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Posts Tagged ‘#365Ways2025’

A Mysterious Case

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on November 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Today, a free fiction short from Colby Devitt and the Grist Climate collection:

The Case of the Missing Lake

On the morning of April 8, 2200, Lake Ballona went missing. A pair of hikers ventured down from the Hollywood Hills on a day excursion into the Tongva Wetlands. Where the area’s largest body of freshwater met seawater to create a brackish habitat, they discovered an empty crater. Lake Ballona was gone. Vanished overnight. Only muddy puddles remained where the lake had swelled the day before. There were no signs of violence. 

Excellent opener. I hope you enjoy the rest!

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Photo by Wietse Jongsma on Unsplash

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Positivity Bias

Posted in Holidays, tagged , , , , on November 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate today! Even if this isn’t your holiday, I hope you have a moment to remember the good things in your life.

The Right Attitude to Gratitude – The Atlantic

Gratitude is so effective that if you could bottle it, you’d be a billionaire. But as with so many beautiful parts of life, gratitude is not something you can market like a drug or nutritional supplement: It happens to be completely free—but not so easy to attain. Thankfulness requires neither payment nor subscription, just a commitment to stand up against your limbic system, which is lying to you with its negativity bias—saying that this lovely morning is actually pretty annoying, and that everyone is dissing you.

And if you want to learn more about overcoming your all-too human negativity bias, check out the full article. Because while evolution may be good for the species, it’s focused on survival. It doesn’t care if you have a good day.

Unlike me. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

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Herding Cats Today

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on November 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Today is officially a crazy day. By that I mean a mad scramble to get day job work done, including the projects I expected and the three others I did not expect. Lots to juggle, and while I may have bobbled one tiny little thing, it all worked out fine in the end.

I also managed to get up early and write a very (very) short story before all the craziness began, so I’m calling it a win!

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Photo by Duygu Güngör on Unsplash

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Chocolate Buttercreamcheese Frosting

Posted in Food and..., tagged , , , , , on November 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Today, an addition to my recipe collection so I know where to find this next time I need a light, perfectly sweet, flavorful chocolate frosting to go with my favorite chocolate cake.

This is my new go-to frosting recipe. 

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting – Sally’s Baking

  • 339g (12 oz.) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened
  • 170g (12 Tbsp; 3/4 C.) butter, softened
  • 420g (3 1/2 C.) confectioners’ sugar
  • 55g (2/3 C.) unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 t. pure vanilla extract
  • 1–2 T. milk or heavy cream
  • pinch salt

For full instructions and more, head over to Sally’s.

Mr Man’s rating: “Yes, please and thank you!”

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Photo by Muhammad Hasnain on Unsplash

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Interesting and New

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , on November 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

For whatever reason, today I’m walking around seeing everything as component parts. 

For example: instead of seeing the comfy red chair in my office, I’m seeing that chair (so comfy!) with all of the materials that went into it lined up in a row. The tree that provided the wooden legs, the cotton growing in a field before being harvested, carded, spun, dyed and woven, the metal ore that needed to be mined, processed and extruded to make the wire frame, the stuffing made of… you know, I don’t know what it’s made of so let’s insert “amorphous, fluffy cloud of probably polyester fill” here.

It’s weird but also fun, like looking at a room upside down. Suddenly, everything is interesting and new.

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I even went with a dog pic today instead of one with a cat. Crazy! Photo by Max Bvp on Unsplash

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How to Think

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged , , , on November 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”

― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear

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Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.portraits) on Unsplash

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Most Mystical Incarnation

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , on November 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I have a thing about fog.

Waking to a day where the view is swathed in white, neighbors fading into the background while rooftops peek above a hidden world. Sight is no longer quite as reliable. Sound is dampened, too. A car appears suddenly, and is then gone, the engine’s rumble muted and distant.

Depending on the mood, the lack of visibility can be threatening, but I tend to see it as an embrace. Wisps of moisture flow past tree limbs and flagpoles, porch steps and windshields. On days like today, those wisps extend, discover, then freeze in place. When the fog lifts, trees are covered in a shimmer of white. Magic made real.

As one writer put it, fog is water in its most mystical incarnation.

I call it a delight.

“And the fog. The purple fog, blue fog and white fog. Film noir fog. How I love the sheer romance of it; disorientating, dominating, concealing and revealing.”

― Caroline Eden, Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels

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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

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SkyKnit

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , on November 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

As a sometime knitter and pattern designer, I thought this story about a neural network learning to knit (or not!) both funny and telling.

SkyKnit: How an AI Took Over an Adult Knitting Community

Prodded by a knitter on the knitting forum Ravelry, Shane trained a type of neural network on a series of over 500 sets of knitting instructions. Then, she generated new instructions, which members of the Ravelry community have actually attempted to knit.

…

Shane nicknamed the whole effort “Project Hilarious Disaster.” The community called it SkyKnit.

It’s been a few years since this project started (the article is from 2018) and I’m sure AI has progressed since then. Still funny!

Full disclosure: I have been known to visit Ravelry. It’s an excellent resource, most of the time!

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Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash

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Still Progress

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on November 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I wrote a drabble yesterday but decided not to share it. Why not? Because it’s dark and it’s sad. I like to keep things largely upbeat here, for my readers and for myself. 

That doesn’t mean I’m all unicorns and rainbows, obviously, but I want you to come away from this site feeling at least a little hopeful. I try to focus on the future, and I hope that it’s a good one. 

Sometimes that means facing down darkness, and I’ve done that before even in a 100-word format. Not this time, though, so I’ll keep it in my files for now.

Still, progress is progress, and I’m happy to be writing!

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Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

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Reminder for a Monday

Posted in Other, Writing, tagged , , , on November 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“There are enough negative forces in this world—don’t let the pessimistic voice that lives inside you get away with that stuff, too. That voice is NOT a good roommate.” 

― Felicia Day

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Photo by Joël Edouard on Unsplash

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