This may or may not be helpful to other people. I recently finally went off of birth control pills. I've been on them for so long it just didn't even occur to me that it might be time to stop at age 51, but my doctor said yes, it really is time to stop. So I've been off them for several months now. So far it hasn't been too bad except for the night sweats. I haven't had any day time hot flashes so far. And maybe I get a little more weepy over silly things, but it's hard to tell. I've always cried pretty easily. But it occured to me shortly after I stopped taking them, that maybe, just maybe, the BC pills might have been responsible for my red wine headaches. I've done a few experiments so far, slowly building up to drinking a full glass of red wine. And I'm so happy to find that YES, getting rid of the BC pills was the key! Originally I couldn't stand red wine, but then I learned to love it, but I also realized after a while that it was responsible for these god-awful headaches I was getting in the middle of the night. So I gave up red wine entirely (not even doing a tasting) for the last couple of years. I'm so happy that now I can not just smell the deliciousness of red wine, but actually go back to drinking it. It's a weird subject, but maybe there are some more of you out there that gave up red wine and don't realize that maybe you're at a point now to try it again. Cheers!

The new laundry machines installed yesterday. The cycle-finished chime is very German. 

Block print. Stars are glittery but that don't photograph well. 
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bonus Spike!

A day of highs and lows. In and out all day cooking and going to Thanksgiving dinners. Came home to find my dog Scout can't or won't stand. He's been ill for some little while. I just had to make the arrangements to put him down tomorrow. I already don't like Black Friday. This is just going to add to my resentment.

Did you ever eagerly await an album by a favorite musician that was such a disappointment that not only did it sour you on subsequent releases, but also caused you to more skeptically analyze their previous work, as you wonder if you ever really liked it as much as you thought you did?

So this picture is from... ahem... a while ago. I was a big fan of the shirt (thanks to Jill "xtingu" Knapp for that!) and I went to look up a precise translation online. Google had nothing for me at the time.

Then I looked it up again a few years after that - still nothing.

I just did a Google Search again after stumbling on the image for the first time in a while and the top half a page or so is all a series of links to direct translations of this specific phrase. That just seems impressive to me.

These are the things I think about sometimes. I think I may need a hobby.

Today I learned that a last name like mine (Harris Friel) is known as a double barreled surname.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-barrelled_name#British_tradition

I will be sure to use this information the next time they can't find my prescription at CVS and try to shame me for not allowing myself to be absorbed into patriarchal standards of naming conventions. 

My trusty steed Ki-Rin-Tin-Tin was killed by a wand of death.
Then I managed to explode my bag of holding, my two primary weapons, and quite a lot of other useful things.
And Ki-Rin-Tin-Tin-Too was disintegrated by a black dragon!
So I limped onward, no longer a mounted knight but determined as ever.
"The guardian Angel of Lugh will not accept the name Cool Hand of Lugh."
I went to my reward with 3285282 points, happy just to have made it.

Printed tote bag. 

The design I wrote with a calligraphy brush then turned it into a printing block.  The ink is regular artist acrylic white, ultramarine and primary magenta with some thinned retarder to make it more fabric compatible. Mixed into a gradient on a glass palette with a wide brayer. 

Marvin Gaye's isolated vocals from Heard It Through The Grapevine.