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spikedluvI did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes, emptied the dishwasher, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, scooped kitty litter, and showered. I placed an online order and paid a bill online. We had the meatloaf for supper.
Today’s tea was English Breakfast. I’m not a huge fan of this tea, but I drink it when I’m at Panera because they got rid of my preferred tea (Earl Grey) when they downsized to having just three types of tea bags.
I managed to write ~2,000 words on my SFBB fic! There’s light at the end of this tunnel. *g* I also watched Wild Cards, 9-1-1 and some House Hunters International.
Temps started out at 19.4(F) and reached 23.7. It got windy in the afternoon which made it very cold. I wore four layers for the walk when Pip got home from work (a pullover sweatshirt, a hoodie, a jacket, and another jacket over that), not counting the double layer of pants and the ski mask and scarves, etc. On his after-dinner walk with the dogs, Pip wore his Carrhart overalls in addition to the coat, so you know it was cold out there.
As if that isn’t bad enough . . . Tonight’s overnight low is forecasted to be -6 with a high on Saturday of 6. There’s a warning for wind chills of -23 “over the next 48 hours” so thanks for not being specific of when I’m going to become a popsicle on walks. I’m really not looking forward to this PLUS snow.
I promised to share a photo of the sunflower tea bag coasters I bought. The angle I took the photo at makes it look like some are larger than the others, but they’re all the same size.
Mom Update:
Mom sounded okay when I talked to her. She was able to eat the meatloaf the other night, though it was one of those not bad but not great situations. Her new normal, basically. She had several visitors today: my aunt and uncle in the morning, the Hospice minister, and her BFF in the afternoon. She said it was nice, but that it did tucker her out. That’s worrisome.
vriddyAs expected the pacing check didn't really do anything as a pacing check lolsob. The new bits were super fun and the old bits kinda felt draggy. However I have Thoughts regardless! Also I waited to have a 4h block of time to read but tat wasn't enough orz I think it took over a little 5h to reread overall, for 56k words - just noting this down as a reminder for my future self.
I wanted to just "jot down a few notes" but I'm gonna have to use headers again. Whoops. This got long.
Waiting to have a lot of time to do writerly stuff = no
Also: as much as doing a full reread at once appeals, postponing over and over until such a magical block of time manifests isn't reasonable. This is kinda funny to relearn because this used to be a source for writing block for me back in my early writing days (wayyy back). I had to wait until I had a Big Chunk Of Free Time for focus reasons. Things have gotten a lot happier for me since I learnt how to write in 30 minutes (or sometimes 15 minutes!) blocks, and also that doesn't preclude the occasional delightful Big Chunk Of Writerly Time from happening either.
Full reread good for some things, even if not for pacing exactly
Otherwise, the full reread was good to see how the changes hold together. While a rewritten scene toward the end does need a bit more air, the first half where I did the bulk of the work imo flow super well. While I can see the seams where I attached the old to the new, it's mostly because I remember the old version(s). I'm just really really enjoying what the story is turning into. I was a bit worried because when reworking stuff, you can also see what it no longer is and no longer says, but whatever it is now, it sure is something I like :D The chapter that many beta-readers said felt too long, and which is now nearly twice as long, didn't drag at all for me. It's hard to tell if it's because I care too much already about these characters, or because a lot of was rewritten and therefore falsely feels more fresh to my brain, but that's what valiant beta-readers will help me find out soon enough :D
How many drafts is enough drafts?
( writing writing editing blah blah happy :D )
What next?
frecklebombficcommodity fetishism by tshirt
Reader/s: frecklebombfic annapods, fleurrochard, vorvayne, thecasualcheesecake
Fandom/s: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Relationship/s: Mobei-jun/Shang Qinghua
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Author's summary:
After Mobei Jun loses access to his trust fund, he needs a new income source. Luckily for him, Shang Qinghua is rich, single, and inoffensive. What more could you need in a man?
Duration: 00:27:15
( Read more... )
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inspiredby( 28 Metric Song Titles for February 2026 )
siderea1) If you have an ice scraper to clean the ice off your car, have it inside with you, not in the car. Because at a sufficient level of ice coating, leaving your ice scraper in the car is like leaving your car keys in the car.
1a) Honestly, at a certain level of ice coating, it's more like having one's car coated in concrete, and you shouldn't waste your energy and body warmth whaling futilely at it. One of the failure modes is you succeed in getting the ice off but take the windshield with it.
2) You probably associate winter storms and coldness with grey-overcast skies and darkness. But once it is done coming down, often the arctic winds that drove the storm will blow the clouds away, the skies clear and the sun will come up. I cannot begin to describe how bright it gets when the sun is shining and the whole world is made of glass. If you packed your sunglasses away for the winter, go get them out. If you store them in your glove compartment of your car, again, maybe go get them and have them inside with you so you can see what you're doing when you are trying to get the ice off the car.
3) All that said, maybe just don't be worrying about leaving home. A fundamental clue is that an ice storm is not done when the storm is done raging. For as long as there's a thick glaze of ice on everything, the crisis is not over. Your life experience has given you an intuition of physics that says ice forms where water pools and is therefore mostly something flat. But in an ice storm, you get ice coating absolutely everything including sloped and vertical surfaces. YouTube is willing to show you endless videos of people attempting and failing to walk up quite gentle slopes covered with ice and cars slowly and majestically sliding down hills. Driving and walking can be unbelievably dangerous after an ice storm. Try to ride it out by sheltering in place and don't try to go out in it if you can at all avoid it. Remember, it's not about how good a driver you are, it's about how good a driver everybody else on the road isn't.
4) Snow and ice falling off buildings can kill you. Yes, I know snow looks fluffy, but it is made of water and can compact to be quite solid and if it attains free fall it can build up quite a bit of momentum. Icicles are basically spears. If you endeavor to try to knock snow or ice off from a roof or other high structure, be real careful how you position yourself relative to it.
5) Now and until this is over is absolutely not the time to do anything that entails any unnecessary risk. Any activity that is at all discretionary that has even a remote likelihood of occasioning an ER trip is to be avoided. Boredom, I know, makes people find their own fun. Resist the urge.
scrubjayspeaks---
LL#1360
bluapapilio
Zen raving about Iori to the old man's grave. 😂
We get to see Iori and Reo's first encounter. Iori answered his calls for help and then took him in.
Whenever his mother was around, he was selfish and spoiled to a fault, wanting to reaffirm that she cared about him despite her absence. Eventually, she stopped coming home altogether; then, his father vanished, too, and when he did, he left behind a mountain of debt with which Reo got saddled. Reo was the only one left, and he soon spent his days being hounded by debt collectors.
Damn...
Back then, Iori hadn't started using the phony kansai-ben in imitation of the boss
That's why he uses it?? Makes sense.
I understand why Reo and Satsuki get along the least now. They started off on the wrong foot and have different ways of communicating. But it seems Satsuki managed to draw Reo out of his shell.
LOL Zen getting jealous over Iori looking at a picture of himself and Yohei.
One of the reasons Zen got into training so much is because of a scar? Whooa what? Zen was a straight-laced police officer who went undercover in the Suiseki?! He couldn't lie to save his life so they knew, but they took a shining to him and he learned their principles, and he ended up taking a bullet for Iori...
"Aniki, you think of me as a partner," Zen said. "Even after Yohei-san is gone, you've accepted me as your new--"
"Why do I feel like I'm dealing with a chick who's jealous of my ex-girlfriend..." Iori muttered.
He said it! 
Reo was at a loss for words. He was good at people-pleasing; he had learned how to flirt and sweet talk from his father, and while that was certainly a method of winning over young people and pretty girls, it wasn't exactly how you attracted people to a festival.
Hokusai saving the day as always...
Aw, the Suiseki old man listened to Yohei's music after he left to start rapping. 😭
Hokusai's great at drawing, somehow not surprised. Reo opens up a little. They'll think we're just freeloaders. And if I can't do anything on my own, if I'm a freeloader, then there's no way I'll be able to stay here...
So the Suiseki were giving money to Alter Trigger because it was supposedly going into researching ways to use phantometal to help the heard-of-hearing communicate?? Iori had doubts though.
"Zen... you can't tell him everything or else he'll go run off and blab, but if you just tell him one thing at a time, he'll go all-out to do whatever you tell him. And he's got a whole lot of faith in me, too... he's a real interesting guy,"
Such an apt description.
So Hokusai's rap name comes from what Iori calls him, Satsuki just heard 'Gaia' from somewhere and liked it, I'm surprised Reo was able to hold back from laughing his ass off.
Satsuki rushing ahead to save Reo, my heart. 😭❤️️ And I'm even more sad about Old Man Suiseki and the others deaths now.
Reo imagining seeing all of those who died around Suiseki's grave made me tear up like daamn.
Thanks to this story I learned that yakuza are involved in summer festivals.
Akan Yatsura comes from Old Man Suiseki commenting on how the boys are. I need a bandaid for my heart now. Really good story.
(Did Alter Trigger take out Reo's dad or did he really just run off?)
dolorosa_12snowflake_challenge backlog was stressing me out so much that I needed devote a whole post to catching up with it. That said, if you want to use any of the challenges as a prompt, and respond in some way to it in the comments (either by linking to your own snowflake_challenge post, or by answering it fresh), do feel free to treat it as a Friday open thread. 
( Challenge 10 )
( Challenge 11 )
( Challenge 12 )