps or 30 or they've got a section with three squares instead of two where you have to do a little Charleston to step on all three, or, memorably, FORTY one foot squares. A full BLOCK of jumping on one foot but I'm no quitter so once I've started Jigsaw Junior's fuckin hopscotch gauntlet I'm there til the end just a daily pot smoker in her thirties jumping kasa-obake style through an affluent suburb while some little proto-kennedy watches from his bedroom window rubbing his sadistic little third grade hands together and cackling. It's amazing. I love spring.

I just saw the funniest add for Loops (fancy earplugs). They were trying to say that they're better than having kids wear over-the-head hearing protection, because they (Loops) block out less sound.

You'll never guess what my kid's primary complaint about their Loops is... (actually the issue is that it's selective - they're designed to allow voices through so you don't miss conversation or whatever. But when people talking is the problem that's not a benefit.)

mtf-the-gathering

"gender is a social construct": fairly easy for leftists to understand

"race is a social construct": a bit harder to swallow for some but still reasonable

"mental illness is a social construct": this one gets you hate mail in your inbox

thebookewyrme

Gotta add previous tags on here, because this is gonna live rent free in my head from now on. The stars are real, constellations are not. Damn. Tags by @smoreofbabylon (if you don’t want me to put you on blast like this I’ll delete lol!)

#waaaait...#is this why they had to give me a “an outcome of this evaluation may be a diagnosis” talk?#because some people take the “autism” label so much more seriously than the behaviour?

romanceyourdemons

made homemade bagels for work and brought them in all hot and crispy and no one’s eaten any of them except for me so here are the remaining ones for you guys 🥯🥯🥯🥯 <- these are the cinnamon roll bagels 🥯🥯🥯<- these are the scallion pancake bagels but there’s only three bc i ate one

#there are no longer three scallion pancake bagels #thank you very much OP

neat-deadandlive-things

Hot-girl-summer this, grandma-hobbies that, I'm gonna participate in a "weird kid freedom before the internet was everywhere" summer.

Join me, we're

Talking and making plans with our friends on a landline.

Sitting in contortionist positions to paint our toenails (or pick dead skin off our feet) without getting sore and being comfortable in silence with our own thoughts.

Walking to 7-11 to buy loose candy with only a handful of change (anyone remember Sobe AKA lizard milk?).

"Journaling" while in a tree.

Watching the rain fall against a window while listening a CD.

Laying on the grass for hours.

Making faces in a mirror (scrunching up our chins like a walnut).

Reading fanfiction on devices that we don't use for work (family computer or ipod touch only).

Noticing bugs.

#my kids have taken up singing sea shanties while sitting in a tree #because we're Millenial parents #and strongly frown upon carrying stuff up into the tree with you #(on the grounds that what you don't have you can't drop and make your parents think it was you)

neat-deadandlive-things

Today on Continued Education (Neat facts I just learned):

Practice your reading compression with this Wikipedia page and share your favorite part with the class!

#what I mostly learned from that article is that it's worse than I realised #and I already thought it was weird and dated

marithlizard

It's been a while since I said "this person wins the internet", but today it is merited.

(via bsky)

(The classic XKCD comic)

feldfrog

I used to be monotheistic. Until the great worm that I worship got cut in half

elfstrogenized

Dude this person's thoughts are inherently evil let's fucking kill them

elfstrogenized

Man this person has not committed one material offense but the way their brain works gives me an icky feeling, let's make sure it never comes crawling back online this time

elfstrogenized

Y'know there's something almost poetic about seeing a bunch of replies from people saying "lol me at myself" and checking their blog to see they would consider me on their "dni" list or have "general dnis" listed

elfstrogenized

Like the amount of people reblogging this without context who would turn this exact rhetoric on me is so upsetting it's almost funny

elfstrogenized

Classic tumblr event of people reblogging my post about no thought crimes and then adding tags like "except ■■■■■ because that one is extra yucky!"

THIS POST IS ABOUT YOU. YOU ARE THE STRAWMAN I CREATED.

elfstrogenized

Good tag from prev

fanby-fckry

[ID: Tumblr tags which read, #i believe actions speak louder than words and they [all caps] especially [end caps] speak louder than thoughts // End ID]

Look, I acknowledge that the 0.01g-precision scale sitting in the kitchen may mean I'm not the person to point this out, but given that that's for special projects I'm going to do this anyhow.

You don't need sub-gram precision for your baking to turn out. You don't even really need gram precision most of the time. That fancy scale? We were trying to infuse botanicals into spirits (gin isn't an option and my husband was looking for an allergy-friendly version he could have). And not only that, but we wanted to do small test batches of maybe 100mL or less, so we needed to be able to measure small amounts of the botanicals. (Really, it was in with the other craft uses it has, like measuring out small amounts of dye).

You know what I use for my baking? A $10 mechanical scale from Canadian Tire. I've never had anything fail to turn out with that. It has 25g precision, and you can kind of estimate between that ("the needles even between the two ticks so that's an extra 12.5g"-type thing).

Is it nice to have a high-precision scale? Hell yes, I love it. But you don't need it for baking.

#My high-precision scale doesn't work for baking anyhow #it's only good to 400g #so if I really need a precise measurement I can use it and then dump it into the main bowl #this is just taking advantage of people who know that cooking by weight would be more precise #but don't have any scale at all #and telling them “oh you want precision? We can supply that for $$$”#a precision scale at high capacity costs way more than one at low weight capacity #my set-up was less than half the cost (even adjusting for inflation) of the fancy scale

goldcrescent

I also think that the strength gap is at least partially manufactured women would in fact be stronger overall if little girls were encouraged to do physically taxing games and activities and eat their fill while they’re growing vs having to constantly diet and be sedentary indoors (or god forbid do intense cardio while under-eating). The amount of adult women honestly afraid to lift weights bc they think they’ll get bulky as though bulking isn’t a full time job that athletes have to spend all their time on and anyone on earth gets shredded from just using their adult muscles for their intended purpose, girl your bone density 🥀

goldcrescent

if you say women are intentionally nerfed from birth in 2026 people look at you like you’re insane and start condescendingly telling you about how women are just better at different things (but not during their periods haha) but this was a completely basic feminist talking point I grew up with like “girls can do it too! [shot of little girls climbing and running with boys]” nickelodeon commercial tier base level I hate it how is everyone suddenly dumber than the average 7 year old

#I think we should be considering if the cut of women's clothing is a factor #*any* muscle in your arms and you have to start being careful what kinds of sleeves you wear #so being scared of bulking up so much that your clothes don't fit #is actually not as stupid as it sounds #because that can easily happen by accident if you're normally active #same if you have calf muscles #I have had jeans labelled “straight-leg” bind in my calf instead of my thighs

its-arson-time

type prevs url with your eyes closed in the tags

#strawberryplottwist #did better than I expected for an unfamiliar keyboard #(I *really* depend on looking at the screen when I type #I get so slow with passwords #it's a horrible habit I know)

janmisali

here's another idea for a poll! I think this will have some interesting results. this sentence is here to pad out this paragraph so people who don't read posts will be more likely to accidentally miss these instructions. if you're reading this, please select option eleven. here's another sentence to make this block of text look longer. anyway here's my fun poll idea!

try to create a normal (bell curve) distribution

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Remaining time: 4 days 2 hours

#you know what?#these results put the person who flipped out #saying that there was a “correct” answer for the “roll two dice in your head” poll #into context #ignoring the fact that their statistics knowledge was off #the numbers here clearly show #that too many people are picking the most common option #sure part of it is not knowing the shape that exists #but I'm sure some of it is “this is the most likely therefore it's the correct one”

Look, confirmation is good, but are there any Canadians with Facebook who are surprised to discover that there's people being paid to promote Alberta separatism?

#they were obviously promoted posts #as well as being factually questionable #the former suggests that they're being questionable #so why wouldn't they hire people?#the latter supports that people were hired

mollyjames

Cleaning gets easier when you remember it's a thing you're doing to make your life less miserable, and not a thing you're doing as punishment

mollyjames

edhelwen1

You can stop in the middle of cleaning!?

wheeloffortune-design

Yes! Because it's not a goal to be achieved, but a cycle!

Instead of seeing the house as clean/not clean, it helps a lot to see cleaning as a constant upkeep of your environment. Taking care of your home, and of yourself, is a good thing!

(still unlearning the guilt and anxiety associated with cleaning. it's an uphill battle.)

#this is why I made a spreadsheet #now cleaning is a thing that makes the cells go green #not a thing I'm always behind on