Hi friends! It’s baking season again, which means I am here to sing the praises of pre-cut parchment paper. YES it is more money but the amount of stress it saves me is unimaginable. It’s SO EASY. If you can swing it I highly recommend it.

I’m just imagining the Mythbusters testing this with ballistics gel and dummies, tbh

I have waited patiently through spooky season. Bring out the meal preparation Gantt charts and the gift shopping spreadsheets, IT’S MY TIME TO SHINE

We had a wee little earthquake here this evening. 2.5, according to USGS. My house shook! Wild stuff for Maryland.

I posted about my recent age-related shoulder impingement diagnosis on Facebook and the over-40 women are coming out of the woodwork in the comments. The things our bodies do to us in return for managing to survive this long are wildly unfair.

Hello! It’s me, your friend with a rare and stupid autoimmune disorder, here to ask your non-dietary tips on reducing chronic inflammation! My connective tissue and various appendages thank you in advance!

My husband took our son fishing this morning and he is not responding to any of my texts which consist solely of quotes from the increasingly obscure Strongbad Goes Fishing episode. Rude.

Yes, OBVIOUSLY if I had known this was coming I would have waited to reread Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail again. But I read it like last week. That’s too soon. You have to save up for it.

The amount of pressure I am feeling right now to identify and download a long enough fic to tide me through the upcoming AO3 20-hour maintenance is unreal. (I only read at bedtime! For like an hour! BUT STILL.) (Yes, recs welcome, esp if they involve Bucky Barnes or Jason Todd)

We need to sell about 500 of these to fully fund the native plant project for 2026. We're at about 90 so far so we're getting there! Tell your animal loving friends about this calendar 😘

There is nothing an older person in the grocery store likes more than seeing a younger person buying parsnips, let me tell you. I’m making brisket tonight and got stopped by MULTIPLE elderly ladies to compare recipes when they saw me pulling out a couple bags of ye olde parsnips.

I MADE this. I am astonished at myself.

If you see this quote with the energy you bring to Bluesky

I have once again begun to chaos bake. Discord gets most of the play by play but please enjoy this glimpse into the mess. These will, hopefully, be tartlets with a mandarin orange filling and lemongrass whipped ganache.

It always feels like a relevant time to share these again. #bsnm whimsystation.com/collections/...

The garden grew so many chili peppers while we were out of town that I have just purchased a dehydrator in self defense. @mostlybree.kitrocha.com is influencing me again.

End-of-summer poolside TBR. Feels like a pretty good way to spend my time.

This is like retiring The Onion’s jersey.

Yesterday I was in traffic brought to a standstill by an enormous flock of geese who decided to permanently inhabit the road. Nobody could get past in three directions until the hero in front of me got out of his car and shouted “GO DO FUCKING GOOSE THINGS” at them.

I ordered this a while ago, promptly forgot about it (a tried and true strategy for successfully backing cool projects), and it just got delivered in time for our summer vacation. Cannot wait to read this by the pool. Thank you @poopraven.bsky.social!

Tried to explain who Ozzy Osbourne was to our children tonight and I’m sorry to say that the only thing that sparked any recognition was “the lady with purple hair from Celebrity LEGO Masters’ dad.” Played Crazy Train on the drive home to try to make up for our parenting failure.

If anyone wants to meal plan discourse with me, I’m currently stuck because I’m good at hot weather meals (grill!) and cold rainy day meals (lasagna!) but this week is supposed to be hot AND rainy and nothing sounds appealing. Feel free to send me recipe ideas.

Maryland moments: you park in a parking garage for a swim meet and someone’s kinetic sculpture race vehicle is randomly next to your car.

pls

the older I get and the hotter the days become, the more I understand why there are so many paintings of reclining nude people

You ever see an ad and realize that yes, it’s fully aware of what it’s doing

Yes I AM posting this from the Bay Bridge, actually. (I am not driving!)

A true Maryland joy: driving a non-Marylander across the bay bridge for the first time and watching them absolutely lose their shit.

In your 40s, you trade coolness for self-actualization and realize that was what you were searching for the whole time. Coolness is the attempt to outsource self-actualization before you've had enough life experience.

I know that rainbow capitalism is bad but I did just get these rainbow aviators from Lane Bryant’s Pride collection and they’re very good.

Listen. The greatest moment of television in my personal lexicon is an episode of Barefoot Contessa in which Ina’s friend Susan brings a ‘surprise guest’ - the doorbell rings, Ina opens it, flings her arms in the air, and shrieks “IT’S MEL!!” upon finding Mel Brooks on her doorstep. AS WE ALL WOULD.

Legitimately considering renting out a movie theatre for this

I never got past the maps tbh

Dear everyone who told me that I would like A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking so much it seemed as if it were pretty much written just for me, which is approximately the entire population of Bsky: you were right. Well done. Now do it again.

Living for the day when I post a link to one of my (all extremely unserious) fics on AO3 and someone finally goes, "that's YOU? I love that one!" Someday. (Dreams don't have to be big, lol.)

The Nancy Meyers Kitchen Crew

Tush Push? It's called pegging, dear.

She also gave me a copy of The Joy of Sex from 1972 for my 18th birthday. So. There’s that, I guess.

My mom showed me how to put a condom on, but the only thing in the house she could find to demonstrate on was a taper candle.

We are finally introducing the kids to my favorite franchise: The Librarians. Because we are completionists, we have started off with the movies, from 2004, 2006, and 2008. And whew. Let me tell you the tweens are Not Impressed by the special effects and video quality.

ok now we got entering *and* leaving the room all covered

I drove by our old house today, and the current owners have added a picket fence surrounded by a ton of vibrant roses, and it’s so nice to know that somebody loves living in the house we spent ten years loving and fixing and building, where we brought our babies home.

HAWTHORN is what happens when some extremely talented developers from Bethesda, Naughty Dog, & BioWare get together to make their dream game: a mix of Skyrim, Stardew Valley, & the Redwall series. A successful Kickstarter will help make this dream a reality; please pitch in if you have the means!

This morning, I said to @itsjorsh.bsky.social excitedly and very much out loud, "They've got great bins there!" about a retail establishment, if you were wondering how glamorous and exciting it is to be in your forties. (they do, tho)

A story in three texts from my 5th grader (context: the kids at the bus stop are absolutely convinced that they are going to be able to start a fire with a pile of leaves and sticks and something to reflect the sun, and have been attempting it with great sincerity every morning for months)

Found two (2) gray hairs tonight. I guess this is happening.

I just got hit in the face with a screen full of CSS and jQuery and had no idea what it was for. It is too early for this, Past Me.

TFW you open your computer in the morning and have to try to decipher what kind of esoteric thing you were trying to learn last night by examining the tabs you have open. (Don't get me wrong, I just mean the first 3-5 tabs in front, not the emotional support tabs.)

I check the little screen, I check the big screen, I check the watch screen, I check the tablet screen. I check the screen that reminds me of the good times, I check the screen that reminds me of the better times.