heleninwales | Network

oceangrey posting in

warrington_runcorn_ntdp is a new fan-run community focused on the music of electronic project Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan.

Anyone is free to join, even those who have never listened before! Although if that is you, I'd recommend checking out the project's Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and Youtube to get acquainted :D

Discussion on the community will include, but is not limited to, avourite songs/albums/album artwork, physical media, how you discovered the music, recommendations for similar music, etc.

The current rules are pretty standard: no harassment/discrimination against any other Dreamwidth users; no NSFW/explicit content unless it's directly connected to the community's theme; and please keep any posts/comments on topic as much as possible. Anything else can be decided on in the future.

I (

oceangrey) am the current only moderator/admin, but if anyone else wants a similar role just message me or comment on the community's pinned post!

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: happy

rebeccmeister

I've reached that stage of the semester where it feels like I do little else besides teaching and sleeping exhaustedly.

I generally don't use the living room for much, aside from sometimes playing with George or for sitting down in a chair momentarily while grinding coffee beans in the morning. On Monday morning, when I walked over to the living room, I noticed a new source of flashing light (ugh, video short so I can't embed):

https://youtube.com/shorts/wNbGotTv_wc?si=5Ot627re8zZF9cGX

That is one of the monitors in

scrottie's office. He has been in California since November. It wasn't doing that the day before. Maybe the recent power outage caused this? Regardless, I dug out the key to his office door and went in to turn off this monitor again. The cats were briefly entertained by the opportunity to poke around in a space they haven't been in lately.

Speaking of possessed electronics, this darn document reader in the classroom where I teach REFUSES to behave.

https://youtube.com/shorts/XOfzN8CHTN4?si=KyggBAjMfkk1zSPB

I keep having to record videos of it because apparently our IT folks can't reproduce the issue. Their most recent hypothesis has been that something about the OS on my computer is causing interference when I have my computer plugged into the HDMI input. But in this instance, my computer is totally unplugged from the system. So.

A silver lining to my inability to function in the evenings is that George likes to come and snuggle. I've been putting on birdwatching videos for him, but decided last night to try out a cat documentary instead.

The cat documentary did manage to hold his attention for a good 20 minutes before he heard some noise and decided he needed to run off.

calimac

As a small boy I ate cold cereal for breakfast. I liked sugary treats like Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Puffs, but some cereals like Cap'n Crunch I found over-sugared and would not eat. I also wouldn't touch anything with marshmallow bits in it, so no Lucky Charms.

I ate these dry. At the age of 9 I started finding the taste of milk to be sour and spoiled - I had probably developed a slight allergy - so I simply stopped using it.

As an adult my tastes changed to more boring cereals, like Special K and Product 19. I never much cared for corn flakes, though.

On special occasions, or when eating out for breakfast, I'd go for an omelet or scrambled eggs and sausage. But whatever the breakfast, I never ate very much in the mornings, preferring a large early lunch.

Eventually health reasons led me to give up cereals and I turned to fruit. For a long time this was apples, and I developed a taste for tart but crisp and sweet apples, like Fujis and Braeburns. Occasionally I'd spell these with pears.

But after a while I started finding apples too heavy to eat. I tried other fruits. I liked kiwis, and they're supposed to be good for you, so for a while I ate that. But I found, to my surprise, that while a kiwi as a special treat is great, as a regular diet they quickly palled. I eventually settled on a can of mandarin orange slices. No peeling or tearing up, simple to eat.

That worked fine until I started having trouble swallowing. Oranges would not chew up into mush that I could get down. When I was in the hospital and they put me on a liquid diet, I was surprised to find for breakfast cream of wheat. Did that count as liquid? But I could get it down.

On coming home, I settled on packets of instant cream of wheat. B. has a little kettle that boils water in a jiffy, and a small measuring cup used only for water, so I can fix it easy with a little salt substitute and a lot of margarine added. My dietician approves; she wants the fats and the calories in my otherwise meager diet.

The first time I stopped in at the grocers to buy some more cream of wheat, I discovered to my delight that there was also instant grits. I'm a northerner but I've always had a taste for southern US food, and I love grits. They're basically cream of wheat except with corn (maize). So now I alternate between the two, finishing one box of packets before turning to the other.

And that's my breakfast these days.

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

oceangrey posting in

dw_community_promo

withnailandi is a community for everything related to Withnail & I (1987). Fanworks/recommendations, meta/discussions, whatever, all are welcome here! Another related community is

withnailandinsfw, for any more explicit fanworks/discussions.

Although not entirely new (made in October 2025) both communities are unused as of yet, due to most of the fandom being on other platforms. Feel free to join whether you're a casual fan, or if it's your favourite film of all time, or if you're somewhere in between!

withnailandi is open for anyone to join, and

withnailandinsfw is set to administrator-approved due to the community's content.

pattrose

Day 4

This is old but still packs a punch.

tamaranth

2026/039: Piper at the Gates of Dusk — Patrick Ness

The god comes screaming through the trees, shoving them to each side like matchsticks, breaking and burning them as it thrashes its way out of the woods... [opening paragraph]

In the original Chaos Walking trilogy (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men) Todd was thirteen, dealing with life on an alien planet and the constant phenomenon of Noise -- the constant thoughts and feelings of the men (all the women are dead) in the colony -- and the threat of the alien Spackle. Piper at the Gates of Dusk starts a generation later,( Read more... )

Current Mood: enthralled

adore

In the week leading up to and week of my moontime I mistakenly thought I'd relapsed into depression, because my PMS symptoms were that bad. The day after I finished bleeding, I wrote the rest of Dollshops & Deathmages, in a dramatic restoration of my spirits and creativity. I don't want to be miserable and listless for half a month, even if I'm in a creative flow for the other half. In quite the synchronicity, The Cozy Creative posted a video about how her menstrual cycle affects her creativity.

Watch on YouTube

It made me feel better, knowing that I'm not alone in having to plan my writing work around moontime, but I really wish my symptoms would be limited to the week of moontime because two weeks is a lot of time lost.

Now to wait for the other authors participating in the cozy fantasy anthology to finish their stories. I've also talked to my cover designer about a cover for Dollshops & Deathmages, because after the anthology has run its course the participating authors will release their stories individually as they see fit. I'm hoping to make Dollshops & Deathmages an evergreen prequel novella and occasional reader magnet for the subsequent cozy books I have planned, so it needs its own cover.

Back when I was employed, I saved up and got myself covers for a couple of the cozy books I'm writing (Dragons & Debutantes and Pumpkin Jack Proposes) since covers are the biggest authorial expense. Dollshops & Deathmages wasn't planned for because I didn't know I was going to participate in a cozy anthology until the opportunity came up, and I crafted this story specifically for this anthology. So I have had to commission the cover for this now, not in advance like the others.

My parents are decently supportive about this indie author project and funded the cover for Dollshops & Deathmages, but I'm not decently grateful because I wanted their support long before this and didn't get it. If I'd gotten their support before this I would've had a job and would've been able to pay for my own covers. Their opposition to me taking that job was very gendered, so I don't feel privileged at all. Even though I am.

I'm bitter and prideful whenever I have to ask them for money, and when they sweetly tell me I have only to ask them, I'm overwhelmed by anger because they could have been supportive all along but only chose to be after I was driven into a corner and had no options left.

I think the contrast between them happily giving me handouts vs. their crashout when I wanted to work at the bookstore is probably because they like me being at home and dependent. I mean it makes no sense that they're supportive about this, but weren't supportive about the stable salaried thing.

Current Mood: thoughtful

poliphilo

I dreamed I was watching a movie scripted by J.K. Rowling starring John Lennon. Lennon- who wasn't really Lennon but an AI approximation that looked more like Daniel Radcliffe- was a conscientious British police officer who was being hauled in to be disciplined after insisting on arresting an American woman who was so highly connected as to be above the law. While he waited to be seen- and probably sacked- a small, rat-like alien creature was squirming on the floor and throwing a knife at him. He threw it back and hit it twice. The third time he lost patience and leant down and sliced its head off.

In the dream that followed I was working in a hospital where all the staff wore bright pink uniforms. We weren't supposed to sit in the windows in case the sight of men in pink offended outsiders but we did anyway. "Look" I said to my co-workers, pointing through the window, "All the men out there are also wearing pink- (and they were- all shades of pink- and nothing else)- "and there's a man in pink who doesn't have a head...."

pattrose

Topics for talk

Favorite Movies

I have so many. I'm just going to name a few.

Any movie with Robin Williams in it. He was wonderful.

Any movie with Morgan Freeman

Most movies with Bruce Willis.

Most movies with Leonardo Di Caprio, Denzel Washington, Gerard Butler, Brad Pitt, and Michael Caine. This is just a small list.

Actresses: Toni Collette, Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, just to name a few. Oh, Emma Thompson. Can't forget her. Kate Winslet.

pattrose

Jokes
*
* Where do hamburgers and hot dogs go dancing? A meatball.
* How do trees get online? They just log on!
* How do billboards talk? Sign language.
* What’s America’s favorite soda? Mini soda.
* Why shouldn’t you trust atoms? Because they make up everything.
* How was Rome split in two? With a pair of Caesars.

pattrose

90 discussion questions
1. If you died tomorrow, what do you think your biggest impact on the world would have been?

This question is weird. I was a decent mom, not perfect, but I was there, and I loved them.

My grandchildren still love reading my books. Mt great-grandson took a set of all four of them and donated them to his school's library. He's 8 years old. I guess I made an impact with my books.

I made many lives more fun working with Developmentally Disabled Adults. I worked there for 15 years, and before that, I was an aide at a DDA Day Program for 8 years. That's how I started.

I can't think of anything else.

pattrose

Not quite 365 days questions.

Which flowers or trees are blooming where you live now?

All trees are blooming.

Desert Broom
Mesquite tree. We have two
Paloverde tree
Orange trees. We have 2 large ones.
Grapefruit trees. We have 2
Pomegranate trees, we have a huge one.
Bird of paradise. We have 3 big ones.
Oleanders
I don't know names of any others. Sorry.

Our orange trees bear fruit twice a year. We get about 50-65 oranges on each tree, twice a year. Grapefruit only gives us about 6 big ones twice a year. But it's still smaller. The orange trees are huge. Hubby had to get something to pick oranges with that can reach the top. He sacks up bags of oranges, and we donate them to two separate group homes for adults with autism. They love the oranges. It works out really nicely.

pattrose

Swimming

Today was wonderful. I went swimming in a Olympic sized pool today. Holey crap it was big. I was there for two hours. It was so fun. I'm actually tired tonight. I'm going again on Thursday. I'm looking forward to it. Next week I'm going Monday-Thursday. I'll get my tan back. Woot!

dine

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ysabetwordsmith

Everyone needs contact comfort sometimes. Not everyone has ample opportunities for this in facetime. So here is a chance for a cuddle party in cyberspace. Virtual cuddling can help people feel better.

We have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!

Current Mood: busy

thistleingrey

Uzma Jalaluddin, Detective Aunty (2025): when the landlord of her daughter's small clothing boutique is murdered, Kausar drops everything to go. Kausar's (white) friend feels sure that Kausar will find out what really happened. But her daughter wants help with housekeeping and child-minding, not an adult peer's support.

I'm only in ch. 3, I don't care currently whether books stick the landing (though I like this one so far), and ch. 2 is great for its tender forthrightness: when a kid (even a thirtysomething adult, like Kausar's daughter) is used to seeing a parent in a certain way, that's how the two are paused, unless the child makes an effort to grow a bit more. It's not something that the parent can shift solo.