Dead End by Annabel Chase My rating: 2 of 5 stars I got through eight books of this nine-book series. The main character makes the same very serious mistakes over and over again, but there was enough progress that I kept reading. HOWEVER, in book nine she started to make the most serious of those mistakes AGAIN, and I was done.

Level up 2026 with the only Wall Calendar you can use as a Battle Map! Includes 12 5E Adventures (playable as a campaign or as individual one shot adventures). Extras include themed gift wrap and gree...

Diviner's Bow by Sharon Lee My rating: 5 of 5 stars I stretched this one out as long as I could manage it, because I was enjoying it so much, and I never want any of the Liaden Universe books to end. I love this series and its authors! The prose in these books is always just perfect to my ear.

Note from Juan Cole: I used to write letters to totalitarian governments on behalf of Amnesty International complaining about their detention of political prisoners for mere thought crimes. One of the worst offenders was Communist Czechoslovakia, which…

YouTube video by White Rose Resistance

By replacing independent, nonpartisan leadership with a politically aligned appointee, this administration is attempting to undermine the integrity of our nation’s historical record and the mechanisms...

Why do most women give birth (in the United States, anyway) while lying on their backs? Is it the most comfortable way to do it? Nope. It goes back to Louis the XIVth and his thing about watching his mistresses deliver his offspring. He didn't like having anything obstruct his view, so he insisted they lie on their backs. It came to be the standard in the U.S.

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law? There’s a WordPress Daily Prompt that I’ve never really noticed before. Today’s question caught my eye, though. Yes, I’m sure that I’ve unintentionally broken the law at some point in the past. Our ridiculous tangle of city, county, state, and federal laws mean that there’s absolutely no way for anyone to truly know every statute, much less to understand them and how they interact.

I’m off to enjoy the rest of the evening with my husband. Have fun!

...about current events in the U.S.? Here's one set of suggestions. Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won't magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important

I created a new article on my professional site today, Useful skills for growing in tech. I'd love to get some feedback on it.

I've had a Google account since 2004, when you needed an invitation to join. I had previously used an email on this domain, and I have been transitioning most of my email back to that for the past year or so. Current events have me looking at how I can get off Google Calendar and any other services. Google Calendar removes Black History Month, Pride, and other cultural events…

I've only been crocheting for a little while. Apparently, February is National Hobby Month or something similar, so the leader of the Women's ERG at work asked us about our hobbies. Another woman and I mentioned crochet, and we found ourselves volunteered to teach. Every Monday this month, we've gathered to crochet during or just after lunch. Fortunately, the other woman is much farther along the process.

Yeah, 4:30 am was a long time ago, especially since it came after a night that was interrupted for an hour. I have a lot of trouble with hypoglycemic episodes in the middle of the night. I wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) because my sugar is volatile, and I have hypoglycemic unawareness. It's a damned good thing I have the CGM.

Well, we tried to go to a house concert. We looked forward to it all week. I asked the host about the accessibility of the location, and she said she had a close-by place where we could park and easily access the venue and that the concert room itself had no barriers. None of that was true. The venue was down a pretty long residential street and had all of three parking spots (the sorta-wide dead end of the street) at the end of a long, steep driveway.

How to get started on getting started "I signed up to volunteer with a tribe in southeast Michigan who need help transcribing archival documents" "I'm planning to start a monthly (themed?) karaoke night with my pals" "Working on a multi faceted project around police accountability/reform/ abolition" "I sent out another round of invitations to our potluck, and I used Elise's ideas to help create a handout for the potluck for a whole range of commitments people could make."

I didn't even have time to read my personal email today until after work, when I usually do that before the workday starts. Despite meetings, I wrote and published a whole section of knowledge base articles. However, I wasn't able to crochet through today's meetings. I love my job. My employer is great, and they treat me well. There are days, though, when I remember being at home with Katie and my stepkids and miss it. There were other good things about those years, too. But now is pretty damned good.