The writer's study for the week while I'm up in Maine on vacation with the family. It's a rough life, but it would have been rude not to join them, ya know?

New Tunesday Chat post is up! This month, I interviewed Travis Taylor, dev and composer of Chronos Trials RPG & founder of Harmonic Harbour, a platform to help audio freelancers find collaborators and projects. If you are or know a composer who'd like to be featured in a future post, let me know!

If there's one thing I hate more than having to rush out to the hardware store for a single item mid-house-project, it's having to do so twice in one day. Fortunately, the hardware store cats showed up (and/or snuggled in) to support me in my time of grief.

Green bean season had a rough start in the garden this year, but it's getting into gear now. Cute but unhelpful bunnies didn't leave enough plants for us to be able to toss bags at passersby just to get rid of them like we have in the past, but we should have plenty for us and some sharing. 🌱

It's also handy for supplying all the local birds with nesting materials when he's shedding his winter coat. We get Baltimore orioles that nest around the yard every year, and I think it's partly because of the Appa fluff.

We have one, and it helps 90% of the time. Ours would love to be somewhere where it ever gets over 70F, so when he starts getting too warm, "normal speed" ends up being too fast. So summer is a lot of making portions smaller and trying to get him to drink more water than he seems to think he needs.

Appa doesnt always get to go on long car rides with us, but when he does, he basically gets to sleep the whole time while being within convenient reach of scritches.

Strawberries are nearing the end of their harvest for this year, but black raspberries are eager to jump in to fill the spot for the next bunch of weeks.

Three weeks after the last strawberry update, and they're still going strong in the garden We've made jam, syrup (for strawberry cardamom iced tea and strawberry lemonade), the amazing Serious Eats strawberry ice cream (link below), and now strawberry shortcake. And have frozen a ton. 🍓 success.

So begins the 2026 season of trying to get as many strawberries as possible before the robins and catbirds grab the fruit tax they claim for eating all the garden bugs.

Free spoon has been acquired! It's a fun spoon. Certainly worth trying weird pizza soup for. The pizza soup is...not an abomination? Without the weird pepperoni chunks, it would be an entirely acceptable pre-packaged tomato soup. If we were more of a soup household, I'd try their other flavors 🤷‍♀️

9 y.o. seems to find it physically painful to leave a store with a single dollar of spending money left in his pocket, so we don't go to Target except in emergencies. Like forgetting about a friend's birthday party that is tomorrow I think I know where all his savings will be going this year...

Now it's just mocking me.

Purchased this abomination at Aldi, partly because I was intrigued by the offer of a free spoon with purchase. Turns out they're pretty nice spoons. But it requires a Walmart receipt for the offer 😭 I have sent them a sad email, so we will see what happens.

I always forget how fun aquarium visits are. 🐙🐧🐢🦭

Was going to crochet a gift for a friend's new little girl, but remembered the scraps of pink/purple/teal dino fabric I had in the fabric stash. So, I dug out the sewing machine and went back to the patchwork pillow tradition Now, to start thinking about quilts for another friend who's due soon

Temperatures were slightly above freezing, so we went to see what was going on at the beach. (Got to see many dogs out for walkies, which is always nice) Winter coastlines are quite something.

Meanwhile, Appa is outside quite literally just chilling. (To be fair, it is now above 0)

Our tree has become a "How many bluebirds can you find?" puzzle while the little puffballs wait for me to refresh the mealworm supply.

As a chronic overthinker, honestly this could be a shift in a helpful direction 😂

No cheating, reskeet with the most recent photo of your pet. Most animals when its 18*F out: "Nope." Appa: living his best life.

He's not sleeping. He's just resting his eyes.

And another photo, because my phone wouldn't let me put them both in the same post for reasons unknown.

I get to celebrate Caturday this week, as we had one of the neighborhood wanderers stop by to scope out the small rodent situation in our upper yard. The dog was...not pleased, so I went out to shoo the kitty away, only to have him/her rub against my legs and flop down for scritches. #caturday

Traditional Halloween Eldritch Horror game was delayed a week because of kid activities, but snacks and tea have been served, and it's time to watch the world fall into chaos. But the board game version, so it's fun Lovecraftian chaos.

Appa says that it is time for scritches, not naps.

A plus of living in an old New England town is that the mill buildings house all sorts of fun businesses and workspaces. Like the women's club/co-work/makerspace I got around to joining so that I can write without laundry threatening from the next room. 10/10 Autumn sky through old window views.

My wind ensemble does a costumed fall concert every year, which I love because I *usually* go with slightly obscure nerdy costumes, and they're more likely to recognize them in that crowd. I don't think that will be an issue this year. This year we're gonna be ✨️Golden✨️ 💃🎶

Anyone want to purchase my handmade version, which I have been developing for years to best meet the needs of modern individuals, and didn’t throw together in 30sec? Classic, intuitive checkmark system! 2-sided cards for flexibility! Color-coded to assign tasks to categories! On sale $89.98

Garden green beans are still going strong, but kiddo is pretty tired of them Today's strategy: turn "green bean/ground beef tart" (GBx2 plus onion, cheese, herbs on puff pastry on sheet pan) into a "pizza pocket" (same things but folded up in pizza dough, then dip in marinara) Bets on how it goes?