bodhifox | Reading

Spring is certainly already here—when I got on the bus this morning, the entire front window upstairs was covered in a thick sheet of ice, from melting snow hitting the window and freezing again, as temps were just under freezing.

However, by the time we were in Umeå, and hour and a half later, the temps were above freezing, and the action of the windshield wipers had taken away all of the slush so I could see out the window again.

kareina

After work today we started a banner for Camp Northern Lights. We already have the entrance banner, which says "Camp Northern Lights, Everyone Always Welcome", and this time Keldor wanted to communicate that without any text. This might do it: A Sea Reindeer, sharing a drink with a Unicorn, followed by a trumpet-playing rabbit serenading a dragon, with the help of a bagpipe playing cat, followed by a flaming fox-duck chasing a snail, wearing a sombrero. The Unicorn's rainbow tail will continue behind the rest of the creatures, and, overhead, a dark blue sky with Northern Lights. It will be interesting to see if we can pull this off.

kareina

I started a new project this morning. I am sewing myself some yoga blocks. Yes, this is a sewing project!

I didn’t have yoga blocks when living with David, so we cut a couple of pieces of thick wood that, while no where near as thick as a normal yoga block, was better than nothing. This morning I did a strength and flexibility hip stretching video that suggested holding a yoga block between the knees and squeezing hard. I cannot recommend doing this with a solid block of wood instead of a yoga block.

So I decided to take some of the adhesive foam Keldor has and add padding to the sides of the blocks, which made them as thick as a yoga block.

But that texture wouldn’t be pleasant to touch, so I took some of the scrap leather from the couch that came with the couch and cover the blocks. This adds some stability to the foam, but I could see that they wouldn’t stand well on end, so I cut even more foam for the ends, and that seems to help, though now they are longer than a traditional yoga block.

I managed to get that project well started before Aeirin arrived, and then made some good progress sewing on it while we talked and before armouring up. My first time in armour in weeks!

We took Aeirin’s armour home after Coronet two weeks ago, as she was travelling by train, and while it is possible to take the armour that way, it isn’t pleasant. We had planed to do a fighter practice last weekend weekend she came to pick it up, but she came down with a cold, so we rescheduled to today.

I learned that yes, my armour would have been ok to fight in the tournament, while it has plenty of problems that need upgrading for comfort, there are no broken bits that would have failed inspection.

I learned that when I feel stressed and afraid the my opponent might hit me I forget everything I know about stance and footwork, and lean away from them.

I learned that I really need more time in armour for conditioning training. I was the first of us to give up, with the (true) excuse that I was super hungry, but I was also just plain out of energy.

Now I am (over) fed and should go pack my armour, which is scattered all over the entry area, and not nicely in its box.

Hours later… I have attended Nordmark’s annual meeting over zoom, updated my food logs, and just as I was about to leave the computer, Keldor said, “let’s look at flights to Strawberry Raid”, and then bought us tickets, with a week before the event there, where we will (hopefully, if the timing still works for her), visit Tania and Mike. So now I have updated the calendar with all of the flights, and updated my financial records for the bookings, an now I really will go pack that armour and get ready for bed…

kareina

We slept in this morning. I woke a bit before 07:00 to pee, and grabbed a small clementine to eat with my morning vitamin, and went right back to bed and slept for another hour, by which time my hips were aching, so I got up and did some pliaties.

We played a game of Qwirkle over breakfast, and Keldor proposed a plan for the day. He wanted to head to Umeå and pick up some fish for his aquarium, and whilst there we could do other errands. Second hand store, swing by my office to print a few thing, stock up on stuff at the grocery store. It was a good plan.

We left the house just after 12:30, a bright sunny day, with temperatures at + 3C, the first day this calendar year above freezing, but the new snow we had this week meant that it was a beautiful drive.

An hour later we approaced the roundabout at the north end of the city, discussing which order made the most sense. University first, or second had store first.

The car choose for us. It entered the roundabout, must have liked it, because we heard a loud clunking noise from the engine, and the car ceased its forward momentum. Keldor was able to pull right up to the centre of the roundabout before he lost the last of the glide.

From these symptoms, we assume we no longer have a functioning drive shaft, so I went through the insurance web page and ordered a tow truck, and we waited as traffic circled around us.

One car driving by paused to ask if we needed help. That was nice of them. Eventually the tow truck cane and took the car to the shop, and a taxi took us to the University, but with only enough time to drop off a couple of things to leave in the office and use the loo before heading to the bus stop. I considered trying to do the printing, but decided I didn't want to risk missing the bus, as the next wouldn't be there for another hour.

So, no errands for us today. The shop isn't open till Monday, so I won't know anything about prognosis before then.

The project I took with me is a bit of mending, fixing sleeves on my blue sweater with the worn out cuffs, using 3 nålbindning stitches to one cuff rib.

starting sleeve mending

Between stitching as we travelled and then curling up on the couch at home, I managed to finish one cuff, and make a good start on the next.

cuff

ofearthandstars

From this week's

thefridayfive:

1. What made you happy this week?
I managed to knock out a fair amount of tasks at work, and also achieved some monthly goals (planning for upcoming trips/birthdays). Feeling accomplished is good.

2. What made you sad?
I can't say that I've felt particularly sad over the last week, but I've been doing a lot of continued grieving over work and personal life changes in the last year.

3. What made you angry?
The news—from Kansas, from Minnesota, from EPA, from Iran, from everywhere. I'm so tired of terrible people being terrible.

4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
My SO has a birthday next weekend, and we'll be celebrating that as best we can.

5. What are you not looking forward to?
My daily work is a bit of a slog right now, and it's hard to stay mentally motivated and engaged.

kareina

A little new snow to shovel today, this is two days in a row, it looks like winter has finally arrived, while friends in southern locations post spring flower photos. Indeed, I walked out into the side yard today to take a photo of the attic window to include in asking for an estimate to replace it as part of the [[Create an attic bedroom]] project, and, for the first time this year, the snow is deep enough that I got snow on the knees of my trousers, as my feet sunk deeper in than the height of my boots.

I was so out of energy yesterday I took yesterday and today off of work. Boy did that decision pay off. I took a 1.5 hour nap after breakfast, and then did lots of tasks that seriously help my metal health:

- tided away all of the clutter that has been accumulating

- washed the bedsheets

- washed both of the cat water fountains

- started cleaning and inventorying the store room in the basement where we keep the home improvement supplies. Got the paints completely inventoried and found the missing silver paint, so now I have completed the test painting to compare the gold and silver over the chocolate brown paint.

I am feeling so much better!

Poor Keldor though, got his thumb too close to the sanding machine today and took a pretty serious chunk out of his thumbnail. Ow.

ofearthandstars

"Today, transgender people across Kansas are reporting receiving letters from the Kansas Division of Vehicles stating that they must surrender their driver's licenses and that their current credentials will be considered invalid upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday. Should any transgender person be caught driving without a valid license, they could face a class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

...In addition to the driver's license provisions, the law bans transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings and creates a bathroom bounty hunter system allowing citizens to sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for at least $1,000 in damages, including potentially in private restrooms."

We ran Pat McCrory out of the governor's seat for a lot less.

kareina

Bussed in this morning for a meeting that didn't happen. but while on campus, I printed my favourite image of St. George and the dragon to use as a reference image when decorating my Camping loo in progress (However, this is the first time I have considered drawing the dragon, and not just the bliaut, so I never noticed before that there are two dragons in this image!). Then I caught the next bus home, because I could

Posting this from the bus, because I can. Know that even though I haven't posted here often lately, I have been continuing to write at least short posts in Obsidian on my phone, but not finding time to copy them here.
Today I managed to use the computer to push the last handful to my blog. So, rather than doing lots of post-dated posts (like I did last time I needed to catch up), I will just post a bunch of links, and you who are curious about what I have been up to can click through:

2026-02-12 starting the road trip to Nordmark Coronet
2026-02-13 road trip to Nordmark Coronet, day two
2026-02-14 vivat Baron Þórólfr!
2026-02-15 hem resan
2026-02-16 grateful I took today off
2026-02-17 selmor!
2026-02-18 it was a good bowl
2026-02-19 quiet day
2026-02-20 new knife blades, old photos (with links to photos of how bad this house was when we bought it)
2026-02-21 a Saturday at home
2026-02-22 unplanned errands
2026-02-23 a wool flower to start the day
2026-02-24 plumbing progress
2026-02-25 and the evening's projects

If you do click through, and you feel inspired to comment, be welcome back here for that part. If there is a way to have comments in GitHub pages, I haven't learned it yet.

ofearthandstars

I finished Otherworldly, and I think by the end I loved it. My review is here.

I checked out Patchwork Dolls by Ysabelle Cheung from Libby and so far, am enjoying it immensely! The first story in the collection is a wonderful exploration of a brain fungus.

I am only on finishing book 7 this year, which means I'm 10% through my reading goal. I may be a little behind, but work has kept me busier in the evenings lately.

Last night we had a line of storms move through around 4 am. I know this because lightning struck somewhere very close around that time and the thunderous boom shook the windows and woke us. The dog then shivered and practically crawled underneath me for the next hour while the heavy rain continued. Thankfully, things calmed down after that, but I did not sleep as well as I would have liked due to the atmospheric rudeness.

ofearthandstars

From this week's

thefridayfive:

When did you last...

1. Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?
Hmm, good question, and I'm not sure I could give a definitive answer. I often rely on my card to make purchases, and have a little pocket on the back of my phone case where I keep it and my license, so I don't have to carry other things around. So I rarely ever have cash, much less change, unless I'm making a day of things and take my shoulder bag. The shoulder bag is where loose change and gift cards go to die and then wait for their messiah (and I am not a very good one.)

2. Visit a dentist?
I went to the periodontist just last week for a check-up. And I go again for a cleaning in a few weeks. I actually like the dentist/periodontist because you sit back and let someone else take care of you for a bit.

3. Make a needed change to your life?
I broke a pattern on June 6, 2025, just as I did on June 6, 2006, but there's still work to be done there.

4. Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?
We meal plan every week on Sunday, then buy our groceries and hopefully (fingers crossed) do not need to leave the house again for food stuffs until the following week.

5. Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?
This feels like it should have a spicier answer, but I can't remember doing this for any part of my adult years. I have always been self-conscious and am also cold-natured, so I'm usually clothed in some way.

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Page generated Mar. 5th, 2026 02:43 pm

Expat Paradise

Reading

Spring in the north

A new banner started

fighter training and travel booking

Not the adventure we had hoped for

Friday Five Feelings Edition

A mental health day

Morning Rage.

quick catch up

Books.

Friday Five: Random Edition

Profile

September 2010

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