#used to check these books out a lot from my local library growing up

[punster-2319]

For animation books that have been out of print for decades, these ones I found online recently are in pretty good condition (and reasonably priced).

[deathbypufferfish]

It's finally done cooking, my sims gameplay ideas list! After scouring all types of sites, generators, lists, and my brain for ingredients, I've come up with a list stew that hopefully will spark some inspiration for your sims gameplays!

This non exhaustive list consists of ideas that are applicable to sims gameplay/things to do in-game. AKA things that can be played out in the sims or half pretended. If you're looking for less-gameplay story ideas, I recommend my story/conflict idea list. Most of the conflict and love ideas are on that list. Please feel free to send asks to add to the gumbo! Just note in your ask that it's for the gumbo and keep it applicable/feasible for gameplay. (To keep the post from getting too long I'll make a contributor list into a compressed image later on for those who send off-anon.)

If you are looking for more complex, in-game story ideas check out the Story Soup list here!

🍲 Gumbo below the cut! ⬇

Single Sim Gameplay:

Learn an instrument

Learn a new skill

Start a seashell collection (Island Living)

Have a sim get a bad haircut

Enroll an Adult/Elder sim in university

Use a skill you don’t usually play with

Become a mountain climber

Build a Servo

Take care of local strays

Use more likes/dislikes

Conflict:

Drop out of or fail university

Drop out or fail out of highschool

Talk badly about another sim in your house to other sims

Sim loses their job

Failed retail business

Family:

Foster a child

Parties for children

Have a baby shower

Have a slumber party

A grandparent/other family member moves in with your main household

Have a specific family holiday tradition besides the in-game ones

Family bike rides

Game night

Parent trains child in their sport

Family hikes at Granite Falls

Family volunteering

Bake sale (entrepreneur table)

Have a family photoshoot

Have teens study at the library

Have your teen go through a bad fashion phase

Host an exchange student

Make school picture day photos (Teen poses, children poses)

Have an arts & crafts day

Go fishing as a family

Have a specific weekly meal (spaghetti night, a fancy meal)

Make ice cream together (Cool Kitchen Stuff)

Wear matching pajamas for holidays

Have a bake off

Play with voidcritters (Kids Room Stuff)

Granola family (camping, hiking, low tech, simple living)

Play in a multi-generational household

Adopt

Family reunion

Unexpected baby

Have siblings share a room

Social/Activities:

Sports party night (e.g. watching the superbowl, world cup, etc)

Start a book club (with clubs)

Have a themed kids birthday party (Here’s a helpful website for ideas)

Have a potluck (buffet tables)

Garden party

Neighborhood party

Neighborhood holiday decorating contest

Host a haunted house in your home

Picnic

Barbeque party

Go to the arcade

Go regularly to restaurants (Dine Out Reloaded Mod to make restaurants tolerable)

Have an out of control party (maybe a teen party)

Go camping

Go to an Ice skating rink/roller skating rink

Spa day (at home or at a spa)

Make an army of snowpals

Movie night

Stargazing night/camp out in the backyard

Weekly bowling night

Museum trip

Karaoke night at home

Campfire night

Pool day

Weekly meetups with friends at a cafe

Try on wedding dresses with a bridal party

Have someone stay over (Growing Together)

Love:

Hook up with a service sim

Have a vacation romance

Have a “meet the parents” moment

Have an affair

Divorce

Marital fight

Rejected proposal

Throuple/Open Relationship (Open Love Life Mod)

Left at the altar

Use fear of commitment, jealous, or unflirty trait

Create a rocky marriage

Challenges:

Spend too much money on a vacation

Play with lot challenges

Use simple living (only cook with ingredients and do grocery orders)

Don’t clean up after sims (don’t drag plates, laundry, trash)

Use the Reduce and Recyle lot challenge for realism

Use the Filthy lot challenge to make cleaning harder

Lose a large sum of money

Randomize your sims’ traits as they age up

Household:

Have puppies and kittens

A serious house fire (either with cheating or with fireworks. There is also a mod for more intense fires here

Spring cleaning

Garage sale

Visit houses before you move into them

Create a storage room/attic (Eco Living boxes, Discover University chest, toy chest, treasure chest etc) Use this for old heir’s items if you are playing a legacy

Start a garden (herb, vegetables)

Renovate the house

Watch what your pets are doing

Adopt a stray animal

Teach your pets tricks

Upgrade objects

Have a home bar/rec room

Go on a vacation

Play with roommates (additionally have them be odd, difficult, or a romance option)

Have an always messy home

Hire a live-in butler

Hire a regular maid

Location:

Play in a sustainable community on one of the islands/isolated areas. (community farm, community space, homes)

Play in a tiny home (Tiny Living)

Play in a haunted house residential (Paranormal Stuff)

Become an Archaeologist. Live in Sulani and regularly visit Selvadorado for work

Career/Business:

Bookstore

Art gallery: sell your paintings or buy them off Plopsy/Buy Mode

Bakery

Play a career you don’t usually play

Winter sports store in Mt. Komorebi

Own a farmstand for your produce (Eco Lifestyle entrepreneur table) You can even build a small building for it on your property!

Pet supplies store 

Plant store

Tourist gift shop

Mattress/Bed   store

Florist shop (Flower Arranging Skill)

Juicery (Juice Fizzing Skill)

Yoga studio (host classes at a retail business or at a home studio)

Start a Bed and Breakfast/AirBnB with the roommate system

Become a celebrity in a path besides Actor/Actress (Author, Chef, Video Creator, Skier, etc.)

Food truck (Restaurant)

Fish stall (Entrepreneur table)

Make a living on Plopsy

Wool store (Cottage Living)

Natural health store (Herbalism)

Resources Used

ADAM DRIVER GIF DISCLAIMER: YES I KNOW IT'S A STEW

[alliluyevas]

Have you ever posted about what about Mormonism first caught your interest and why its stuck as such a major interest?

I've been asked this before, but not for a while, so I'll answer again.

I've always been pretty interested in religion and religious history, I think part of this comes from growing up with a few very different religious perspectives in my extended family. I was raised Episcopalian and so was my dad, but my mom was raised Catholic and my dad's older sister and her husband are born-again evangelical Baptists. I was very much a type of kid who paid attention to and noticed stuff like this, so when I went to Catholic mass with my grandparents I would pick up on both similarities to and differences from what I was used to at the church my immediate family went to, and have questions about that. And my mom talked with me when I was still pretty young (late elementary/preteen) about why she left Catholicism and issues she had with it, and I also remember talking with her about how my aunt and uncle are creationists and what that meant and creationism versus evolution versus intelligent design and how to avoid arguments about this when we visited them. So I definitely grew up navigating having very divergent religious experiences and perspectives in my family and how to engage with people respectfully about that, and I was always curious about how different groups worship and define themselves.

I had a couple different phases as a kid where I was very interested in researching religious topics, like I got very into Ivanhoe in fifth grade and read a lot about the crusades and medieval Catholicism for a few years, and then later in middle school I first became interested in religious extremism and cults and I used to watch 19 Kids And Counting and read a lot of Time magazine special editions about Heaven's Gate and similar topics. 

I didn't really know a ton about Mormonism until I was an adult because I didn't know a lot of LDS people and I don't remember learning anything about Mormonism in my US History classes in school. When my brother and I were in elementary school, one of his best friends was a boy whose family was LDS so I had been over to his house several times and played with his sister and stuff, but I don't remember him or his parents really talking about their religion at all and I don't think I asked any questions either of them or of my parents. (Though I do remember my mom explaining that his parents didn't drink because of their religion, and I also remember reading the titles on their living room bookshelf and seeing a lot of books about Brigham Young and assuming he was my brother's friend's dad's historical blorbo essentially because my dad had multiple biographies of Abraham Lincoln and I thought it was a similar circumstance.)

About three years ago when I was living in Boston I was reading a fair bit about the Nation of Islam because a) Louis Farrakhan grew up in Roxbury where I worked and there's a main street in Roxbury named after Malcolm X, and I remember thinking that it was ironic that Farrakhan was the local but the street was named after Malcolm X and wondering if that pisses him off b) the Nation of Islam is fascinating to me in general. So I watched this Hulu documentary about the Nation of Islam and then Hulu recommended me a documentary about FLDS and I watched that too. I felt like the documentary didn't really go into enough detail about the historical context for modern Mormon fundamentalism, so I checked out the book Under the Banner of Heaven from my local library, and then I wanted to know more about early Mormon history in general, so I checked out a few more books, and then I got hooked and started ordering some of the ones the library didn't have online.

I can't entirely explain why my interest in Mormonism has stuck around, because I do tend to be very fixated on special interests and sometimes that kind of feels a little arbitrary, especially when that sort of hyperfixation intersects with and becomes genuine investment in academic scholarship (which it doesn't always for me, but here it did). I am interested in women's history in general and always have been, so I initially really found polygamy fascinating, and wanted to learn more about the dynamics of polygamous households. Specifically, the fact that early Mormons created a very controversial social order that wildly diverged from the norms of their culture, did this essentially from scratch, and were able to maintain it for roughly 3-4 generations of polygamist families despite significant external pressure and initial internal opposition is really interesting to me. I also think Mormonism is a very American religion that has also sometimes been at odds with American mainstream culture despite that and that's a very fascinating dynamic to investigate. I think I've also often been interested in attempts to create a new, utopian community or culture and the ways in which these experiments often fall short, which has been a constant in a lot of my historical interests like the American Revolution, the Soviet Union, and Mormonism as well.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Well, it's been a whirlwind few days! Thursday I went on the weekly phenology walk at Audubon Trails Nature Center in Rolla, MO. It's the last one of the year, and we were seeing if there were still any wildflowers in bloom in spite of the freeze a few nights before. We did find a scant few Asteraceae with open flowers, but for the most part everything was done for the year. It was a really good experience getting to wander the trails with someone who knows the local flora really well; I'm still playing catch-up on learning (and remembering) native prairie plants in this area, and since they happen every Thursday morning during the growing season, I'm going to make sure and attend whenever I'm in town.

Thursday afternoon I officially taught my first in-person class in Rolla with my basic mushroom foraging intro at the Rolla Public Library. I checked out SO MANY BOOKS from that library as a kid, and so it was basically coming full circle to be able to teach there. I had an awesome audience that packed the room, got some great questions, and really appreciated the support that library staff gave me throughout the entire process. I'm already brainstorming what I want to teach when I head back to this area next spring.

Friday I got to spend immersed in planty goodness at the Missouri Botanical Symposium. I had actually registered last year but ended up not feeling good at the last moment so I had to miss out. Totally worth the entire trip this year, though! There were some really great talks (I especially enjoyed the one on the interplay of geology and plant life in Missouri karst fens), and I even made some good connections and new friends! I am SUCH an introvert that it can be tough for me to go around introducing myself in a room where I don't know anyone, but luckily a friendly extrovert latched onto me and helped me meet some really cool people. (Also, pro tip: having art supplies out and in use makes for a great conversation starter, and if you bring enough for others to use you can have a little science illustration party at your table!)

Saturday I peeled myself out of bed early yet again for a very good reason--I got to lead a lichen hike at Audubon Trails! It sort of felt like cramming for a test because while the basic biology of lichens is the same everywhere, I'm not as familiar with local species here as I am back home in the PNW. So I visited the site a few times on this visit to look for cool lichens and try to get them down to at least a genus level, if not species. Again, really great turnout for the hike--people were having a great time, lots of excellent questions and discoveries along the way. And there were two kids from the Rolla Outdoor Collaborative School on site who were not only THE best guides to the trails there, but they found and showed off some cool stuff (including lichens, AND fuzzy oak galls!) The next generation of naturalists is already well on their way to helping others connect with the great outdoors, which does my heart good.

I gotta start driving back west tomorrow; I have classes in Portland next weekend. So today is being lazy, doing laundry, and helping my folks with a few more things around the house. It's been another great visit here, though, and I'm already making plans for next year. I'm going to try to schedule a couple of classes along the way for my spring trip; since I'll likely be taking I-70 since 80 is sketchy even in April, I'm probably looking at Salt Lake City and Denver for venues. I'm open to suggestions if anyone knows of a bookstore, library, nature center, or similar who might like to host a wandering naturalist infodumping about ecology for a couple of hours!

[libertyreads]

Book Review #8 of 2024--

The Exiled Fleet by J.S. Dewes. Rating: 3.25 stars.

Read from February 4th to 6th.

Man, can books stop getting printed with such absolutely TINY font? I ended up checking the ebook out from my local library to read this one because I was getting a headache from reading the small print. I know publishers want to save money by using fewer pages per book or whatever, but I'm getting older and my eyes cannot take the abuse. It doesn't help that I read two different books back to back that had such small font. Complaint over.

As some might know, I've been missing The Expanse a lot over the past several months. So, when a booktuber recommended this series I jumped on it so fast. I've been craving some Sci-Fi in my life. And I did enjoy book number one in this series. I read it last month and rated it 3.75 stars. This one doesn't live up to that first one for a couple of reasons. 1) It uses a lot of the same tricks or conveniences from the first book to make everything work out for our main characters. 2) When we weren't running into the same tricks over and over, we were running up against problem after problem for what felt like no reason. There's a specific moment in the book that I'm thinking of where they have to travel pretty far in order to get something to help with their task...but then they don't get it...and technically don't need it? Which felt weird. I know this was probably only there to move a certain aspect of the plot forward but it felt so clunky.

And maybe I need to put some of the blame on myself for not giving this book a fair enough shot. It isn't fair for me to want the first series from an author to live up to my love for The Expanse series. I heard someone say a while back that we need to meet books where they are in order to give them a fair chance and I think that's what I really should have done with this series as a whole.

Don't get me wrong though, there are aspects of this world that I love. Adequin Rake and Cavalon Mercer are such a wonderful set of characters. These are the two point of view characters we get throughout the novel and they're so absolutely different but there's something about their personalities that really make them play off each other really well. The side characters are also really great and deserving of so much love. There's also such a great moment in this one where Adequin, who has been away from any real society outside of the crews of the ships out at The Divide for over 5 years at this point, ends up on a station with a lot of civilians wondering around and we see her having to reign in her feelings about being around other humans she's not in charge of. And we get a moment like this again when she ends up planetside for the first time in that long and she has a weird sort of culture shock. Those moments really made me feel something about her and her life since arriving at The Divide. It was so good.

I do plan on reading the next book when it comes out at the end of the year. Maybe a little time away from these characters, this plot, these settings will make the heart grow fonder. And hopefully I can meet that book where it is when it does come out.

[deathlygristly]

I live in the biggest city in my southern state, and every day on the way to work I drive past a queer youth center. It usually has four big flags flying, and I think I've seen pretty much all the flags I've learned about on Tumblr rotated through their display. I also drive by a famous local queer store and a queer bar most days. Our local Pride festival draws 260,000 visitors each year. So to me personally here in my big Southern city, it feels like being queer is normal and accepted. At least in some areas of town - I don't know about the rich white suburbs as much. Speaking of which, according to the census my city is only 43% white.

So when people talk about the South being populated only by hateful white people, it feels completely removed from my daily experience.

I've been living here in the city for over 20 years but I grew up in a more rural and more white area 100 miles from here, but honestly I don't remember a lot of hate growing up either. I see on Facebook that a good few of the people I went to high school with have come out since, and not many still live in the same town but the great majority of us do still live in our Southern state.

I don't know. It's just been pretty obvious to me ever since I first started participating in political discussion online in the early 2000s that lots of people are classist and racist and any other form of prejudiced you can think of, and they like to say things about the Other being bad and the Self being good.

They especially like to project anything bad about the self into the other. Like "My town/county/state/country doesn't have any problems! It's those Others who are the problem! Everything would be perfect if it wasn't for them! Nuke the South! I don't care about the environmental/economic fallout that my area will experience as a result, because I am just saying random things to reinforce my feelings that I am Good and They are Bad!"

In the ye old times before I had a computer and an internet connection, when I was 9, I read every book the local library had on the Holocaust. No one in those books was from the American South and yet they were humans being human, with all the cruelty and dehumanization and destruction of the other in order to feel good about the self that comes with having a human brain and access to power, and the struggle to survive against other humans with power that comes when the humans with power have decided to target your group and project all their problems on to you and make you and your group a scapegoat.

As far as I can tell, hatred and prejudice and oppression don't have any roots in what particular bit of land a certain group of humans lives on. At most the climate and crops and history of the land help to provide a particular shape to the fluid of human hatred on that land, but that fluid flows through the whole species and we take it to every land we live on.

In other words, y'all ain't better than us, and if you really want to help the species get better at living together it'd probably be a better use of your time to look at your own area and figure out what misuse of power is going on there and work on that. Denying that there are any problems in your own backyard and projecting it all on to whatever weaker Other is popular to hate in your particular culture is very human, but it's something you can work on and eventually stop doing.

Anyway, I'm gonna spend the day listening to Carolina Chocolate Drops songs to wash the bitterness of reading some of the notes on this post out of my brain. I like to use their song Country Girl to introduce new people to them, so check that out if you want.

yall have got to be more normal about Southern people and I'm not kidding. enough of the Sweet Home Alabama incest jokes, enough of the idea that all Southerners are bigots and rednecks, and enough of the idea that the South has bad food. shut up about "trailer trash" and our accents and our hobbies!

do yall know how fucking nauseating it is to hear people only bring up my state to make jokes about people in poverty and incestuous relationships? how much shame I feel that I wasn't born up north like the Good Queers and Good Leftists with all the Civilised Folk with actual houses instead of small cramped trailers that have paper thin walls that I know won't protect me in a bad enough storm?

do yall know how frustrating it is to be trans in a place that wants to kill you and whenever you bring it up to people they say "well just move out" instead of sympathizing with you or offering help?

do yall understand how alienating it is to see huge masterposts of queer and mental health resources but none of them are in your state because theyre all up north? and nobody seems to want to fix this glaring issue because "they're all hicks anyways"

Southern people deserve better. we deserve to be taken seriously and given a voice in the queer community and the mental health space and leftist talks in general.

[nancypullen]

Sunday Evening

I'm stretching out the last minutes of this day because I don't want to face another work week. Not because it's horrible, but because this weekend was so much fun. We drove up to Lancaster, stayed in a gorgeous hotel on Penn Square, spoiled ourselves with room service, and just had the best, most relaxing time. On the morning of day one we roamed around the city of Lancaster, spending a good amount of time at Central Market - sort of a huge farmer's market inside a historic brick building. It was hoppin'. Think of any tasty treat, from freshly churned butter to exotic spices and you can find it there. Amish bakeries rubbing shoulders with Cuban spiced meats, Irish stew served up in a booth next to Polish pierogies - you get the idea. Several local dairies offering raw milk, tempting cheeses of all sorts, logs of flavored butter,and so on. The aroma of the baked goods made Mickey weak at the knees. It was so crowded that we didn't even stay for lunch. We wanted to, but decided we'd keep exploring. So we did. I was surprised that Lancaster had such a young, hip vibe. I'm not sure why I expected it to be more staid and full of white-haired folks like us. It's a beautiful city of gorgeous old buildings housing cool new stuff. I loved it. This is a view of Central Market from our hotel room.

Anywho... We hopped in the car and headed out for Intercourse. Get your mind out of the gutter. Intercourse, Pennsylvania along with Bird-in-Hand, and Strasburg are all towns east of Lancaster that offer a peek into Amish life and lots of wonderful garden centers, farm stands, quilt shops, etc. I'm waiting for some of Mickey's photos of the beautiful Amish farms (every one neat as a pin), buggies traveling up and down the roads, and the stunning countryside. I spent a lot of time exclaiming, "I want to live here" Think Tyler and Jamie would drive an extra hour to see us? It's so beautiful. I did snap a few photos. We pulled in to take a peek at the library in Intercourse and I enjoyed the parking lot...

Reserved parking for library patrons...please clean up after your horses. I'll take their horse poop over our bedbug books any day.

We traveled through covered bridges that led us to pretty towns,

and it seemed like we bought a snack at every stop. There is no shortage of tempting treats in Amish country.

ON day two we explored Lititz, Ephrata, and the surrounding area. Mickey wanted to pop into the nation's oldest commercial pretzel factory - it's in an old stone building in the middle of Lititz.

So we had lunch on this street...

and then walked right around the corner and found the Julius Sturgis pretzel place.

Mickey chowed down on a fresh hot pretzel and I picked up some snacks to take home. I mean, how often can you buy dark chocolate dipped pretzels shaped like a horse and buggy?

I'm barely scraping the surface of the fun that we had. We made numerous stops at garden centers and greenhouses because my husband is nice enough to hit the brakes every time I gasp, "Plants!" My favorite stop was a big Amish operation named Reiff's. They had the healthiest plants I've ever seen, all grown in their greenhouses that looked like showrooms. The prices were rock bottom. I filled the back of the SUV for $21. Herb plants were just 99 cents! I also picked up some extra bee balm (always trying to lure more hummingbirds and butterflies) and odds and ends. Their displays were so unique. Check out the succulents growing out of this old sofa.

It's kind of equal parts pretty and creepy, isn't it? Like you might see it in an a creaky old mansion occupied by a witch. This chair is less creepy.

I could have spent hours at Reiff's. While I walked through the greenhouses, Mickey was inside their store buying sauerkraut. He knows the way to my heart. He also bought a big ol' jar of their peaches. The orchards are right there and they boast acres and acres of peaches, plums, and apples. We brought home last summer's peaches and they taste like they were picked yesterday. Heaven! No heavy syrup, just delicious fruit. Does is sound like all we did was eat? I swear that's not how it went. We had a ball going town to town and admiring the picturesque countryside between them. I'd love to see it in every season. Did I mention I could live there? Real estate is quite affordable, just sayin'. Okay, I'm shutting up. I still need to paint my nails and get a few things ready for work tomorrow. I'll be back to share more when I can get my hands on some of Mickey's pretty photos. I'll close by saying that Lititz was my favorite town, the Amish have no fear of carbs, there is a peaceful magic afoot in that corner of Pennsylvania, and my husband is still my favorite travel buddy. It was a perfect weekend. More soon. I have a few long days ahead, but I'll meet you back here for a chat. Sending you lots of love and a sincere wish that the week ahead is a good one for you. Treat yourself kindly. Stay safe, stay well. XOXO, Nancy

[oldsalempost-blog]

The Old Salem post

                  Our  Local Tamassee-Salem SC Area News each Monday except holidays                                          Contact: theoldsalempost@gmail.com                              Distributed to local businesses, town hall, library.                            Volume 7 Issue 28                                                                                                  Week of July 24, 2023                https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/oldsalempost-blog                                                         Lynne Martin Publishing

EDITOR: ** Did you know the Oconee County School District is conducting a survey that will affect our elementary school under the long range plans?   There is a Plan A and Plan B, and a place for comments.  You cannot put in comments without choosing a Plan A or Plan B.  Both Plan A and Plan B are the same for closing the Keowee Elementary and Tamassee-Salem Elementary schools.    I reached out to Amanda Holder, our district representative on the school board, to ask her how the message is getting out to those affected to take the survey, since Steve Hanvey, one of the school administrators told news reporters that not many surveys had been completed. LRM  

From Amanda Holder: “I am one of five votes,” on the board.  “I’m going to need a lot of feedback” from the Tamassee Elementary area.  Please share the info on how to participate. See the following:  GO TO SDOC.org   SCROLL DOWN TO DISTRICT NEWS   CLICK ON SDOC LONG RANGE BUILDING PLAN    On the first slide, click at Public Feedback underlined SDOC LONG RANGE BUILDING SURVEY

Town of SALEM:  Need Softball and Soccer players!  Need Soccer ages  6 and under and 14 and under.  Softball players ages 8 and under and 12 and under.   Sign up at the Salem Town Hall.  944-2819.  The children’s area at the Town park is closed for now for renovations.  The picnic shelter can still be rented.         NEWS:  Check out Face Book Remembrance stories, Reflections of Yesteryears Gone by Brenda Dubose.  

Recreation Department:  Adult coed Softball game,  July 29.  Register and Pay at 5:30pm at the ballfield.

BLESSING BOX:  Have you noticed the blue box located across the street from the Dollar General? This is the Salem Community Blessing Box.  A blessing box is a way to give to those less fortunate.  They take what they need and leave the rest for sharing to benefit others in need.  The items are primarily non-perishable food, toiletries, and other necessities.  Canned food items are best with the pop-top lid, ( no need for a can opener).  Foods that are easy to prepare or already prepared are best.  A list of items is located on the blessing box. There are brochures with helper information on free or reduced school lunches, childcare, and food banks.    Cont next .....by J Young

Jottings from Jeannie:  Thought  you might need a laugh!  So, here are some snappy captions printed on Tee-Shirts:  * I HATE it when I see an OLD Person and soon realize that we went to HIGH School together.    *Nurses CAN'T fix STUPID, but we CAN SEDATE IT!   *Teachers don't teach for the INCOME, WE teach for the OUTCOME!   *I thought that GROWING OLD would TAKE LONGER!   *Scientists say the world is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons-- they forgot about all the MORONS!                                           Oh! You Queens of Issaqueena! You Kings of Lake Keowee!  Miz Jeannie love you so stay safe!!!

JOCASSEE VALLEY BREWING COMPANY,(JVBC) & COFFEE SHOP 13412 N Hwy 11 Open  Wed–Sat-Sat 8am-9pm. Sun: 12pm-7pm.  Events this week: Thurs: Food: KISS MY ASADA 5pm and OLD TIME JAM  6:30pm. Fri– PaChuy Food Truck  at 5pm  Music: McGaha & Lark at 6:30pm.  Sat–Food: IRON PIG 12 pm—Music:  Crank Dogs  6:30pm.  Sun: Choc’s BBQ Food 12pm-7pm,   Music: 2pm Neil Conway  4pm Peanut Butter Whiskey.      More information call  864-873-0048                                                

Pat’s Cash & Carry:  Best Hot Dogs & Ice Cream Cones around.and more. Tues-Sat 11am-4pm 944-1445

SiSterS Restaurant:  open Breakfast and Lunch Wed-Sat 7:30am-1:30 pm. Sun 9am-2pm.   944-8100

Conservation Corner:  YOU can be the source of change in Northern Oconee from sprawl and unwanted consequences of un-thoughtful development.  Let us think about conserving the area we live in instead of contributing to its eventual destruction for  failure to take the opportunity to act.  No area is immune to the effects of overdevelopment.  It kills everything that has ever been special about rural havens.   ...E Martin          

Ashton Recalls:  DAR SCHOOL STUDENT FROM 1942-46 RECALLS - (Seventeenth Installment of Pauline Kelley Cannon's Memoir). . .Earlier I mentioned Mr. Reiley being the shop teacher. He and the boys who worked in the shop made small boats for each of us to take down to Little River the week before we graduated and float them down to the bridge. We decorated them with emblems and flowers. I put a small American flag on mine, right at the very front. . .We also wrote wishes and dreams we hoped to accomplish after school. If our boat made it all the way to the bridge without getting hung up on the banks, those wishes and dreams were supposed to come true. . .My boat was one of the very few that made it to the bridge. Most everyone just let their boats stay in the river, but Ernest got mine as it went under the bridge. We made a vow to write to each other every day when we went home, and we wrote the vow on a slip of paper and put it in the boat. We kept that vow, too. . .TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK                                                                                                

Sound of Freedom: This is a heart wrenching movie about human trafficking and the driven-passion of a man to risk his life to help these children.  It brings an acute awareness of evil and darkness that no sound person wants to admit even exists.  Go see this movie!  It will continue to increase awareness of this crime against the innocent! What is even worse is that  our beloved United States of American is the worst in human trafficking compared to the whole world.

                                   EAGLES NEST ART CENTER , 501c3, 4 Eagle Lane, Salem  DHEC kitchen available & rentals                                                                                                                      

TALENT SHOWCASE:  August 12th.  This will be a fun evening to show off your talents on stage.  Please sign up by July 30th.  Please call 864-280-1258, 864-888-5663, or email eaglesnestartcenter@gmail.com.  All ages welcomed!  

SONGS of the COWBOY Trail- Aug. 19th, 7pm– A Tribute benefitting ENAC.  Jef Wilson sings the songs of Gene Autry, Bob Wills, Cowboy Copas and others. $10 or Cowboy Dinner & Show $20.

CLASS REUNION:  The T-S Class of 1978  is having their 45th Class Reunion at ENAC, Friday, July 28, 6pm-8pm. We are inviting former classmates, faculty and staff to stop by to share memories and a covered dish meal together.

SAVE THE DATEs:  Sept 16th, 7pm next Oconee Mountain Opry,  Oct 7th, 4pm-8pm Alumni Fall Gathering.  Oct 14th 7pm Elvis Returns!    See our eaglesnestartcenter.org website for more details and follow our posted events.  

          CHURCH NEWS                                                                                            Salem Methodist Church:  Community Women’s Bible Study each Monday morning, 10am in the Fellowship Hall. Also join us in our one day Bible School and back to school day that begins with the July 30th Sunday morning worship at 10:30 am and will go on until the afternoon with a hike to Oconee Station Falls.                                                     

TAMASSEE DAR AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM:  Sign up beginning July 3 for the Tamassee DAR Afterschool program that begins August 3.  Call 864-944-1390   for more details.                                                                                                                                     Pray for our children and our nation!  LM                        

[deathlygristly]

Thank you for the explanation. The first post really confused me.

I'm still thinking through this. No one was really ideological around me when I was growing up. I just read books and came to my own conclusions. And yeah, I'm old enough that I didn't get internet access until I was around 16 and a half and plenty of different books were available in my small town's library and no one cared what I checked out, because in the 80s and 90s fascism wasn't super popular in the US yet so people weren't so intense about things like that.

I'm fairly sure that I'm on the autism spectrum. The spousal person too - we call it being One Of Us. :) So I'm not quite sure I get neurotypical empathy. Also if this gets long and windy and personal I promise it's not me being pretentious, it's just how my brain works and how I've always worked through things.

For me, basing my politics on empathy means mostly reading the experiences and thoughts of others in both non-fiction and fiction, or watching the experiences of others these days now that one of the spousal person's special interests is Korean dramas and we have so much access online to other people telling their stories. Then I combine other people's experiences with research into history and psychology and attempting to understand why humans harm other living beings and what ways we've come up with to reduce harm to arrive at my understanding of the species and its current reality, which is always subject to change. Both in the sense that I am always learning more so my understanding may change and also just that existence is change and nothing is permanent.

I can kind of see what you're talking about if I think about my brother. He shared the link to a Foreign Policy magazine article I shared on Facebook about Russian propaganda, and he also shared someone else's post trying to say that support for Ukraine was wrong because of Helene damage? Even though the damaged areas are getting the help they need (we're in North Carolina so we both have access to local news about this) and it's pretty obvious that propaganda trying to make Americans upset about aid to Ukraine comes from Russia, as explained in the article he shared from my post.

I don't know what to say to him. Honestly I could probably explain it like I just did, like just point out that hey Russia is invading Ukraine right now so maybe think about where this is coming from and link to some stuff about FEMA funding and Ukraine aid and he'd be like oh okay, but it probably wouldn't stick. He's not very good at thinking.

The more I think about the problems I had communicating with my family growing up and how I've always wondered what it's like to have parents and siblings that you can have conversations with, though....

I don't know, I still kind of think it comes back to empathy. Just maybe a different understanding of what that word means.

Currently on the internet a lot of younger people seem to think that empathy means feeling the exact same feelings as another person at the exact same time they're feeling those emotions. I've always thought of it more as being able to understand the perspective of a living being who's not you. I know that my family has a lot of trouble with that. Probably my father was good at it, I mean one of the stories my mother constantly repeats is that she was really angry at me when I was a toddler and he walked in and got upset and asked "What's going on here?!" about it, but he died a month after I turned seven and then I was on my own with the non-perspective taking people.

It's not on purpose with my brother and he doesn't mean to be cruel and hurtful, but plenty of times growing up he didn't realize that I didn't want to go to the club until I went out and sat in his car reading a book after he forced me to go to the club with him, or he didn't realize that I didn't want to be dunked in the water until I repeatedly kicked him with all my strength while he was trying to dunk me, and honestly I don't think when we were there last weekend he ever figured out that a car festival with a lot of really loud noises and exhaust fumes was deeply unpleasant for me, even after the spousal person gave me his noise-dampening airpods to wear.

So I think there is at least somewhat of a case that people who are deeply ideological and very committed to harmful things aren't great at empathy. They may want to be kind and good and helpful to others, but if they keep insisting that their beliefs are the correct way to do those things when other people explain how the actions and laws and policies that come from those beliefs is harmful I do think it shows a lack of perspective taking.

Hmm. Maybe I get so confused when people talk about empathy online because they're talking about immediate subjective feelings and I'm talking about being able to understand the perspective of other living beings.

Actually, isn't the convincing people that there are better and less harmful ways to enact their values a matter of trying to get them to see the perspectives of the people who their behavior and votes and policies are affecting?

Gotta go eat dinner now but again, thank you really a lot for your post that really helped clarify the OP for me. Will be thinking about this.

you know how there used to be all those posts going around like “I don’t know any political theory, it’s not hard to have good politics, it’s called being a decent person” type stuff, where it’s like okay, well, if it works it works. but this year more than ever has convinced me that actually it’s really important to have political values to fall back on even in cases of high emotion, e.g. anti-imperialism or bodily autonomy. feelings like kindness, empathy, concern, just on their own, are politically neutral and can just as easily motivate conservative or even fascist political positions. you know. like what happens to empathy-based politics when it’s people whose lives are very different from yours, or where there’s a culturally-ingrained bias against seeing them as people, or if they are just interpersonally offputting and unlikeable. like how etiquette is for being polite when you’re not “feeling it”, you need something to fall back on, a metric to evaluate what a “just society” looks like for people you don’t personally know and/or like. am I making sense here

[ontheroadrp]

GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, WALDEN COLE (timothee chalamet fc)  

life on the road can be tough, but we’re glad you and yours made it to taos!

my boy’s wicked smaht!!!! - ro

[TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET, CISMALE, HE/HIM] ever heard about [WALDEN COLE]? Out here on the road, they have a reputation of being [INTELLECTUAL & CUNNING] but also [SARDONIC & STUBBORN], no wonder they’re called [THE BACKSEAT PHILOSOPHER]. According to local legend, they’re [TWENTY-TWO] and when they pull up to camp not a soul can mistake the sound of [STEELY DAN’S “DON’T TAKE ME ALIVE”] following them. Some say they carry  [A BLACK LEATHER-BOUND JOURNAL THAT’S SEEN BETTER DAYS, A BOOTLEGGED RECORDING OF FIDEL CASTRO’S “CHE DIED DEFENDING THE CAUSE OF THE POOR” SPEECH, AND WHATEVER TATTERED BOOKS HE LIFTED FROM THE LIBRARY] and have been traveling with [THE CON JOBS].   [nikki, 25, she/her, central]

biography

tw: mentions of abuse, mentions of homophobia, mentions of communism

Walden Alexander Cole was born on April 23, 1963 to Margaret Cole and Dale Smith. They weren’t exactly high school sweethearts– Maggie was sixteen and Dale was nineteen when they met. At seventeen, she was pregnant with Walden. When her parents found out, they were quick to kick her out, adamant that they wouldn’t support a child conceived outside of marriage. So, just four months before Walden made his grand appearance, Maggie picked up and moved from Vancouver, Washington to Depoe Beach, Oregon to live near Dale. Dale was sort of around for the first few years of Wally’s life, though mostly he just blew into town to ask Maggie for money after he lost big gambling or needed bailing out of jail for roughing up whatever girl he was seeing on the side. For a long time, Maggie would give him whatever he wanted, hoping he’d stay and be a father to his son. Of course, he never did, and when Wally was four, Dale left for good, moved to Florida with some younger girl. He was too young to remember much, other than his mom being close to comatose for a few weeks; so much so that his grandmother came to stay with them for a few weeks. Suppose grandma’s nagging was grating enough that Maggie snapped out of it and landed on her feet– more or less.

They didn’t have a lot of money; Maggie had dropped out of high school when she’d gotten pregnant with Wally, and though she considered going back or at least getting her GED, she never managed to get the timing right. Maggie worked as a hairdresser and had dreams of opening her own salon one day, when the money was there, but with a growing boy, that dream continued to be shelved. They did alright, but Walden distinctly remembers waiting in the long lines at the food pantry on Saturday mornings and the stream of guys his mom brought around who helped with rent or bought dinner. Despite it all, Wally had a relatively happy childhood. Maggie adored him– it felt sometimes like she was trying to make up for his father, the way she doted on him. Even after her long shifts, she’d come home and read Wally whatever book he’d picked up at the library, or help bind together the “book” he’d written that day, or, on really rare occasions, help him sneak into the church on the corner and teach him something on the piano. Walden always thought of his mom as his best friend, and felt like he didn’t really need anyone or anything else.

When he was in fifth grade, Maggie lost her job at the salon. Rather, the salon shut down– business just wasn’t what it used to be, and the owner forfeited the property in favor of cutting hair out of her living room. That left Maggie with nothing but her last paycheck, which was barely enough to cover rent in a good month. Between what they got from the food pantry and what she could scrape together with the remaining dollars of her check, they always had something to eat. Always– she would never let her baby go hungry. But, the power was cut off, then the water a few days later. All it took was one report form a nosy teacher who’d noticed Walden hadn’t changed his clothes in a few days, that he seemed a lot hungrier than usual at lunch, and that he turned in work late. Wally was taken from his mother when a judge who didn’t know them from Adam declared that as long as she was unemployed, her home wasn’t the right place to raise a child. 

So, he was sent to live with his dad in Florida. To this day, Walden isn’t sure if he’d preferred being put into the system– he’d heard the horror stories from kids in his class, but he was sure his dad was worse than all of them. He was a mean drunk, and he disapproved of Wally from the second the social worker dropped him off at the shitty duplex in Pleasant Glade. He had a problem with Walden’s name (it was queer), had a problem with his long hair (that’s for girls), had a problem with his stature (he was too damn skinny), and he certainly had a problem with Wally’s smart mouth. Wally tiptoed around the house for a few weeks, doing his best to stay out of the way. But things came to a head one night, and Walden wasn’t fast enough to dash out of his dad’s reach. He’d always been on the small side, so he knew he was no match for his dad physically– he did the only thing he knew to do and stole fifty bucks for a bus ticket. Obviously, nobody was going to sell a bus ticket to an eleven-year-old, but his mom had already been called. Maggie was in Florida the next day, taking Walden home within a week. She apologized to him the whole way home, promised it would never get that bad again, swore that she’d gotten a nice job waitressing and the tips were good, so he had nothing to worry about, and things went back to normal. Mostly.

Maggie and Walden’s relationship changed as he got older; it got more complicated. First, there was the gay thing. He was thirteen when it hit him, that as much as he’d heard about love and romance and classmates having their first kiss, his path would look different from theirs. He didn’t want any of that with girls. Honestly? The thought grossed him out. The only thing that made him sicker was the idea that his mother would be heartbroken that her son was so different, that she’d never get grandkids. So, he pushed it away, buried any “wrong” desires he had in his books. By eighth grade, it was clear to Wally’s teachers that he was smart; more than a voracious reader, he was quick-witted and persuasive. Maggie was thrilled, and quick to brag to whoever would listen that her son was a genius (demonstrably not true) and that he was going to go to college and become a doctor or a lawyer or something equally impressive. 

Walden loved his mom and wanted nothing more than to make her happy, to bring in enough cash that she could finally have a house of her own… but in his reading and involvement in local politics, he’d become utterly disenchanted with the idea of working for the man. Still, school came easy to him and though he often challenged assignments and prompts, he continued to do well. So well, in fact, that he landed a full-ride scholarship to Emory University in Georgia. He was completely convinced he was going to turn it down, feeling his time would be better spent doing volunteer work, canvassing, and diving into the world of grassroots organizing and unionization. After all, Oregon was a hot spot for union organizing in the 70s and 80s, and Walden never felt more alive than when he was at a rally, feeling the rush of solidarity with his neighbors, the buzzing in his veins when he was chosen to speak on behalf of the workers for the first time at seventeen. But, he couldn’t bear to ruin his mother’s dream– a second dream he’d ruin by existing. So maybe he was wrong to go to college for her, but Wally figured it was the least he could do to pay her back for the eighteen years she’d cared for him.

In August of 1981, he packed up a duffel bag and hopped on a cross-country train to Emory. He knew immediately that he didn’t fit in. His ripped up jeans and well-worn tennis shoes were a stark contrast to the pressed khakis and boat shoes of his peers. But, Wally had always been an outsider– a contrarian– and figured he’d lean into it. Rebrand a little. He grew his hair out, got his ears pierced, and started going by Cole. He quickly became known for arguing (monologuing) in class, and though it fulfilled a deep need to put yuppies in their place, it didn’t exactly earn him any popularity points. Cole was a loner, but he didnt’ care– every weekend his peers spent partying, he spent at a rally for civil rights or neck-deep in the library preparing some brief or manifesto to force upon his classmates. It didn’t take long for him to solidify his degree plan: Philosophy and History with a minor in French which he tacked on because he’d taken it in elementary and enjoyed the classes well enough.

Always the contrarian, Cole didn’t mind a little heat! He could take whatever jokes were hurled his way, and was always ready with a snarky response. But, growing up didn’t exactly fill Cole out, and when his rich, meathead classmates started sniffing around to figure out his sexuality, he knew his twiggy frame wouldn’t get him very far. And if they got wind of the fact that he spent every weekend at a gay bar outside of town? He knew it’d be a constant stream of black eyes and bruising and maybe worse. It was during one such confrontation after class– Chad or Brad or Dan was upset that Cole had bested his buddy in an argument about stoicism or something– and was accusing him of being queer. If Cole believe in God, he’d have thought Sonia was an angel, the way she swooped in and saved his scrawny ass. They instantly hit it off, so faking their relationship came naturally; Sonia was one of a handful of people who could put Cole in his place, and one of even fewer who seemed to like him because of, not in spite of, all of his grandstanding and sarcasm. They’d play the game during college to take at  least one target off of Cole’s back (and for Sonia herself to fly under the radar)  and “break up” just before graduation. No one would be the wiser! They still keep in touch, because as much as their arrangement started as a mutually beneficial deal, they grew fond of each other. She’s the closest thing Cole has to a sister, after all. 

As much as Cole loved college– the freedom to take classes like History of Marxism and Philosophy and Henry David Thoreau– he knew it was essentially a waste of time. Why did a fancy piece of paper that most of his peers bought instead of earned entitle him to a better job than his friends in the city? Than the farmers and miners and blue collar workers back home? At his mother’s insistence and his academic advisor’s advice, and despite his protests to both, Cole applied to a few law schools. He did have a penchant for arguing, after all, though he couldn’t imagine being paid to do it for the highest bidder. He got his acceptance letter from Harvard Law the very same day he was arrested with a group of students in downtown Atlanta, at a peaceful protest to raise the minimum wage. It wouldn’t have been a problem, he knew– nothing a persuasive essay couldn’t fix for a white man– but it didn’t sit right with him. Was he really going to go into thousands of dollars of debt to become a lawyer and then wear a stuffy suit and hide his identity just to pay off the debt for the next… fifty, sixty years? 

It was the kick he needed to really take account of his life, and Cole decided that after graduation he’d hit the road– maybe forever, maybe for a little while to figure out what was next. And as long as he was ripping off the band aid, he figured it was time to come clean with his mom about his sexuality. The train ride back to Oregon was awkward and too quiet, at least on Cole’s end. His mom was already talking his ear off about how he was going to love Boston, how she’d gone once when she was a girl and had fallen in love with the East coast. Cole’s not sure which piece of news she took harder: Cole declining Harvard or Cole declining heterosexuality. He still remembers how her face fell when he said he wasn’t going to Harvard; tough pill to swallow, but expected. She argued a bit, yelled at him about how he was supposed to be the change their family needed, demanded to know why he’d even gone to college if he was just going to piss it all away. But when he came out to her? She was silent. Cole couldn’t tell if she was more sad or angry or none of the above, going comatose again. When he finally got her to speak– after begging her to say something– all she could manage was: “Your dad was worried about that. He was right.”

Cole ran, then. He didn’t want to stick around long enough for her to come out of the shock, didn’t want to see the sadness in her eyes when she looked at him– it reminded him too much of the first ten years of his life, when he was nothing but her sad little fatherless son. He’d gotten spoiled in the in between, the years when he was her brilliant son, her college boy. To be this was too much to bear. Cole took the train to Portland and stuck out his thumb with no plan other than to go. He lucked into a solid group of people– THE CON JOBS, they call themselves– and happily monologues from the back seat when he isn’t busy fighting with the driver about whether or not Steely Dan is the most appropriate music for the road (it is). He’s not sure where he’ll end up; Cole figures that he’ll eventually make his way to South Carolina-- the last place he heard dear old dad was-- to confront him, force him to fork over some cash for mom, at least. Cole’s happy enough going from place to place, stopping in town long enough to make enough money for gas (and a little extra he always sends home to mom, gradually paying her back as best he can). 

stats

Please distribute up to fifty points among the following stats! Click here for more detailed instructions on stats.

Athletics -2

Burglary 2

Contacts 1

Crafts (Sewing, mending, basket making, weaving, etc. etc.) 3

Deceive 3

Drive (like, actual driving ability) -2

Empathy 2

Fight -3

Investigate 2

Lore (Kinda like knowledge) 3

Navigation 2

Notice 2

Physique -3

Provoke 3

Rapport 1

Resourcefulness 2

Stealth 1

Will 3

extras

https://www.pinterest.com/godstruckkkk/the-backseat-philosopher/ 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3dlyEO73Qo2TXxrc8hKfDz?si=67065a7c415746d6&pt=207c90dae63cb280919f863afb2dc6dd 

[kiingocreative]

The Structure of Story is now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book

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Performance coach Tony Robbins says that the quality of our lives depends on the state we live in every moment of every day. That state, whether we’re happy, sad, frustrated or excited, depends on three things:

• Our physiology — the way we move our bodies, the way we breathe and what we do with our face.

• Our language — the words we use, whether spoken out loud or inside our own head, to describe our experiences.

• What we focus on — the things we see versus the things we block out or fail to notice.

Today, I want to zone in on that final piece, because what we focus on is key, and it will in turn affect the way you move your body and hold yourself, and the language you use. I see this play out so much around me in general, and in the writing community in particular.

At any given time, the things we focus on determine how we feel and what we make of a situation. And what we focus on, in turn, is governed by the questions we ask ourselves every moment of every day.

Take your writing journey for instance:

If someone leaves you a negative review, do you ask yourself whether this means you’re a failure and your work is a failure? Do you ask yourself how dare that person belittle your work with a bad review? Or do you ask yourself what you can learn from this? Could you ask yourself how good it is that this person was honest in their feedback, so that readers with similar tastes won’t buy your book—and therefore not spend money on a read they might otherwise dislike and rate negatively too?

See how different questions would illicit different points of focus, and therefore different states? Some are more conducive to a positive mindset, whilst others tend to nurture frustration.

‘Why’ Questions: The Endless Loop.

And so it goes that by asking lousy questions, we get lousy answers. Because our brain has this tendency of taking any request we give it and processing it, regardless of whether or not it’s good for us. It’ll scour through the recesses of our mind and go on and on until it finds an answer.

‘Why’ questions are the worst, because there’s often no clear answer, or more than one possible answer to them, and it sends our mind on a chase to find as many possible reasons, processing like a headless chicken, often going around in circles, leaving us ruminating.

Take our example again: What if you asked yourself ‘why is this person leaving me a bad review?’

Now unleash your brain on that one, and let it roll with it—you may get:

• Because they didn’t like the book.

• Because my book is terrible.

• And if my book is terrible, then that makes me a terrible writer.

• Maybe I should just stop writing.

• Who was I to think I could do this?

• I’m clearly not good enough.

• Or maybe they left a bad review because they’re an idiot and didn’t get the brilliance of my work.

• Clearly they’re a moron.

• Maybe I should track them down and tell them just that.

• Maybe I should rally everyone I know on Instagram to shame that dimwit for leaving that review.

• …

… this can go on, until it loops back to the top and starts again. Sounds familiar?

What kind of state do you think you’d be in from obsessing over those disempowering, angering questions, never able to get closure because the loop has no logical end?

Empowering Alternatives.

My own experience of asking myself lousy questions, and my interactions with others within the writing community, have left me convinced that writers need to start asking themselves more empowering questions.

Because the way we tend to ask questions to ourself—those that breed anger, and resentment, and self doubt—ultimately only bring us back to two fears that sit at the root of it all: the fear that we’re not good enough, and the fear that we won’t be loved (or appreciated, or liked). These fears can be crippling. And that can’t be good for anyone’s art anywhere.

I’m writing this today to give you some more empowering alternatives. Some that I have used along my journey and have helped me improve.

Here are four examples:

#1 — gearing up for success:

• Instead of: ‘Why are other writers so much more successful than I am?’

• Ask yourself: ‘What I can learn from other writers to become more successful myself?’

There’s a lot of comparison out there. We know we shouldn’t fall into the trap of it, but it’s easier said than done.

If you see fellow writers thriving with their writing, their social media strategy or their exposure, try modelling what they do that is working and find what, from that, works for you.

Better even, reach out to people and ask them for advice—most people will be more than happy to share, and it’s a great way to build a network!

#2 — boosting sales:

• Instead of: ‘Why am I not selling books?’

• Ask yourself: ‘What I can do to increase my book sales?’

It can be discouraging to have published something, and to see your sales figures stalling. If you start wallowing in self pity through disempowering ‘why’ questions, you’re bound to start spiralling.

Instead, make a list of what you could do to help your sales along.

Here are some ideas that come to mind:

• Seek out book clubs and put your book on their radar. See if they’d been interested in reading your book and having you for an author Q&A when they’re done reading the book.

• Look into running promotions on Amazon (like discounted eBooks).

• Go local! Reach out to your local community and spread the word (cafes, local bookshops and libraries, local Facebook groups and communities etc.) and give them a chance to support a local.

• Contact your old school or university and enquire about showcasing you and your book as an alumni success story.

• Build genuine connections with fellow writers, avid readers and book bloggers. These relationships are a fantastic way to increase your reach and spreading the word about your book—and as a result, improve sales.

• Offer to do a read and review swap with a fellow author, where you read and review each other’s book.

• And so on.

If you start asking your brain to think outside the box, it’ll do just that!

#3 — the writer’s life:

• Instead of: ‘Why can’t I be a full-time writer and have financial security from writing?’

• Ask yourself: 'How is my present occupation helping my writing?’

• …And then ask: 'What can I do to increase my revenue from writing?’

This is one topic that’s been crossing my mind a lot, and I suspect many of us out there have pondered it at one point or other. If asked the wrong way, this question can send you spiralling into a frustrated state.

I don’t write full-time at present, and I have had my moments of daydreaming hours away, wishing I could live off my craft. That never led to anything very productive.

What I have found helpful however has been to focus on what my day job enables me to do with my writing:

• It takes away the pressure of earning a full income from writing.

• It gives me time to write and experiment with my craft in different forms.

• It enables me to look into ways to monetise my writing at my own pace.

• And that’s made for much more exciting trains of thought!

#4 — social media guru:

• Instead of: ‘Why can’t I manage to grow my Instagram reach?’ Or ‘why is social media sapping my energy?’

• Ask yourself: ‘What can I do to create a healthier balance when it comes to promotion efforts?’

Social media is a tricky one. It has incredible benefits if leveraged the right way, and it’s an amazing tool to get yourself and your work out there. In fact, I recently wrote a piece on the immense value of joining Bookstagram for writers.

But it can also be a drain, because the mechanisms of social media are built on the principle of addiction. It’s literally designed to suck you in and make you crave more, and fear that you’re missing out and not doing enough.

To avoid falling into that vicious circle, I’ve found it much healthier to ask myself how I can find the right balance to achieve what I want with my social media presence whilst also keeping my sanity. What this ends up being will look different for different people. If you’re unsure where to start, think about what you find challenging about maintaining your social media account, then what you find helps with your peace of mind, and try to find a middle ground somewhere in between that meets your needs.

Ask and thou shalt get.

I’m a firm believer in our ability to manifest our reality—at least to some extent. If you focus on all the wrong things, then your reality will look challenging and bleak.

If you train yourself to look for constructive ways forward and to get yourself excited about making the journey smoother for yourself, then finding that sweet spot that works for you can be a fascinating journey.

And that all starts with asking the right questions. Finding the right point of focus. Writing can be a wonderful, yet at times confusing and challenging journey. So do yourself a favour: where possible, take away those mind blocks that stand in your way!

Different questions about your writing journey illicit different points of focus, and therefore different states. Some are more conducive to a positive mindset, whilst others tend to nurture frustration.

[theunstuffedpepper]

Somehow it’s December already? And I’m 12 weeks along? The 12-week mark feels like a nice milestone. I’ve got some major pelvic aches but a lot of the nausea and exhaustion is getting better, thankfully. I’ve got my NT scan on Wednesday of this coming week and my parents are coming up to visit and watch pep that morning so that B can actually come along and see his first ever ultrasound. Exciting! I’m also on vacation all week — double exciting — though I’ll still have to be available to check/respond to emails and join a few meetings. Sigh.

We were gifted (another) Hello Fresh box way, way long ago and couldn’t redeem it until recently for some odd reason, and after this one, I’m convinced Hello Fresh is not for us. While the meals are tasty for the most part, there are never leftovers, and I’m not a huge fan of having to cook a new meal every single day with not a scrap left over. I’m gonna have to figure out an easy meal solution for after baby #2 comes along. Maybe Factor 45, like @losingitinvirginia is doing? Though we’re a household without a microwave, so.. I dunno. I’ve got time to figure it out.

Randomly, I joined a local mom-group book club and the first meeting I’ll be joining is next week. I borrowed the book (“In a Holidaze”) from my local library three weeks ago and naturally I’m only like 1/4 of the way through it. I just cannot find time to sit and physically read things lately. Because of that, I decided to get the Libby app and start listening to audio books. I have plenty of time to listen to podcasts, so why not audio books? Plus, I seem to be running out of murder podcasts to listen to. 🤦🏻‍♀️ The few books I’ve looked up so far are all out with multiple holds on each copy, but that’s fine. I’ll get to them eventually. If you have book recommendations, please lay them on me!

We’re not doing much holiday decorating this year, which is bumming me out a small bit, but it’s for the best. We always get a real tree each year, and with pep being on the brink of walking and at the stage where EVERY tiny thing goes immediately in his mouth, it doesn’t make sense to go through the trouble of getting a real tree only to stress about every little pine needle getting sucked up by our resident baby vacuum. Plus, we’re traveling to NJ again for Christmas, so we won’t even be here to open presents under our own tree. Maybe next year.

That said.. we did manage to get some cute festive photos of pep for our first post-baby Christmas cards! We never do photo Christmas cards, but I wanted to start that tradition now that the family is growing. They get delivered Tuesday and I’m super excited to see them and mail them all out! If you’d like one, PM me your address! 🎄

[beeseverywhen]

I'm not a librarian but, for me a big part of having a kids area in the library is about encouraging people to read that otherwise wouldn't be. The kids area in my local library doesn't only have books, it also has toys and is a place where kids can be loud and not disturb other people using the library. My local library is one of the only places locally to host free baby groups, so they are always singing in there and doing lego and all kinds of things that would be massively disruptive to people applying for jobs and researching local history and all the other stuff that goes on there. It's important to have quiet spaces for people to read, but also, those places very much end up being intimidating for adults that don't read. The families that most benefit from the kids area are the ones in which the parents wouldn't go to a library for any reason other than for their kids. But there being a kids area there helps them see it as a 'kids place' rather than a 'quiet reading place' which they might feel excluded from. Kids areas in libraries are about providing a space in which kids that don't have books at home can see that reading can be fun and can grow comfortable being around books.

Young adult areas are a different matter. Tbh I don't think these should be in the same place as the 'kids area' as it puts off older kids that don't want to be seen as kids. I do think it's useful to have areas in which we say 'hey are you a teenager/preteen? If so try this' because again it's about encouraging kids that aren't likely to get that from anywhere else and to those kids the adult area can look scary. Adult books are intimidating before you are ready to read them because they are a lot harder to get in to than ya books. That's the beauty of ya. I think it's important that everyone is welcome in all areas, as a preteen/ young adult I'd often read in the adult areas, as long as I behaved as was expected in that area of the library (quietly reading) it was no issue and my local library in no way restricted me to young adult books, I moved on to adult books far earlier than was strictly necessary in retrospect. To me, these areas being segregated is about inclusiveness. It's about making a space for the people that aren't being catered for in the other spaces. If that's your intention going in to it, then making those spaces ONLY for a certain age group, obviously goes against your aims. It shouldn't be a 'can I see your id' type situation, but I don't think targeting that space at your intended group when it comes to decoration and so on is harmful.

At the end of the day it's a balancing act and imo it's one my local library has always done pretty well at. You can see the kids area is obviously targeted at kids, but the librarians are happy to direct adults looking for picture books there, I've seen adults with learning disabilities picking out their books in that section many times. I've personally been in there alone as an adult to pick out books for my younger siblings (near a two decade age gap so I'm obviously an adult!) and nobody looked twice at me slowly browsing in that section just as i would in the adult section when looking for books for myself. The teen section is a seperate set of shelves (and is possibly called YA now, I have to admit i personally haven't been interested in those books for the past decade). I never had any problems checking out books both from there and from the adult section when I was a kid and I'd be surprised if anyone else does now. If someone's looking for YA books, the librarians send them there, no matter their age. I've seen adults who read YA argue that those books should be mixed in with the general adult fiction and that, I definitely do disagree with. There are adults who like to read YA but there are also adults that don't like to read it! I'd find it pretty irritating to have them all mixed in together and have to figure out if each book I'm picking out is YA when I personally don't enjoy reading that.

So yeah I do think there's a benefit to having prominent specialised spaces for certain target groups but I do think there's a way to go about that. You can clearly target something at children while still making that a space avaliable to anyone else that wants to access those books.

Hey @galaxystew, and the other librarians in my orbit, what are your feelings on separated kid and teen library spaces with 'no adults allowed' rules?

(In contrast to a more open sections/a gradated space, where seating either isn't tied to specific sections, or is otherwise open to anyone.)

I kinda hate them, but I want to know if I'm missing something major.

Issues I have:

The increased segmentation makes it harder for people with 'abnormal' reading habits to comfortably get books without judgement. (People with limited reading skill in English, adults that like child-friendly content, kids that want to read 'above' their age level, etc.)

They contribute to the destructive idea that adults interacting/existing near children or teens is dangerous.

They contribute to the idea that adult sections are dangerous for teens, limiting what some teens feel comfortable exploring.

Anxious, autistic, OCD, etc. adults may need to convince themselves that they're allowed to enter and pick out books for their own kids.

They make it difficult for people with low mobility to use some spaces.

The ones I've seen have often been precursors to more draconian policies aimed at keeping homeless people out of the library (though that may just be because I'm in a racist, classist city that's looking for every excuse).

I admit to being biased. I find they increase my anxiety about accessing spaces. I'm really angry with the library in my area that most prominently has these types of spaces, so I'm more likely to find fault.

(And I, personally, think that a YA section [given the content I usually see there] would have done more to scare me away from adult lit than the occasional 'middle age man having an affair with a teenager, featuring surprise sex scenes' books that I had to navigate as I moved away from the kids section. But I recognize that the majority of older kids/younger teens aren't aroaces that find mild romance to be one of the most squicky things around. So this isn't about whether there SHOULD be teen and kid sections, but whether they should be for teens only.)

[hellreads]

Hello, I just stumble on your blog. Seeing a comment from Wrienne which I also read on AO3, I wanted to ask if you also have AO3 recs..?

hi there darling, of course, I have some recs for you! since you didn’t ask for anything specific let me just share a few faves that you could only read/access on ao3 (I would also recommend you check my ficshelfs and use the ao3 filter to find stories exclusively posted there + i’ll still include wrienne’s works for other readers :3 ) | 🍒

OT7/MULTIPLE MEMBERS

❥ Right of Way by fringesofsanity ➴ Infidelity!AU | Jungkook x Reader x Jimin | Series ➴ In theory, things were simple: your best friend was Jungkook’s girlfriend while your boyfriend, Jimin, was Jungkook’s best friend. In reality, things weren’t always that simple. And mutually exclusive.

❥ The Hills by minlouvre ➴ Vacation/Exes!AU | Yoongi x Reader x Hoseok | Series ➴ A ski trip with old friends sounds like a fun time, right?

when your ex-boyfriend (who you hate but somehow always end up in bed with) and your stepbrother (who you are harboring not-so-secret feelings for) tag along at the last minute, you have a feeling it won’t be an uneventful weekend.

but fun? debatable. that remains to be seen. ❥ A Hundred Percent Human by Wrienne ➴ Hybrid!AU | OT7 x Reader | Series ➴ In which you (reader) are forced to take care of seven hybrids in a twist of fate.

After your estranged mother passes away, you're left with an unwanted will and the heavy burden of responsibility. Although you're desperate not to stray from the familiar path you thought was laid out in front of you with a fully human boyfriend who loves you more than anything, your life is thrown upside down once more after another unfortunate incident (that may or may not have to do with said boyfriend) occurs.

Drunk and down on life, you finally decide to deal with the house and the unsavory business your mother left behind. However, to your shock, you find that seven very different hybrids are included with both the house - and the business. Seven hybrids you never even met before - even less agreed to take care of.

❥ Dead Leaves by Wrienne ➴ Detective/Exes!AU | Yoongi x Reader x Jimin | Series ➴ In which you (reader) are a homicide detective about to face the biggest hurdle both of your career and life.

Married to probably the kindest but most boring man you’ve ever met and living in a town where nothing ever seems to happen means life for you is dull. Dull enough to drive you crazy with boredom and dissatisfaction. However, life changes abruptly when your old boss retires and a new man takes his place - a man you used to love (and sleep very regularly with) more than a decade ago. Especially when your husband comes home smelling of perfume, you’re unable to resist your more carnal urges and dead women start showing up across the city with unnerving frequency. ❥ See Both Sides Like Chanel by minlouvre ➴ FWB/Rich Kids!AU | Namjoon x Reader x Hoseok | One-Shot ➴ You, Namjoon, and Hoseok are inseparable. 

Three best friends that grew up together since you were all in diapers.But lately, Namjoon has been drifting away…

So on his birthday, you and Hoseok remind him just how inseparable the three of you really are.

⤷ or alternatively: a little less twenty-one candles, a little more “touch me”

❥ Love Is A Dog From Hell by yourlocalhoney ➴ FWB/Lovers!AU | Yoongi x Reader x Jungkook | Series ➴ You and Yoongi agreed on being good friends, co-workers, and friends who help each other out under the sheets. What you never agreed on was to catch feelings for each other.

Enter, accidental feelings.

Enter, Jeon Jungkook.

❥ The Uncanny by Sinsirella ➴ Arranged Marriage!AU | Jungkook x Reader x Seokjin x Jimin | Series ➴ (Y/N) is a young girl whose Life turns upside down. One day her mother surprises her with news of her arranged husband, forcing her into her new chaotic lifestyle. Join her journey and experience her new life through her eyes. Will she get along with her husband? Or someone else? What are they hiding? ❥ Seven Deadly Sins by mintedmango ➴ Hell!AU | OT7 x Reader | Series ➴ You stood suddenly, chair being pushed away by the backs of your legs, the rest of the sins standing with you as you looked around in panic. All except Sloth who was out cold in the corner.

“Oh, little pet, indeed, I am still hungry.”

❥ Walk Through The Fire by shellflower ➴ Supernatural!AU | Taehyung x Reader x Jungkook | Series ➴ In a world of supernatural beings, a normal human like yourself always found attraction and wonder towards these creatures. It was your kind heart that led you to become a doctor to treat such people. And it was your kind heart that led you into the arms of a young Alpha wolf who will accidentally force you down a path you were never meant to follow... ❥ Into Temptation by coconutty  ➴ Demon!AU | Taehyung x Reader x Jungkook | Two-Shot ➴ It was just a dare...

❥ Won’t Be Nice by coconutty ➴ Lovers/Poly!AU | Taehyung x Reader x Hoseok | One-Shot ➴ A night by the pool just got interesting...

KIM NAMJOON

❥ Covenant by fringesofsanity ➴ Arranged Marriage!AU | Namjoon x Reader | Series ➴ You are betrothed to Kim Namjoon, the heir of a real estate mogul. To say that it was a fairytale romance would be erroneous. You’re instead loped in the sad tale of the rich and melancholy.

❥ Read You Like A Book by coconutty ➴ University!AU | Namjoon x Reader | One-Shot ➴ Come get an attitude adjustment in the library, courtesy of Namjoon.

KIM SEOKJIN

❥ Éffleurer by @sugaurora / sugalights ➴ Office!AU | Seokjin x Reader | Series ➴ There were always whispers in your office about what secrets Seokjin hid behind his clean image. Now, you knew at least one of them. ❥ The City Comes Alive by minlouvre ➴ Musician/S2L!AU | Seokjin x Reader | Series ➴ Seokjin is a street performer who falls for a girl who is always passing him by. ❥ Seaside Sabbatical by dark_muse_iris ➴ Working Man!AU | Seokjin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ After an accountant in your firm is sent to prison, you are assigned to clean up the mess he left behind. Sorting out your clients’ disastrous business records proves beneficial when you meet the fisherman who teaches you the value of taking a break. ❥ Cake by yeyeniejjung ➴ Yandere/Killer!AU | Seokjin x Reader | Series ➴ "I was always hungry for your love. Just once, I wanted to know what is was like to get my fill of it. I wanted to be fed so much love that I couldn't take it anymore, just once." ❥ The Lord Taketh Away by dark_muse_iris ➴ Medieval/Werewolf!AU | Seokjin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ Every autumn, the dwindling harvest summons fears for the impending winter and its promise of scarcity. For Seokjin and his wife, faith lies in God and their local lord’s generosity to provide what their ailing son needs to survive another year. With each season, however, the lord grows cold-hearted and greedy, squeezing the young family to the brink of despair.

MIN YOONGI

❥ Zelus by SugaAconcept ➴ Lovers/Sugar Daddy!AU | Yoongi x Reader | One-Shot ➴ Yoongi becomes jealous when your close friend Jungkook puts his hands all over you right infront of his face. So, Yoongi decides to make sure you know who you really belong to. ❥ Carpe Diem by fringesofsanity ➴ Idol/Lovers!AU | Yoongi x Reader | Series ➴ Working for the UN, you are tasked to handle the poverty reduction campaign of a certain boy band. A certain rapper from the group however decides to mix business with pleasure.

JUNG HOSEOK

❥ Feel You From The Inside by coconutty  ➴ Idol/Staff!AU | Hoseok x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You've been watching him for months, little did you know, he's been watching you.

❥ As You Are by fringesofsanity ➴ Lovers!AU | Hoseok x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You're not the girl for Jung Hoseok. Him - who was sunshine and daisies and fireworks. You - who were back-alley darkness and used needles and burnt cigarettes. But he doesn't care. And you fucking hate yourself for it.

❥ The Thin Blue Line by bluesxde ➴ Pregnancy/E2L!AU | Hoseok x Reader | Series ➴ One badly-judged fling with Jung Hoseok, the son of a company-rival, leaves you with a little surprise.

PARK JIMIN

❥ His Throne by hseoks ➴ Royalty!AU | Jimin x Reader | Series ➴ You, a maid for the royal family, have sex with the irresistible Prince Park Jimin on his throne.

❥ Ineffable by fringesofsanity ➴ FWB!AU | Jimin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You’ve only shared your body to Jimin, mostly silent after the act. The one time you decide to bare so much more, you find yourself baring your soul to him, far more than you bargained for.

❥ Blue Side by hoseokiehopie ➴ Ghost/Lovers!AU | Jimin x Reader | One-Shot ➴ You’re all too familiar with the legend that says the dead can walk freely on Halloween. It’s a secret you hold deeply within yourself. When a classmate starts to break down the walls you built so strongly after your boyfriend’s passing, you have to decide if you’re going to remain in the past with the dead, or live among the living.

KIM TAEHYUNG

❥ Effervescence by fringesofsanity ➴ Idol/Fling!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Just like the fizz of a cola on a hot summer’s day, your encounter with Taehyung is short but sparkly sweet.

OR Getting married in three months, you and your girls attend Ultra Miami to cap your single life, a final hurrah of some sort. What you didn’t expect is meeting a beguiling boy with a boxy smile who gives you a festival you’ll forever reminisce.

❥ Minutiae by coconutty ➴ Stalker!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Y/N meets a mysterious and alluring photographer and wants to interview him. Along the way things start getting a bit strange. What happens when you draw the attention of someone who always gets what they want?

❥ Flower Arrangements by iq_biased ➴ Pregnancy/Lovers!AU | Taehyung x Reader | One-Shot ➴ From the moment you met Taehyung, his flourish for life drew you in completely. It wasn’t long before you fell head over heals for the tattoo artist who was so wrong for you, it felt right. But your story hasn’t always been an easy one, and just recently it’s become a whole lot more complicated…

❥ Freaks Forever by yeyeniejjung ➴ Criminal/Psych!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ "So tell me, Mister Kim, what's your ideal evening?"

"Ah..full moon, sex and drugs all night."

You are the psychologist to the world's most dangerous criminal, Kim Taehyung. Kim Taehyung is the man solely responsible for some of the most horrific crimes that the world has ever seen, from burglary, drug possession, sexual assaults, to brutal homicides of a total of 37 victims, though there are suspicions that there are more, that range from children to the elderly; both male and female. The two of you form an odd bond between your weekly sessions, causing you to somehow completely miss his blatant manipulation that soon controlled you in every aspect; resulting in his escape from prison and his bloodthirsty ways and eyes to be immediately turned onto you..but will he spare you in the end of the torturous time he keeps you or will your fate be the same as any other past victim of his?

❥ Slow Burn by fringesofsanity ➴ Idol/F2L!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series  ➴ He was just supposed to be one of those clients. But then he gives you a night you’ll never forget. ❥ Noona by yuu14045 ➴ Neighbors/Lovers!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Taehyung, Jungkook, and Jimin lives in same apartment building. One day Taehyung received a mail for another Kim. She turned out to be Jimin's new neighbor.

❥ Snapped by Kpopyandere ➴ Yandere!AU | Taehyung x Reader | Series ➴ Your relationship with your boyfriend hasn't been going well lately. His twin, Kim Taehyung, decides to take advantage of this.

JEON JUNGKOOK

❥ If You’re Struggling Like I Am by @btssavedmylifeblr / bts_ruined_my_life ➴ Idol/Lovers!AU | Jungkook x Reader | Series ➴ You are hired as a makeup artist for BigHit working with BTS. You are older than all of them, yet, despite your best efforts, you find yourself slowing falling in love with the youngest member.

❥ My Cheating Amnesic Fiancé by Wrienne ➴ Idol/Arranged Marriage!AU | Jungkook x Reader | Series ➴ A series set in our world featuring Reader, the sole heiress of a multibillion-dollar company, and the Bangtan Boys' Golden Maknae - Jeon Jungkook. Mainly a romance, though doused with angst, drama and the twisted ways of fate. ❥ Return by Kpopyandere ➴ Yandere!AU | Jungkook x Reader | Series ➴ As Seokjin's girlfriend, you're off-limits, but Jungkook doesn't see it that way

[sneakers-and-shakes]

Monthly Checklist: Deep Dive into the May Lifestyle Challenge

This month I’m running the #maylifestylechallenge on my Instagram (sneakersnshakes) and I wanted to take a moment to talk about what this is, where it stemmed from, and why it’s important.

In a previous post (one of my first ones actually) I talk about Setting Goals, specifically what I call Monthly Notes.

I suggest you read that post (linked here) since I’m only going to be brushing over the topic as I outline how I structure my months.

On top of my Monthly Notes (these are the goals more specific to each month) I also follow what I call a Monthly Checklist which is a baseline and applies to ever single month.

The checklist is broad on purpose and encompasses challenges that push me towards growth.

This checklist is as follows:

-something new

-something creative

-educating myself (usually denoted as documentary)

-giving back (usually denoted as donation)

I want to go down this list and talk about different ways these goals can be accomplished.

-.-

Something New

It can sound pretty daunting at first, especially for those who have done a lot of wild things in their lives, it can be hard to imagine what new thing you could possibly do. The key here is it doesn’t have to be a big thing.

Of course, if you’re able to go someplace you’ve never been or skydive or something crazy then that’s great! But your something new can be as simple as ordering a new drink at a coffee shop, or maybe trying out a new restaurant.

The objective of this goal is to further yourself in some way, push some boundaries even if it’s really small, and encourage exploration.

 Something Creative

Like all the other goals in the checklist, this is left broad on purpose. Maybe your something creative is as simple as taking a cool picture, or slightly more complex like trying your hand at painting some happy little trees or fruit.

Some easy ideas I’ve used in the past to check this off the list is

-making a card for someone (birthday, mother’s day, thank you cards, etc.)

-doing a photography challenge (I have one on my Instagram if you’re interested)

-practicing calligraphy or trying to write in different fonts

There might even be free art-oriented classes or events at your local library or craft store if you need more guidance. (These can maybe double as your something new)

The objective of this goal is simply to create, add something new to the world that didn’t exist before you created it!

 Educate Yourself

As you saw from the picture above this is something I usually do through watching documentaries. It’s the easiest way to learn about something that you might not have heard about or considered. (Or conversely offer a deep dive into a subject you’re interested in).

My go to website for educational and free documentaries is PBS’s NOVA, linked here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/videos/episodes/

Of course, you don’t have to watch a documentary, here are some alternatives:

-listening to a podcast

-reading a book

-going to a museum

Even watching a deep dive on YouTube is a great option. There are tons of ways to educate yourself.

The objective of this goal is to keep growing and expanding your knowledge base or simply just learning something new!

 Give Back

I usually do this by donating. Obviously, it’s important to check up on a charity before you donate but there are great sites like this:  https://www.charitynavigator.org/ that will help you gauge an organization.

You also don’t need to donate a lot of money, sparing ten or twenty dollars is still better than nothing.

If you don’t have money to spare, there are still ways to give back, donating old clothes or extra food is always a great option.

Volunteering at shelters, libraries or any charity organizations near you is also completely free and very fulfilling.

I also recommend adding this chrome extension if you want to donate money for free: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-for-a-cause/gibkoahgjfhphbmeiphbcnhehbfdlcgo?hl=en

Basically, every time you open a new tab you get a heart (a few cents of add money) and then you can donate those hearts to various charities.

The objective of this goal is to uplift and help others, to contribute to making the world a better place!

-.-

These four checklist items I set for myself every month is the inspiration behind the #maylifestylechallenge. It’s just a more structured way to accomplish these goals with each week having a different focus.  

(Last week was something new and this week is something creative, hence the blog post).

This checklist is a great way to set a baseline set of goals, especially if you don’t have, or want to set, any specific personal ones

So this month, I challenge you to the May Lifestyle challenge and see how it impacts you. Do you feel more productive? Or maybe just better knowing you’ve done something to grow yourself and others?

Please share your thoughts in the comments! I’d love to hear them!

Thank you all so much for reading! And I’ll see you in the next one!

[carriagelamp]

Since it’s Pride Month, I decided this year I wanted to raid the library for a bunch of different queer books to read. Mostly graphic novels in this case, because I’ve had a hard time settling into much reading lately... thought hopefully now that it’s summer and I finally have my second shot I’ll be able to relax a bit more and dig into some heavier novels again. For now, enjoy some light, queer reads that I indulged in this June.

A Wolf Called Wander

A beautiful novel I had been hearing lots about. This story follows the young wolf Swift, who grows up knowing that he and his pack are the mountains, and the mountains are them. It’s in those mountains that he grows and learns and loves… until disaster strikes and he finds himself viciously torn apart from his family and forced out of the mountains that have always meant home to him. Forced to survive on his own. Swift then begins a gruelling journey that makes him face injury, starvation, and the everpresent danger of humans as he seeks a new place he can call home, and new people with whom he can form a pack.

This is all based on the true story of a tagged wolf known as OR-7, following the unbelievable route he took through Oregon and northern California! It was a very neat read, and I’d definitely recommend it if you enjoy stories told from an animal’s perspective because this book is a master class in it.

Bloom

I decided for June to try to read a handful of different queer books, and this was one of the first graphic novels I picked up. It is a super sweet story and the art is lovely. It’s about Ari, a boy who has just graduated high school and is now desperate to move away from his small town and his family’s struggling bakery, to join his band in the city where they hope to make it big. An agreement is finally reached: Ari’s father will let him leave, if he can find someone who can replace him in the bakery, which is how Ari meets Hector, someone who sees artistry and peace in baking. For anyone that’s read Check, Please, it gives off those types of vibes!

Boule et Bill: Bill est Maboul

Another book of Dupuis comics, because I can’t get enough of them! This one I just stumbled across and ended up reading on a whim but it was very cute. Geared younger than the others I’ve read, but still quite funny. It’s the charming hijinks of a young boy, his dog, and the family they live with. Each page or so is a different stand alone joke, a bit like Calvin and Hobbes except expanded beyond a single strip.

Chicken Run: Chicken Pies for the Soul

This was a ridiculous urge I got and had to follow. I recently rewatched Chicken Run (which is, of course, one of the best movies ever made) and felt the need to see if it had ever been novelized. Well, I found something better than a novelization! This is a chapter book with “advice” and stories written by the various characters, post-movie. It really does a good job with grasping the different characters’ voices and making something simple and funny out of it. It was very cute (and available on The Internet Archive if anyone else feels like reading something ridiculous!)

Doodleville

I picked this up on a whim and honestly, I shouldn’t have bothered. It was not very impressive. Very mediocre, awkward feeling artwork, and a story that only slightly manages to redeem it. The concept was kind of neat, and I did like how the ending came about, the rest was rather… plodding. I did not like the main character at all, her friends felt very Intentionally Quirky Aren’t We Cute :3 in a way that just tries too hard, and… yeah. Meh. It technically gets the “queer graphic novel flag” but it’s so in-passing that it feels rather excessive to give it that.

If you are interested, it’s about a world were doodles actually exist as living creatures that can be drawn into existence (the rather unsettling implications of which is never fully explored). This is all well and good, until the main character draws a monster and takes it with her to her art club... where it begins ravanging not only her doodles, but those of her friends. Together they need to work together to figure out how to stop this menace.

FRNCK v4

Phenomenal. I adore the FRNCK series, and book four wrapped up the first “cycle”, revealing several of the big secrets dogging the series so far, and changing how things are going to be able to run in the future.

If you haven’t seen me talk about it before, FRNCK is a graphic novel (a franco-belgian bande dessinée) about a young orphan, Franck, who’s chafing under the constant parade of uninterested foster parents that visit the orphanage he lives in. Determined to learn about his mysterious abandonment instead, he flees the orphanage… but finds himself tumbling through time, landing among a family of cave-people who rather reluctantly take him in and ensure this modern boy doesn’t die in the strange, dangerous new surroundings he finds himself in. You can get these ones in English as e-books, so if you want a really kickass graphic novel series to read please try these.

Haikyu!!

I’ve heard so much about Haikyu!! that I finally gave in and picked up the first book from the library. And I gotta say, it’s well worth the hype! This series really does capture the best parts of a good sports manga -- which is to say the team is filled with interesting, enjoyable character who all need to learn to pull together, boost each other’s strengths, and cover for each other’s weaknesses. Love me some found family tropes and this series oozes it in the best possible way. And then you also get some very cool action scenes as it makes high school volleyball seem like the most intense thing on earth. I can’t wait to continue it

Queer Eye

I haven’t been keeping up with Queer Eye but I was watching it ravenously when it first came out, and this seemed like a very cathartic book to read… and it really was. It had the same gentle, loving encouragement as the show. It doesn’t expect you to change your entire life, but to learn to embrace who you are, and take small steps to enhance those things. There a segment written (presumably) by each member of the Fab Five, explaining the mentality behind what they do on the show and how you can grow in those areas too. It’s very zen.

Spinning

I got this graphic novel out at the same time as Bloom, but it was the one that interested me less of the two... though that’s just because I have less interest in “real world” slice of life as a genre and this one is meant to be autobiographical. If you’re into that, you’ll probably love this because it really is stunning. Very pretty, and the format and pacing is all really well done. It’s a coming of age story for Tillie as she grows up dealing with a crosscountry move, complicated friendships, a burgeoning attraction to girls, and attending competitive figure skating classes.

This Place: 150 Years Retold

A stunning and heart-wrenching graphic novel told by a collection of different First Nation’s authors/artists, recounting oral histories about the 150 years since the colonialist formation of the country known as “Canada”. In other words, this is a post-apocalypse story, but one that really happened and that entire peoples are still fighting to survive. It’s very eye opening and beautifully told. Very strongly recommend the read, especially if you’re at all interested in history.

Torchwood: Serenity

Whoops, not technically a book. I had thought these were technically audiobooks at first, but rather they’re audio dramas that were played on the radio. Still, I decided to include one because I’ve been listening to them like a person possessed and they’re too fun not to at least mention. Let me indulge in my obsessions.

If you don’t know Torchwood, it’s a BBC series that spins-off from Doctor Who, focusing on the enigmatic and flirtatious Captain Jack Harkness, who is running the covert organization known as Torchwood, which is tasked to protect humanity from and prepare them for alien contact. It’s goofy and campy but also more adult and heavy than Doctor Who tends to get, so it is (in my opinion) a really fascinating series. Though it also has content warnings coming out the wazoo so maybe make sure it’s for you before delving in.

Serenity specifically is possibly one of the best Torchwood stories I’ve ever experienced. The Torchwood team concludes that there’s an undercover alien hiding in the idyllic gated community Serenity Plaza, and so that means it’s up to Jack and Ianto to go undercover as a happily married couple and flush out the alien without being discovered first. Even if it means being sickly sweet together, pretending to care about the local neighbourhood barbecues, and actually caring a bit too much about the Best Front Lawn competition. What is truly magical about this one, is that it manages to make it a Fake Dating AU despite the fact that Jack and Ianto are actually dating in canon. But they’re both used to dating as a pair of alien hunters with insanely dysfunctional lives, and who now need to figure out how to deal with domesticity. It is marvellous.

Wilderlore: The Accidental Apprentice

A middle grade novel that felt a bit like a cross between Harry Potter and Pokemon. It’s about orphan Barclay Thorne who wants nothing more than to be accepted in the rule-bound village of Dullshire, and live up to his apprenticeship as a mushroom farmer. He certainly wants nothing to do with the fearsome Beasts who live beyond the village, deep in the Woods or the sinister Lorekeepers that bond with them. It was, after all, a Beast that had killed his parents all those years ago. But when he finds himself at the very edge of the forest, hunting for an elusive mushroom, he is suddenly unable to avoid any of that. Not when a wild girl and her bonded dragon appear to summon a horrible Beast and end up getting Barclay bonded to it instead. Now, if Barclay ever wants to be welcomed back into his home, he has no choice but to venture into the Woods and find a way to sever the bond imprisoning him to the massive, monstrous wolf now imprinted on his body as a living tattoo.

I honestly can’t decide how I felt about this one. I feel like it’d be a really fun read for maybe a grade 5 to 7 student? I was a bit more meh about it. It was fine, but it was very hard not to draw unfavourable parallels to Harry Potter. But for a kid who’s never read Harry Potter? Or even an adult that has but is looking for something different to scratch that itch, this might be a good book to try. I’ll probably try reading the second book when it comes out.