Gremlin and I were discussing the art of housecleaning, which Gremlin admits never explicitly learning. I (being A Girl) was explicitly taught, but later in life I learned that a lot of the things I was taught were inefficient or just plain wrong. So I had to unlearn and relearn how to clean my house. Gremlin,...

(Bonus hot librarian content you crave: I made the assistant principal crack up when he realized that my bulletin board had changed. He did a double take: "Wait, did it look like that this morning?!" and then about died laughing when I said "no, I changed it during second hour." I don't know why this was funny, but...

Went down this rabbit hole during lunch: The Guardian: Our lives and identities have moved online - and it's driving us insane Eugene Healey: Post-luxury status symbol #1: connected privacy The New Yorker: it's cool to have no followers now I have long said my hidden superpower is my ability to predict trends. I...

As soon as the days visibly shorten and the air gets cool, I experience a mood best described as "cozy-morose." It is a mood for curling up under a blanket with a cup of tea and reveling in feeling just a bit sad. In 2017, with some help from Pinterest (which was still good at the time), I put together The...

I love my mother, and also her most consistent skill is to disappoint me on my birthday. This year is no exception. This year, she disappointed me because I was today years old when I discovered the Integrated Taxonomic Information System exists: https://www.itis.gov/ I learned this from refdesk.com. Not from my...

(with the omnipresent caveat that there is nowhere capitalism does not piss me off) There is nowhere capitalism is not pissing me off more right now than in food. July-September is my annual season of Personal Projects, in which I pick something in my life that needs an overhaul and overhaul it. Past seasons of...

I am sitting here eating a vaguely Mexican-inspired bowl of assorted sauteed vegetables, beans, and spices that looks weird but tastes amazing. While cooking, I was listening to the recent Better Offline episode with Cal Newport:...

I have been hiking a lot recently. Mostly because I go back to the child mines on Monday, a job that precludes me from taking off into the woods for three hours on a random Tuesday morning. Partly because the local silviculture plot just opened up 700 acres for public exploration (with the caveat "do not enter...

As a Michigander, I have had an inside seat to the whole Abdul El-Sayed vs. Haley Stevens goat rodeo - as well as to the ways it connects to other progressive-versus-establishment-Democrat goat rodeos. And boy do I have some thoughts. yes he bloody well can beat Mike Rogers The big talking point among pundits right...

August is a week away, which means I'm on the cusp of three distinct yet overlapping seasons: portfolio, primary, and tomato. Meditations ensue. portfolio Like a good Boglehead, I rebalance my portfolio once a year. I do mine in mid-August. I...guess?...you could call my approach to my finances "barista FIRE,"...

I have spent the past several mornings taking 10+ mile bike trips on sections of the local bike trail. Some fragments. everything you need to know about the family tov: a play in one scene One morning, I decided to do the part of the trail that would deposit me at the family homestead (part of which backs up to the...

I used to be a colorguard director. I used to be a very good colorguard director. I've taken kids to Indy and Dayton (iykyk). I've won awards. I've trained champions. Normally, I'd be busy as heck for the next couple weeks, preparing for band camp at the start of August. But I'm not. Because for the first time in...