Bedtime 28 Aug 17

shinyrock6498:

morgynleri:

shinyrock6498:

morgynleri:

One spool for braiding loaded, most of my to-do list completed, probably not enough of either food or drink, but bugger it, I got at least something into me today.

Also, at this point I should go to bed because my vocabulary is starting to slide toward profanity a lot (it’s easy to not have it in text, harder not to have every other word some expletive or another when talking out loud). Also, have run entirely out of fucks and mostly out of energy.

Hugs for everyone, and I hope y’all sleep well when you get there!

Hi, I know there are more than one braiding techniques for cord. What technique do you use?

I’m doing sinnet braiding, with four strands. Four threads of 5/2 mercerized cotton in each strand, number of colors in the braid varies from 2-8, depending on the scheme I’m working with.

(I also have the materials and tools for doing kumihimo, but I’m not sure where my disc is, and am not actually interested in working on the sort of complex patterns I usually do with it at the moment.)

Are the 4 threads that you use in each strand loose or are they braided as well first before becoming a strand?

5/2 is a fine yarn yes? Similar to a crocheter’s baby weight yarn? That’s what it looked like to me but the internet doesnt show scale super well.

The braids sound cool and it seems like making one would be really meditative as long as it goes smoothly.

My sister does kumihimo and she made a braid with like 6 individual threads for each strand. It was tiny and so incredibly time consuming she said.

It takes a lot of skill to make a nice looking braid so you must be really talented!

Loose – the texture with them braided is too rough for the purpose they’re made. Most people use them to hold medallions or other IDs, or for lacing, and for both of those, the cord needs to be relatively smooth.

5/2 is a thread weight, rather than a yarn weight, and the closest to yarn weights would be lace-weight, actually, rather than baby-weight. It’s the thread I use for my blankets (two strands, using an F hook).

The braids are pretty meditative, yeah. I don’t have to think about it when I’m working, just let my hands go while I think about other things. I plot stories out while I’m braiding, or watch a movie/binge watch a show. And with the new spools, they shouldn’t catch on each other as much as the old ones did.

Kumihimo can be time consuming, especially if you’re doing a long one. I use the 5/2 for it, as well, and it tends to come out bold and spiffy. (I know, cotton is not a traditional thread, but I can’t generally afford the sort of silk that’s traditional, and neither can most people buying what I make.)

Eh, not so much talented as practiced to the point it’s muscle memory. Which is better, I think. I put the time into this to be good at it.

Bedtime 28 Aug 17

shinyrock6498:

morgynleri:

One spool for braiding loaded, most of my to-do list completed, probably not enough of either food or drink, but bugger it, I got at least something into me today.

Also, at this point I should go to bed because my vocabulary is starting to slide toward profanity a lot (it’s easy to not have it in text, harder not to have every other word some expletive or another when talking out loud). Also, have run entirely out of fucks and mostly out of energy.

Hugs for everyone, and I hope y’all sleep well when you get there!

Hi, I know there are more than one braiding techniques for cord. What technique do you use?

I’m doing sinnet braiding, with four strands. Four threads of 5/2 mercerized cotton in each strand, number of colors in the braid varies from 2-8, depending on the scheme I’m working with.

(I also have the materials and tools for doing kumihimo, but I’m not sure where my disc is, and am not actually interested in working on the sort of complex patterns I usually do with it at the moment.)

Morning, 29 Aug 17

koiotchka:

morgynleri:

It has been raining for at least four hours, everything hurts, and I’m highly tempted to just go back to bed.

Today’s weekly chore is sweeping floors, and there is only one floor which is picked up enough to sweep. I have fed the cat, I am going to get my tiny chickens into the crock pot with the squash and the pineapple and the onion, I am going to attempt to feed me, and then I think I may well go back to bed.

Tiny chicken recipe sounds v. interesting, is there more to it than what you just listed?

Been raining for hours here too, I managed to get up long enough to take painkillers, then went back to bed. Sleep doesn’t want to come, but the pain has reduced a little bit. Its a little.past lunch time now and I’ve eaten a can of soup and taken more painkillers… Hoping to be able to do some dishes soon. I also need to adult in that I need to ask my neighbor if he can take me to my (our, actually; neighbor goes to same doc) oncologist on Thursday. I keep reminding myself ot this and then not doing it…

Good morning!… I guess…

-Coyote

Nothing else goes into the crockpot – nothing else fit between the two crockpots, in fact.

Four cornish game hens, two butternut squash or equivalent, two cans of pineapple (or one fresh), and two sweet onions (or other largish onions). Three went into the larger crock pot with 1+½ each the other ingredients, one went into the small crock pot with the rest. And the lids just barely fit on properly.

Once they’re done cooking, they get the bones removed, portioned into one-rice-pot amounts and vacumn sealed and frozen. When they go into the rice pot, they get rice and ginger and garlic and soy sauce, and maybe chicken stock instead of water. Maybe a pinch or two of sugar and a pinch of salt.

This is the last of the current batch of quick-rice-pot meals at the moment, though I have enough room in the freezer to contemplate more. With these, I’m at about three weeks worth of quick meals, and I’m thinking I’d rather have closer to four. So next thing is probably going to involve taking the cast iron dutch oven and making sure it’s in good shape, then finding a halal or kosher butcher who has goat, and getting some goat and making a dutch oven full of goat and ginger and garlic and sweet onion and parsnips and coriander and cinnamon and nutmeg.

Just. Doing the hard work of making it all now, until the freezer is full, and then I can have weeks of not having to do anything but thaw a thing of stuff, dump it into the rice pot, add grain and liquid and spices, and leave it to cook.

I hope the afternoon has gone decently, and you’ve managed to adult long enough to arrange a ride to the oncologist on Thursday, at least. *offers a hug*

Northern Night

rusc-of-airgead:

morgynleri:

So, I’m prodding at two potential complications of working this out into the future past events of the Hobbit and just after.

One is a plot sort of question – does Bilbo ever return to the Shire? (Which of course needs to know if he survived the battle – yes – and where the fuck is Gandalf at that time – ???)

If Bilbo does return to the Shire, than Frodo is the one bringing the Ring to Rivendell for the Council of Elrond, and the rest of the complications of plot are from other directions.

If he doesn’t return to the Shire, how is the Ring discovered? When is it discovered? And who is the one to carry the Ring to Mordor, because Bilbo is getting old and may not be up to such a journey. Or it would possibly be a one way journey for him.

The other is more a world-building question, but does effect plot – for the purposes of numbers of the Fellowship, do wargs count as people or beasts? Because if people, then no wargs. If beasts, than at least two wargs, and do either of those who have wargs and send people to the Council of Elrond send packs with riderless wargs?

Neither of these questions is necessarily relevant to anything until after I’ve worked out what happens in the aftermath of the Battle of Erebor. (I have some general ideas, and plans, but I kinda want to have things written before I try to plot heavily about things in the time period of Lord of the Rings.)

@lynati @poplitealqueen and @ anyone else who’s interested in Tolkien and/or my massive set of connected AUs with shared world-building.

For the transport of the Ring:

Offering up the possibility of Bilbo not permanently returning to the Shire, but visiting around the time that Frodo gets orphaned and taking him back with him.

Or maybe when Frodo is a little older and the relatives who did take him in are at their wit’s end with his wandering.

If Bilbo doesn’t return, perhaps have Gimli take it, as he’s person that attends the Council.

Or have Bilbo and Gimli take it to Rivendell (though I don’t have a map to hand, the Council may end being held elsewhere) and have adventurous nephew Frodo (who has not been attacked by ringwraiths, and doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for) who happens to be visiting Rivendell for the first time volunteer to take it?
(Maybe he was visiting Bilbo who he has heard so much of, but has only met a couple of times)

I have no thoughts on its discovery at the moment, but I would count Wargs as beasts personally.

I’m leaning toward not wanting Bilbo to raise Frodo himself in this AU, so having Frodo being the adventurous nephew who is finally going on an Adventure like his uncle to go to Rivendell meeting Bilbo there for the first time during the Council of Elrond. And volunteering to take the Ring. Yes. *rubs hands together and grins evilly*

I do think the Council will still be in Rivendell, if mostly because it’s the safest option. There’s protection there that nowhere else save Lothlorien has, and… yeah, I don’t see Galadriel being particularly open to having the Council there. Plus there’s the shared vision/dream thing that Faramir and Boromir have that directs them there.

(Although that’s going to be entertaining. I’m still not entirely decided on if Boromir goes, or Faramir goes, and whichever of them goes, there’s going to be an encounter with orcs on the road north and a meeting with Dazbol, because she’s somewhat important. Also, she will be thrilled to have the chance to make rude gestures at Sauron. Because I have a loudly cranky orc-muse who is quite cranky that pretty much everyone has Opinions on whether or not she should be allowed to exist. And would like very much for people to stop telling her to cease to exist, and leave her be to build her personal idea of a self-sufficient fortress-city, and if they won’t, she will gladly make them dead so they do stop.)

@theyoungwander replied to your post:

I loved Moonlit Miami. Was kind of sad there wasn’t any more.

I fell out of love with the show for while, for various reasons, and didn’t really get back to it until recently, hence why Moonlit Miami stopped. I have been scribbling notes for it while taking notes during my rewatch, and plan to do some more with it. Probably starting with how Horatio and Marisol get together in it, which is very different from how it is in canon, and I hadn’t really figured out how it started when I was working on the AU before.

There is a snippet w/Speed in Moonlit Miami that is on my tumblr, but not on AO3 yet. Because this round of watching CSI Miami started with falling in love with Speed all over again, and so he’s rather caught my focus for a while.

What you’re describing sounds like depression is a component, but it’s not all of it, and possibly not even the most of it. Because it sounds to me like trauma. It sounds like the sort of self-doubt and hesitation of prolonged emotional abuse and bullying. Where you don’t trust yourself and you don’t trust others to not reach back, because those who were supposed to be safety and comfort and stability when you were a child were none of those.

writertobridge:

And it’s hard to find that sort of trust in others and yourself, and more so when you’re still trapped with those who caused you that harm because of financial reasons. It can take years or decades, and sometimes that doubt never entirely goes away, no matter how often you tell yourself that people love you, that people trust you. No matter how often other people reach out and offer you comfort and affection and love and affirmation. And it’s ok. It *sucks*, but it’s ok.

It’s ok because there will always be people who stick around, even if they’re just there at the periphery sometimes because they have their own lives to manage. That will notice that they haven’t heard from you in a while, and reach out to you to at least ask if you’re still alive and if you’re ok. If you need help that they’re able to offer. To tell you that you *still matter*. That you are still important. Because you are, and you are worthy of that, just by being you.

I hope this is okay to post publicly because, uh, well.

I looked up the long-term effects of emotional abuse. I only found lists for emotionally abused spouses because the ones focusing on parents only seem to talk about childhood behaviors. Anyway, the list I found for emotional abuse symptoms:

Withdrawal

Depression

Low self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem

Emotional unpredictability

Irregular sleep patterns and sleep disorders

Undiagnosed physical distress

Suicidal thoughts

Total dependence on the abuser

Inability to trust

Inability to complete tasks and achieve success

Feelings of being trapped and isolated

Alcohol and/or drug abuse

Aside from the last one, I have every single symptom. Every single one. And the thing is, I did abuse alcohol and drugs in the past. That’s why I don’t drink now and that’s why I’ve limited this focusing medication so much. I don’t want to abuse the substances and then become an addict (I guess some of that freelance work is paying off, in some way).

Truthfully, I hadn’t thought to look at this before. It makes sense though. I’ve talked about my childhood before, my parents, my life. There are others outside my family who contributed to that emotional abuse. It stems from a lot.

This is helpful. Now I know what I need.

I can’t cut ties with my family. I’m not sure I ever could. But I know that in order to achieve my life goals and these desires I have, I need to find peace and acceptance within myself. I aim to do that. I think that starts with finding role models. Finding people from whom I can learn. I’ve had people like that before – distant, unaware of who I am. I should start there. I will. Then, instead of treating the symptoms like I have been attempting to do, I’ll go through the motions of forgiving, of healing, of moving forward, of creating a better future from my shattered past. It all sound so easy in text, but I know it won’t be. That’s fine. I’ll manage. I’ll learn. I’ll grow.

If I wanted it not to ever be posted publicly, I’d have chosen a different route to send it. *hugs you*

It’s never easy, and there are days when it will be harder than others. Sometimes you might find yourself holding on just out of sheer, stubborn spite to survive, and that’s ok, because survival is a win. Living through the day despite the screaming in your head that is born from the abuse is a win.

Everything else? Bonus.

And for the record, and because definitions are important – peace and acceptance do not exclude feeling anger and grief, and they don’t mean you must forgive what has happened in the past. If that helps you, than that’s what you do, but you don’t have to do that, and anyone who says otherwise can chew rocks. As can anyone who says you shouldn’t forgive, because that is entirely up to you.

If it helps – there are some people who’ve dealt with/are dealing with parental emotional abuse and the recovery from that whom I am mutuals with, and if you’re up for it, I can tag them. Or direct you to their blogs without tagging them, whichever you’re more comfortable with.

(Also, my tags for talking about emotional abuse, in general and my parents in particular, are #emotional abuse and #not where my parents can see, if those are any help, even in just knowing you’re not alone.)

thephilosophersapprentice:

morgynleri:

thephilosophersapprentice:

morgynleri:

thebibliosphere:

morgynleri:

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

Don’t mind me, just casually dipping oatcakes into a still warm saucepan of caramel sauce.

Oh, also, we start Season Two of Great British Bake Off tomorrow, I totally meant to post that today but I forgot. I’ll post a reminder post tomorrow morning. Same times as usual 1pm US central and then again at 7pm.

Say, some of you are clever clogs. Would anyone like to hypothesize why I can eat fresh caramel sauce that is still warm without any problems, but once it cools down and I try to eat it, it makes me go all hot and feverish and I need to take my allergy meds?

Like I’m not complaining, I am literally sitting eating hot caramel sauce with a spoon because I’m in desperate need of the calories (haha, still eating less than 1000 a day hahaha fuck you broken meat sack) I’m just curious if any of you clever folk can come up with something better than my doctor’s $400

¯_(ツ)_/¯ response.

Accepting both serious and ludicrous answers. For funsies.

Also good news and thank you to those who have been asking about my teeth, my extracted tooth has finally healed over, no more bleeding hole in my mouth! Turns out my body does remember how to mend itself, just very, very slowly. Yay!

Since I had the extraction done my pain levels have been substantially better. I’m down to the odd 400mg of ibuprofen now and then, which if you were following along last year, you will know is much better than the daily 6-800mg on top of the max dose of vicodin I was taking, just so I could stop screaming both internally and externally. Gods bless my magic dentist man, honestly, bless him. Just three more teeth to go (next year probably, or late this year if I am lucky and can afford it) and then braces to fix the hot mess left behind. Fun times ahead.

Is it possible it’s picking up a local yeast as it cools down, and you’re reacting to that?

That’s a possibility actually, although I tend to seal the jars up pretty quick once they are cool enough.

Other thought – is it possibly also picking up other traces of local microfauna that your body is no more fond of than a local yeast? Or other trace contaminants like a pollen?

Okay. So I can’t eat cookie dough, even the egg-free kind, because it makes me sick to my stomach. I can eat fully-cooked baked goods though, and silk pie (which is made with raw eggs.)

I don’t know what is making me sick.

Caveat – not in the medical field, not a chemist, not a professional baker, so this is just me thinking off the top of my head, and throwing out ideas from what I do know.

Heat – cooking or baking – introduces chemical changes in your food, and that changes how your body deals with them. There’s another reblog of this post with a little more on that as pertains particularly to caramel and to sugars.

It could be the sugar, it could be the dairy, it could be the flour, or it could be the salmonella strain particular to poultry. Which is not necessarily going to be present in a custard pie, because the eggs are going to have a certain amount of cooking when they’re added to a hot mixture – and they’re added one at a time because you don’t want the eggs to curdle, or you don’t get a good custard.

A thing to think about – does candy (chocolate or non-chocolate) or ice cream also make you feel sick to your stomach? Does raw dough for buttermilk biscuits or other quick-breads that don’t have sugar? Do sodas or other sugared drinks? Do non-wheat flour baked goods do it before they’ve been cooked?

If one or more of those does, you have a place to start from to figure it out. And I hope that this is helpful. 🙂

Non-wheat-flour–I believe so. Probably all breads, with or without sugar. I tried raw wheat flour–that did it. Raw oats–yes, actually, but it’s not as extreme. Maybe it’s a gluten thing? Sometimes undercooked hot cereal (with other grains than oats or wheat) or sopping cold cereal does it too… My mom has a sensitivity to barley and corn (make whatever white people jokes you will about that.)

The fact that I can’t eat cream of wheat because of a combination of flavor and texture (maybe I also got sick? I don’t remember) only complicates matters.

When I was little and ate popcorn, that made me sick, and I haven’t dared to eat popcorn since.

I don’t particularly like the taste of skim milk, but I do like 2%, and that doesn’t bother me. Nor does ice cream, or whipped cream (which drives my sister’s dairy sensitivities up the wall.) Sweets don’t do it either (though I can’t stand drinks with a shipload of sugar, which is why I prefer 7Up to Sprite and ginger ale to both.)

Also, fun fact. I can’t eat blueberries, bananas or cantaloupe raw. They make my throat swell inside (though not so bad that I can’t breathe but it feels awful.) My mom was really concerned when I explained why I didn’t like cantaloupe.

Throat swelling up is a concerning allergic reaction, and if something does that, I’d err on the side of not eating what does that.

Wheat and barley, and rye, have high levels of their respective gluten-type proteins. Oat actually has a fairly low level of it’s gluten-type protein – its major protein is similar to the major proteins in legumes like peas and beans and peanuts.

If popcorn makes you ill – does regular corn, and do foods with corn syrup of any sort? (Honestly, that one is one I won’t joke about because hi, I can’t eat corn without incredible amounts of pain and it going right through me.)

With your mom having trouble with barley and corn, you also might consider the possibility that you’ve inherited the same sensitivities/allergies, along with having ones she doesn’t have.

(I am going to head to bed before I fall over at this point, but I wanted to respond to this one last time, since I saw the reblog in my activity page. I’ll be back around in approximately nine hours if I don’t go to the pool, or closer to twelve if I do.)

thebibliosphere:

morgynleri:

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

Don’t mind me, just casually dipping oatcakes into a still warm saucepan of caramel sauce.

Oh, also, we start Season Two of Great British Bake Off tomorrow, I totally meant to post that today but I forgot. I’ll post a reminder post tomorrow morning. Same times as usual 1pm US central and then again at 7pm.

Say, some of you are clever clogs. Would anyone like to hypothesize why I can eat fresh caramel sauce that is still warm without any problems, but once it cools down and I try to eat it, it makes me go all hot and feverish and I need to take my allergy meds?

Like I’m not complaining, I am literally sitting eating hot caramel sauce with a spoon because I’m in desperate need of the calories (haha, still eating less than 1000 a day hahaha fuck you broken meat sack) I’m just curious if any of you clever folk can come up with something better than my doctor’s $400

¯_(ツ)_/¯ response.

Accepting both serious and ludicrous answers. For funsies.

Also good news and thank you to those who have been asking about my teeth, my extracted tooth has finally healed over, no more bleeding hole in my mouth! Turns out my body does remember how to mend itself, just very, very slowly. Yay!

Since I had the extraction done my pain levels have been substantially better. I’m down to the odd 400mg of ibuprofen now and then, which if you were following along last year, you will know is much better than the daily 6-800mg on top of the max dose of vicodin I was taking, just so I could stop screaming both internally and externally. Gods bless my magic dentist man, honestly, bless him. Just three more teeth to go (next year probably, or late this year if I am lucky and can afford it) and then braces to fix the hot mess left behind. Fun times ahead.

Is it possible it’s picking up a local yeast as it cools down, and you’re reacting to that?

That’s a possibility actually, although I tend to seal the jars up pretty quick once they are cool enough.

Other thought – is it possibly also picking up other traces of local microfauna that your body is no more fond of than a local yeast? Or other trace contaminants like a pollen?

poplitealqueen:

morgynleri
replied to your post “Here I was, thinking you were a nice and good person… And now I read…”

I’ll trade you my tomato sauce (that I can’t eat) for your pineapple, and we can both have pizzas we like and can eat. 🙂

Man, I love pineapple, just anywhere that isn’t pizza! (Although I will gladly take that trade. I’ll send mine FedEx)

😀

Can’t have cooked tomato product, or my body rebels a lot. Fresh tomatoes it also does not like, but I tolerate the ow for fresh cherry tomatoes sun-warm off the vine.

So, things to provide similar flavor profiles. Like pineapple on my pizza in place of tomato sauce. Just that bit of tangy sweet to balance the cheese and the toppings. 🙂

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

morgynleri:

There is somewhere in my apartment a four inch binder full of the world building I was doing with an AU I’m honestly no longer terribly fond of, and am not sure how to salvage the AU itself. I can, however, salvage the characters and some of the other world building, and fuck the original story and plot. I can always hammer out something else.

Why am I contemplating making the current headache worse by doing this? Because @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s fantastic fic is reminding me of what I do like about Harry Potter, and I want to see if I still have some fragments of the family trees I was putting together for the AU. Before JKR released her Black family tree (which I took a look at, said, “yay, awesome, new canon”, and then promptly ignored in favor of what I’d already been building). I may adjust things and polish it up a bit, but some things I’m keeping. Like lesbian Slytherin Weasleys that half the family doesn’t know what to do with, and the rest quietly pretend were never in Slytherin. Also, Sirius’s necromancer of an aunt who has no use for stupid people killing her nephew, and her dear cousin who is Remus’s not-so-doddering aunt and her chronic and progressive illness (their names will likely change, but they will not. Nor will the Black necromancer’s house cease to eat intruders).

(So much of this AU I’m not sure I want to keep, but those? Oh, dear fucking gods, yes.)

Also contemplating tackling editing the next part of Magic and Mischief, because not-tortured-to-insanity Longbottoms, one kidnapped Harry Potter, and one “how has this become my life” Regulus Black. Which still needs a title better than “Rescuing Harry” which is the working title.

*approval*

*beams*