The Next Time They Tell You Americans Are “happy” With Their Employer Provided Health Insurance Remember

happy birthday to me

Buying seedlings for your garden.

So if March was the time to talk about starting seeds, April is the time to talk about buying transplants (reverse as needed for southern hemisphere obviously but y’all aren’t planting for spring now anyhow). I’ll make a few notes and then open it to others to add.

1. You don’t want blooms on your vegetable starts. If it’s blooming now, it’s reached the limits of its growth in its current pot and decided that this is as good as it gets and started to put its energy into reproducing. If there are blooms, you should pinch them off, but the plant is likely to have limited growth even so. The same kinda applies to flowers but I do recognize the difficulty of knowing what you’re buying without blooms, and also, a lot of modern flowers are bred for long flowering periods.

2. Short and stocky is better than tall. Tall means the plants have been crowded. Spindly means the plant will be less sturdy. The ideal tomato seedling, for example, is relatively short, with a thick stem.

3. Some things are not worth buying starts of. Sellers realize that a lot of people feel more comfortable with transplants–you don’t have to have faith in the magic of the seed that way. But it’s ridiculous to buy cucumber and squash seedlings, for example. Those are plants that can’t be put out until after danger of last frost anyway, which time hasn’t even come where I am, and their roots don’t really like to be disturbed. Tomatoes actually thrive on being replanted, so they make great transplants. Cucumbers not so much. Big seeds like peas, cucumbers, squash, etc. come up fast and will establish roots better in situ. Have faith in the seed.

4. Prefer small local places and actual nurseries to big box stores. The big box store offers varieties based on what will sell, as decided on the national level. They buy the seedlings en masse and take minimal care of them with the expectation of high losses. The little local place is in it because they love plants, and probably knows what varieties are actually good locally.

@ahedderick , @turtlesandfrogs , @not-quite-wild , @kawuli , anyone else wanna add?

WHY IS MEATLESS MONDAYS COOL??

Cutting down on meat = less contribution to climate change (I'll explain CAFOS in another post)

Try a new vegetarian/vegan recipe. I LOVE vegetarian meals, they are freaking bomb. I'm not talking about a salad. I'm talking bout an actual MEAL.

It can boost your heart health bc a lot of meats we get at the grocery store is pumped out with injections and why not from the animals. Eat veggies, beans, and nuts.

It cuts down on energy. Eating meats costs more energy than vegetables because of CAFOS

(CAFOS stands for concentrated animal feeding operation)

I know sometimes it can be hard doing meatless mondays if you really love meat or you are in a family that eats meat based meals. I recommend doing it once a month and see where it takes you, then slowly add another monday in, and BAM you are doing meatless mondays for a whole month!!! Take it slow and easy!! ADD TO THE LIST IF YOU KNOW MORE STUFF I LOVE IT WHEN YOU GUYS DO THAT CAUSE I LEARN FROM YOUR GUYS TOO!!!!!!

I hate when people feel the need to assign a mental illness to every bad person ever. "this serial killer/politician/abuser probably was a narcissist/had ASPD/schizophrenia/autism/whatever" maybe they weren't though. maybe harmful behavior doesn't always arise from some innate Wrongness. maybe sometimes healthy sane people do bad things on purpose. maybe emotional, empathetic people can be cruel. maybe sane people are fully capable of doing awful things. maybe your normality won't save you from culpability.

While there are so many terrible things and stuff to fight for, it's good to stand back and realize that with everyday we're creating a better world.

Have some good news.

Turning red being relatable to teen/tween girls and more specifically those from the early 2000s like me because:

- those friendship bracelets made of colorful yarn (do you younglings still have those? I’ve had at least one on 24/7 for several years)

- filming yourself and your friends while doing stupid stuff and thinking it’s the most hilarious thing in the world (and not posting it anywhere)

- and making elaborate choreographies/singing numbers

- boysbands… (for me it was 1D… can’t escape it)

- everyone in the gang having their boy from the band (and calling them your husbands)

- the fact that teen girls can and will run a succesfull buisness if they want to (universal to all generations)

- and that no teacher ever will find out (we had a whole underground pokemon cards trading system)

- PERIODS

- Lots of plastic jewelry, headbands, hair clips and big colorful earings

- Questionable and a little cringe fashion with lots of colorful makeup and accessories (not universal sadly - can we go back to that plz? Allow teens to be teens and to discover new ways of dressing up and being a little too mismatched and cringe but not caring and not asking them to look like adults and to be attractive. Plz let teens be teens and stop sexualizing them. I don’t want to see 13 years old dressed like 19 years old anymore)

- the vampire/werewolf phase (I was team Jacob)

- freaking tamagotchis (although it was more popular with the generation before me)

- not just for girls but having braces (do not miss those)

- that one cd Miriam copied for Mei - with the drawings made with a sharpie and everything (absolutely not legally made I can assure you - my dad was always making me copies of movies on blank cds like that; simpler times)

- having crushes. Talking about crushes. Comparing crushes. Having a new crush every week or so. Judging other people’s crush. Crushes.

- and drawing/writting cringy/horny/romantic things in notebooks (yes it’s true)

- mothers being cringe in public (at least from your point of view) (universal but to different degrees; tho I hope no mom ever goes to the extent Ming went)

- so. Many. Emotions. All the time. (And every little mishap feeling like the end of the world)

- your friends becoming the center of your world because talking to your parents feels like a reboot of the tower of babel

That’s all I can think of for now but I’m 100% sure I missed some (also I know like 50% of those applies to all generations and not just the early 2000s but what can I say I got out of control)

everyday, I wake up, and my first thought; "Will I ever love other music artists as I love Hozier?

YES! A GOVERMENT THAT REALIZES THAT THE EARTH MATTERS MORE THAN A CURRENT PROFIT OF IT! (x) July 16, 2021

Something I will never get tired of in games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword is the animation of Link unsheathing his weapon when the boss looms over him and roars in the intros to the boss battles. 

who the fuck am i?