BotanikaBlue

If you have the means to donate gifts to toy drives or shelters, please keep the above tips in mind so you can help meet people’s wants and needs! 💓

Working in the yarn shop on Sundays, I have a group of regulars who come in specifically then for my advice on their knitting projects and over the years I've gotten to know a lot about them - their ailments and their spouses and their children and their careers and their mothers are all things they find themselves telling me about over the course of trying to bring forth a knitted piece. Most of them are women, most of them are over 50, and most of them have been through a lot and are trying to reclaim something for themselves through the act of creation. A while back, one of these older women opened up to me about how when she first came to this country it was just her and her daughter and they were so happy until her husband joined them, when he promptly began making her miserable. Now, decades later, all her children live far away, she spends all her time taking the husband to dialysis, her sciatic is bad and she may need heart surgery (who will take care of her, I find myself wondering), and she comes to see me once a month or so to talk about a new project and tells me it is the only thing she does for herself.

Today she came in with a smile on her face and delightedly introduced me to her son, who will soon move closer to home with his family. Then she says, as if commenting on the weather, that on Friday her husband died, and tomorrow they will hold the funeral. For a second I had tonal whiplash from the conversation and then I realized, oh, you're unburdened now. Like the relief in her face and her body were palpable. The son shows a picture of a cardigan to me and asks if it can be knitted, and we pick out yarn and a pattern. She's so excited to make it for him. She beams when she looks at him; he is tall and handsome and polite, and wants to wear something she made for him. She is proud of this man she raised.

It just made me think of the many, many women who come from cultures where leaving a crappy spouse isn't an option so they shuttle along doing their best and trying to find some beauty and joy in whatever way they can. Kids may not visit often because their spouse isn't welcoming or there is bad blood, so they are lonely. I remind her, we have our social group. She hasn't come to it much before because she is always taking him to dialysis, but now she says she will come often and meet the other women. Many of them are like her, but in the craft they find companionship that has been absent for so much of their lives. I hope there will be renewal for this dear lady and that she can learn more about herself and what brings her joy.

I came across this in a book I'm currently reading and it's really stuck in my mind and I wanted to share

'Sheep in Wolf's clothing' by Judith Duffey 1986

I don't know if anyone on here is going to be interested I'm this piece or anything but I wanted to share as it struck me an an amazing piece of textile art

@sliceofpearpie

oh my god it’s laika day everyone drop what you’re doing… we honour a little dog who was sent up into space 65 years ago today. she was found as a three year old stray mongrel wandering the streets of moscow. her ability to endure hardy conditions got her chosen as the candidate for a journey she was never meant to survive. she passed away seven hours after liftoff. I hope she died dreaming of chasing rabbits up in the stars I love u laika forever and ever

Never forget, she was loved

She was not killed as an act of cruelty, or simply neglected. People cared about her, and the many space dogs who survived proves it

She was loved

great ritual for honoring Laika's memory (from another thread)

So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history. 

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service. 

This is really great??

Let me explain what is happening here, because I don’t think that this post is very representative of why this matters.

The purpose of the theme studies, this one included, is to locate the physical remnants of the past, so that they can be properly preserved by governmental and nonprofit entities. They are not just descriptions of history, they are documents that can be used for grant work, for preventing places from being destroyed, or for promoting the restoration of those places. This theme study is a statement from the federal government that the preservation of these places is important, and that can be translated by the states into these places being legally required to be protected.

The theme studies are also really important because they recontextualized what it means to locate history in a place. This started before the LGBT theme study, there’s a lot of this in the Latino theme study, but they present a reconsideration of what you can call historic when the actions of a group left no physical traces on the spaces that they used. We are now seeing the possibility of considering places like cruising areas as historic properties because they represent the patterns of a culture.

This is the Park Service’s job. This is what you should be expecting from them. There are theme studies and special resource studies on dozens of things. A really important Civil Rights one dropped like last week. The Park Service is charged with running our national parks, sure, but the bulk of their work is like this. This is the type of shit that you can and should expect out of your National Park Service. Nobody else is gonna do it.

Yesssss Parks Service 🙌🏻

So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history. 

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service. 

This is really great??

Let me explain what is happening here, because I don’t think that this post is very representative of why this matters.

The purpose of the theme studies, this one included, is to locate the physical remnants of the past, so that they can be properly preserved by governmental and nonprofit entities. They are not just descriptions of history, they are documents that can be used for grant work, for preventing places from being destroyed, or for promoting the restoration of those places. This theme study is a statement from the federal government that the preservation of these places is important, and that can be translated by the states into these places being legally required to be protected.

The theme studies are also really important because they recontextualized what it means to locate history in a place. This started before the LGBT theme study, there’s a lot of this in the Latino theme study, but they present a reconsideration of what you can call historic when the actions of a group left no physical traces on the spaces that they used. We are now seeing the possibility of considering places like cruising areas as historic properties because they represent the patterns of a culture.

This is the Park Service’s job. This is what you should be expecting from them. There are theme studies and special resource studies on dozens of things. A really important Civil Rights one dropped like last week. The Park Service is charged with running our national parks, sure, but the bulk of their work is like this. This is the type of shit that you can and should expect out of your National Park Service. Nobody else is gonna do it.

Yesssss Parks Service 🙌🏻

Happy Reformation Day, my fellow Protestant heretics! 

[image: ten rows of ten individually wrapped peanut butter cups, each secured in an entranceway, except the last row is five candies and a pumpkin painted with the face of Martin Luther. that’s right, it’s ninety-five Reese’s nailed to a door.]

This is a nice video showing an blind/invisible stitch, which is quite useful for repairing tears or finishing something (ex. cushion).

Also, that extra step for putting back the seam is really nice.

Hello, american tumblr user. before you is a post about ireland which does not mention anything about irish mythology. if you can reblog the post without making a comment about fairies, magic, the celts, or any associated concepts, you may go. if you cannot, this shillelagh I have in my hand will promptly turn YOU into the next unfortunate victim of stereotypical irish culture. choose wisely, american tumblr user, you will not be afforded a second chance

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

I’m relatively pleased about the idea and already have a few sparkly ones (one of my family lines gets them fairly early and they’re a fun glittery silver.) especially as I like the predicted pattern I’ll have based on genetics. except that the texture of the greys is different and I can see I’ll have a WEIRD transition period as the coarse twinkly hairs fight with the really straight fine ones. Most people don’t realise, I think, that grey hairs are often a completely different hair type than your original hairs

Tl:dr excited for the color, a bit worried about the texture

Similar family history here, got my first silver around 22. Fun for me is that my hair is long enough for me to have hairs that changed color as they were growing. The real issue is the texture shift from mostly fine to very wavy almost wiry as the grey increases. I have a near constant halo of shorter hair going everywhere.

This is Louise Numina, an indigenous Aussie artist painting bush medicine leaves- more videos and pics of her art can be found at raintreeartballarat

I've been curious about this for awhile now, and with a re-surge of the "hey you know you tumblr doesn't have an algorithm and you need to reblog things here if you want to see more of stuff and/or support creators" posts I think I'll finally make a poll to test a theory, Which is that: 1) Where you came from before tumblr has a heavy influence on if you reblog posts or not and 2) That the decline in reblogs has come from a influx of users from other social media over the recent years who were conditioned to interact with 'content' in a "more passive consumption, less community-interaction" way. So, whether you reblog posts or not- I want to know where you came from before tumblr

[Clarification: For the purposes of this poll, "do reblog" refers to if you often reblog the posts that you enjoy. This doesn't mean that you reblog every single post that comes on your dash- just that you reblog posts more than you hit the Like button and/or you regularly also reblog posts that you hit the Like button for. If you rarely reblog (i.e: you exclusively hit the Like button on more posts than you reblog, and/or have an empty blog), then please choose "don't reblog"]

Also, obligatory, "Please reblog for larger sample size" Because: science

Do reblog, and I came here from LJ.

A lot of people who've been here since 2009-2010 came from LJ.

Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!

For all my uninsured judys out there it's for Walgreens only: walgreens.rxsense.com

as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!

goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you

some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!

if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too

good luck out there 👍

The amount of time that the Ancient Egyptian civilisation lasted is just so mind boggling. It lasted over 3000 years. That's such an insane amount of time. It ended around 30BC meaning that it will only be extinct for as long as it existed in around 950 years. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of bitcoin than the building of the pyramids of Giza. They were already ancient to her. What the fuck

We have a records from the time of Ramses II of ancient Egyptians doing archeology on monuments that were already a thousand years old to them.

ancient egyptian archeologists. ancient egyptian archeologists. excuse me i have to go lay down and think about things

If we take Egypt from the Pre-Dynastic period, before the Unification occurred, then their history dates back to c.6000 BCE, which puts the start of Egyptian civilisation about 5970 years before the death of Cleopatra. Even as an Egyptologist it can be sometimes hard to fathom.

The records mentioned are even cooler than simply being from the time of Ramesses II. It was his fourth son Khaemwaset who became what we know as the 'first Egyptologist'.

Since he originally wasn't supposed to be the Crown Prince, and that's a whole other story, Khaemwaset became the Overseer of Architects (sometimes referred to as Chief of Directing Artisans, if I remember rightly) and undertook expeditions across Egypt to restore various monuments and tombs.

One such monument was a statue of Prince Kawab, who was the son of King Khufu; the man who had the Great Pyramid built. We're talking about roughly 1216 years between the two of them, which is the same amount of time as between me, sitting typing this in England in 2022, and King Ælfwald defeating Eardwulf in 806 CE. Next to this monument, Khaemwaset had inscribed:

He also restored the Pyramid of Djoser, better known today as the Step Pyramid, and erected a similar stela to the inscription he used for Prince Kawab's statue to inform people of his actions. The Pyramid of Djoser was built 1300 years before Prince Khaemwaset was born. Putting it in a modern framework again, that's me typing this in England in 2022, and someone writing an accounts of history in England in 449 CE during the Plague of Justinian... No, wait that's...that's pretty similar actually. Shout out to my bro Procopius of Caesarea who was also just absolutely going through it.

Anyway, all jokes of living in plague times aside, the Egyptians having the care and forethought to monitor and repair monuments from their own civilisation that were as ancient to them as the Romans are to us now demonstrates a fundamental human trait; the need to preserve, repair, and record what's left of those who came before us.

In the end, what else better demonstrates human connection to the past than repairing and caring for fragments of our past to say 'hey friend, you were here, and you left this as a marker to say you were here and you mattered. I acknowledge you and I'll take care of what you left to make sure everyone else knows you were here and that you mattered too.' We are strongest when we can recognise ourselves in the past, and Ancient Egyptian Archaeologists are something that call to us from across the millennia like a beacon.

i know most people have seen it but i cant emphasize how much this is literally my favorite breath of the wild clip of all time. also i can never fucking find this clip when i need it especially in high definition so here it is

X

I feel sick. I'm so scared. Things are going to get so much worse for trans adults in the UK when the Levy review for adult trans care comes out in November. My GP clinic already tried to not prescribe my T when the gender clinic endocrinologist first recommended it, I had to fight them so hard on it, and I'm terrified at any point they will stop.

Please share this. It is so disheartening that when I make posts about US trans issues they have thousands of notes within a couple hours, but UK trans issues barely get 100 notes. Our struggles are linked. The letter, in fact, uses the American spelling of certain words like 'realize' - Which has made some suspicious that this is a form letter provided by the American anti trans hate groups that have been pushing for more transphobic discrimination in the UK lately.

This WILL affect trans people in the US eventually. They will use the UK as an example to follow, when they are (at least partially) the ones who created the conditions for our growing medical discrimination. Our fight is your fight. Please, please care about it. Help people be aware of this at the very least.

Trans Actual are collecting data about this very issue right now. If you are trans and a GP has refused you HRT, please click on the Instagram post below and find out how to share your experience. This can't be allowed to slide.

Yes, thank you so much! I was just reading their page about it here too.