If you want to distract me, gamers, ask me a trivia question. I LOVE trivia questions. It's so bad that my teenager even knows how to get my attention. I can say I'm working, come back in a few, but then I get asked, "Who sings Nothing's Gonna Stop Us?" and everything else just kind of slips away... Trivia is my jam.
There are so many great subscription boxes available today that it's hard to choose one. If you love making cocktails, Shaker & Spoon cocktail club might be just what you need. Each month you'll get the ingredients to make custom cocktails, complete with recipes and unique inspirations created by chefs.
It's not news, as it's a couple of years old, but a story about giant ground sloths digging out a massive tunnel in South America is making its rounds around the Internet again and it's just incredibly impressive. Researchers didn't know what had made the tunnel before finding the claw marks in it, which indicated that they may have been dug by giant ground sloths.
For months now, my teenager has been sneezing after eating, prompting me to wonder if it's a food allergy or something. There are no other symptoms and my kiddo is fine except for feeling annoyed by the sneezing, so when I looked it up and learned about Gustatory rhinitis, it made a lot of sense to me. It's usually benign and caused by eating, sometimes by eating trigger foods, especially the kind with garlic. Considering the fact that the kid adds garlic to everything (even their eggs in a basket!) I can totally see this.
My cats, Sally (of Nightmare Before Christmas) and Pumpkin (Spice Latte), are lying side-by-side next to me on the bed today, enjoying the open windows and crisp fall air. It's been delightful and not only because it's obviously my favorite season, but because these two NEVER get along. They fight and chase each other, with Sally, who's younger, often bullying poor Pumpkin, who's one of the shyest cats I've ever adopted.
As a staunch defender of pumpkin spice, I must admit I'm already a little tired of it in my coffee. That's because I've already had PS grounds AND creamer, not to mention a few of Starbucks's recipes, and I'm ready for some other flavors. (Did you know there's a hack for a caramel apple frappe? Look it up.
This post about a garden helping a woman through her bereavement is deeply moving, and I would suggest reading it, but it also made me think of my own experiences using a garden for healing purposes. When I left to teach in Spain for a semester, it was the day after my grandmother and best friend died. It wasn't unexpected as she had been battling lung cancer, but it was still devastating as I prepared to grieve alone in a country where I didn't know anyone, without my family around me.
The Supreme Court is discussing whether or not a person may be fired from a job for being LGBTQ, and although it has many of us thinking, "How can this still be a debate in 2019?" it's the reality that many people continue to face. There are people fired, kicked out of their apartments and discriminated in other ways because of sexual orientation today and that's got to become a thing of the past.
Are you cold enough for soup? This week the temps took a big drop in our neck of the woods and I'm completely here for sweater weather and all the soup! I can't wait for my husband to make a giant pot of his famous potato soup, which he makes by sauteeing potato cubes in garlic and a bunch of herbs until caramelized, then adding them to a cream-based soup that he makes... Oh, it's good. It's sweet and spicy all at once and it will make you forget every other soup you've tasted!
Australia has an epidemic of feral cats, which is causing a lot of their small mammal populations to decline. While this is definitely a problem that needs remedying, the nation is declaring war on cats as a solution, and planning to kill two million cats by next year. They plan on baiting, shooting and poisoning cats, having declared them national pests. It's such a humane, nauseating plan, and there are far more humane methods to take.
Now that Halloween season is upon us, it's time for some spooky poetry! The subject of poetry is spooky by its own nature, and there is no shortage of scary or disturbing poems to enjoy in the world. That doesn't mean that more don't need to be written; in fact, creating your own spooky poem is a great way to celebrate the season.
No matter which TV show or video game is trending each year, animal costumes never go out of style and frogs are no exception. Whether you're planning on being a frog or you're designing a costume for a little one, there are all kinds of things you can do to make a simple frog costume--or to make one as complicated as you like!
Recently during a time of hurricane activity on the U.S. coast, President Trump asked advisors if we could extinguish a hurricane by detonating an atomic bomb in it. I wrote about it at the time but there has been repeated mentions of the idea since the hurricane. I decided to revisit this idea in more detail.
Ambient office = 87 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 102 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
So much for not throwing jokes at LGBTQ people anymore, eh, Family Guy? What a disappointment it was to see the show make fun of trans people, not only making it a joke for Brian to sleep with a trans woman but to imply that it's "heroic," and that it's okay for a trans person to look at porn at the bar because they can "do whatever they want." As someone with gender fluid people in my life whom I worry about because the opposite is actually true, and because trans women are murdered every week, I'm outraged over this.
You can certainly practice hygge, or the art of being cozy with friends and good food and comfort, all through the year, but the fall and winter seasons seem to be when the Danish words is most popular, and why not? From the sweaters to the hot drinks around the fire, there are plenty of hygge opportunities.
This last weekend I devoured Marissa Meyers' book, Heartless. Meyers is the author of the Lunar Chronicles, one of my favorite YA series, so I knew I'd enjoy this book, but I also went in knowing it was destined for tragedy, as it was a prequel for a villain we all know well. And tragedy it had.
It's Halloween and the stickers are the best of the year! Okay, I love me some Christmas stickers, too, but these are fantastic. We use them on everything from our calendars, cards and boo bags to random crafts and even costumes throughout the month!
Over the weekend, my family and I attended a mini con of sorts with a Stranger Things theme. My husband was Hopper, my teen was Steve Harrington and I was dead Barb, complete with a piece of rubber tackle attached with liquid latext to serve as a slug! It was fun, aside from the crowds, and all of the cool 80s decorations, food and themes had me craving an 80s theme party. A dance troupe who interpreted the show with three numbers, including "Material Girl," really got a lot of us in the 80s mood.
