My husband and I just watched Melissa McCarthy's new movie (another with her husband, Ben Falcone), Superintelligence, and while it wasn't quite as funny as we expected, it was pretty cute.
As a kid, I loved to do those paint-by-number projects, although I was known to deviate from the number code from time to time. Now there's a new craft craze that I'm looking forward to trying just in time for the holidays. Have you tried Diamond Painting yet? Diamond Art Club is sending us a kit to try and I can't wait to give it a whirl.
Joe Biden has finally won the election--or he's won for the fifth or eighth or 12th time, depending who you ask and where you live in this circus--and he's started to announce his team. While some of his picks aren't particularly exciting, some are milestones for the country. We actually have a climate change position on the national security team, which is long overdue.
First of all, if your cat passes away and you want to go out and adopt another right away to try and curb the loneliness and sorrow... I really urge you to not do that. I wasn't going to do that and my husband, who couldn't stand to see me so sad for so long, urged me to adopt another cat just four months after my best friend and favorite cat died of cancer. I did and continue to regret it.
It's officially pie season and everyone seems to have pie on the mind. My teen and I took a poll of everyone in our family's favorite pies and discovered that while most preferred pumpkin (with apple in a fast second place), at least two don't like pie at all. It's funny how years of eating pie with people didn't alert me to this, but we do usually have dessert while people are coming and going after dinner. This will definitely be a quiet year for my big family.
My houseplants have been happy all year on regular old tap water, but lately I've had plants die and I have no idea why. Maybe some of them just do during this time of year. Maybe some of them don't like the heat being on in the house. But my aunt swears that it's the water I'm using.
There's a lot of hype about a certain book sequel this week while lots of fans take to Twitter, live-tweeting their reactions to each chapter. Having read and hated the first book and seeing a pretty gross transphobic excerpt from the second, I'm not going to read this book. It read like a petulant incel who, instead of changing for the better, is rewarded for his gatekeeping behavior. There's even a literal scene where people clap because he knows a piece of obscure trivia that someone else doesn't know.
While the whole "Meg is so awful and can't get a date" trope is getting incredibly old, it was used to further the story of a character we normally see on the sidelines. Bruce, otherwise known by most of us as the "Oh no!" guy, was going to marry Meg in order to appease his homophobic family. Meg encouraged him to come out and marry the love of his life, Jeffrey, instead.
While the whole "Meg is so awful and can't get a date" trope is getting incredibly old, it was used to further the story of a character we normally see on the sidelines. Bruce, otherwise known by most of us as the "Oh no!" guy, was going to marry Meg in order to appease his homophobic family. Meg encouraged him to come out and marry the love of his life, Jeffrey, instead.
If you're making a lot of gratitude lists, or thinking about what makes life meaningful and inspiring to you lately while you're at home more than usual, you might want to consider some of the Grateful Dead's most meaningful quotes. Song quotes resonate with us so well because they put our thoughts to music and help us connect in ways we may not have connected before.
It's that time of year again--cranberry time! Who doesn't love a bit of cranberry during the holidays? A few years ago we started a tradition of using holiday leftovers to create yummy turkey and cranberry quesadillas, which sounds super weird but is actually quite delicious! We also like to make our own cranberry sauce, which is so much more delicious than the weird jelly kind (although I do like the jelly, too).
We've discussed poetry teatime here at Poetry Talk before but it's been a while, and I wanted to bring up the beautiful tradition for those who might be interested in it. It's a weekly ritual from Brave Writer that involves sharing poems that you enjoy with loved ones every week, complete with tea and snacks.
Have you heard of Liar Liar, the game of Truth and Lies? It's a print-and-play game that tests your ability to lie and tell the truth! You get category cards to guide you in what kind of lies to tell, followed by cards to delineate whether or not you are to be the liar of the round. Some examples of categories include traffic, snacks, hotel and songs.
Lots of people look forward to their PSLs every fall, and I like to have a couple of them myself, but they certainly aren't the only fall flavors to enjoy each fall. There are plenty of other delicious fall drinks to enjoy that don't rely on the pumpkin flavor.
Black Friday is going to look really different for many people this year as, hopefully, most shoppers do so from home. As someone who normally does this anyway, I have been using Black Friday deals all week between stores that have them on multiple days, and I look forward to Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday as well.
Happy Turtle Tea is one of my favorite finds from a year at home. I'm hoping that a lot of people who are self-isolating have found new indie brands to support during their time at home, and my favorite thing about being home is being able to have tea whenever I want! Happy Turtle Tea has a bunch of flavorful, fan-based teas that come in easy-to-use pouches and are perfect for mixing as drinks, lattes or any other beverages you like.
It's a great week to start reading more work by indigenous authors, and O magazine has a list of 31 authors to follow. My teen and I have been reading some of these works and really enjoying them. It might also be a great week to pledge to read one work by an indigenous author each week for a year, which would certainly give everyone a greater perspective.
Every year I attempt to make my home a shoe-free zone and every year I fail, mostly because my partner likes to wear his shoes in the house. I'm hoping that these findings will help him reconsider! There are 421,000 kinds of bacteria on any given pair of shoes, according to one study, and many are the kinds that make us sick, like E. coli.
A helicopter crew recently discovered a metal monolith in the Utah desert while they were doing a flyover to count sheep. Whoever stuck the thing in the middle of nowhere may not have known that it was illegal to do so on federal land, but the 10-12 foot metal object had to have been hauled by someone with a purpose.
Animals using tools is one of my favorite weird animal subjects to learn about. I think many animals are much more clever and evolved than we give them credit for, and I love to see proof recorded. The latest one I've read about is the mugger crocodile.
