life-goalds

[life-goalds]

TIP:

This holiday season, if you know someone who likes house plants,

DON'T

get them a houseplant. DO NOT.

instead, get them a NICE, MEDIUM-LARGE, AESTHETIC, BOTTOM-DRAINING, INDOOR

POT.

that is what they want. that is what they dream of. ok? thats what will be most useful and appreciated. in fact, if you can, get them a CUTE MATCHING SET. OF POTS!!!! NOT PLANTS, POTS!!!!!!!!

they may be more excited initially about the plant. that is true. but a pot is a gift that they will go home and use to upsize one of their already beloved houseplants, and every time they look at it they will remember how much they appreciate you.

HOUSEPLANT:

- they already have so many

- needs to be watered

- takes up window space

- comes in a pot thats already too small, needs to be upsized, costing money

- can die

AESTHETIC POT

- lets them care for an existing plant they own

- they will be grateful every time they see it in their home

- does not take up window space not already occupied by a plant

- can be wrapped without dying or spilling dirt everywhere

[life-goalds]

Why don’t you listen to Lucia Popp’s Great Recordings of the Century, Mozart: Operatic and Sacred Arias and maybe you’ll calm down?

[life-goalds]

slides im sharing w my family this week bc it pains me to see how they manage their passwords. and also easy steps they can take to protect their privacy (firefox mainly). if u have any questions let me know.

also. uBlock origin is better than adblock plus bc: it allows NO ADS (ABP will allow certain ads and let bigger companies thru - its "acceptable ads" program) + is more lightweight and easier on your computer's resources than ABP.

[life-goalds]

Here are my playlists I just now made sorting some Christian rock music by decade in case anybody else wants to look at them for some reason. I just made them five minutes ago and pretty much just went through all the albums I have liked on spotify and sorted those, so definitely not any sort of comprehensive, but they've got a good amount of music on them anyway

Everyone please always feel free to recommend me more Christian rock music I don't know yet <3

[life-goalds]

I wanna know how Hunter became the leader of the Bad Batch. Like, not saying any of the others would have been better, I just mean, there were only four options: a sassy little iPad kid, a trigger-happy man bear, the problematic guy with the toothpicks, and Space Rambo. We can’t assume it was because he was the least chaotic, because nothing could be farther from the truth. In TCW season 7, Anakin asks him who they report to and he’s just like “idk man, if I knew how to fill out a report maybe I’d try and find out” and when Anakin gets snatched up by that lizard dragon thingy, the first thing his brothers do is get set up so that Hunter can windsurf behind it like a maniac because apparently that’s something he tends to do. In TBB S1 when Omega starts that food fight, Hunter tries to de-escalate the situation for approximately 3 seconds before throwing hands. All of his interactions with any sort of leadership involve a minimum of 70% sarcasm. The man has a blaster to shoot droids and chooses to stab them with a knife instead. He left cadet training and the first thing he did was get a massive face tattoo of a skull.

Like, I’m trying to imagine how that conversation went and all I can think of is, “Sir, it’s time to promote one of the members of Clone Force 99 to sergeant.” “…*long sigh*”

[life-goalds]

Hey artists! Here's a new app for ya!

Tiny glade!

Like what the screenshot says, you can build all sorts of houses and buildings (mostly houses).

If you're someone who struggles to imagine a house (or has trouble putting it on paper/screen), I recommend using this game. The full version comes out September 23, but the demo is out now (some stuff is limited but you can still have fun with it).

Here's a little cottage I made (it's fun once you get the hang of it)

Tutorials below (which I recommend watching before using the game)

@teawizard

[life-goalds]

Workout For Daily Life

[life-goalds]

[life-goalds]

I promise I searched your blog, but how do you (specifically) zero draft? The post that showed up in a search of your blog was like, bullet point writing whatever is in your head for the.wip, which I think is v cool and would help me finish lofm! So I'm curious how you do it!

Oh yes, okay! I don't think I've actually explained it anywhere, but I love talking about this.

what is a zero draft?

The great thing about a zero draft is that you can pretty much make it whatever you need it to be. For me, I was having a hard time with the middle of my story. I've started and stopped this wip so many times, always getting hung up at the same part as I approach the middle. I've always had a very clear picture of the beginning and the end, but never how to get all the way through from point A to point B. My original outline had things in brackets like [character growth] and [plot stuff], but what does that mean!?

My goal was to get all the way through. So I opened a blank document, started at the beginning, and literally rambled and talked my way through the entire story. I didn't write real prose. It was all stream of consciousness. It was me describing what happens in the story as if I was telling it to a friend. The zero draft was my rubber duck. This was my brainstorming document. I used common vernacular and slang and abbreviations. There are bullet points, numbered lists, sidebars where I rambled about a scene I completely forgot to mention in a previous section. Lots of comments about things I need to include in the next draft. Literally anything and everything I thought of went into the zero draft.

A zero draft can be as long or short as you need it to be. Mine ended up being around 40k words. But I've seen other people say a zero draft is 10k to 20k words. It's really up to you! And when you feel like you've covered enough of the story to move on to the next draft.

And you don't have to go about a zero draft the way I did! Recently, an author I love and follow on instagram (Casey McQuiston) shared in their stories that when they were writing their most recent book, they zero drafted each chapter before they wrote it out. Casey said that because of this, it was first time they didn't have major edits and rewrites afterwards. So if you find yourself needed a little more structure and sense of where you're going, I think a zero draft could be super helpful!

Of course you don't have to have a zero draft, and if you've got a good sense of the plot and character arcs, you might not need one. But it can be a great way to brainstorm and figure out those things if you need to!

[life-goalds]

My sister rang me today.

Ever since she was six, she's had pain in her legs, which turns into pain in her hips and back for stretches of time. She's tried for years to get a diagnosis, with absolutely no joy. As a kid they thought she had collapsed arches in her feet; then it became clear her feet were fine, but something was wrong with her tendons; and then in her 20s they just shrugged it off with a "We'll never know probably" and that was that. She keeps on top of it with daily yoga, generally, though flare ups happen periodically. If she has to pause the yoga for some reason, she fairly rapidly regresses. Currently she has plantar fascitis again, which has halted everything once more, so right now she's back into a pain slump.

Anyway, she called me today while going from Doctors to pharmacy to get the codeine they've prescribed her for it.

"I think one of my yoga moves to help the fascitis might have exacerbated the legs," she said. "Trouble is, there's never been a diagnosis. I just have to trial and error what might help."

... And I had one of those lightbulb moments, you know? My brain suddenly went "Wait hang on, this is very familiar isn't it?" and rang the bells of memory.

"Did they ever test you for fibromyalgia?" I said.

They had not. It's never been suggested, even. My sister said she'd look up the symptoms and see if it chimed, and rang off.

Fifteen minutes later, she calls back.

Turns out she got to the pharmacy and gave them the prescription. While waiting, she googled fibromyalgia symptoms and found the NHS website.

"It was like someone had written a profile of me," she tells me on the phone. "Like, spookily, scarily accurate to me, right down to the temperature regulation bit. It felt like a practical joke."

And of course, as she stood there in the pharmacy, suddenly staring at the age of forty at the apparent answer she's been trying to get since she was six years old, she burst into tears.

"Oh no!" Said the pharmacist, hurdling the counter in a single leap and scattering the queue (I am exaggerating for humorous affectation.) "Quickly! Come into our little exam room, we'll get you tissues and water!"

My sister was duly ensconced into a Safe Place, and encouraged to cry it out. It took several hiccuping minutes, but finally, she managed to calm down and get back to an Extremely Watery Smile.

"Do you want to talk about it?" the pharmacist asked sympathetically.

"It's just..." my sister said, overwhelmed and searching for words. "My whole life I've been in pain, and they've never found why..."

"Ah," said the pharmacist thoughtfully. "Have you explored fibromyalgia?"

...

"TWICE IN ONE DAY," my sister yells on the phone to me later. "HOW THE HELL HAVE TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE ON THE SAME DAY FINALLY GIVEN ME THE ANSWER, AND NEITHER OF YOU IS A DOCTOR"

Anyway she has a doctor's appointment for tomorrow to discuss it, so we'll see

[life-goalds]

You know what, since I'm thinking about it anyways, let's talk formalwear accessories. Most of these are traditionally menswear but a bit of gender fuckery is good for the soul, and frankly most of these are about making your mass-produced clothing fit and lay properly without having to go to the tailor.

Shirt stays: these go around your thighs to hold your shirt down, so that it stays smooth and tucked in. They're usually elastic, with 1-3 clips, and if you wear skirts frequently this is a GREAT way to make sure your top doesn't ride up. The clips will be visible if you're wearing something tight, so loose pants or skirts are where these do best. There's also an insane version that clips to your socks, but that is for lunatics. If you wanted, you could also use one of these clips to hold up thigh-highs.

These do a great job of smoothing and narrowing the waist area by keeping your shirt from bunching there.

Sleeve garters: usually metal, leather, elastic, or silk. These are usually worn with button-down shirts to adjust where your cuff falls on the wrist or hand. They're properly worn on the upper arm, and you pull the fabric of the sleeve above the garter until you cuff is where you want it. Because this creates a puff of sleeve at the bicep, it also broadens the appearance of the shoulders. It's great if you're working with your hands or if your sleeves are often too long for your preference.

Waistband clip or belt adjustment clip/buttons

Three different ways of tightening the waistband of a pair of pants or a skirt. You're not going to get more than an inch or so tighter without weird bunching, and for most of these you'd want them to be hidden under a shirt or jacket, but they do the job if that's something you're having issues with.

Collar pins: There are so many fun ones out there, both with and without chains. They're not terribly practical, though the slight weight may help keep your collar where you want it. Also consider collar tips, which pin (surprise) to the very tips of your collar points.

Sweater clips/guards: meant to hold your sweater or cardigan mostly closed. Great if your cardigan doesn't button, or if you don't like it to be buttoned all the way.

There's tons of other stuff out there like this--etsy is a great place to find this stuff. A lot of these are old solutions to the very modern problem of mass-maufactured clothes not being as one-size-fits-all as advertised, but they're also a fun way to put a bit of personality into businesswear.

[life-goalds]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[life-goalds]

The holy trinity is an internally incoherent concept. Say what you will about Muslims and Mormons, but at least they have an internally coherent view of god.

It's a good thing that God is a being of greater understanding than man then! Sometimes I'm not able to fully wrap my head around a concept but God knows a lot more than I do, so I'll just trust him

[life-goalds]

I haven't made a fandom powerpoint in about twenty years, but listening to Cabin Pressure again awoke something in me.

[life-goalds]

“I am forever denouncing this therapeutic obsession that governs our modern society, scared of living and haunted by death. We must protect ourselves from everything, heal from everything. Nowadays, food, music, painting, hiking… everything is repurposed as a method for healing, for keeping fit, for keeping healthy, when these activities are first and foremost opportunities for pleasure, desire, gratitude, knowledge, wonderment, and bonding with others. Our entire culture, as well as politics, imposes on all citizens this endless and nagging preoccupation with mental and physical health.”

— Jacqueline Kelen, L’Esprit de Solitude

[life-goalds]

For all the talk about bad Christian fiction, I've seen several different ways that Christianity can be well-integrated into the story.

The story is about something unrelated to Christianity, but the characters are Christian and their faith affects their outlook and daily life. I recently stumbled across Wormwood Abbey by Christina Baehr, which is a light, fairly forgettable cozy fantasy that happens to do this really well. The story is about a woman who learns that dragons exist around her family's estate, but as the daughter of a rector, she often mentions prayer, sings religious songs, or thinks of Bible verses that relate to things she experiences. The Christianity feels organic to the character, and thus enhances the story rather than distracting from it.

The world is a Christian world where Christian beliefs are shown to be the correct framework through which to view the world. This happens in good Christian fantasy, like Lewis and Tolkien, but there are plenty of real-world stories where the themes line up with Christian truths, and this can make a story Christian whether or not religion is explicitly practiced by characters within the story.

The characters wrestle with how to apply their faith in their daily lives. Regina Doman's Fairy Tale Novels often feature this, as the characters struggle to deal with plot problems while living out their faith. Amy Lynn Green's work often features this as well--characters hold certain values (like, for instance, a Quaker pacifist) and have to figure out how they apply or don't apply to specific situations, especially when they conflict with other values, or they have to figure out how to live out their values (such as forgiveness) in moments where it seems impossible or even ill-advised. Charlotte Yonge's best works (specifically, what I've read of The Three Brides) do this as well--instead of preaching the one right answer, you have characters trying to figure out what the best answer is as they figure out what's right or wrong in this specific situation.

Characters face the revelation that there's a spiritual world that exists beyond our ordinary world, which can cause terror, but also provide comfort and hope. Elizabeth Goudge's novels often exist in this space, with very internal stories of characters coming to embrace the truths that come with living in a spiritual world. To a lesser extent, I'd say Amanda Dykes' work often fits here, with characters ultimately find comfort and hope from philosophies that line up with Christian truth. In less-cozy works, there's also the possibility of stories where an entirely secular person encounters God and has to figure out what that means for their life.

So our options are Christianity as character, Christianity as setting, Christianity as theme, or Christianity as plot. The ways this is integrated most seamlessly is when Christianity (or the ways they struggle with it) is a vital part of the character, so the plot that arises from it lines up with a Christian worldview. It also works well for the characters to just exist within a world where Christian truths are the way the world works. It doesn't even necessarily require the characters to be explicitly religious. Truth is something that everyone is searching for, and stories that honestly showcase truth or the search for it are going to resonate with a wide audience, even if they aren't Christian themselves.

[life-goalds]

This is a weird thing to post about but I've had this litter setup for three years now and it's still the best. It's just a giant-sized tote bin, with a normal litter pan and a nightlight. I also put a litter mat in there.

Because it has a lid on, it's pretty well contained, and there's no jumping in or out, so less explosive scattering of litter. It's like a little private kitty bathroom, except you can easily hose the whole thing down if you wanted, and it weighs very little. I think the whole thing cost me under $40.