(no subject)
Aug. 29th, 2025 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
When putting the baby to bed I discovered that her newfound love of putting things under her mattress (herself included) and her love of naked time, had combined horribly when I found a soiled diaper hiding under the mattress. -_- More poo cleanup ensued. At least this time I didn't have to wash all her blankets, and her mattresses are waterproof and easy to clean up. But yeesh, girl, that was not cool.
Set an early alarm so I could do dishes this morning, and got up at 6. And so did the baby, because of course she did. I made her breakfast and plonked her down in front of the TV with a medley of Ms. Rachel songs going to keep her occupied, then I attacked as many of the dishes as I could before it was time to get ready for work. Discovered that the kitchen sink's hot water knob is now broken, so had to wash the dishes with cold water. -_- Got about halfway through the dishes before I ran out of time.
Woke M up, threw on some clothes, and headed out. Hopefully the rest of the day is pretty quiet, and maybe I can sneak out of work a little early since it's a holiday weekend/my birthday weekend.
M made the executive decision last night that I am no longer cooking dinner for the rest of my pregnancy. He has seen me struggle too much lately with the body pains and exhaustion I'm fighting at the end of the day, so from now on no more cooking. I will absolutely not argue with that, it's definitely a huge burden lifted. Time to stock up on frozen meals!
When In California...
Aug. 29th, 2025 01:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
...never let the guy from Boston order your bachelor party cake.

Bummah.
Thanks to Jerry F., who was the real stah of the pahty.
*****
P.S. Here's another (hilarious) reminder that English is hard:

P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:

Girl Genius for Friday, August 29, 2025
Aug. 29th, 2025 04:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
(no subject)
Aug. 28th, 2025 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Dinner was a couple of take-and-bake pizzas from the grocery store, which were perfectly adequate. M had decided to get the baby up in the morning instead of letting her sleep until she wakes on her own, so when I put her down for the night she went right to sleep. Hooray! I watched a bit of TV once she was in bed, ate some ice cream, and finally took a shower.
Unfortunately, when I tried to sneak into the bedroom to grab my nightgown, the baby woke up. So we had a 30 minute interlude where she had a bottle of milk and snuggled her freshly laundered blankets, which were finally dry. M gave up the office for the rest of the night so we could put her down in her own crib, and while she protested at first, she settled in eventually. We all got to bed after midnight, blah.
Sister has purchased the tickets for our movie outing this weekend, hooray! I can't wait to have a day out, I've been feeling very cooped up!
Friend of M at New Company apologized yesterday that HR was taking so long. The way he worded things made it sound like M does, in fact, have the job, since he said they were "just waiting for Boss to sign off, and he's travelling this week." We're trying not to celebrate prematurely, but it does sound very positive.
Eide posted the itinerary for their late-Victorian Vampire-themed New Orleans weekend in January, and MAN am I bummed that I'm going to miss it. There's a dinner with Bram Stoker's grandson (!!!), dinners at all my favorite French Quarter restaurants, ghost walks, cemetery tours, museum visits. It sounds so, so fun.
We Are The World Wrecks
Aug. 28th, 2025 01:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
As you've probably guessed by now, most of the wrecks on this site are made right here in the good ol' US of A. Which may be a sad point of pride, but we'll take it. (America! Heck yeah!!)
Still, in an effort to give our American bakers a much-needed shot of schadenfreude, we've decided to search through 16,000 submissions to find a few wrecks from other countries.
"But Jen," you're thinking, "isn't that kind of like William Shatner picking on Andrea Boccelli for singing a single note slightly off-key one time while he had a cold?"
Yeah, kind of.
Are we going to do it anyway?
Heck yeah!!
From Denmark:

I'm not sure if these are actually cakes or just giant Danishes, but whichever it is, keep in mind that someone thought the green icing was helping.
From Egypt:

You might think camouflage triangles, shooting stars, and neon splattered rings would be a little crazy, but that white pom pom thing really pulls it all together.
From Taiwan:

I don't know what it is, but I think it wants to kill me.
From Morocco:

Is that...Doc? From Snow White? Hey, I think it's Doc!
No, wait. The little trees are all knocked over.
Must be Sneezy.
From Iran:

That's either a fish or a rubber chicken. Final answer.
Courtesy of the Ivory Coast, here's one way to cover up messy handwriting:

Inadequately.
From our friends over in China:

Say, is your tank dripping, or are you just happy to see me?
And finally, from Mexico:

I will now yell at a Mexican cake in a bad Scottish accent.
"Heed! Down in front!
"Would you look at the size of that girl's head? That's a 'uge noggin'! It's a virtual planetoid! It has its own weather system!"
Thanks to Stephanie B., Heather B., Alisa K., Cindy P., Lisa, Amanda D., Jacquie B., & Clau for that veritable tapestry of nations. A world showcase, if you will, providing illuminations for our own American Adventure.
******
P.S. In the spirit of continued learning and broadening our horizons, I found you some take-home reading:

What If? Serious Scientific Answers To Absurd Hypothetical Questions
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:

(no subject)
Aug. 27th, 2025 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Thursday I was super exhausted having been awake from 2-5 AM again, so I made the decision to drive down on Friday morning. I finished the chores I wanted to finish and then watched a movie with my friend. I hit the road just after 8am, and when I stopped for potty/more coffee in the next city around 9:45, I got a call from my friend asking me to go back and get a SUPER CRUCIAL part of their set-up: a lid for one of the tents. As last year we had a super intense thunderstorm and this year was forecasted to be very warm and sunny, this really was a mild emergency. They would pay me extra gas to go back. So, back I went. On the plus side, I got to see Watson the puppy!! Then, while I was there, they called again and said I needed to go into one of the smaller nearby cities to pick up one of their on-site people's wallet. They'd done the entire 4 hour trip the day before without their license, and still needed to drive back. Oops. Well, at least I was already in the area. Six hours after leaving the house, I was still more or less at home lol.
Made it down without incident and we finished up the first day of the show. I went out with my roommate (whom I've met twice) and two other people who help at the show (never met them before) for dinner at like, 10pm. We got back just after 11. The morning was confusing as I'd thought we'd be travelling with Nicole and Matt, but they'd left early to get gas and coffees (the hotel coffee was not it), so I went with Meg, who was only there for the one day. Which was fine, we totally needed 5! people working on corsets that day. It was BUSY and it was HOT and we were EXHAUSTED. The line to get in was ridiculous, I heard later that people were standing on the highway in order to get in (a good half a mile). We had lulls when people were out watching some of the events. No line for any food truck was under 45 minutes. WILD but successful day. Back at the hotel, I took a quick shower before the group went out for dinner and then we all collapsed into bed.
Sunday was less busy but much steadier. We had vendors mostly trying to shop before 10 (go away, I'm busy!), but from 11 to about 430 it was gangbusters. At 5 it died down and I only helped about 4 people until the event closed at 6. Helped with tear down, where I was helping carry a shelf and missed that the trailer height was low so it got stopped on the upper edge, but I kept walking. Thankfully my brow-area took most of the force, and my glasses got pushed into my nose before falling off. I sat down with a bottle of water for an ice pack for awhile. I don't think anything broke, and I wasn't bleeding anywhere, but OW. It's still tender. It was just the three of us by then, so we ordered food to be delivered, then I took another shower bc the day was HOT and WINDY again and I'd washed my hands and part of my forearms, where you could see the line of dirt where I'd cleaned. Dinner was consumed in the hotel's breakfast room, and then we said good night and parted ways.
In the morning, I rolled around for a couple hours before heading down to check out. Breakfast sure was different without the full house from the weekend lol. Hit the road just after 9 and went to the warehouse fabric store which was SO MUCH FUN I HAD THE BEST TIME and I could have spent SO MUCH MONEY but I restrianed myself. I walked out with some ponte in a dark plaid, stretch mesh (on discount bc it was dirty), a bolt of crabs on blue, some cottons for shirts in fun prints (unicorn tapestry, bugs, and birds), just under a meter of black wool, swimsuit knit (I have a plan, for all the swimming I do...), a roll of 1.25" web that Gertie is always talking about hehehe, clasps for a bag project, a new lightbulb for the other machine, and... I think that was it. I had more but I was "good" and put some things back. Then I went to a yarn store where i picked up a sweater's worth of yarn for a sweater I'm starting on Monday and another cable for the same lol. Then it was onto the road!
Got home just before 5, where I promptly crashed into the couch. Yesterday was more of the same, barring a 45 min trip to the grocery store mostly bc I didn't have any coffee cream or cheese. I apparently really needed that rotting time, bc the weekend was really hard on my body and my face still hurts but only when I touch it. I need to do some chores today (cat box, mostly) and tomorrow M and i are going to IKEA (where I SWEAR I am only pick up the missing curtain hardware) and Michaels and Spirit of Halloween. And getting milkshakes.
Long weekend at least so I won't have to go back to work right away. Super duper glad I took this week off, I have many crafy plans! Now I just need to get off the couch and do them.
Free Throws
Aug. 27th, 2025 01:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
A while back one of our readers suggested a fun activity for the next book tour: set up plain frosted cakes, and let contestants hurl various bits of candy, flotsam, and ribbon at said cakes. Whichever looks "best" wins.
Unfortunately, I think some wreckerators out there took this as career advice.
And believe me: there are no winners here.

Wow. I didn't know you could get that kind of distance out of mini marshmallows.
You know what they always say about edible splatter paint!:

Nothing, actually. They're all too busy trying to avoid the pieces with the poo-colored jelly beans.
Here's one that made use of the drop method:

Most of it even landed on the cake!
Of course, when you're lobbing across such great distances, some breakage is to be expected:

Boops.
You can see that a lot of throwing went into this one:

(Psst. Throwing up counts, right?)
Hang on a sec, something's wrong.
This one's making me hungry:

Mmmm.
Curse you, Wreckerators, and your nefarious mind-washing piles of
whipped cream and berry goodness!
I mean, what next? Will a professional chef on a national reality show get in on the act??

[holding head] We're too late! AAHHHH!!
Thanks to Jill N., Ashlee M., Cassie G., Julie V., Kimberly B., & Elizabeth L., who all get to be first in line come book-tour-throwing time.
*****
P.S., Speaking of books, I just found one right up our wrecky alley:

A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking
I don't even need a synopsis. I'm sold.
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:

(no subject)
Aug. 27th, 2025 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Got a call from M at around 10:30 that he needed me to come home immediately, so I took my lunch a tad early and headed to the house. When I got there, the baby was in the bath and M was rampaging through the house. Seems that the baby had taken off her poopy diaper before M had woken up, and just smeared it everywhere - her whole body, her crib, her blankets, everywhere.
He'd just finished bathing the baby, so I got her out of the tub and got her dried off and dressed. M was not handling things well, so I took all the bedding and threw it in the tub with some laundry soap and water and let it soak so I could scrub it. I gave the baby a lunch plate, and then spent a good amount of time scrubbing all her stuff. Drain tub, rinse, repeat.
Baby wanted to help, of course, so she started bringing her dirty clothes and throwing it into the tub. So those were scrubbed, too. I gave her a fresh sponge so she would stop trying to steal mine, and that kept her occupied enough that I could finish the task.
The baby had an absolute meltdown when she saw her blankets go back into the tub for the second soak. She loves them so much. It made getting her down for a nap nearly impossible, but she finally cried enough to exhaust herself to sleep. Poor girl was having such a weird day, she probably felt very thrown off.
Once she was asleep, I did the task that had originally been planned for my lunch break - pick up the grocery order. Got home, and the sound of the front door woke the baby back up, so once M and I had brought all the groceries in, I got her up, and she helped me put away all the food. Meaning mostly that I put stuff away and she snacked on pilfered strawberries.
No dinner, too much happening in the house. Baby fought her bedtime because still no blankets, so we had to make due with some throw blankets from the couch, which she wasn't a big fan of.
M got it in his head that the state of the floors was a Major Problem, so once the baby was finally asleep, we got out the mop and bucket and scrubbed every floor in the common areas of the house. He did the living room and kitchen while I did the hall, bathroom, and cat closet. By the time we were finished it was nearly 11 and we were both exhausted.
I have blisters on my right hand from all the scrubbing and wringing of blankets. I can't actually remember the last time I took a shower. I haven't had a break in months. I am very, very tired.
I really can't wait for my lunch outing with my sister this weekend. It will be so, so nice to get away from the house for an afternoon!
Girl Genius for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Aug. 27th, 2025 04:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
(no subject)
Aug. 26th, 2025 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Came home after work and dove immediately into making dinner, which was an exercise in frustration because the baby kept getting naked every five minutes since I wasn't in the living room to keep her entertained. -_- Still somehow managed to get dinner done at a reasonable hour, for once, and by the time we were all finished eating, it was time for the baby to go to bed.
Cue more naked baby shenanigans, as she kept fighting sleep and getting naked over and over and over. ~sigh~ All that bending over her crib trying to get her to lie back down took a toll on my stomach, which had already been weird all day, and I ended up throwing up a bit. Fun.
Was woozy and extremely uncomfortable for the rest of the evening. Baby #2 must have been sitting just right up under my lungs, because breathing was a chore. I decided to try stretching out on the couch, where I ended up falling asleep. M woke me up around 10:30 so I could go to bed, and I slept like I'd just run a marathon.
Achy and sore today. Pelvis, hips, legs, all hurt like I've been doing a million squats. Being pregnant sucks, yo.
Parental Payback
Aug. 26th, 2025 01:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Parents, when it comes to planning your child's birthday party, prepare for a lot of whining, temper tantrums, and willful brattiness.
Plus your kids might be a pain, too.
Well, here's one way to exact a little revenge: your kids' birthday cake.

Can't sleep. Barney will eat me.
Yep, there's something about seeing their favorite lovable character transformed into a homicidal psychopath that could slightly unhinge more impressionable minds.

"To infinity! and killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill."
Hey, whatever doesn't make your children soil themselves in panic-stricken terror only makes them stronger, right?
"Now, don't worry, kids; Elmo's more afraid of you than you are of him!

"Billy, would you like to do the honors? Let's start with a good clean stab through Elmo's eye. Go on.
"Oh, quit crying. Birthday boys *like* eating Muppet eyes! And just look at that face! Elmo wants you to eat him!"
Ok, granted, you'll be the one paying for their therapy sessions later, but in the meantime...

Spongebob No Pants is here to say hello, kids!
Besides, sometimes there are added benefits:

I'm pretty sure your daughter will never ask for a pony again.
Thanks to wreckporters Laurie H., Stephanie L., Kevin H., Fraulein M., & Jennifer S., who think I should totally write parenting books. (Working title: Odds Are, They'll Live.)
*****

*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:

Mississippi legal challenge: beginning 1 September, we will need to geoblock Mississippi IPs
Aug. 26th, 2025 12:24 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.
Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.
Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.
Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)
Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)
Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)
All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.
We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)
If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.
On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.
Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.
They're Gonna Need 'Em
Aug. 25th, 2025 01:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)

Ask where the second "e" went all you want; *I* want to know what's in that icing.
[shudder]

Sorry, Ash, you only get one.

Aw, this is my fav "favewell" cake ever. It's the bes!

I'm a little unclear on the message here. Is it:
"Best wishes! Here's a pile of crap! With plastic! And curly ribbon!"
Yes? No? Am I close?
Ok, so in the Ghostbusters video game (oh, c'mon, you knew I was a nerd) there's this cursed clock that claims to show the exact time of death for anyone who looks at it. Creepy, right?
Well, guess what came to mind when I saw this cake?

You think this Wreckerator knows something about Beck Y's future - say, around 10 PM - that we don't? I mean, she filled in everything else from "play with gran kids" to "gardaning," so that lone blank spot is looking pretty dang ominous, if you ask me.
In fact, maybe the baker should just get right to the point:

Or:
Buuuuuh...

Buhbye.
Thanks to W.C., Ashley B., April C., Ginny B., Heather J., Betsy U., & Jennifer H. for all the fell wishes.
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:

(no subject)
Aug. 25th, 2025 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
All of my dreams lately have been either Star Trek or costume-related. The other night? Vampires on the Enterprise! Last night? Dream brain was sewing a whole Regency wardrobe. Ope, now there's a dragon attacking the Enterprise, but Worf is going to handle it. Gotta get that ballgown finished!
Woke up Saturday at around 7:30, so I had a little bit of time to myself in the morning to toodle around, eat breakfast, and slowly wake up, before the baby was up. It was very relaxing for a while. The baby was a holy terror once she was awake, though, and fought her nap so, so hard, that it completely stressed me out. She finally went down around 1:30, so I took the opportunity to make a pot of potato and ham chowder, which lasted us the rest of the weekend. Baby was in a much better mood once she got up from her nap, so the rest of the evening was fairly pleasant.
While I was dealing with baby shenanigans and soup, M was out fixing both our cars. The tire on the Toyota was first, and it turned out that the replacement tire we'd put on had a nail in it. -_- At least it wasn't a bent rim like M had feared, so he went to a different shop, picked up another, much better used tire, and the Toyota was good to go. The Jeep was next, and while he'd expected to have to take the front end off the Jeep in order to replace some hard-to-reach hoses, a bit of research and a quick check revealed that the aftermarket thermostat that he'd installed a few months ago had actually warped, and that was what was causing all the overheating issues. So, he replaced it with a proper OEM part, and now it's doing just fine, which is great because it saved us about $300 in more complicated repairs!
Since M and I had knocked out most of our chores on Saturday, we mutually agreed that we would take it easy on Sunday. I woke up late at around 9, had a bit of breakfast, and when 10 rolled around and the baby still wasn't up, I decided to wake her. She was in a pretty good mood, she ate some food, and then went down pretty easily for a nap. She slept for nearly 3 hours, and was an absolutely cantankerous mess when she got up, and the rest of the evening was full of explosive tantrums. She finally chilled out after a good two hours of attitude and nonsense. I made her a sweet potato, which made her happy.
She went to bed at her normal time and was asleep almost instantly. Then about an hour later I heard her up and fussing, so I checked on her, and AUGH, naked poo situation. M and I had to double team it, where he bathed the baby and I washed the mattress and blankets. -_- Thankfully, she went immediately back to sleep once everything and everyone was clean and sorted out, so I could enjoy my dinner and a bit of ice cream without interruption. Ended the night with a nosebleed.
Overall, things seem to be looking up. The two car repairs cost much less money and time than M anticipated. The insurance company of the guy that hit me said that they were assuming liability, so that's all over and done with and ended in our favor. A phone case I ordered and which had gotten bounced back to sender finally arrived on Saturday evening. Amazon reissued the baby flash cards at no charge, and they arrived quickly and were not stolen this time. And, my sister was paid early by a client, so she's treating me to lunch and movie for my birthday!
We also got the word that M would be "hearing from HR soon" about the potential new job. Friend is being very vague about whether that is a good or bad thing, but of course we're hoping that it's good. We should know sometime this week, so fingers crossed!
Girl Genius for Monday, August 25, 2025
Aug. 25th, 2025 04:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Sunday Sweets... In... SPAAAACE!
Aug. 24th, 2025 01:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Today’s Sweets are dedicated to everyone who reaches for the stars... and then feels a bit peckish.

(By Anna Vasilyeva)
Excited? Why, this astronaut is over the moon!

(By Cake Studio Rouge)
Gorgeous shading, and that number constellation? BRILLIANT.
So it turns out making a perfect globe out of cake is just a little difficult.
By which I mean you have to be a magician with an advanced degree in structural engineering.
But, BEHOLD!

(Submitted By Jennifer W. Baker unknown. Anyone know?)
MAGIC!!
Or talent. You know, one or the other.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that fabulous Jupiter cake that went viral a while back. It's even pretty INSIDE:

(By Cakecrumbs, which has a Youtube tutorial here)
And now, the cutest little space kid and rocket ship EVAH:

(By Viva La Cake)
Why does the astronaut have little doggie ears?* I don't know. BUT I LOVE THEM. And that rocket!
Ack! I want a miniature version on a necklace, stat.
[*Apparently those are ponytails. Which I guess makes a LITTLE more sense than doggie ears. ;)]
Also digging this steampunk style ship:

(By Sugarrealm)
Check out all the rivets!
Not a great picture, but I've always loved this alien abduction cake:

(By Leigh Henderson)
It reminds me of those cow abduction lamps. Ha! Remember those?
Anyway, the plexiglass pillar is genius, and there's even an alien inside one of the windows!
I'm sure we all remember how a space shuttle cake can go very, very wrong, so I'm pleased as punch to see a beauty like this:

(By Scrumptious Cakes)
There's a tiny solar system on the middle tier, and constellations cover the bottom. Lovely!
One more the NASA buffs:

(By Cake Central user Careyl)
Best rocket cake I've seen - it looks like a model!
Speaking of which, my friend Jason of Red Rocket Farm paints robots and - you guessed it - the CUTEST red rockets. So naturally, this reminded me of him:

That's for you, Jason. (Now, paint me more rockets, dangit!)
Who says a space cake needs fancy sculpting and modeling skills? Sometimes all you need is an airbrush and a tank load of talent:

(By Merely Sweets)
Great galloping galaxies! Now THAT is a wedding cake.
And finally, it's only fitting that I end with a space cake that defies gravity:

(By Erin Eason)
WOWZA.
Happy Sunday, everyone! Here's hoping your weekend has been out of this world.
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Here's a stellar (eh?) gift for anyone who loves astronomy: solar system bracelets! I like that they're subtle, so folks have to look twice to realize you need your space.

Even better, they come in a bunch of different styles - chain, elastic, adjustable cord - and only cost $10 each!
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And from my other blog, Epbot:
