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b38rman · 6 months ago

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READ YOUR MIND ᯓ★ Ollie Bearman

tags - ollie bearman x afab!reader, friends to lovers, fluff, slight miscommunication, loosely inspired by the sabrina carpenter song of the same name

synopsis - This was definitely not on the marketing internship job offering for Prema Racing. You swore you had everything under control before this—before Ollie Bearman took up most of the weekend's agenda.

rating - teen and up readers

warnings - slightly suggestive ending

a/n - i wrote this before ollie was announced as a 2025 f1 driver and the slight implications of dread related to that uncertainty are littered throughout this work so just keep that in mind (or not) enjoy!

Thursday — Spain, 2024

The unmistakable sound of the hotel doorbell rang through your room. Admittedly, the best time to go to sleep had already passed you by at this point, considering the 7 AM lobby call time the team had for you. Unfortunately, the restlessness that could only be attributed to constant location changes seeped into your bones.

You got up, trying to dispell the feeling populating your gut. Perhaps, more than anything, it was the dull influx of certainty. You were still learning how to get used to this.

You opened the door slightly, just enough to see who was on the other side.

“Took you long enough.” The familiar rumble of Ollie’s voice filled your ears, as he pushed his way into your bedroom.

At this point, you were 100% sure that any of this was not part of any of the contracts Prema made you sign when they offered you the internship. No matter how much you looked between the lines of wage and non-disclosures, you wouldn’t find what you and Ollie had anywhere.

It was just that it was becoming a routine at this point. From the beginning of the season, Ollie seemingly couldn’t find a better victim than you for his late night musings. You tried to gently reprimand him at first, telling him off about his bedtime and his racing and all of the things he’d scoff at you for and turn a stubbornly deaf ear towards.

Ollie rounded the room slowly, his white sleep shirt and flannel pajamas contrasting against your worn summer camp shirt and cotton shorts. You felt overexposed, as you always did in these situations.

“Wanna play Mario Kart?” Ollie asked, mindlessly making his way to your side of the bed.

You thought about it for a second before responding, “Nope, too tired to be that stressed out.”

Ollie hummed in acknowledgment before laying back onto your bed, phone in hand, with his legs still dangling over the edge. He always took your side of the bed, despite it very obviously being rumpled and occupied.

You climbed onto the other side and tucked yourself in under the sheets. As if on instinct, Ollie moved his head upward, resting it on your stomach, before locking his phone and setting it on his chest.

“I just feel a bit odd, you know? Like everyone says so many good things about me but really, I haven’t done anything.” He looked to the ceiling as he rambled. “I have another FP1 tomorrow and all I can think about is how I don’t know how to be what people want me to be. I don’t know how to keep being good, or how to really be good; will people even look back and think I was good?”

“That’s some bad imposter syndrome you got there, huh?” You stretched your hand out and lightly laid it on his head, stretching your fingers against the expanse of brown waves. Ollie leaned into the touch, shutting his eyes.

“The only thing that should matter is who you want to be.” You grinned fondly at him, even if he couldn’t see it. “Besides, you’re way too young to be worrying stuff like that.”

“We’re the same age.” He opened his eyes just to look at you as he said that.

“And do you see me worrying about my legacy?” You joked, earning a toothy smile and a roll of eyes from Ollie.

At every moment you’ve spent with Ollie so far, he’s not felt like someone that appears on national television broadcasts or on carefully curated Pinterest boards. You could almost see yourself looking across the lecture hall, seeing him, and wondering if he was really paying attention or just browsing on his laptop.

Instead, he was one of the boys you’d keep track of social media appearances for. You managed his filming schedules for both long-form and short-form videos, and wove through seas of people and motorhomes with him to find a spot to record his little post-race briefs. You weren’t assigned to him specifically, but it usually was you and him most of the time.

“It’s, um, getting late.” You tried not to be too awkward about untangling your hand from Ollie’s hair. “I think you should get some rest.”

You waited for him to complete the final part of this routine you had going, wherein he’d sleepily walk to his own bedroom and you’d fall asleep in your own fully warmed bed.

Except for the fact that he didn’t do that at all.

“Could I just stay here? I don’t really want to be alone right now.” You felt Ollie shift ever so slightly from where he was, head still resting on you.

Questions on professionality and ethics rang through your mind one after another.

“Are you sure?” Was all you could muster.

Ollie seemed to recognize your concern without you voicing it. After all, you weren’t particularly discreet about any of it.

“I’ll just wake up earlier, it’ll be fine.” He finally raised his head and began setting an alarm for five in the morning. Part of you knew it was futile. Considering everything, it was a bold move, considering that it was just past midnight.

You watched him mindlessly, as he turned all the lights off, only leaving the light from the bathroom peaking out through a slight opening in its door. For a moment, you let yourself think of a time and place where this was a normal occurrence—one where him curling up in bed next to you in near complete darkness felt like a grounding force instead of a guilt-inducing one.

You turned to face away from where he was laying, opting to try and not make this any weirder than it could be.

“Good night.” He said regardless. “Sweet dreams.” He said, in a softer voice, almost as if he didn’t want you to hear him.

You could feel his body near yours, almost as if the full size bed was too cramped for the two of you.

“Sweet dreams, Ollie.” You replied.

You felt him roll over to his back as you drifted off to sleep.

Friday

Your eyes shot open at the sound of an iPhone alarm going off, obviously being the one Ollie set a few hours prior. What you didn’t immediately process was the arm wrapped around your waist, and the soft snores coming from the face that was nuzzled into your hair. Your heart was pounding.

“Ollie,” You lightly shook the arm that was over you. “Ollie, wake up.”

You were only met with a long grunt and a tightened grip.

“Ollie, please, come on.” You tried sitting up to give him a bit more of a hint, displacing his arm on you.

Finally, he rolled over, turning off his alarm. The sun was barely out yet, and you saw him squinting at you through his sleepy eyes.

“I don’t want to go.” He said softly and groggily, toying with a loose string on your worn shirt.

“You have to.” You replied with every ounce of control in your body.

Ollie grunted faintly before stretching his arms over his head, silently sitting up and making his way out of the door as quickly as he came through it.

Everything kept moving into the next day. You’d comprehensively briefed Kimi in the morning on his share of marketing activities over breakfast and sneaked some Live at Prema footage here and there, with Ollie notably paying less attention and getting called by some F1 media members midway.

The constant elephant in the room was the tinge of disappointment the team felt due to Ollie’s slightly lackluster feeder performances in direct comparison to all of the F1 hype surrounding him, which no amount of sarcastic humor from the team could conceal.

Despite everything that happened the night prior, everything remained calm and professional (he barely acknowledged you outside of what he needed to do, which was both a relief and a punch to the gut).

Between photoshoots and practice sessions, you’d spotted Ollie from afar. Barely anyone could get a hold of him after free practice, as he was justifiably rushing between garages.

He was up and down the paddock clad in his black Haas shirt, clearly moving with an air of confidence that filled your chest with something you couldn’t describe. This Ollie felt worlds away, which brought you as much joy and pride as it did a hint of melancholy. You were still figuring out what he was making you feel, but at times like this, he felt worlds away.

You were pulled away from your thoughts as quickly as they came to you, as you engrossed yourself in content with the F1 Academy drivers. When you weren’t doing that, you were organizing paperwork, analyzing metrics, and sifting through footage on your phone and camera.

The feeling you suppressed earlier only returned as the F1 cars hit the track. You thought about how near he felt at present, just at touching distance in the space between your hotel room and Grisignano de Zocco; but you also thought about how faraway everything would become after Prema, and how much you’d have to feel if you allowed yourself to let your guard down around Ollie.

After all, every sane racing driver would hope that feeder wouldn’t be forever. Deep inside you, though, you wished this feeling wouldn’t just be hidden in the footnotes of what would become Ollie’s career. Nevertheless, the sheer idea of wanting someone who was literally the face of a future generation of racing amidst the backdrop of him being capable of being wanted by every other person in the world felt incredibly absurd and daunting to say the least.

(The two of you weren’t even anything. You weren’t really sure about these thoughts.)

After your rumination and the inevitable conclusion of the free practice session, you continued your work as you were directed to. It was entirely a coincidence, though, that your next duties included bringing parts of Ollie’s race kit and his water to his area in the shared driver’s area in preparation for qualifying. As every internship went, you often had miscellaneous work to fulfill.

Kimi had already finished his personal preparations for qualifying, already looking over last minute data, while Ollie was running late due to his prior commitment. The air was undeniably stress-ridden, as your first real encounter of the race day with Ollie was him scrambling to get into his overalls and suit, but you set everything down calmly while pointedly avoiding eye contact.

“Was starting to think you didn’t miss me at all.” Ollie was the first to break the silence, imploring you to look up at him.

Warmth filled your body at his words. For a moment, you worried that he knew he had some type of effect on you, but you quickly pulled yourself together mentally.

“One less person to persuade to listen to my content briefs.” You shrugged, smiling at him playfully, almost daring him to retaliate.

As the rush caught up to both of you, the only cohesive answer to your banter that he gave you before exiting into the garage was a soft squeeze on your forearm.

“We’re friends, right?” Ollie asked, already tucking himself into your bed without hesitation.

Once Ollie was done slumping over in qualifying debriefs with the team, he made his way to your room again. It was the same routine as last night, just with a lot less talking.

The thing is, you weren’t saying anything either. That in itself said a lot.

You looked at him, eyebrows scrunched together. “Yes?”

Well, you were sharing a bed, tucked under the same sheets, staring face to face at each other in the dim yellow light of your Barcelona hotel room.

“Maybe? I don’t know, Ollie—“ You second-guessed for a moment before continuing, “—I’m literally an intern. We work together, technically.”

Ollie’s face twisted into something unreadable. His eyes shifted to the side as he mouthed the word ‘technically’ under his breath.

“I mean, I guess we could be friends if you want.” You followed up. God, you felt ridiculous for having a conversation that sounded like this.

He took a breath, deep and slow. “I want a lot of things,”He answered.

Ollie looked at right you, eyes so big, bright, and endless.

“I know.” You replied impulsively, in a voice barely above a whisper.

He got so dangerously close to you that you could feel the warmths of his breaths on your face.

“You don’t.” The weight of his gaze felt like it was melting you from the inside out. “You really don’t.”

Ollie closed the gap between the two of you, his dry lips engulfing yours for what felt like an eternity, despite it being maybe a five-second peck at most. When he pulled away, you were breathing like he’d taken all of the air out of your lungs just from the sheer pace your heart was beating at.

A look of uncertainty flashed across his almost annoyingly pretty face. The kiss was so sweet, and you hated to be the one to make him question himself.

“We shouldn’t.” You said in conjuction with your uncontrollable heartbeats and air-filled breaths.

“Then tell me you don’t want this.” Ollie challenged, laying one calloused, warm hand on your cheek.

“Ollie—“ You tried to protest. Every logical part of your brain was telling you how wrong all of this was, and how stupid you were for letting this happen in the first place.

In spite of all that, you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. You couldn’t lie to him for the life of you.

You wanted this so bad. All you could do was want.

You laid your cold hand atop the one cupping your face, and let yourself look back at the earnest look on his face. You felt overexposed, sensitive all over like you’d been put out in the sun for too long.

“Please.” You could barley manage words, but you finally let yourself lean into him to erase every seed of doubt planted in his mind.

The movement of your lips against one another quickly turned hot and heavy, and you let Ollie take and take everything he could’ve wanted. His hand wandered down to your neck and achingly close to your chest, as his kisses migrated down to your neck.

“We—ah—we really shouldn’t be doing this,” You weakly attempted to be rational, even if your hand was tangled in his hair and heat was quickly pooling between your thighs.

In response, he dove right below your collar bone, beginning with a bite and continuing with not-so-subtly marking you there, coaxing a mix between a gasp, wimper, and a soft moan out of you.

It was glaringly obvious that he didn’t care all that much.

#ollie bearman #ollie bearman x reader #formula one #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 #formula 2 #f1 2024 #f2 2024 #ferrari driver academy #fda #f2 x reader #f2 x you #f2 fanfic #prema racing #friends to lovers #fluff #b38rman fics

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 17 days ago

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Matt Wuerker. Politico

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 11, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 12, 2025

The stock market continued to fall today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell another 478 points, or 1.14%; the S&P 500 fell almost 0.8%; and the Nasdaq Composite fell almost 0.2%. The S&P 500 briefly held its own in trading today, but then Trump announced on his social media platform that he was going to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum from the new 25% rates to a 50% rate on Canada and might increase tariffs to “permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada.”

Stocks fell again.

Unable to admit that he might be wrong, President Donald Trump is doubling down on the policies that are crashing the economy. In addition to his tariff threats, he also reiterated that “the only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” an outrageous position that he suddenly began to advance after the 2024 presidential election and which has Canadians so furious they are boycotting U.S. goods and booing the Star-Spangled Banner.

More than 100 top business leaders met with Trump today to urge him to stop destabilizing what had been a booming economy with his on-again-off-again tariffs. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, told Jeff Stein and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post that in private, “[b]usiness leaders, CEOs and COOs are nervous, bordering on unnerved, by the policies that are being implemented, how they’re being implemented and what the fallout is. There’s overwhelming uncertainty and increasing discomfort with how policy is being implemented.”

The extreme unpredictability means that no one knows where or how to invest. Market strategist Art Hogan told CNN’s Matt Egan, “This market is just blatantly sick and tired of the back and forth on trade policy.” Yesterday, Delta Air Lines cut its forecasts for its first-quarter revenue and profits by half, a sign of weakening corporate and consumer confidence and concerns about the safety of air travel. Today, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines cut their forecasts, and American Airlines forecast a first-quarter loss.

When he talked to reporters, Trump reasserted that he intends to do what he wants regardless of the business leaders’ input. “Markets are going to go up and they’re going to go down, but you know what, we have to rebuild our country. Long-term what I’m doing is making our country strong again.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt advised, “If people are looking for certainty, they should look at the record of this president.”

Not everyone will find that suggestion comforting.

Trump backed off on his threat to raise the tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50%, but went ahead with his threat to place 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum products. Those tariffs took effect at midnight.

In the face of his own troubles, Trump’s sidekick billionaire Elon Musk is also escalating his destructive behavior. Yesterday Musk’s social media platform X underwent three separate outages that spanned more than six hours. Lily Jamali and Liv McMahon of the BBC reported that Oxford professor Ciaran Martin, former head of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Center, said that the outages appear to have been an attack called a “distributed denial of service,” or DDoS, attack. This is an old technique in which hackers flood a server to prevent authentic users from reaching a website.

"I can't think of a company of the size and standing internationally of X that's fallen over to a DDoS attack for a very long time," Martin said. The outage "doesn't reflect well on their cyber security." Without any evidence, Musk blamed hackers in Ukraine for the outages, an accusation Martin called “pretty much garbage.”

Four days ago, another of Musk’s SpaceX rockets exploded after takeoff, and now SpaceX’s Starlink internet service is facing headwinds. In February, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim canceled his collaborations with Starlink after growing tensions with Musk culminated with Musk alleging on X that Slim is tied to organized crime. The loss of that deal cost Musk about $7 billion in the short term, but more in the long term as Slim will work with European and Chinese companies in 25 Latin American countries rather than Starlink. Slim has said he would invest $22 billion in those projects over the next three years.

Also in February, after U.S. negotiators threatened to cut Ukraine’s access to the 42,000 Starlink terminals that supply information to the front lines, the European Commission began to look for either government or commercial alternatives. The European Commission is made up of a college of commissioners from each of the 27 European Union countries. It acts as the main executive branch of the European Union.

On Sunday, Musk posted: “[M]y Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.” Poland pays for about half the Starlink terminals in Ukraine, about $50 million a year. Poland’s minister of foreign affairs, Radosław Sikorski, responded that “if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.” “Be quiet, small man,” Musk replied. “You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.”

After all the tariff drama with Canada, last week Ontario also cancelled a deal it had with Starlink.

But perhaps the biggest hit Musk has taken lately is over his Tesla car brand. On February 6, Musk’s younger brother Kimbal, who sits on Tesla’s board, sold more than $27 million worth of shares in the company. Tesla chair Robyn Denholm sold about $43 million worth of Tesla stock in February and recently sold another $33 million. Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja has sold $8 million worth over the past 90 days. Yesterday, board member James Murdoch sold just over $13 million worth of stock.

Fred Lambert of Electrek, which follows the news about electric vehicles and Tesla, noted that Tesla stock dropped 15% yesterday, “down more than 50% from its all-time high just a few months ago.” “Tesla insiders are unloading,” he concluded.

Tesla sales are dropping across the globe owing to the unpopularity of Musk’s antics, along with the cuts and data breaches from his ��Department of Government Efficiency.” Protesters have been gathering at Tesla dealerships to express their dismay. While the protests have been peaceful, as Chris Isidore of CNN reports, there have also been reports of vandalism. Tesla owners are facing ridicule as protesters take out their anger toward Musk on his customers, and at least one competitor is working to lure consumers away from Musk’s brand by offering a discount to Tesla owners.

Trump has jumped to Musk’s defense, posting just after midnight this morning that “Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for. They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”

Indeed, today Trump used the office of the presidency to bolster Musk’s business. Teslas were lined up at the White House, where Trump read from a Tesla sales pitch—photographer Andrew Harnik caught an image of his notes. And then the same man who gave a blanket pardon to those convicted of violent crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol called those protesting at Tesla dealerships “domestic terrorists” and promised that the government would make sure they “go through hell.”

Trump and Musk appear to have taken the downturn in their fortunes by becoming more aggressive. Martin Pengelly of The Guardian noted that in the middle of Monday’s stock market plunge, Trump posted or reposted more than 100 messages on his social media channel. All of them showed him in a positive light, including reminders of the 2004 first season of the television show The Apprentice, in which Trump starred: a golden moment in Trump’s past when his ratings were high and the audience seemed to believe he was a brilliant and powerful businessman.

Today, egged on by Musk, Trump pushed again to take over other countries. He told reporters: "When you take away that artificial line that looks like it was done with a ruler…and you look at that beautiful formation of Canada and the United States, there is no place anywhere in the world that looks like that…. And then if you add Greenland…that's pretty good."

The Trump administration also announced today it was cutting about half the employees in the Department of Education. The Senate confirmed Linda McMahon, who has little experience with education, to head the department on March 3 by a party-line vote. Shutting down the department "was the president's mandate—his directive to me," McMahon told Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham. McMahon assured Ingraham that existing grants and programs would not “fall through the cracks.”

But when Ingraham asked her what IDEA stood for—the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—she wasn’t sure, although she knew it was “the programs for disabled and needs.” Ingraham knew what the acronym meant but assured McMahon that after 30 years on the job, she still didn’t know all the acronyms. McMahon replied: “This is my fifth day on the job and I’m really trying to learn them very quickly.”

Musk lashed out at Arizona senator Mark Kelly on social media yesterday, after Kelly posted pictures of his recent trip to Ukraine and discussed the history of Russia’s invasion, concluding “it’s important we stand with Ukraine.” Musk responded: “You are a traitor.”

Kelly, who was in the Navy for 25 years and flew 39 combat missions in the Gulf War before becoming an astronaut, responded: “Traitor? Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Matt Wuerker #Politico #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Mark Kelly #veterans #IDEA #disabilities #war in Ukraine #the Economy #the Stock market #economic news #tariffs #wrong way

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globalnewscollective · 16 days ago

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Trump and Musk Are Pushing the U.S. Toward a Shutdown—Here’s What That Means for You

Once again, the U.S. is on the brink of a government shutdown. But this time, it’s not just political infighting—tech billionaire Elon Musk is playing a role, too. By leveraging his influence and platform, Musk has joined forces with Donald Trump to push for chaos, blocking a budget plan that would keep the government running.

What’s Happening?

A government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass a budget. Without funding, federal agencies shut down, leaving millions of workers unpaid and essential services suspended. Trump has been pressuring Republicans to reject the current spending plan, while Musk has amplified right-wing voices that oppose it, turning a routine budget negotiation into a high-stakes political crisis.

How This Affects You

A government shutdown doesn’t just impact politicians—it hits everyday Americans hard. Here’s what you need to know:

Federal Workers & Military Personnel: Over 4 million federal employees, including service members, could be forced to work without pay or be furloughed entirely. Many live paycheck to paycheck and would struggle to cover rent, utilities, or groceries.

Social Security & Medicare: While benefits continue, customer service lines and claims processing could be severely delayed, making it harder for seniors and disabled individuals to access their payments or healthcare services.

Food Assistance Programs: Families relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) could see delays in benefits, and funding for food banks may dry up, exacerbating food insecurity.

National Parks, Museums, and Public Services: Expect closures of national parks, Smithsonian museums, and other federally funded sites. This affects not only visitors but also the small businesses that rely on tourism revenue.

Air Travel Disruptions: TSA agents and air traffic controllers will be required to work without pay, increasing the risk of flight delays and staff shortages that could create chaos at airports.

Housing & Small Business Loans: FHA-backed home loans could be delayed, making it harder for people to buy homes. Small businesses relying on federal grants or loans may also face significant funding gaps.

Economic Instability: The uncertainty and disruption from a shutdown can rattle financial markets, leading to job losses, increased inflation, and setbacks for businesses large and small.

Why Are Trump and Musk Doing This?

The Democrats argue that the budget proposal favored by Trump is nothing more than a disguised tax cut that would primarily benefit the ultra-wealthy—people like Musk. Additionally, they refuse to support a plan that would burden the U.S. with trillions of dollars in additional debt. Notably, alongside the Democrats, 38 Republican members of Congress also voted against Trump’s proposal.

The Bigger Picture

This isn’t just a budget dispute. It’s an alarming sign of how billionaires and political extremists can manipulate the system for their own gain. When an unelected tech mogul like Musk and a former president under multiple indictments can grind the government to a halt, it raises serious concerns about power, accountability, and the future of democracy.

What Can You Do?

Stay informed and share credible news sources.

Contact your representatives and demand they stand up to political obstruction.

Support journalism that holds those in power accountable.

Most importantly: Vote. A government shutdown is a preview of the dysfunction that could become permanent if Trump and his allies regain full control.

This is bigger than one political battle—it’s a fight for the stability of the country. And the outcome depends on all of us.

Source:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-democrats-debate-path-forward-government-funding-bill-2025-03-12/

#president trump #trump is a threat to democracy #us politics #elon musk #white house #usa news #donald trump #government shutdown #shutdown #american politics #politics #usa politics #political #us government #trump administration #economy #washington

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jeffhirsch · 24 days ago

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Post-Election Years Plague Republicans

The fear on The Street is palpable and it’s hitting levels associated with interim lows and rebounds. We have warned all year that this type of chop and volatility is to be expected in post-election years, especially in Q1. With the S&P 500 dipping further into the red for the year, we turn to page 28 of the 2025 Stock Trader’s Almanac, “Post-Election Year Performance by Party.”

Historically, more bear markets and negative market action have plagued Republican administrations in the post-election year whereas the midterm year has been worse for Democrats. New republican administrations tend to come in and get down brass tacks more so than new democrats. This generates market uncertainty and Trump 2.0 has moved faster and further and covered more ground than any we can remember.

Join me tomorrow on my members only webinar for a deeper dive into this phenomenon and my current outlook Not a member? Sign up today! And get a Free 2025 Stock Trader’s Almanac and much more.

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tendercherie · 3 months ago

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some reflections and comtemplations

2024 was a year of pain and growth, but I’d like to celebrate some of the highs:

I received the baby, a symbol of luck and prosperity, in a King cake a friend brought back from Mardi Gras.

I got a 2nd job selling bread at a farmer’s market.

I saw my brother get married to the love of his life.

My grandparent’s house sold after 3 years in limbo. Saying goodbye to it felt like I was mourning them all over again, but their frugality and initial investment in building a beautiful home paid off to all of their loved ones, including myself.

I moved out from a situation (and ended a friendship) that was not serving me anymore. I couldn’t afford to live by myself so I moved back in with my parents (very difficult emotionally, but now I get to live with Joe AND Oliver)!

Other things to celebrate

- bought my very first car!!!

- finding out I’ll be an aunt for the first time!!

- graduated from a leadership course at work

- applied for a program that is allowing me to move across the country in 2025

- opened this fortune cookie this morning

I hope that the coming year is as full of moments of joy, but I know life is full of uncertainties. I also know that I am capable of overcoming whatever may come my way.

Sending the same wishes of prosperity and wellness to you and your loved ones in 2025.

#rachie rambles

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breelandwalker · 2 months ago

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Willow Wings Witch Shop - February 2025 Newsletter

Visit the Shop

What a year this past month has been. It’s heartening to see so many people sharing resources and giving each other support and hope, despite all the chaos and uncertainty. In an effort to help my witches out there feel a little safer, this month’s featured items all have to do with protection and disguise. So whether you want to feel a little safer, set up a magical warning system for incoming trouble, or avoid the notice of unfriendly eyes, we’ve got you covered.

The new arrivals will be along next week, so make sure you stay tuned to my socials and your emails for the drop!

Use code WITCHBOTTLE for 20% off new and featured items all month long!

Stay Safe and Happy Witching!

Upcoming Events:

The Witches Table Discussion Group: Williamsburg Chapter(First Wednesday of each month) Next Gathering - Wednesday, February 5 2025, 6pm-8pm Upcoming Dates - March 5 | April 2 | May 7 Alewerks Taproom (Williamsburg Outlets) 5715 Richmond Rd, Williamsburg VA (USA) Hosted by The Witches Table

First Fridays Moon Market(First Friday of each month) - I’m not tabling this month, but you should still go!Next Event - Friday, Feb 7 2025, 6pm-9pm Upcoming Dates - March 7 | April 4 | May 2 Historic Hilton Village 10369 Warwick Blvd, Newports News VA (USA) Hosted by Styx & Stones

This Month on Hex Positive:

Hex Positive, Ep. 052 - Mercury’s In The Microwave with Alisha Abdelilah of Soul Riot

The pod gets cosmic as Alisha Abdelilah of Soul Riot LLC joins the chat to talk about her approach to astrology - a refreshingly down-to-earth attitude that focuses on personal gifts and self-improvement, rather than the nebulous woo-speak of pop horoscopes. This month, we’re blaming it ALL on the retrograde!

Follow Soul Riot on Instagram or sign up for classes and readings with Alisha!

This Month's Featured Products:

#witchcraft #witchblr #witch community #spell jars #protection magic #witch shop #Willow Wings Witch Shop

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mariacallous · 6 months ago

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On Tuesday morning, five days after Hurricane Helene ripped through Boone, North Carolina, David Marlett was on his way to the campus of Appalachian State University. The managing director of the university’s Brantley Risk & Insurance Center, Marlett was planning to spend the day working with his colleagues to help students and community members understand their insurance policies and file claims in the wake of the storm. He didn’t sound hopeful. “I’m dreading it,” he said. “So many people are just not going to have coverage.”

Helene made landfall southeast of Tallahassee, Florida, last week with winds up to 140 miles per hour, downing trees and bringing record-breaking storm surges to areas along the Gulf Coast before charging up through Georgia. But perhaps its most shocking impacts have been on inland North Carolina, where it first started raining while the storm was still over Mexico. At least 57 people are dead in Buncombe County in the west of the state alone. Communities like Boone received dozens of inches of rainfall despite being hundreds of miles from the coast. Waters rose in main streets, sinkholes and mudslides wreaked havoc, and major roads were blocked, flooded, or degraded by the storm.

Now, there’s a good chance that many homeowners in North Carolina won’t see any payouts from their insurance companies—even if they have policies they thought were comprehensive.

“The property insurance market for homes was already a patchwork system that really doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Marlett says. “Now you’re adding in the last couple of years of economic uncertainty, inflation, climate change, population migration—it’s just an unbelievably bad combination happening all at once.”

For North Carolinians, the issue right now has to do with what, exactly, private insurance is on the hook for when it comes to a storm. An average homeowner policy covers damage from wind, but private homeowners’ insurance plans in the US do not cover flooding. Instead, homeowners in areas at risk of flooding usually purchase plans from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

The way a hurricane wreaks havoc on a state is a crucial deciding factor for insurers’ wallets. Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida as a category 4 storm with some of the highest wind speeds on record, caused $63 billion in private insurance claims. In contrast, the bulk of the $17 billion in damage caused by 2018’s Hurricane Florence, which tore up the North Carolina coast, was water damage, not wind; as a result, private insurers largely avoided picking up the check for that disaster.

This breakout of flood insurance from home policies dates back to the 1940s, says Donald Hornstein, a law professor at the University of North Carolina and a member of the board of directors of the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association. Private insurance companies decided that they did not have enough data to be able to accurately predict flooding and therefore could not insure it. “In some ways, that calculation of 50 years ago is still the calculation insurers make today,” he says.

While the NFIP, which was created in the late 1960s, provides virtually the only backup against flood damage, the program is saddled with debt and has become a political hot potato. (Project 2025, for instance, recommends phasing out the program entirely and replacing it with private options.) Part of the problem with the NFIP is low uptake. Across the country, FEMA statistics show that just 4 percent of homeowners have flood insurance. Some areas hit by Helene in Appalachia, initial statistics show, have less than 2.5 percent of homeowners signed up for the federal program.

“Even in coastal areas, not many people buy that, much less here in the mountains,” Marlett says. “People have never seemed to fully understand that flood is a separate policy.”

Flooding is not unprecedented in the mountains of North Carolina: Hurricane Ivan swept through Appalachia in 2004, and flash floods from rivers are not unheard of. Purchasing flood insurance is mandatory with a government-backed mortgage in some areas of the country, based on flood zones set by FEMA. But the data is based on extremely outdated floodplain maps that have not taken the most recent climate science on record rainfall into account.

“The biggest non-secret in Washington for decades is how hopelessly out of date these flood maps are,” Hornstein says.

Even if water wasn’t the cause of destruction for some homeowners in North Carolina, the storm’s disastrous mudslides—another risk supercharged by climate change—may not be covered either. Many home insurance policies have carve-outs for what are known as “earth movements,” which includes landslides, sinkholes, and earthquakes. In some states, like California, insurers are mandated to offer additional earthquake insurance, and homeowners can purchase private additional policies that cover earth movements. But in a state like North Carolina, where earthquake risk is extremely low, homeowners may not even know that such policies exist.

It’s also been a tough few years for the insurance industry across the country. A New York Times analysis from May showed that homeowners’ insurers lost money in 18 states in 2023—up from eight states in 2013—largely thanks to expensive disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. Payouts are increasingly costing insurers more than they are getting in premiums. Homeowners are seeing their policies jump as a result: According to statistics compiled by insurance comparison shopping site Insurify, the average annual cost of home insurance climbed nearly 20 percent between 2021 and 2023. In Florida, which has the highest insurance costs in the country, the average homeowner paid over $10,000 a year in 2023—more than $8,600 above the national rate.

Florida has made headlines in recent months as ground zero for the climate-change insurance crisis. More than 30 insurance companies have either fully or partially pulled out of Florida over the past few years, including big names like Farmers’ and AAA, after mounting losses from repeated major hurricanes like 2022’s Ian, the most expensive natural disaster in the state’s history. Florida’s insurer of last resort, now saddled with risk from multiple homeowners, has proposed a rate increase of 14 percent, set to go into effect next year.

In comparison, North Carolina’s insurance market looks pretty good. No insurers have exited the state since 2008, while homeowners pay an average of $2,100 per year—high, but avoiding the sky-high rates of states like Florida, California, and Texas.

“What traditionally has happened is that there’s a rate increase every few years of 8 to 9 percent for homeowner’s insurance,” says Hornstein. “That has kept the market stable, especially when it comes to the coast.”

But as natural disasters of all kinds mount, it’s tough to see a way forward for insurance business as usual. The NFIP is undergoing a series of changes to update the way it calculates rates for flood insurance—but it faces political minefields in potentially expanding the number of homeowners mandated to buy policies. What’s more, many homeowners are seeing the prices for their flood insurance rise as the NFIP adjusts its rates for existing floodplains using new climate models.

Many experts agree that the private market needs to reflect in some way the true cost of living in a disaster-prone area: in other words, it should be more expensive for people to move to a city where it’s more likely your house will be wiped off the map by a storm. The cost of climate change does not seem to be a deterrent in Florida, one of the fastest-growing states in the country, where coastal regions like Panama City, Jacksonville, and Port St. Lucie are booming. (Some research suggests that the mere existence of the NFIP shielded policyholders from the true costs of living in flood-prone areas.)

Asheville, at the heart of Buncombe County, was once hailed as a climate haven safe from disasters; the city is now reeling in the wake of Helene. For many homeowners, small business owners, and renters in western North Carolina, the damage from Helene will be life-changing. FEMA payouts may bring, at best, only a fraction of what a home would be worth. Auto insurance generally covers all types of damage, including flooding—a small bright spot of relief, but not enough to offset the loss of a family’s main asset.

“People at the coast, at some point after the nth storm, they start to get the message,” Hornstein says. “But for people in the western part of the state, this is just Armageddon. And you can certainly forgive them for not having before appreciated the fine points of these impenetrable contracts.”

Marlett says that there are models for insurance that are designed to better withstand the challenges of climate change. New Zealand, for instance, offers policies that cover all types of damage that could happen to your house; while these policies are increasingly tailored price-wise to different types of risk, there’s no chance a homeowner would experience a climate disaster not covered by their existing policies. But it’s hard, he says, to see the US system getting the wholesale overhaul it needs, given how long the piecemeal system has been in place.

“I sound so pessimistic,” he said. “I’m normally an optimistic person.”

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rainydetectiveglitter · 16 days ago

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Stock Market Predictions – March 2025

March is a volatile period for financial markets, driven by Mercury retrograde, Venus retrograde, and significant planetary shifts. Expect uncertainty, emotional reactions, and market corrections.

Key Influences on Markets

Mercury Retrograde in Aries (March 15) Market Effect: Increased volatility, misinformation, and sudden reversals. Traders may overreact to news, causing erratic price swings. Sectors Affected: Technology, startups, transportation, and communication stocks face confusion or slowdowns.

Venus Retrograde in Aries (Throughout March, enters Pisces on March 27) Market Effect: Investor sentiment weakens; money flows slow down. Sectors Affected: Luxury goods, beauty, and entertainment stocks may underperform. However, Venus entering Pisces later supports pharmaceuticals, wellness, and water-related industries.

Mars in Cancer (Defensive Market Mood) Market Effect: Investors act emotionally rather than rationally. High volatility in commodities (oil, agriculture) and housing markets. Sectors Affected: Real estate, food, and defensive stocks (utilities, healthcare) may gain traction as investors seek security.

Jupiter in Gemini (Expanding Speculation) Market Effect: Speculative trading increases, particularly in tech and AI sectors. News-driven price surges are common. Sectors Affected: Tech, AI, digital communication, and online media stocks benefit.

Saturn in Pisces (Liquidity Concerns, Debt Issues) Market Effect: Possible concerns about economic stability or rising debt levels. Government interventions may be needed to stabilize markets. Sectors Affected: Banking, finance, and lending institutions could experience challenges.

Uranus in Taurus (Still Shaking Financial Systems, Crypto Markets in Focus) Market Effect: Ongoing disruption in banking, fintech, and cryptocurrency sectors. Unpredictable price swings in Bitcoin and altcoins.

Neptune in Pisces (Market Speculation & Illusions, Enters Aries on March 30) Market Effect: Sentiment-driven rallies in speculative assets; potential for misleading economic data. Sectors Affected: Oil, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and alternative medicine stocks benefit.

Pluto in Aquarius (Big Tech & AI Revolutions, but Retrograde in May) Market Effect: Transformational shifts in technology, AI, and automation. However, Pluto’s upcoming retrograde in May may trigger regulatory concerns.

March 2025 Market Summary

Early March: Market optimism despite Venus retrograde; speculation runs high.

Mid-March (Mercury Retrograde Begins): Sharp volatility, misinformation, and market corrections.

Late March (Venus Enters Pisces, Neptune in Aries): Market stabilizes slightly, with a shift toward pharma, biotech, and defensive sectors.

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ctcnewsca · 11 days ago

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🏡 Canada’s housing market took a 9.8% hit in February 2025 as U.S. tariff threats rattled buyers and sellers, with Ontario suffering the most. 🏡 Uncover how tariffs are reshaping Canadian real estate, why Ontario’s in the crosshairs, and what it means for your next move 👇🏻

#Canada #canada news #canadian housing #Canadian MLS Systems data #Canadian real estate market trends #CREA #CREA housing market report analysis #February 2025 home sales slump #Greater Golden Horseshoe price drop #MLS Home Price Index #MLS system #Ontario #Ontario economic exposure to trade #ontario hit hardest #Ontario housing market decline #spring 2025 real estate outlook #tariff uncertainty affecting buyers #U.S. tariffs impact on housing

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collapsedsquid · 6 months ago

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But the other natural reaction you might have to seeing the same contract trade at different prices in different locations would be: Well, are they the same contract? What if “Donald Trump will win the election” is worth more — that is, has a higher probability — on Polymarket than it does elsewhere? That seems implausible: There is only one presidential election, and Trump will either win it or he won’t. But that might not be exactly right. There is some history of epistemic uncertainty when Donald Trump loses elections. Different prediction markets might resolve that uncertainty in different ways.

Here is Kalshi’s 2024 Donald Trump election contract, whose rules specify that “If Donald Trump or another representative of the Republican party is inaugurated as President for the term beginning January 20, 2025, then the market resolves to Yes.” Here is Polymarket’s equivalent (but higher-priced) contract, which sounds fairly similar: The resolution source for this market is the Associated Press, Fox News, and NBC. This market will resolve once all three sources call the race for the same candidate. If all three sources haven’t called the race for the same candidate by the inauguration date (January 20, 2025) this market will resolve based on who is inaugurated.

Fun decisions in an election that might have legal challenges, hell this thing based on media calls might have had issues even in 2000.

#matt levine

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 16 days ago

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Today in Tottenham (North London)

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 12, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 13, 2025

Trump’s 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel imported into the U.S. went into effect today, prompting retaliatory tariffs from the European Union and Canada. The E.U. announced tariffs on about $28 billion worth of products, including beef and whiskey, mostly produced by Republican-dominated states. “We deeply regret this measure,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers. These tariffs are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy.”

Canada also announced new tariffs on Wednesday on about $21 billion worth of U.S. products, in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs. François-Philippe Champagne, Canada's minister of innovation, science, and industry, said: “The U.S. administration is once again inserting disruption and disorder into an incredibly successful trading partnership and raising the costs of everyday goods for Canadians and American households alike.”

With the stock market falling and business leaders begging Trump to stop the trade machinations that are creating the volatility that is wrenching the economy downward, Trump said yesterday to reporters: “[L]ong-term, what I’m doing is making our country strong again.”

In an interview on the CBS Evening News last night, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a billionaire financial executive, was asked whether Trump’s economic policies were “worth it” even if they cause a recession.

“These policies are the most important thing America has ever had,” Lutnick answered. “It is worth it.”

Former representative Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) reposted Lutnick’s assertion and said: “In my graduate thesis, I quoted a hardline communist official from Poland in the 1950s who was asked about terrible shortages of food and housing. He said people had to sacrifice and “if that’s what it takes to prove the superiority of socialism, it’s worth it.”

The days when the Republican Party were conservatives are long gone. Edmund Burke, the Anglo-Irish politician and political thinker who began the process of articulating a conservative political philosophy, did so most famously in response to the French Revolution. In 1790, a year after the storming of the Bastille prison symbolized the rebellion of the people against the monarchy, Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Burke had supported the American Revolution that had ended less than a decade before largely because he believed that the American colonists were trying to restore their traditional rights. But the French Revolution, he thought, was an entirely different proposition. As revolutionaries in France replaced their country’s traditions with laws and systems based on their theory of an ideal government, Burke drew back.

He took a stand against radical change driven by people trying to make the government enforce a specific political ideology. Ideologically driven government was radical and dangerous, he thought: quickly, the ideology became more important than the complex reality of the way society—and people—actually worked.

In 1790, Burke argued that the role of government was not to impose a worldview, but rather to promote stability, and that lawmakers could achieve that stability most effectively by supporting the structures that had proven themselves effective in the past; in his time, that meant social hierarchies, the church, property, and the family. “Conservative” meant, literally, conserving what was already there, without reference to an ideology. Those in charge of government should make changes slowly, according to facts on the ground, in order to keep the country stable, he thought. If it behaved this way, the government, which in his time was usually seen as a negative force in society, could be a positive one.

In 2025 the Republicans in charge of the United States of America are not the conservatives they call themselves; they are the dangerous ideological radicals Burke feared. They are abruptly dismantling a government that has kept the United States relatively prosperous, secure, and healthy for the past 80 years. In its place, they are trying to impose a government based in the idea that a few men should rule.

The Trump administration’s hits to the economy have monopolized the news this week, but its swing away from Europe and toward Russia, antagonizing allies and partners while fawning over authoritarians like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is also a radical stand, and one that seems likely to destabilize American security. Former allies have expressed concern over sharing intelligence with the U.S. in the future, and yesterday, 34 army leaders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union, Japan, and Australia met in Paris without inviting the United States.

The wholesale destruction of the U.S.A.’s advanced medical research, especially cancer research, by firing scientists, canceling grants, banning communications and collaboration, and stopping travel is also radical and seems unlikely to leave Americans healthier than before.

Yesterday, news broke that the administration canceled $800 million worth of grants to Johns Hopkins University, one of the nation’s top research universities in science and medicine. Meanwhile, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cast doubt on the safe, effective measles vaccine as the disease continues to spread across the Southwest.

Today, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin boasted that the administration is taking 31 actions to roll back environmental protections. Those include regulations about electric vehicles and pollution from coal-fired plants. The administration intends to rescind the EPA’s 2009 finding that the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change endanger public health. That finding is the legal argument for regulations governing car and truck emissions and power plants.

Also today, the United States Department of Agriculture, which oversees supplemental food programs, announced it was cutting about $1 billion in funding that enables schools and food banks to buy directly from local farms and ranches. This will hit farmers and producers as well as children and food-insecure families.

In place of the system that has created relative stability for almost a century, Republicans under President Donald Trump and his sidekick billionaire Elon Musk are imposing a government that is based in the idea that a government that works to make people safe, prosperous, and healthy is simply ripping off wealthy people. Asked if he felt sorry for those losing their jobs in the government purges, Trump told NBC News, without evidence: “Sure I do. I feel very badly...but many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work.”

The administration promises that it is eliminating “waste, fraud, and corruption,” but Judd Legum of Popular Information today launched the “Musk Watch DOGE Tracker,” which shows that Musk has overstated the savings he claims by at least 92%, with the warning that since these identified cuts are illegal and unconstitutional—Congress appropriates money and writes the laws for how it’s spent, and courts have agreed that the executive branch has to execute the laws as they are written—the contracts might not be canceled at all.

That the administration knows it is not operating on the up-and-up seems clear from its attempts to hide what it is doing. It has taken weeks for courts to get the administration to say who is running the “Department of Government Efficiency” and what the body actually is. The White House has tried to characterize Musk as a senior advisor to the president to shield him from questioning.

But today, in response to a lawsuit by 14 attorneys general from Democratic-dominated states arguing that Musk is acting unconstitutionally, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Musk and DOGE to turn over their records and answer questions, giving them three weeks to comply.

On Tuesday, remaining staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) received an email under the name of acting executive secretary Erica Carr at USAID telling them to shred or burn agency records, despite strict laws about the preservation of federal documents. “Haphazardly shredding and burning USAID documents and personnel files seems like a great way to get rid of evidence of wrongdoing when you’re illegally dismantling the agency,” said Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Two lawsuits are already challenging the order.

And the corruption in the administration was out in the open yesterday. After Trump advertised Elon Musk’s cars at the White House, Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that Musk “has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation.” This is separate from Musk’s own political action committee, which dropped almost $300 million into the 2024 election and which is now pouring money into next month’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The government that Trump and Musk are destroying, with the complicity of their party, is popular, and Republican members of Congress are apparently unwilling to have to vote on the policies that are putting their radical ideology into place. In an extraordinary move yesterday, House Republicans made it impossible for Congress to challenge Trump’s tariffs.

The Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs. But the International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows the president to impose tariffs if he declares a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, which Trump did on February 1. That same law allows Congress to end such a declaration of emergency, but if such a termination is introduced—as Democrats have recently done—it has to be taken up in a matter of days.

But this would force Republicans to go on record as either supporting or opposing the unpopular economic ideology Trump and Musk are imposing. So Republicans just passed a measure saying that for the rest of this congressional session, “each day…shall not constitute a calendar day” for the purposes of terminating Trump’s emergency declaration.

The Republicans’ legislation that a day is not a day seems to prove the truth of Burke’s observation that by trying to force reality to fit their ideology, radical ideologues will end up imposing tyranny in the name of liberty.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An american #MAGA #history #American History #Emergency declaration #Tariffs #Edmund Burke #American Conservatism #French Revolution

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misfitwashere · 16 days ago

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March 12, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 13

“These policies are the most important thing America has ever had,” Lutnick answered. “It is worth it.”

—

#heather cox richardson #letters from an american

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jeffhirsch · 2 months ago

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Post-Election Year Q1 Weak Spot Volatility Happens

China’s DeepSeek AI panic is just another trigger for a market selloff in the Q1 weak spot of Year 1 of the 4-Year Cycle. Following the solid gains of typical pre-election and election years, the flat to mildly negative Q1 of post-election years is a notable transition. Breaking the 4-year cycle down by quarterly performance in this bar chart gives a clear view of Q1-post-election-year weakness.

Potential reasons for this lull in the 4-year cycle are numerous, but the uncertainties of a new administration coming to Washington, D.C. are high on the list. The obvious reset of the cycle is a strong possibility. Two years of solid gains, fueled by election spending, result in elevated market valuation. This combination of big gains and an uncertain outlook has led to profit taking in the past and it is playing a role now. Not to mention economic, geopolitical, and monetary policy concerns.

But prospects for 2025 remain encouraging. Post-election years have improved since WWII and since 1985 DJIA averages a gain of 17.2% with eight up years and two down. This is the best average gain of the four-year cycle over this period. Despite today’s selloff my Base Case 2025 Forecast scenario is still the most likely with full-year 2025 gains of 8-12%. But gains are not as likely to be as free flowing as they were over the past two years and volatility is likely to remain elevated.

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haleyslibrary · 1 month ago

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Hi there! I've had a lot of new followers recently so I figured I should do a formal introduction!

My name is Haley, I'm on the cusp of 27 years old, and I love to read! I used to read a lot when I was younger but lost interest/capacity for it after high school. In 2023, I read 4 books. Then at the start of 2024, I re-discovered my passion for it in full force and read 45 books last year! :)

My favorite genres are fantasy, sci-fi, or dystopian. I've also made it a goal this year to read more classics. Some of my favorite series are Throne of Glass, ACOTAR, The Folk of the Air, and The Hunger Games. My reading goal for 2025 is 50 books.

I also love music, and my favorite artist is Taylor Swift (I'm a big swiftie). Some of my other favorite artists are Noah Kahan, Sabrina Carpenter, Lorde, Hozier, Renee Rapp, Gracie Abrams, Halsey, 5sos, The Lumineers, Mt. Joy, & Wilderado.

I also like to play video games, mostly RDO and SSO , and my brother bought me Witcher 3 for Christmas, so I plan on starting that once I have more free time.

I love cats, and I have 3 of my own: Ivy, Beans, and Daisy May. I also love horses, and I volunteer at a Veteran Equine Therapy barn on Saturday mornings doing animal care!

I love art and recently I've been getting back into creating it for fun. I started a junk journal that I use occasionally. I got an iPad for Christmas, so I bought Procreate and have been playing around with that when I feel inspired. I used to draw/paint a lot when I was in school, but I wouldn't say I'm very good. Too much of a perfectionist, I think, which makes it hard to do it for fun. It's been a welcome challenge to overcome that and make it fun again.

I currently work as a content creator for a car dealership, but I don't really love it. It pays the bills. I'm in a period of my life where I'd love a new job, but I don't know what I'd want to do. Nothing has really piqued my interest that also pays enough. :(

I'm also a sports photographer on the side. I was pursuing it as a full-time career up until a few years ago, but I've lost the passion for it, unfortunately. This is a big reason for my uncertainty in the job market. Outside of that I love taking photos for fun, whether it's with my phone, my point-and-shoot, or my DSLR.

That said, a lot of my blog is photos I've taken of my books! It also will consist of things related to the interests I've said here in this post, but mostly book things. Sometimes I'll post reviews or book-related thoughts. Mostly I'm just running on vibes though, and it's subject to change as I see fit lol

If we share interests or book favorites, feel free to interact or dm me! I'd love to meet more bookish friends!

Edit: I can't believe I forgot to add TV shows and movies!

Favorite movies (top 5, not in any particular order): Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Dune: Part Two, The Dark Knight, The Hunger Games Trilogy, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy!

I can't pick a favorite show, but here's some of the ones that I enjoy: New Girl, Schitt's Creek, Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, One Tree Hill, Bridgerton, Yellowjackets, Sex Lives of College Girls, Peaky Blinders, Stranger Things, Outerbanks, Normal People, One Day, The Bear, The Good Place, The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, Ted Lasso, Gossip Girl, Heartland, The Boys, Daisy Jones and the Six, Criminal Minds, Spinning Out (rip), The 100, and more probably lol

#get to know me #book blog #bookish #books #book lovers #books & libraries #books and reading #bookworm #booklr #book photography #fantasy #sci fi and fantasy #dystopian

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