#Crystal Stickers in Canada

[cuteshopaholicdirectory]

[lowlights]

A little life update...

Hi, so I opened a little online store.

To start out with, I have a limited stock of small candles and stickers that I've designed. I also have charm scoops for divination, crafting, or to satisfy your magpie urges. You will also find mystery tumbles, wish bottles, mini mushies, and mini skulls - all of which come with an intuitively chosen tarot card or oracle card. I also have mystery boxes full of washi tape!

This is just the beginning. I will be adding in more crystals (lots more!), candles, and bath products in the near future. I am also super excited to sell New Mexican raw quartz that I found myself - that'll be here next month! Also- I can't wait for you to see what I have planned for spooky season...

There will also be Pedro-fandom merch added in soon...

If you know of anyone who might like the shop - please share! Right now I ship to the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. US has flat rate shipping and free shipping on stickers. If you are ordering internationally and having shipping problems, please message me.

Please use this link or code "TUMBLRBESTIES5" for $5 off a purchase of $25 or more.

[pcttrailsidereader]

A Visual Compendium

Excerpted from the Seattle Times Pacific Northwest Magazine, March 7, 2021

By Joshua Powell

Hiker Haven

IN 2003, JERRY Dinsmore invited three thru-hikers back to his home, thinking they were homeless and in need of help. He soon learned they were hiking the PCT, and Hiker Haven was born. Jerry and his wife, Andrea, hosted hikers every year after that and became particularly adept at helping northbound hikers make wise decisions regarding the potentially dangerous weather north of Stevens Pass.

When I visited in 2014, plastic pink flamingos adorned the yard. Andrea’s license plate read, “PCT MOM,” and next to it was a bumper sticker that stated, “Hug a logger. You’ll never go back to trees.” Hikers did their laundry and wandered about in borrowed clothing. One woman wore a tiny dress, revealing a smattering of tattoos. A male hiker donned a dress as well, the hair on his shoulders and back sticking out in large patches. A German hiker joked in his thick accent, “You look silly … but sexy.”

Jerry Dinsmore, clad in suspenders and a vintage Kenworth Trucks shirt, pulled up a chair alongside me, and we sat and watched as a train rolled past, loaded down with airplanes en route to the Boeing facility near Seattle. They were only fuselages, devoid of their wings.

“There’s a tunnel a few miles back with a pile of wings next to the entrance,” he joked.

Another thru-hiker, fresh from Stevens Pass, was dropped off in the driveway. Andrea greeted him, reaching out her arm to shake hands. He instinctively stuck out his closed hand, offering the customary thru-hiker fist bump.

“Oh, that’s not gonna go over well,” Jerry said, laughing.

The PCT community lost a very special member with the passing of Andrea in 2017. Jerry still welcomes hikers to his home in Baring.

Glacier Peak Wilderness

THE SURROUNDING RIDGES are carpeted in luminous green meadows lit up by the morning sun. The sky is free of haze, and the surrounding mountains are crystal clear as far as the eye can see. Rainier still reveals itself from time to time, peeking over southern ridges. Marmots whistle from the berry bushes, their heads protruding from the leaves like periscopes as they scan their surroundings. The trail at times crosses over snowfields and then past small Mica Lake, which still harbors floating ice. With September drawing near, the ice is unlikely to melt before the snow once again begins to fall — it has been victorious in its resistance to summer.

Glacier Peak seems to be Washington’s forgotten volcano — due in part to its location within a large, roadless wilderness area. From surrounding areas, there are fewer dramatic views of the mountain than there are of Adams, Rainier or Baker. It tends to blend in with the tall, jagged peaks surrounding it. The thru-hiker, however, gets to know the volcano intimately as the PCT skirts along its base and crosses the creeks draining its slopes, gaining and losing thousands of feet of elevation in the process.

The Big 5 Washington volcanoes visible from the PCT

Stehekin

FROM SUIATTLE PASS, the landscape seems to gradually tilt downward toward the horizon, and hikers can look forward to a descent all the way to Stehekin, the final trail town of the PCT — famous in thru-hiker lore for its bakery. It sits secluded at the northern tip of Lake Chelan, accessible only by boat, plane or hiking trail. To say that it’s remote is an understatement.

The PCT brings hikers to the end of the single road that leads into town. From there they can get on the National Park Service shuttle or perhaps catch a ride with a local fisherman. Stehekin is small and compact, with an idyllic location amid the lake and mountains. All the vehicles parked at the ferry landing seem at least four or five decades old, only adding to the feeling that time stands still in this lakeside town.

Hikers can set up for the night in a tiny campground perched on a miniature bluff above the water, watching brightly colored float planes land upon the lake’s surface and skim to a halt. When night falls, the view of the Milky Way is breathtaking. Stehekin translates to “the way through,” an appropriate name for a trail town on a thru-hike.

Stehekin’s main road curves around the marshy northernmost tip of Lake Chelan, where the Little Boulder Creek empties into the lake. It is the extreme end of a 50-mile body of water that narrowly snakes through the mountains down to the dry and sun-baked wine country of Central Washington, so drastically different from the often-overcast and rainy North Cascades.

An old Chevy pickup passes by on the road. Owned by the Stehekin Pastry Company, it is on its way down to the boat landing. A girl and dog sit atop the wooden flatbed of the truck. Farther down the road is a beautiful garden full of cabbage, kale and other produce. A row of dahlias lines a pathway, the intricately geometrical puffs of each flower leading the way toward an apiary buzzing with honey bees. On a bench rests a pile of rainbow chard, the leaves bright green and glossy and the stems neatly arranged in shifting hues of orange, yellow and purple.

The bakery truck passes again, headed back in the other direction. This time, the girl sits in the passenger seat, and the flatbed is piled high with boxes and goods that have been boated in. The little dog is positioned atop the huge pile with his chest puffed out, standing guard over his precious cargo.

Epilogue

AS YOU HIKE mile after mile across three states, you imagine that final moment of reaching the border to be an overwhelming experience, assuming the gravity of it will hit you like a ton of bricks. In reality, however, when you’ve lived out every month and week and day and hour and minute and second that transpires between Mexico and Canada, it’s not quite as dramatic as you might expect.

There was no surprise in the end, but the sense of accomplishment was hardly diminished. And with it came the realization that it was all over, and I was headed back to real life, full of its own unique joys and difficulties. I couldn’t stay on the trail forever, nor did I wish to. I simply hoped to find the next big thing to work toward, the next passion that would consume me from waking until bedtime.

[silly-nonny-fics-are-for-fandoms]

As the snow falls around us

Note: This is a gift fic for @angiezstuff! Gonna keep saying thank you because you are awesome! Also, I had to rewrite the whole beginning of this fic because I found out about their birthstones this morning, so I’m sorry if it’s not as fluid as the rest of the fic.

Gift fic 2/3, this one is Stosuh.

Summary: Stephen accidentally found out that Hosuh was going to propose to him. True, they had been dating for around ten years, and that certainly wasn't what Stephen was upset about. No, what he was upset about, of course, was that he'd been planning to propose to Hosuh, and his ring wasn't done yet.

Read on Ao3, or keep reading here! 

Stephen saw the ring before he realized that Hosuh was planning on proposing. They'd been dating since shortly after they met, nearing on ten years now, it was about time. Honestly, he hadn't meant to see it, but he'd been cleaning in the living room when he came across a small box in one of the drawers of the coffee table. It was black velvet in finish, and when he opened it, he found a little silver ring with little amethyst and sapphire crystals in a quartered diamond. The amethysts were on top and bottom, with the sapphires on each side. The color of his hair and his birthstone.

Of course, amethyst was also Gavin's birthstone, but whatever. That wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that Hosuh was planning on proposing.

Now Stephen had to act like he didn't know, and like he wasn't planning on doing the same thing come the winter. They were in the middle of autumn, nearing Gavin and Jay's anniversary. His brother and Jay both lived with them, though they'd been dating for only four years. 

The ring Stephen had ordered was a thin band of silver with little sections of it replaced in stripes of blue topaz and the center an amethyst and ammolite. Hosuh's birthstone and the national stones of Hosuh's home country and the country he wanted to live in for the rest of his life. It had been expensive, yeah, but it was worth it for how personal it would be to him. 

Winter was their favorite season, even though the cold was brutal in Canada. The cold brought them closer together, it had their favorite holidays in it, and they had a tradition when it came to the first snowfall. No matter when it was if the forecast had snow, they would be up. If it was scheduled for three in the morning, they'd cook, play games, and once Stephen had convinced his boyfriend to spend the time dancing with him. It was, without a doubt, their favorite time. So, he'd planned to propose during the first snowfall of the season. 

They'd talked extensively about how they wanted their wedding to be, to the point that almost all they needed to do was actually get engaged and they could get things done themselves. It wasn't like this would be a surprise. Except there was a reason no one told him secrets involving himself;  he couldn't keep his damn mouth shut unless it was in the image of self-preservation.

"Oh my god, I'm gonna get married," He whispered to himself, a dopey grin on his face as he thought about how Hosuh would propose. Would it be on their anniversary in January? Would it be on a different day, like when they're just out on a date? When? How long would he need to pretend he didn't know? Hosuh's ring would be in by the end of the week, luckily for him. 

Because the two-week forecast predicted light snow at midnight to eight am in almost two weeks.

He was gonna propose to Hosuh, and Hosuh would probably try to propose back. This was going to be fun. And this was going to be torture, not knowing when Hosuh was going to spring the question on him.

His phone rang shortly after he finished his cleaning, having put the box back exactly where he found it. The jeweler's icon showed up on his phone's caller ID and his eyes went wide, quickly checking to make sure Hosuh was still cleaning in the kitchen, seeing him also talking quietly on the phone, before heading up to their room and answering the call with a deep breath.

"Hello, may I ask who's calling?"

"Hello! I'm calling about a ring ordered by Mr. Stephen Ng?" 

"This is him. What's up?"

"I regret to inform you that the ring will not be in at the time which was estimated. During transportation to our store, the truck got delayed and as such will be a few days late. My apologies. Would you like us to call you once it arrives and is ready for pick up?"

"What?! Of course I would!" 

"Thank you, sir. We will call you as soon as it's ready. Have a nice day."

Beeeeeep.

Stephen wanted to scream. Of course, it would be delayed. He only had to design his own ring for Hosuh, had been working with the jeweler to make sure it was absolutely perfect and feasibly possible, so of course it took so long. 

"I can't believe this bullcrap!" He exclaimed into the void, grabbing one of the pillows and screaming into it for about two minutes straight before he ran out of air. Did it make him feel better? A little bit. Did it fix the problem? Absolutely not.

He needed to calm down or Hosuh would figure it out, and he'd be crushed. He couldn't crush this dream. When it was a game, he was the most competitive person he knew, and would happily knock down the competition with a grin. But this was life, this was his partner, and he couldn't do that to him. And watching Hosuh cry over serious issues was never something he enjoyed. 

The next few days were torture. Pure torture. Hosuh was extra anxious, his medication didn't help at all, and it made him jittery. Simultaneously jittery and exhausted, that was the way Hosuh existed. And it killed Stephen to watch. Did Hosuh know he knew? 

Gavin and Jay being extra lovey-dovey weren't helping either. In fact, it only made things worse, because Hosuh tried to imitate them but his anxiety got the better of him every time so he'd always end up in a panic. It wasn't something he could control, but it was something they were used to. So Stephen took it slow. He kept as calm as he could so that he didn't raise Hosuh's worries, only touching him if Hosuh said he could. He missed kissing his boyfriend. He missed holding him as they fell asleep.

This wasn't the first time Hosuh's anxiety spiked in a major way for a long time before a big event. The last time this happened, it was when they were taking a vacation and Hosuh could barely enjoy the first two days of the trip because of it. 

"I don't know how you put up with me and my anxiety," Hosuh mumbled one morning, reaching over to take Stephen's hand, "I'm probably making you miserable."

"Oh my god, Hosuh," Stephen sighed, "I've not been just putting up with you, it's just part of who you are. And Stephen loves Hosuh. So you need to stop putting my Hosuh down, got it?" He glanced at his partner, watching him smile and try to hide his chuckle. Every time Stephen saw Hosuh smile, he fell in love all over again, and he fell deeper with every kiss. He wanted to keep falling in love with him every day, to keep loving him deeper and stronger, to see him in every way possible. He wanted to support his lows and celebrate the highs, to share and revel in the experience together.

They'd partly grown up together, and he wanted to grow old together too.

Maybe that was sappy, maybe it was dramatic or whatever, but Stephen did not care. He loved that he had the ability to love someone and to love Hosuh when Hosuh couldn't love himself. He wanted to see Hosuh happy, and while he'd gotten better at loving himself and being comfortable in his own skin, they had quite some ways to go.

Stephen was looking forward to it. 

Their phones each rang simultaneously, and when Stephen checked his caller ID, he found it was the jeweler's. His eyes went wide, gasping softly. 

"I'll be right back, gotta take this. It's for work." Stephen said, jumping out of bed and rushing out of the room, answering the phone as he hurried down the stairs so Hosuh didn't hear him.

"Hello?"

"Hello? Is this Stephen Ng?"

"Yes, this is."

"Your ring is ready for pickup. You can pick it up any time after we open." Stephen glanced at the calendar, which had a little snowflake sticker for when the first snowfall was expected. Today. Perfect. A little close to the wire, but perfectly doable. He just needed to pick it up without Hosuh becoming suspicious. 

"Thank you, I'll be there like an hour after you guys open to pick it up." 

"We'll be expecting you, have a nice day, sir."

"You too." 

Beeep.

"Bro? Something wrong?" Gavin said, staring at his brother who was standing at the bottom of the stairs. "You're really pale."

"Okay, Gavin, I have a job for you to do," Stephen said, staring at his brother with intense passion in his eyes, "I need you to keep Hosuh busy until noon." 

"What? Why?"

Stephen put his phone in his pajama pocket, reaching over to grip his brother's shoulders, "I'm going to go pick up a ring so I can propose to Hosuh before he proposes to me, so keep him busy."

Gavin looked like he wanted to say something, eyes wide with a shaky smile. "Damn, bro! You're actually gonna pop the question? That's awesome! Good luck."

"No, I saw the ring, I know he's gonna say yes, so I need to do it first. So keep Hosuh busy until I get back."

"I can totally do that! Good luck!" 

"I don't need luck, I'm Stephen!" 

Stephen was so excited once he had the box in his hand. It was a dark blue box, but that wasn't what was important. He sat in the driveway, staring at the ring which lay inside. It was just how he thought it would look, absolutely wonderful. Everything he paid for it was absolutely worth it when he had it in his hand, he just needed to actually propose. It was supposed to start snowing a little while before midnight, so they wouldn't have to stay up too long past normal. 

He looked up, and his eyes went wide when he noticed that the other car was gone. No one should have anywhere to go today, why was the car gone?

He exited his car, heading inside quickly. "Gavin?! Hosuh?!" He exclaimed, only for Jay to reply. 

"They went to the gym, calm down." Jay sighed, rolling his eyes, "No need to scream."

"Oh thank God. Also, I'm going to need you and Gavin-"

"Already booked the hotel. I know the first snowfall is important to you and Hosuh so I made arrangements."

"Well, thank you for finishing my sentence, asshole!"

"You're welcome."

Stephen hated that he had to put up with him. One day, maybe five years in the future, he'd end up being in-laws with Jay, and that was something he didn't want to put up with. He sincerely hoped that Gavin would get married one day, and he hoped he was happy, but he didn't want to deal with Jay.

Now all he needed to do was wait for the night to come, and he could get ready. Once Hosuh and Gavin returned, his lovable ball of anxiety gave him a big hug and a kiss, apologizing for having not texted before he left. They always texted one another when they left, because neither wanted the other to worry. 

Jay and Gavin left as soon as the sunset, heading off to their hotel room so that they could have some privacy. They'd made hot chocolate and curry; not the most romantic of foods, but it was nice and warm, which they needed if they were going to make it to midnight. Well, which Stephen needed if he wanted to make it to midnight. Hosuh had no issues staying up until like three in the morning, while Stephen almost never went to bed after ten. He'd been getting better at getting Hosuh to go to bed early, though.

Now, they stood on the balcony, sipping their hot chocolate as they waited for the snow to fall. 

"I can't believe it's been over ten years," Hosuh said, staring up at the stars. The area they lived in was far enough out of the main city that they could see the stars, as there wasn't much light pollution. 

"It doesn't feel that long. Still feels like two."

"Some days it feels like forever."

"Pff- That's true. You know I'd love to spend forever with you." 

Something wet hit their faces, and they realized what it was. Looking around, they could see the snow falling all around them softly. It wasn't supposed to be a lot of snow, barely half an inch, and it would likely melt by the morning. But it didn't make it any less magical to them. Instinctively, they leaned over and kissed, softly, sweetly, slowly. Every ounce of love could be felt in that one press of the lips, warming them from the inside out. 

Stephen reached into his pocket where he'd put the ring, stepping back from his partner as he pulled it out. Except, just as he was about to get on one knee, he saw a similar box in Hosuh's hand. They both stared at the other's box, faces turning red.

"Wait- Stephen, are you going to-"

"You were planning to tonight? That was my plan!"

"Oh my god," Hosuh laughed, setting the box down on the little table they had set up on their balcony, "We're such dorks." Stephen joined in on the laughter, the chilled air showing their breaths in soft puffs, unbridled joy and love in their voices.

"I guess that's a yes, then?" Stephen said through his laughter.

"Only if it's a yes from you too." 

"What? Of course it is!"

They each opened their boxes, and Stephen was surprised. That wasn't the ring he'd found. This one was larger, sectioned off in layers with a black wavy section in the middle. He recognized the gemstone on the bottom; ammolite. The top was purple, but not the deep amethyst color. Then he realized where he'd seen it before. Purple sapphire. The black wave was a soundwave, and he recognized it. When they were still in school and did a paper on what soundwaves were, they got to use a machine that showed them what the soundwaves looked like. The two of them had said 'I love you forever' together for the first time on that day, their voices blending together. Wrapping around the ring was love and forever from that project. 

"Huh, that's surprising," Stephen said, not expecting Hosuh to jump at the words.

"D-Do you not like it?"

"What? No, Hosuh, I love it, you thought of everything. I'm just surprised because I found a ring box while cleaning two weeks ago and this wasn't it."

"Oh," Hosuh breathed a sigh of relief, "That's Jay's, for Gavin." 

"So you weren't planning on proposing?"

"Of course I was. I've been working with a jeweler to make your ring for months. I had to pick it up today because the delivery truck was delayed."

"Holy crap, I think we went to the same jeweler! I picked up yours this morning because the delivery truck was delayed!"

Once again, they couldn't stop the laughter flooding out from them. Even without knowing it, they'd gotten the perfect rings for one another simultaneously. And as they sat there in the slowly falling snow, hands held tight, there was nowhere else in the world they'd rather be, and no one they'd rather be with. 

[twistednuns]

October 2020

To buttress - increase the strength of or justification for; reinforce / to mollycoddle - to give someone too much care or protection. 

A letter from Nina. One of those weird internet connections. Not my first one, certainly not my last one.

Frank’s DnD backstory reads quite insightful/poetic to me as he has taken so much from his life. He might have done it without intent but it’s quite obvious to me. I’ve agreed to make a character sketch for him. I’m looking forward to the challenge but I’m also afraid of starting the project because obviously I want it to be perfect. Anyway so the other night I sat at his kitchen table and started drawing a facial composite for his goliath. Lots of sketches actually with him giving me some prompts and ideas. I think he loved watching me do my magic. What a peaceful moment.

Applause from some students. Simply for entering the room. They must really hate their English teacher, eh?

I’ve started forming the habit of drawing tarot cards on a full moon and new moon night. It helps me set an intention for the following two weeks. So on the first of October I drew the Queen of Wands to represent me and I’m loving it. It’s the perfect choice.

The fabric dyeing process for the Plot exhibition at Haus der Kunst

Inviting warmth into my life. Wearing appropriately warm clothing. Even hats. Drinking tea all the time. Turning the heating on even though it’s only September. Warm breakfast. Ayurveda inspiration. Hot baths. Thinking about buying an electric heating blanket for my bed.So far I’ve been taking a hot water bottle to bed with me pretty much every night.

Finding one of those Barts woolly animal hats online. This one came with tigers. And the seller sent me a cherry marzipan teabag. I enjoyed it on a cold and rainy Saturday morning.

FAQ: The Status of the Shits Women Have Left to Give

Reading the final scenes of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy. I actually took the wrong bus one evening and ended up in front of one of the Pinakotheken instead of Villa Stuck. I must have been quite immersed. I’m very happy with the ending. I mean, the main character is walking around the house barefoot with the smell of fresh paint following her, her hair loose. What a wonderful image.

The wind blowing through the maple trees outside my living room window. I’m just going to quote a Wikipedia article to explain what happened next: The distinctive fruits are called samaras, “maple keys”, “helicopters”, “whirlybirds” or “polynoses”. These seeds occur in distinctive pairs each containing one seed enclosed in a “nutlet” attached to a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue. They are shaped to spin as they fall and to carry the seeds a considerable distance on the wind. People often call them “helicopters” due to the way that they spin as they fall. During World War II, the US Army developed a special airdrop supply carrier that could carry up to 65 pounds (29 kg) of supplies and was based on the maple seed.

Monsieur Wiener - I’ve paid him a visit when I had problems with my analogue Pentax camera!

I don’t know why but one dark Friday evening I slipped into the empty church at Odeonsplatz. I loved the peaceful atmosphere, the specific smell and the red church candles flickering.

I loved meeting Flo. We had such a great time, constantly joking, talking about this and that. Sailor Mercury, Hades, our family. His wink. He said that I had been exactly right but in the end apparently I wasn’t. It stung because he had been one of the rare guys in the last months (years, actually) I actually liked. Oh well. I guess it wasn’t meant to be after all. This is what the Universe had to say about it the other day: There are no accidents. If it’s appeared on your life’s radar, this is why: to teach you that dreams come true; to reveal that you have the power to fix what’s broken and heal what hurts; to catapult you beyond seeing with just your physical senses; and to lift the veils that have kept you from seeing that you’re already the person you dreamed you’d become.

Videos of Marno and Erin together. Also: she is so freakin’ beautiful as a marauder.

A surprise call from Ann-Katrin.

Sweet chai tea with milk.

The bright moonlight making the neighbours’ roof look like fish scales.

Forensic linguistics. I listened to a podcast episode about the Unabomber who was only discovered after his brother had noticed some stylistic irregularities in his manifesto. You can’t eat your cake and have it too.

Autumn leaves. Especially when it’s just the outer leaves turning red or yellow while the rest of the foliage is still green.

Sitting next to my ten-year-old student Ella on the bus on our way home on a Friday afternoon. She’s a very chatty Gemini and even though her self-importance and constant talking can be quite annoying I’ve kinda taken a liking to her.

A bunch of Alstroemeria in my dark green glass vase on the desk. A pretty image.

I still appreciate how beautiful my LuLuLemon thermos bottle is after all this time.

I should probably mention my new hair (extensions). Well, it looks absolutely gorgeous from the front. But I already know that I won’t get them again because you can see the glue in a few places, it’s quite hard, often painful and feels unnatural. And of course it’s much too expensive.

Baby carrots with King hummus.

My lunch dates with Becky.

Making my favourite sour thai curry. With rice noodles. And peanuts and cilantro. Yum.

Starting to work on a big soapstone sculpture. It’s going to be a hand! I love it when I have a group of calm students. It allows me to work on a project with them.

Making delicious pumpkin lasagna.

Visiting Manu’s mum. Making plum dumplings together. A fun afternoon in their kitchen.

A very cosy Sunday. Waking up at 5:30am. Watching Practical Magic in bed. Having a slice of pumpkin lasagna for breakfast. A sudden urge to get out, dressing up to keep out the cold, going out, early, streetlights still on. A walk through the woods. I loved how calm everything was. Being out before all the others had a chance to disturb the stillness with their kids and dogs and bicycles. Making lebkuchen. Lots of pecans. Having a nap. Writing a letter. Drawing weird mushrooms and bugs.

Autumnal smells. The moist smell of the forest ground, mushrooms, the smell of chimneys on a cold Sunday morning. Incense, gingerbread spices. Facial oil with lavender and iris. Roasted pecans.

A crafty day. I made a haunted house, some ghosts, spiders, bats, skulls and pumpkins out of paper.

Schlurp.

Meeting Frank in front of Residenztheater. The whole square was empty, he was the only person there. Waiting for me. Looking up to the opera roof. What an impressive building.

Talking about living life in story mode and action mode. I feel so stuck in action mode at the moment and desperately want to switch to story mode. Fantasy, magic, coincidences and meaning.

Spicy pumpkin recipes in the current issue of Schrot und Korn.

Rice and hazelnut milk as a bedtime treat.

Collecting autumn leaves. Chestnuts, acorns, feathers, beechnuts. Making a little autumnal alter with some crystals.

Thursday mornings. So much time for myself. Lots of tea, warm breakfast.

Treating myself to massages and nice facial creams and serums. Ya Yah is such a gifted person. I love her massages the most. The other day I also got a facial for the first time in many many years. It was nice to be wrapped in an extremely fluffy blanket. When the bright lights were on I could see different colours after closing my eyes and imagined being at a tropical beach. Unintentional ASMR sounds from the rubber gloves. Cosy.

Spicy winter tea in my new thermos bottle. The steam swirling up from my favourite mug (the moon phase mug I bough in Canada).

Buying cheap sparkly stickers, washi tape and stamps. Just because.

Pecan nuts are the BEST. Crazy delicious.

Porridge with coconut milk and mango for breakfast. Persimmons. Candles in the morning.

Gloomy twilight. The dark hour right before sunset/sunrise. Spooky black silhouettes against the ink blue or greyish white sky. Fairy lights. Memories of spending Halloween at Greyfriar’s Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

Finding yet another woolly hat for my collection. This time with pheasants.

Deltavenus’ Instagram feed.

Cutting open a fresh lime.

Happily singing along to my two favourite mantras (Jai Mata Kali / Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha) while making apple galette. Trying to harmonise in different ways.

A very surprising call from Claudia. She ended up in my kitchen, drinking half a bottle of wine.

A lovely Sunday with Sash. A walk through the English garden.   Watching the waterfall, falling leaves, backlit by the afternoon sunlight. Haus der Kunst. Getting in for free (art teacher bonus). I really liked the Michael Armitage exhibition and the enormous dyed curtains in the hall. Franz Erhard Walther’s Dust of Stars autobiography was impressive as well. I just ordered the book online; I’m looking forward to reading it. We also had a drink at Goldene Bar and enjoyed a late lunch at Baoz Bar.

Becky leaving me a lovely note and an English magazine on my desk.

Fink’s Knödelstube with Lena and Sash. We had 13 different kinds of dumplings. Heavenly delicious.

I came to realise that mornings are my favourite time of the day. I love gloomy, dark sunrises and my usual productivity highs.

Writing limericks with the kids.

Getting lost in the woods after dark which might not look like a good think at first glance but I uncovered a little secret - some bee hives I had never seen before!

A mild obsession with The Corrs’ song Old Town. I didn’t even know where it came from. It’s not a song I’ve ever actively listened to.

Learning about sesame plants. Another one of those plants I expected to look completely different.

I can smell mushrooms. On Saturday morning I went to the forest again early in the morning and whenever I would get a whiff of mushrooms and look down there they were.

Dog owners wishing me a good morning on my walk. Interestingly only men, the women tend to ignore me.

Wicked! - Modern Art’s Interest in the Occult. Learning about Leonora Carrington.

James’ chameleons in art class. He drew one representing each of his family members. He was the one licking a bat. Bold.

Buying far too many books. But I found out that Naomi Novik just published a new novel about a school of magic. And within two days I came across the writer Ursula K. Le Guin three times so I took it as a sign and got one of her books as well.

Prepare for the Roaring Twenties - The human desire to socialize will survive the pandemic.

A deep talk session with Jonathan about getting old, having children, self-worth, dating, obeying rules.

Finding my favourite pair of jeans on Kleiderkreisel for a fraction of the original price. And a baseball jacket with a Strange Ladies Society print on the back.

A walk in the forest before work. Something I’ve never done before I think. So good for my nerves, really.

The art of decision-making.

Joy praising me for my authoritative voice (effectively making the fifth-graders do what I want).

Decorating the classroom with the fifth-graders. I love my haunted house on the window pane, their lovely spiders, ghosts and bats. I should probably mention that our class mascot is a cute spider named Crawley so we’re all quite into spooky stuff. On the last day before the holidays we all showed up in costumes, played a Halloween quiz, listened to creepy music and I brought some candy, too. Fun!

Meeting the gang on Halloween. Japanese-inspired dinner and a board game.

[dfkshkjs]

looking for a snail mail pen pal!

my name is sophia, i'm seventeen years old and i'm from ontario, canada. looking for anyone preferably outside the greater toronto area and more or less my age.

my background is italian/portuguese, but i can only understand english. i'm vegetarian and pagan and on my way to university in september to major in earth science.

my interests are musicals, crystals, farmcore, dolls, clowns, cartoons, kidcore, astrology, and i've been learning how to sew lately. i'd love to exchange stickers, pressed flowers, and small crafts, along with more mundane foreign stuff like bus transfers.

if any of this interests you, please send me an ask or dm me. my instagram is @neptnes if you prefer to message me there instead, or if you want to see some more recent pictures of me. i look forward to writing to you :)

[naluzine]

so you want to tell me that we Europeans bought the zine with sticker etc in Oktober for 50$+ and STILL waiting for our packages! I don't want to be rude but I'm pretty pissed as you imagine.

I’m sorry but have you read any of the update posts? Pre-orders ended in October, we got all of the merch and zines in November but could not ship them due to Canada post striking throughout the entirety of November. We posted other things as well that got in our way so please read those posts.If you’re the same person that has complained before we told you several times we will issue you a refund if you’re not happy but not once have you tried reaching out to us. Yes we understand the frustrations but what the post does is out of our control sometimes. I will try to contact Crystal for any further updates. Shipping from Canada to Europe can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. It’s how the post is and it’s out of our control. You should contact your local post office and not us in case the package got lost or stuck at the post itself. If it did get lost and we can confirm it from our end as well we will issue a refund.We thank you for your patience so far but these issues are honestly out of our control. We can’t control our personal lives nor can we control how the post operates. We ask for your understanding and once again will issue a refund or a partial refund if you so desire.

[snaplabels]

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[carpentergothic]

CRYSTAL PRIDE STICKERS!!! $1 each / all 5 for $4

Printed on label paper so they are not weather / water proof, but still a pretty darn good sticker!

$2 shipping within canada and usa, international shipping will be more :)

[college-girl199328]

The grocery store parking lots with work trucks bearing bumper stickers proclaim love for Canadian pipelines. The highway becomes a stream of pickups, their orange safety flags tower above the worksite for visibility — tucked down for travel. Outside a local hotel, vehicles assigned to a controversial RCMP unit tasked with policing opposition to industrial projects make up the trucks and SUVs flanking the building.

They’re all here because the Coastal GasLink pipeline is being built to connect underground shale gas formations in the province’s northeast with marine shipping routes on the Pacific coast, about 120 kilometers from Smithers as the crow flies. Until recently, there was only one liquefaction and export facility preparing to receive the gas — now there are two.

In mid-March, B.C.’s NDP government approved Cedar LNG, a partnership between the Haisla Nation and Pembina Pipeline Corporation. The pending final investment decision, the liquefaction and export terminal would be built over the tidal waters of Douglas Channel across from the Haisla village of Kitamaat, just a few kilometers from LNG Canada. Cedar LNG would export three million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually, about 30 percent of what its larger neighbor plans to ship when it starts operations in 2026. Like LNG Canada, it would receive its supply from Coastal GasLink.

Premier David Eby and Haisla elected chief councilor Crystal Smith announced the decision at a press conference on March 14, “an unprecedented opportunity for both Haisla Nation and the region.”

“Today’s announcement marks a historic milestone for Cedar LNG and the Haisla Nation’s journey towards economic self-determination,” Smith said in a statement. “Together with our partner, Pembina Pipeline, we are setting a new standard for responsible and sustainable energy development that protects the environment and our traditional way of life.”

Hot on the heels of the announcement, the province said it is developing new regulations for the oil and gas sector, including an emissions cap and a requirement that all new projects have a “credible plan” to reach net zero by 2030. For example, Ksi Lisims, a proposed liquefaction facility on Nisga’a territory, now needs to include an emissions reduction plan as part of its environmental assessment.

But the rule doesn’t apply to the newly approved project. Instead, the Haisla Nation is signing a memorandum of understanding with the province to explore opportunities for emissions reductions beyond its approved plan.

“Already proposed to be one of the lowest-emitting facilities in the world, we will be working in partnership to further reduce the project’s emissions,” Eby said.

Critics and climate activists decry B.C.’s approval of another gas export terminal, while supporters applaud the decision as an act of reconciliation. Meanwhile, energy analysts cautiously approved the province’s plan to implement new policies and regulations but question how effective they will be at curbing emissions from already approved projects.

Cedar LNG’s approval was announced less than a week before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its latest report, which warns the decisions governments to make this decade “will have impacts now and for thousands of years.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres didn’t mince words in a video message released with the report, noting, “the rate of temperature rise in the last half-century is the highest in 2,000 years.” He called the document a “survival guide for humanity that guide should not approve or fund new oil and gas projects and stop expanding existing fossil fuel reserves.

“In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once,” Guterres fed from the contentious Coastal GasLink pipeline. According to documents filed with the B.C. environmental assessment office, the plant would emit around 8.6 megatonnes of equivalent carbon pollution over its 40-year lifespan. Upstream, the project would add an additional 39 megatonnes, about the same amount of emissions produced by putting 8.4 million cars on the road for a year or driving around the planet 12 million times.

The provincial approval is subject to 16 conditions, including developing an emissions reduction plan that aligns with climate goals. The plant will power its turbines with electricity supplied by Hydro, which minimizes — but doesn’t eliminate — emissions produced during the energy-intensive liquefaction process.

“Powered by renewable electricity and with plans to achieve near-zero emissions by 2030, Cedar LNG showcases what responsible resource development can look like as we transition to a clean-energy future,” Minister of Energy, Mines, and Low Carbon Innovation Josie Osborne said in a statement.

According to industry analysis, liquefaction accounts for less than one-third of emissions produced by the gas sector. The rest is added to the atmosphere during extraction, pipeline transport, shipping, regasification, and combustion we track — invisible methane leaks at every step of the process are a problem industry operators and regulators grapple with worldwide.

George Heyman, B.C. minister of environment and climate change strategy, said the new energy framework and emissions cap played a prominent role in the project decision, which took 118 days, more than 60 days past the legislated deadline.

He described Cedar LNG as a relatively small and well-designed project “in terms of doing everything it can to minimize environmental and carbon impact — which is not to say it doesn’t have any” and noted the broader scope of emissions was considered in the approval.

“In my view, it is far more important to have a broad-reaching, sector-wide set of clear rules and regulations that demonstrate how we are going to steadily reduce emissions in the successive failure or credibility on the approval or failure to approve one or another project,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

If all goes as planned, Cedar LNG would power up its turbines in 2027 and continue operating until 2067, close to two decades after the date 196 countries promised to get emissions down to zero in the Paris Agreement signed in 2015. In 2021, Canada enacted legislation that holds the federal government accountable for that commitment. That means pollution associated with the project, however small, will have to be offset.

As purchased by companies like Disney, Shell, and Gucci were “worthless.” Put another way, no greenhouse gases were prevented from entering the atmosphere corporations used the offsets to market their products as environmentally friendly.

Karena Shaw, a political ecologist and associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Victoria, worries the sector won’t be held accountable.

“What message is this decision sending out to the fossil fuel industry?” she said in an interview. “If we let the industry get away with a ‘credible plan’ to be net zero to lose. A credible plan to get to net zero could be just purchasing the cheapest offsets out there.”

Other methods of decreasing emissions produced by the gas sector include carbon capture reports noted this would be the most costly and least effective way to tackle the problem.

Cedar LNG went through a joint provincial-federal environmental assessment process and its stamp of approval one day after B.C. approved the project. But it’s unknown how the new emissions cap and other regulations like stricter methane rules will affect industry investment.

“There have not yet made final investment decisions,” Heyman noted. “They now know the rules are and can the University of British Columbia, told The Narwhal investors will be paying attention to “local regulatory uncertainty and the long-term outlook in the LNG market.”

He said Indigenous Rights and environmental mandates are the two main drivers of uncertainty in long overdue recognition of Indigenous interest through the [United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] requirement on Free, Prior, and Informed Consent requires businesses to adapt,” he wrote in an email. “Most of the proposed LNG projects in B.C. have come to naught the choice to build in B.C. or natural gas firms will likely look first.”

Adam Olsen (SȾHENEP), a Green party representative and member of Tsartlip First Nation (WJOȽEȽP), said a “very optimistic person” would view the province’s new energy framework as a regulatory means to make B.C. oil and gas development uneconomical.

“What might come out at the other end of that emissions cap process is simply an unsustainable fossil fuel industry in this province,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

He said others would argue the government used the framework and the memorandum of understanding which lack details — as a smokescreen for green-lighting another fossil fuel project.

“With so little detail on that energy action framework, it’s near impossible to actually determine to happen said the details will be released over the next few months, along with timelines on when changes will be implemented.

Getting a solid return on exporting B.C. gas to buyers across the Pacific has always been somewhat iffy years been this sort of back and forth around the sector in British Columbia,” she said to be the first to go when the market gets pinched.”

In early February, Calgary-based TC Energy announced a revised cost estimate for the Coastal GasLink pipeline of $14.5 billion, more than double its original estimate. That price, the pipeline operator said, could rise by another $1.2 billion if construction isn’t completed this year.

Antweiler said the International Energy Agency’s analysis of global gas demand forecasts either minimal growth or significant decreases, noting “investors will be reasonably cautious given these scenarios.”

“This said, energy security can still lead to regional expansions as the reliability of supply can play an important role, or if a carbon border adjustment mechanism introduced in the [European Union] requires buyers to shift from high-carbon-emission to low-carbon-emission sources.”

Shaw said companies are holding out for now, likely waiting to see what happens as the province develops its regulations and hoping governments will make investments of more than $5.4 billion in financial incentives to LNG Canada and commit to spending more than $700 million of taxpayer dollars to secure support from First Nations for the pipeline and the sector at large.

“If they get enough subsidies and support from the government, they can make something out of it,” she said backing is something Ellis Ross, Skeena MLA with the B.C. Liberals and a member of Haisla Nation would like to see.

“I sincerely hope Cedar LNG is granted similar tax breaks to those received by LNG Canada,” he said in a statement Haisla nation is no stranger to industrial development on its territories. Canada-based mining company Rio Tinto Alcan has operated its aluminum smelter in Kitimat for about 70 years in the coastal community and has seen the impacts of decades of commercial logging.

While the nation has financial agreements with LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink, economic benefits have been a byproduct of projects brought forward by outside parties. In contrast, Cedar LNG is hailed as Canada’s first Indigenous-led liquefied natural gas project. With majority ownership, the Haisla Nation is calling the shots.

“Today is about changing the course of history for my Indigenous Peoples everywhere in history, where Indigenous people were left on the sidelines of economic development in their territories,” Smith said at the announcement.

“I am extremely gratified that an initiative we worked on behalf of the Haisla people finally got the respect it deserves from the provincial government,” he said in a statement following the announcement.

Premier Eby said approving Cedar LNG doesn’t mean sacrificing the environment and that the dichotomy — the idea that you can only have economic development by abandoning environmental holding the environmental principles you have to give up on jobs and opportunities — is a false idea,” he said. “The future in British Columbia around major projects or projects involving land or resources need to be done in partnership with First Nations.”

But critics say there’s another false dichotomy embedded in the government’s actions. If economic reconciliation is only achieved through fossil fuel infrastructure, other economic opportunities for Indigenous communities are obscured or displaced. The narrative also ignores the root cause of economic inequity: colonization.

“The historical context of these issues is critically important to understanding the mechanisms by which colonization, genocide, land dispossession, and forced assimilation policies translate into the conditions of poverty that the Indigenous people experience today in B.C.,” a 2022 First Nations Leadership Council report on economic disparity noted.

“Indigenous revenue should not be fettered by a single project,” Olsen said. “It should be viewed as ‘How do we participate? How do Indigenous nations participate and benefit from their lands and territories without having to approve devastating climate-change-inducing projects?’ ”

The greenhouse gases emitted by projects like Cedar LNG have some Indigenous leaders speaking out against increased activity in the fossil fuel sector.

“I am worried about the warming planet and resulting climate emergency that is being driven globally by major industrial resource extraction,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said in a statement. “The expansion of the LNG industry and associated fracking that was greenlit … is frightening when we think about how this will impact the lands and waters in this province and across the world.”

While Haisla and other nations in B.C. have historically for projects like Cedar LNG and the Coastal GasLink pipeline, not all Indigenous leaders are behind the industry. Notably, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs oppose the Coastal GasLink project is being built on their territory without consent — a central tenet of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was passed into law in B.C. in 2019.

“While they’re saying this is economic reconciliation for the Haisla, the pipeline is being dragged across other territories,” Olsen said. “There are huge amounts of challenges — $36 million is being spent on the RCMP protection of that pipeline against other Indigenous people.”

Premier Eby didn’t directly respond to a question about controversy and backlash over Coastal GasLink are going to have challenges along the way,” he told reporters.

Olsen said it’s important to note he’s not speaking against the Haisla by criticizing the framing of the decision and would like to see more options provided to Indigenous communities and for all governments — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — to speak openly.

“It shouldn’t be a zero-sum game for the Haisla,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that if the government doesn’t approve thistle economic development for them. We should be able to have an honest conversation about the fact that fossil fuels are increasing the climate emergency we’re facing and the hostility of the climate and this planet we live on.”

As temperatures continue to rise globally, ecosystems become increasingly uninhabitable for species. Extreme weather events — droughts, wildfires, heat domes, and atmospheric rivers — can take out entire fish or wildlife.

In B.C., the decline of keystone species like salmon has decades of industrial activity. Clearcut logging, hydroelectric facilities, mining, agriculture, and other human impacts have wreaked havoc on species and natural systems. In the northeast, where gas for Cedar LNG and other facilities is extracted, cumulative impacts were center stage in a landmark 2021 court ruling, which found the province guilty of infringing on Blueberry River First Nations’ Treaty Rights by permitting and encouraging widespread development.

“As we’ve seen from the Blueberry River case, there are limits to how much those landscapes can take,” Shaw, outlining a plan for how gas extraction on the territory will be managed moving forward. At the time, Premier Eby said the fossil fuel industry could continue digging as much gas out of the ground as companies could get their hands on just had to have a smaller footprint on the surface.

Now, with the emissions cap and energy framework further constraining the sector, it’s unclear how companies like energy company ARC Resources, which inked a deal with the Haisla Nation and Pembina Pipeline Corporation to provide 50 percent of Cedar LNG’s supply, will get the gas out of the ground, construction continues on Coastal GasLink.

“There are immediate, proximate impacts around extraction and the pipeline itself, but then there’s the broader contribution to climate change,” Shaw said. “There’s always the question of why this project starts saying no. This is what the gut punch is for me. We’re trying to say no everywhere — and this is part of everywhere.”

[lilhemmy]

Aaron ( @aarcntj​ ),

Happy Birthday, mate! Hope your day is full of good food and good company, and you celebrate just as hard as you did this weekend. Welcome to the 32 Club brother!

– Liam

Pulp Fiction Movie Palette

Movie Palette is an eye-catching and unique piece of artwork that holds a deep secret. Your friends and family will be intrigued by the fascinating story that each Movie Palette has to tell. This Movie Palette displays all of the striking colors from each scene of the movie Pulp Fiction 1994. These colors combined give you a captivating masterpiece that truly captures the essence of the movie.

The Rolling Stones Crystal Head Vodka 50th Anniversary Set

Crystal Head is made with high quality peaches and cream corn that is distilled four times into a neutral grain gluten-free spirit and blended with pristine water from Newfoundland, Canada. The liquid is then filtered seven times, of which three are through layers of semi precious crystals known as Herkimer diamonds.

Included in this highly collectible gift set:

Stunning handcrafted display case featuring a real zipper—recalling the legendary Sticky Fingers album cover

Bottle of Crystal Head Vodka

2CD Live Compilation – spanning The Rolling Stones five decades on stage

Crystal bottle decanter top—engraved with The Rolling Stones iconic lip-and-tongue logo

Bottle sticker—featuring the 50th anniversary logo

[nancypullen]

Searching for Home (Warning: long post about nothing)

That blog title may seem odd since I’ve been in this house since 1999.  Mt. Juliet has been home because this is (mostly) where my kids grew up.  Sure, they remember Barrow and Fairbanks and living the Alaskan life, but they were little guys when we moved here.  Matt was 3rd grade and Tyler was just getting ready for kindergarten.  As for me, prior to moving here I’d spent the bulk of my life in Alaska, some of it on Ft. Wainwright, some of it in North Pole, some of it in Barrow, and much of it in Fairbanks. 

During my childhood we bounced from post to post as a military family (no complaints, I loved it), and didn’t really settle until Dad retired and I was entering high school in North Pole.  We spent a period going back and forth between Ft. Wainwright , Alaska (4th,5th,6th grade, then 9-12th) and Ft. Bragg, North Carolina (K 1,2,3 then 7th and 8th grade). But when you return to a post you don’t return to the friends you once had, they’ve all moved on.  You go into different housing, different schools, and make new friends.  I was born in Georgia, but have no memory of the state. We lived in Louisiana and I have vague memories of it, none very good.  I was more, or maybe less, fortunate than some depending on how you look at it.  More fortunate because I sometimes returned to familiar areas, and as the youngest in my family I was the only one who was able to start and finish high school in one place.  Less fortunate because my dad had an aversion to putting in for posts overseas - so many of my friends had the opportunity to live in Germany, Italy, Spain, and other exciting spots.  When my family was military Alaska was considered comparable to overseas posts, so that’s where we went.  My sister was born just as Alaska became a state in 1959.  My brother was born there as well, and two years after his arrival I was born 4,284 miles away at Ft. Benning, Georgia.  Our family made many trips up and down the Al-Can Highway (through Canada to Alaska)  and it wasn’t paved.   Three kids crammed into a station wagon that’s pulling a U-Haul (or a camper) on a washboard gravel road for 2200 miles with very little to see...someone give my mother a medal.   No doubt that road and its amenities have improved, but at that time it was sparse. I spent seventeen years of my life in Alaska, I stayed well after the rest of my family had fled.  By the time I was eighteen I was without parents or siblings in the state but I had Mickey.  I was young and in love.  My parents had moved to Florida, my sister had followed love to Rochester,New York, and my brother had joined the Army and was in Germany.  Alaska is where I started married life, became a mother, and experienced so many of life’s firsts.  But I don’t miss it.  Fairbanks is kind of a gritty town.  Not the Fairbanks that tourists see, but the town that’s there after the snow flies.  Perhaps if my roots were in Sitka or Juneau or even somewhere in the Matanuska Valley I’d feel a longing to go back.  Maybe not. Everything is harder there.  As a mother of two little boys just the logistics of getting to the grocery store and back were a pain.  Unplug and start the car (if you don’t have a garage) to warm it up.  While the car is thawing, get everyone decked out in arctic gear from head to toe.  Load up and slide to the store. Debate whether to leave car running and risk theft, or turn it off and do your shopping as a mad dash. Get everyone inside and unzipped so they don’t sweat to death while shopping.  Rush around buying ridiculously priced food and so-so produce and check out.  Dress kids again, then give them whiplash trying to pull the grocery cart across the frozen, rutted, bumpy parking lot. Unload into trunk, then sit down on hard as a rock car seat because you turned the car off and everything is frozen. Slide home on icy roads.  You see where this is going. The dressing and undressing so that no one gets frostbite.  The elements constantly working against you.  Did I mention that it’s also midnight dark almost all day and night? Don’t get me wrong, I love winter. I love snow.  But I do not love constant darkness and fifty below zero and trying to accomplish every day tasks in weather not meant for humans. Obviously, that wasn’t all winter. Lots of days hovered in the twenty to thirty below zero range. I remember my in-laws coming for a Christmas visit and my father-in-law delighting in tossing a hot cup of coffee into the air to watch it come back down in frozen crystals. Even in the brief but beautiful summers the conveniences that we take for granted here in the lower 48 weren’t available and if they were there was sticker shock.  My friends in Fairbanks still complain about prices, conveniences, lack of goods,etc.   They take great pride in the moose, aurora, and bone-chilling cold.  I don’t want to burst their bubbles and tell them that you can get all of that in Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, and other northern states AND get Amazon Prime and affordable household goods.  You don’t have to prove anything. So where am I going with this rambling blog? I’m looking for home.  Most people feel a pull toward home, a place or a state.  I don’t. Well, I kind of do...but it’s more for a time and a people.  I miss Weiser, Idaho where we lived for a year with my grandparents while my dad was in Korea.  We also visited every chance we got, mostly when we were transferring between bases.  Those were the safest, happiest, most wonderful times in my life. Grandma and Grandpa’s place was paradise.   But that’s all gone now.  their house and land was sold long ago and it’s now run down and the big shade trees are gone, so are Grandma’s magical gardens.  If I returned to Weiser it wouldn’t be to that cinnamon scented house of love where I slept in an attic bedroom with lace curtains.  I do like Idaho a lot, but it wouldn’t feel like home. I’ve mentioned before that I have a real affection for the town of Wamego in Kansas.  It’s just right.  Situated between Manhattan(about 15 minutes) and Topeka (about 30 minutes) and with Kansas City a bit further east (a bit over an hour) it’s a Norman Rockwell town that takes pride in a charming downtown, a good school system, and being neighborly.  It’s the heartland.  We’ve visited three times and Wamego always comes up when we talk about where we’d like to be. I confess, I love the prairie. Always have.  The politics of Kansas are a hot mess.  I don’t mean that they’re red and I’m blue, I mean that the Kansas GOP has basically bankrupted the state.  I can live in a red state, though I’d love to live in a blue one, but I can’t live in a state devoid of services, money for schools, roads,etc.  I’m keeping a watchful eye on their governor’s race - will they elect Laura Kelly, a woman and democrat who has been a four term state senator and fought Brownback’s destructive policies...or Kobach, Brownback’s right hand man?  I met Brownback at a Wamego 4th of July parade before I knew who he was and every cell in my body screamed DANGER.  You know how sometimes your gut tells you before your brain has a chance to figure things out?  That.  If Kansas votes Kelly, my faith will be restored.  But it’s not home.  We also love Keene, the town in New Hampshire that hosts the fabulous pumpkin festival.  We always walk the towns we like, checking out libraries and other spots, and we always go into grocery stores and compare prices. Keene ticks all of my boxes for a sweet, interesting, walkable, smart city.  Their library was beautiful!  That tells you a lot about a population.  If the library is active it speaks highly of a town.  Property taxes were a little high in Keene, and it’s really not close to any decent airports for Mickey.  Manchester’s small airport is about an hour and twenty minutes away and Boston is almost 2 hours (probably more with traffic).   Granted, we’d probably be retired so maybe that’s not as big of an issue.  Still, we’ll want to see family and that makes it harder for everyone involved.  Keene is beautiful, and it is surrounded by New England’s best - sugar maple farms and covered bridges, and has four beautiful seasons.  Keene is Mickey’s number one choice, but.....you guessed it, it’s not home. I like so many of the small towns outside of Minneapolis (and it’s a blue state!),  and the state of Minnesota ranks sky high in just about every way that matters - great health care, great education system, great economy, and so on.  They’re smart cookies up there.  Admittedly, the biggest draw is that Matt lives up there, but there’s no guarantee he’ll stay.  He’ll be off wherever the scariest diseases live.  Minnesota is at the top of my list though, I really like the people there.  I like coastal Maine, not so much inland Maine.  Sadly their economy is in such a downward spiral that the state is in a depression with no end in sight.  I think they’re ranked 47th in the nation for economic growth and their numbers are stagnant.   It’s weird, Maine’s neighboring states are thriving while their governor sticks to his guns and guts the coffers.   I’ve read article after article showing that the Portland area of southeast Maine is recovering and growing but rural Maine is being left behind.  Businesses are closing, services are being cut, there’s no job creation,  and no one seems to be taking action. Towns are shrinking and doctors, dentists, teachers, and other important services are lost. So...we could probably pick up real estate for a song, but living there might be hard for a retired person. I think I’ll just visit and eat their lobster.    We could just stay put.  Life in Tennessee is certainly affordable.  No state income tax, though we do have a hefty sales tax (here in Wilson County we pay ten cents on a dollar).  Real estate is still affordable - though again, here in Wilson County it has skyrocketed.  If you don’t mine living deep, I mean deep, in Trump country where the religious hypocrisy runs high and tolerance is low - this might be your place.  I didn’t pick it, but I’ve made the best of it for over twenty-five years.  I reached my limit years ago, but the mister has recently started complaining about the heat so maybe we’ll get out after all.  Nashville is twenty minutes and a whole world away.  Maybe if we were young people living downtown we’d see a different Tennessee - Davidson County usually goes blue, a small dot in a deeply red state. Here in Mt. Juliet one of the first things people ask you is where you go to church.  Two weeks ago I went to get my mammogram and the woman who took my information was very chatty.  I engaged and we were yukking it up. As I left her desk to sit down and wait to be called, she said, “You are just precious, where do you go to church?”  When I answered that I don’t belong to a particular church her face fell and that was the end of her friendliness.  No doubt she needed to know which part of the hierarchy I belonged to...the large population of Baptists and Church of Christ followers seem to have a running battle to see who can out holy the other and who can recruit the most new members.  Methodists are pretty cool and there’s even a handful of Lutherans here who won’t bother you at all.   Tennessee is growing by leaps and bounds and has one of the hottest real estate markets in the country thanks to it being a retirement haven.  Low prices, low taxes, low standards.   Ahahahaha!  We have all the services we need at our fingertips, and we can be at the beach or in the mountains in just a few hours.  Definite positives.  We don’t have four nice seasons though - we have an excruciating summer, a beautiful but quick fall, a gray,wet,ugly winter, and a soggy, tornado-ridden spring.  Actually, I’m not complaining about spring - I love big thunderstorms and severe weather.  As long as the power stays on it can thunder and lightning for days and I’m okay. So what do we do? Stay? Go?  Keep looking? We both liked what we saw in a week in South Dakota. Do we look until we’re too old to move?  If we could snap our fingers and just live where we’d like, we’d both go to The Netherlands.  We feel at home there, pretty sad when I feel like a visitor in so many places in the U.S.  My soul feels at home in Salem.  I feel at home when I stand on the prairie and look at the huge sky and rolling hills.  I guess it all comes back to not being FROM anywhere.  In Maine, there are Mainers and outsiders.  It’s very clear.  In Minnesota they’re warm and welcoming, but there are customs, foods, traditions, and basic traits that make one a Minnesotan - I don’t possess any of them, though I don’t think they’d care. I’d just always feel like a visitor.  I didn’t feel that in Kansas, they’re good salt of the earth people, not nosy enough to ask where you’re from or where you go to church.  New Hampshire was the same way.  There didn’t seem to be a divide between born here and moved here folks. I’ve been in Tennessee since ‘93 and I’m still not considered a local.  I’m okay with that.  Not having picked up the customs and quirks of a state or even a region, I can’t really claim a “home”.  If pressed I’d probably say Alaska because that’s where I experienced everything from childhood skinned knees to birthing a baby.  But I can’t say that if I stepped off a plane there tomorrow I’d take a deep breath and say, “Ahhh, home!”  Moving to a new home every two to three years during my formative years made me resilient, it made me friendly.  I make friends easily, but I don’t get too attached - and getting me to really open up, well...

It also gave me a good attitude toward not-so-good places.  Even if you can’t find something positive, hey - you’ll only have to endure it for a couple years, right? (twenty-five years later...)  It gave me the gift of curiosity and of emotional self-sufficiency.  It just didn’t give me a hometown.    So I’m looking, always looking.  I spend hours scouring real estate and then looking up information on citydata.com and other sites.  If I ever move I’ll know more about the place than the folks who already live there.   

Thanks for listening to my scatter-brained ramblings today.  There’s no point to any of this, really.  I yearn for a place that doesn’t exist.  I long for home, but I suppose it’s all in my mind - some magical place that fits and feels right.   I wonder how many people actually have that.  I wonder how many need it?  I’ve spent a lifetime blooming where planted, and I think that’s a crucial skill.  I’m certainly not knocking it.  I just wonder what it feels like to be the plant who gets placed in the perfect environment for growth and health.  Please don’t mistake this post for sorrow or a cry for help - it’s not.  It’s really more of a thinking out loud sort of thing.   Just pondering, trying to work out whether it’s safer to stay put or make a leap.  Will any place be better than the last?  Who knows?  I do know that there are places where being authentic is easier than others.   Guess I’ll just keep looking...any hints?

[imperiummotorcompany]

11 tips on how best to install EV charging stations in multifamily housing

A top sustainability expert gives the whys and wherefores of installing  electric vehicle charging posts in your next multifamily enterprise.

Electric vehicle adoption is expected to grow at a 25% annual clip over  next five years. That’s going to make the installation of electric  charging stations a must at apartment communities in most major real  estate markets. Having EV stations on your property can lift its value,  help you retain residents, and give your marketers another plus to  attract prospective renters in competitive multifamily markets.

For advice on how best to install EV charging stations in multifamily  enterprises, we turned to Pete Zadoretzky, LEED AP O+M, Vice President –  Sustainability, Bozzuto Management Company.  The company owns and manages more than 250 apartment communities, about two-thirds of which have EV stations. Bozzuto recently was named Energy  Star’s Partner of the Year–Energy Management for the fourth year in a row—the only 100% multifamily management company to do so.

THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR EV CHARGING PORTS IN MULTIFAMILY HOUSING

1. Start thinking now about EV charging stations.

Nearly half of respondents (48.6%) to our exclusive Multifamily Design+Construction “Amenities Survey 2019” said  they had installed EV chargers  in multifamily projects, up from 42.0%  in our 2017 survey. That means most multifamily developers and their  project teams have yet to install EV charging stations.

“It used to be, developers would ask, How much? And when they saw the  price, it was, Thanks, but no thanks,” said Zadoretzky, a Fitwell Ambassador. (A 2016 study in San Francisco found that the cost of installing 12 PV ports in a 60-space parking lot was about $860/port, $2,370/port for a retrofit.) According to Zadoretzky, sticker shock has  all but evaporated as the cost to install and operate EV stations keeps  coming down.

2. Do your homework early in the planning process.

Apartment owners and investors must take the pulse of local market EV  demand. Zadoretzky said his company’s preferred charging-station provider, ChargePoint, helps him  track the number of EV vehicle registrations at a given time in a given  market. “You’ll find a big difference between the number of EVs in, say,  suburban Pennsylvania compared to Northern Virginia,” where it’s much  higher, he said.

3. Determine the right number of EV charging ports for your property.

“For new construction, it’s important to be thinking strategically about what makes sense when the property first opens and what, when, and  how you will be able to increase your capabilities at that property as  it matures,” Zadoretzky said.

There was a time when two ports were enough, he said. “Now, we have apartment communities delivering with dozens of stations,” said Zadoretzky. “You don’t want to lose a single lease because there aren’t  enough charging stations.”

There’s no perfect yardstick, but the “Guide to EV-Ready Communities” suggests  that about 10% of all parking spaces in multifamily housing complexes  should be dedicated to charging electric vehicles.

4. Check out the plentiful equipment and supplier options.

“Plug in America,” a resource site for all things EV, lists more than  50 manufacturers and installers; Energy Star profiles about 20. Blink  Charging, ChargePoint, and SemaConnect are the best-known full-service  providers for multifamily and mixed-use communities. Electrify America,  EVGo, and Volta Charging are more common for the retail-facing side of  mixed-use communities. Tesla has its own proprietary stations.

Do your homework, advised Zadoretzky. “Looking back on Bozzuto’s history with EV stations, we learned the hard way that not all equipment  is created equal,” he said. “You get what you pay for.”

Electric vehicle charging station in an apartment complex: just tap to start the charging process. Photo: Courtesy ChargePoint

Zadoretzky said his company chose ChargePoint because it offered an open platform, fully integrated with Bozzuto’s property management software. The ports’ LCD screens and messaging functions are user friendly.

The stations are open to the public. EV drivers can locate a charging  station by searching and getting alerts via the ChargePoint EV app or  the PlugShare app, which lists more than 140,000 charging stations in  the U.S. and Canada. Retail guests patronizing the mixed-use complex’s  restaurants and stores can charge their EVs while they dine and shop;  they pay via the ChargePoint app. “Apartment management companies love  having cars visiting the property because it brings prospective  residents onto the property,” said Zadoretzky.

A second option—at roughly one-third the price—provides an assigned space, one port per customer for the term of the lease, as long as the lessee has an electric vehicle. “It’s a stripped-down version,” Zadoretzky said. “It’s more efficient, but only one car can use it.”

DEVELOP YOUR SCOPE OF WORK FOR EV CHARGING PORTS

5. Dig into the physical demands of installing EV charging stations.

Initial costs should be baked into your project’s electrical contracting scope of work and budget. A lot of questions have to be answered, said Zadoretzky: How close will the EV spaces be to the electrical room? Will you have to run a lot of conduit? Will you need to  expand the size of the nearest electrical panel from original design  loads? If it’s a retrofit in, say, a garden apartment community, how much trenching needs to be done to lay the conduit? How deep will you have to dig? Will you have to dig through established landscaping? Through asphalt? If you’re installing the EV stations in a structured parking garage, will the installers need to x-ray the concrete?

As for the cost of installing EV chargers in existing apartment properties, Zadoretzky offered these crystal clear guidelines: “You can  analyze numbers all you want, but we know for sure that it can cost three times or even five times more to build EV ports on an existing property compared to new development.”

6. Determine your operating costs.

“There’s no blanket answer to operating costs,” Zadoretzky said. Among  the many variables to consider: Will the EV stations be installed in a   mixed-use project or a 100% residential one? Is parking assigned to the  residents, or is the lot first come, first served? Is there a monthly  parking fee for an assigned space? Is there a shortage of parking spaces  in the complex? Will parking spaces have to be removed to make way for  the ports’ electrical equipment? Will the EV chargers be located on the  property or in an adjacent area?

Zadoretzky described a property Bozzuto manages in Boston. Its six ports consumed 19MWh over a 12-month period, at a rate of $0.135/kWh. “That’s about $2,550 for the year, or about $425/port,” he said. “A lot  for a building amenity for sure, but a drop in the bucket of the overall  building’s energy use—and a non-issue in most cases, as we are recouping the cost of electricity directly from our EV-charging residents.”

7. Look for financial subsidies and incentives.

Government subsidies at the federal, state, and local level can significantly reduce first costs.

“You need to check out any state subsidy programs and combine those with incentives from utility companies for real savings,” Zadoretzky said. “The subsidies vary from state to state, and they are constantly changing. Right now, Massachusetts has one of the best around—not quite  100%, but pretty close. Maryland has excellent state and utility incentives.” Zadoretzky said he’s been surprised that some cities, like  Washington, D.C., and whole states (Florida, for example) offer no incentives at all.

According to RCLCO’s 2020 EV Charging Report, commercial incentives can  be significant, often covering 50–100% of an EV charger’s hardware,  make-ready, ongoing service costs, and station/infrastructure installation. For example, Colorado provides rebates to multifamily property owners for up to 80% of charging station cost. Hawaii will subsidize 100% of the cost of installation.

A 2018 industry survey by CleanTechnica revealed that about 16% of charging station installations obtained government subsidies totaling more than $1,000 per connector, while another 20% received benefits of less than $1,000 per port. But in California, various jurisdictions offer incentives ranging from $3,000 per port to as high as $10,000 for  ports in affordable housing communities. A Colorado program offers $9,000 per port for Level 2 smart chargers. Check cleantechnica.com for state-by-state data.

8. Think ahead about the day-to-day management of EV charging stations.

Zadoretzky said Bozzuto’s EV partner, ChargePoint, provides a  customer-facing app and a management-facing dashboard that produce  real-time information for both property staff and residents. If, for  example, a tenant has been using the charger for too long, the dashboard  will alert the property manager, who can then ask the tenant to unplug  and move the car. Or, the property manager could program the dashboard  not to charge a new tenant for a stipulated period as part of the lease  signing.

ChargePoint has a Wi-Fi–enabled solution that provides real-time diagnostic data to property management staff. It also tracks and reports  carbon emissions data, which is crucial when sharing information with  investors or in complying with mandated benchmarking ordinances, said  Zadoretzky.

“They’re monitoring our stations 24/7/365. If something goes wrong, their team is there to support us, right away, he said. “That’s crucial.” Usually it’s just a matter of a FaceTime phone call between ChargePoint and a Bozzuto maintenance technician to fix the problem using the display screen on the port.

9. Don’t forget to play the sustainability card.

Properties can earn points toward LEED certification by providing charging stations to serve at least 2% of parking spaces. To qualify for  LEED points, EV charging spots must be Level 2 or higher, connected to a  network, capable of supporting demand response or time-of-use charging,  and compatible with universal EV charging connectors.

10. Beef up your EV marketing and signage.

Zadoretzky said his company made a strategic decision that EV charging  stations would be an extension of the apartment community’s brand, and  that they must match the customer service levels residents expect from  Bozzuto. The availability of EV charging ports should also be  highlighted in the community’s marketing package and in the walking tour.

Zadoretzky said he’s amazed that Craigslist is the only apartment listing site that allows prospects to list the availability of EV charging ports. “At Bozzuto, we get an average of about two requests per  month via searches for each of our properties that has EV stations,” he  said.

At the property management level, Zadoretzky strongly recommended putting up clearly visible signage that identifies the EV ports to residents and guests. “EV owners do not want to come home to their apartment, only to find another car parked in the space with the EV charging port,” he said. “Apply penalties if you have to.”

'EV READY' CHARGING IS IN YOUR FUTURE

11. Bone up on “EV-ready” building code requirements.

An EV-ready code is one that requires that a building’s electrical capacity and other infrastructure to be ready to install charging posts  if and when there is sufficient demand. According to EVConnect, EV-ready  codes may require a certain percentage of parking spots to have:

  A dedicated electrical circuit with sufficient capacity for each charging spot

  Installation of the conduit and wire necessary to run electricity to EV charging spots

  Electrical panels labeled “EV-ready” and positioned near where tenants will park

  Preparation for EV charging at a certain percentage of parking spots in multifamily housing

Since 2017, Atlanta has required new multifamily communities to make  20% of parking spaces EV ready. St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minneapolis  (2018 population: 49,039), requires 10% of all parking in new apartment  complexes to be EV ready. In 2019, Seattle started requiring apartment  projects with one to six units to have an equal number of EV-ready  spaces; those with seven to 25 units must have at least six EV-ready  slots, and those with more than 25 parking spaces must make 20% EV  ready.

In January, the International Code Council approved a provision that,  if implemented by states or local jurisdictions, will require multifamily projects with three or more than units to have one EV-ready  parking space if there is only one parking spot; two EV-ready slots if  there are up to 25 parking spaces; and 20% of total parking spaces (rounded up, if there’s a remainder) for apartment communities with more  than 25 spaces.

TIME TO GET CHARGED UP

So, if you’re a newby to electric vehicles, when is the right time to  start installing EV charging stations in your apartment communities?  “The best time,” said Zadoretzky, “is before you even know you want one.”

THE DOE’S THREE LEVELS OF EV CHARGING PORTS

There are three major categories of EV chargers (sometimes referred to  as EVSEs, for “electric vehicle supply equipment”), based on the maximum  amount of power the charger can provide to the battery.

  Level 1 Uses a 120-volt AC plug. Delivers 2–5 miles of range per hour of charging. Used primarily in single-family homes.

  Level 2 Provides charging through a 240-volt (for residential) or  208-volt (for commercial) plug. Requires installation of additional charging equipment. Can deliver 10–20 miles of range per hour of charging. The most common station type for multifamily communities.

  DC Fast Charge Provides charging through 480-volt AC input. Requires  highly specialized, high-powered equipment as well as special equipment  in the vehicle itself. (Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles typically do  not have fast-charging capabilities.) Can deliver 60–80 miles of range  in 20 minutes of charging. Used most often in public charging stations.

Charging times range from less than 30 minutes to 20 hours or more based on the type of electric vehicle supply equipment in use, as well as the type of battery, how depleted it is, and its capacity.

[criminalrecordsatl]

Good morning, Atlanta. It’s Monday :) Shop is closed today. Back at it tomorrow. Hope you had a good weekend. Currently listening to: San Holo - bb u ok? You can preorder the CD, 2x Clear Vinyl, or the 2x Clear Vinyl Box Set (2x crystal clear 140g vinyl, envelope sleeve, artwork notebook, post card set w/ pencil and stamp sticker set) (slide thru for pics) out 05/21 (via @counterrecords) now at CriminalATL.com (link in bio). You can also head over there to check out the video for @sanholobeats - Find Your Way ft @bipolarsunshine. More info: “On “bb u ok?,” San explores the intersection of festival anthems and lo-fi bedroom ballads by mixing more analog instruments and equipment into his genre-bending sound. He fleshes out his band with collaborations, from “album1” returnees Bipolar Sunshine and The Nicholas, to long-time heroes of San’s including Illinois indie rockers American Football and Rivers Cuomo. San Holo’s first album, album1, debuted on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Album chart at No. 7 and topped the iTunes Electronic Charts in the US, Canada and other countries. Following the release of the album, San embarked on a year-long world tour that hit 75 dates across Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Europe and North America, selling 100,000 tickets in NA alone. Even more than the ticket sales, streams and awards, album1 proved the strength of San’s international fanbase. The artist deepend that relationship throughout 2020 with his Stay Vibrant movement, a concept that asks for honesty with oneself and others.” Thank you for supporting your local independent record store. x (at Criminal Records Atlanta) https://www.instagram.com/p/CNSWtYRB8QX/?igshid=alasu92a7x53

[rolexbook]

FS: Tudor Black Bay 41mm 79230 Blue Bezel, All Sticker on, LNIB

Purchased 2019 through an authorized Tudor dealer in Canada. Watch is unworn. 2 more year Tudor Factory Warranty available. All film still on. Perfect condition, great looking watch. All accessories available. Calibre MT5602, 70 hours power reserve. Matte black aluminum disc, domed sapphire crystal. Rivit steel bracelet with folding clasp.

Comes with:

Watch , Tudor Black Bay 79230B

3 Extra Links

White Tag

2 booklets

BOX, WARRANTY CARD( 2019)

Condition: Unworn

Shipping: UPS or FedEx + insured. May charge extra for international buyer

Price: $2990+shipping

Payment: Bank Wire. PayPal +3.5%(with reference)

Contact: kimobebe@gmail.com / 626-890-8350/ Face 2 Face welcome in Dallas, Texas

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