Well this was just the most fun project ever

First bird of 2026 was a downy woodpecker, closely followed by a white-breasted nuthatch! Not bad at all! What about you?

🧛

Gotta love when you mask up because you have a cold and then get snide comments from the very people you're trying to protect

Up and down this thread = joy

blue states should create escrow accounts into which citizens pay their federal taxes but are withheld by the state until the federal government stops acting like its only obligated towards states that support the maga agenda

Matt's post radioactive iodine scan today looked good. We have finally reached the phase where there are no more tests or treatments to do for now. Just gotta repeat scans periodically and hope for no changes 🤞 Been looking forward to this day for a long time. Here's hoping for a good 2026.

Matt is getting much less radioactive and tomorrow we can stop isolating!!!!

Pepper is taking it as a personal affront to his liberties that we are not letting him into The Radioactive Room

Matt is "extremely high, report to government" radioactive

Today is the day 🤞

"Cardinals appear when angels are near" I guess angels really love safflower seeds then huh

Next couple of weeks are gonna be WEIRD in my household. Matt's getting radioactive iodine treatment for his thyroid cancer next week. Leading up to that, starting today, he has to eat a low iodine diet, which is very restrictive. Iodine is in salt, and salt is in everything!

I've listened to the podcast Hidden Brain for years, and Shankar Vedantam's voice is like ASMR for me. I was listening today and there was an ad for Whole Foods that was in a voice that was very much trying to be Shankar but was noticeably *wrong.* Generative AI for voices still ain't quite there.

I dreamed last night that I got Epsteined lmao 😭 they tricked us into the plane by saying it was Taylor Swift's private plane and we could board it for a tour. Then it took off and Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby popped out smoking cigarettes 💀💀

I sit down and about two seconds later this guy shows up and just makes himself comfortable

i’m not crying you’re crying xkcd: Fifteen Years

If you want something to smile about: Matt and Pepper, our cat, have a daily ritual we call "pants time." It's where Matt puts on his pants and Pepper attacks the pant legs while he is putting them on. I think it is one of the highlights of Pepper's day. Mine too, honestly.

CW: dead fish (though not gross looking imo) Today I went on a hike with a friend and the highlight was this strange sight: a fish that seemingly tried to eat another smaller fish and couldn't get it down and they both died

Every day at 3:15-3:30pm, the house sparrows start tweeting up a storm in the rhododendron outside my window. This then gets my cat's attention, and he has to walk all over my desk to hunt them. It's like clockwork. I want to know more about what is going on in the house sparrows' inner lives.

This is who I am as a gardener: I have a space I need to fill with one shrub. I researched species and found three that I want and couldn't decide between. I am now planning another new garden bed so that I can get all three shrubs.

Man oh man the internet is having a rough day today

Alice Wong, a writer and activist who was born with muscular dystrophy and who fought relentlessly for equal rights and access for people with disabilities, died on Friday. She was 51. nyti.ms/4r9WqEr

Rest in Power, Alice Wong.

A nice obituary for Alice, who was going to be recognized as one of The Post 50. I hate that we now have to live without this phenomenal woman. #GiftLink wapo.st/49WOdx1

Obsessed with this scene in"Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret" in which a northern red bishop, an African bird, shows up in New Jersey and sings the song of an American goldfinch

His name: Pepper What we actually call him: Peppy, Pepperoni, Pepperino, Peppy boy, little baby, sweet Peppy baby, Sargeant Pepper, Dr. Pepper, Squiggle, The Pepster, Pepperoncini, the baby, the child, Goof, Loaf, Weirdo

Tonight was a very bad night.

This is, unsurprisingly, nonsensical. Is he suggesting eliminating health insurance and giving people a few thousand dollars instead? And then when they get a cancer diagnosis they just go bankrupt? He is so unserious. That's why we are shut down and Americans know it.

Very proud of this pretty little painting I did on some glass yesterday. It'll be one piece in a larger stained glass project I'm working on.

Here's a bright spot in my life that has otherwise been quite consumed with cancer fear recently: I have begun shopping for a dress for my wedding ✨ Yesterday I tried on a dress that made me feel like a pretty princess which is not a feeling I experience very often!!

Unhappy to report that preliminary results are showing us having reelected every single incumbent like usual

Juncos are here ❄️

It’s time…

Eager to see how town elections go tomorrow. We have a town council made up of majority old white dudes for a town that is less than 30% white. We also have historically had <15% turnout for local elections. Would love to see a change tomorrow.

Today's news was Medium

It's wild how something can just live dormant in your brain unremembered by your conscious mind. I just watched Coraline for the first time in 1.5 decades and learned that a concept in my game is just fully stolen from it 😅

Fall color on the native saplings. The dogwood is a lovely dark red and the serviceberry is orange. First fall with the serviceberry, we just planted it in the spring!

Somebody tell these spring blooming bulbs I just planted to stop this nonsense! It is not spring!!

Really AWS another major outage? It has been 8 days since the last one.

Scrolling therapists on Psychology Today and click one. In her bio, there is a line "I thrive on watching people make better decisions." This line is immediately followed by an image of her feeding Cheez-its to a raccoon. The image is unacknowledged in any of the text.

Lil man has been glued to my lap ever since it started to get cooler.

Every bit of good news seems to be closely followed by some bad news

Three distinct and unrelated issues with third party services this week have created fires for me / my team. I am so tired.

Okay so this week's appointments were pretty good.

Today's cancer appointment wasn't too bad but jesus what a cursed day it has been

Why have the gods given me an AWS outage on the same day as a cancer appointment 🫩

Two more cancer appointments this week. Need these ones to be good.

Pretty crazy watching the EOBs roll in for Matt's surgery. The biggest one was $71,535. Fortunately insurance has approved that one 😅

We have two large pine trees and I love that they just give me free, beautiful mulch every fall. Can't believe I used to bag these up and have them sent away. Live and learn!