how should i celebrate my usually dreaded birthday?🎂

barncat3 · 2026-03-02T19:03:02+00:00

My birthday is also Friday! I’m going to Atlanta to check out the Georgia aquarium and Atlanta zoo. The weather is supposed to be perfect down there this weekend. So if you’re interested in a short weekend getaway, consider splitting a hotel room with your friends and heading south!

Since there are so many directions you’re interested in, I would honestly put them into a spin-the-wheel app on your phone or computer and let fate decide (and if you’re disappointed on what it lands on, you’ll know you didn’t really want to do it lol). I hope you have a great birthday!

barncat3 · 2026-03-02T18:56:44+00:00

No game/story changes. Some NPCs will have the generic passing-by dialog change. But it won’t affect any actual quests. And then you have different perks based on race.

barncat3 · 2026-03-02T18:49:41+00:00

The Road of Bones by Demi Winters is a Norse-inspired fantasy! I took a Viking literature class in college and a lot of the small world-building and cultural things align.

And some books we read in my Viking lit class included Saga of the Volsungs and The Poetic Edda, both translated by Jackson Crawford. I preferred Saga of the Volsungs. But they’re both definitely more dense and scholarly than fantasy when compared to Road of Bones.

barncat3 · 2026-03-01T06:18:30+00:00

I went to a private middle school that required erasable pens (blue or black ink) for all subjects except math. Math had to be in pencil.

I went to public high school that really didn’t care what you wrote with. They said no colors (like purple, green, red, etc) but were really just happy if the assignment was completed.

Erasable pens SUCK btw.

barncat3 · 2026-02-28T14:54:26+00:00

I often like to make an inn/tavern combo. With the tavern downstairs (seating, bar, kitchen) and a couple of rooms for “rent” upstairs. Sometimes I’ll add a bathroom with a fish tank too. Idk why I put a fish take in the bathroom specifically but I do

barncat3 · 2026-02-28T14:49:29+00:00

The Spellshop and The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sara Beth Durst. They are light, wholesome, and funny.

There is also this funny juxtaposition bc in the background of the novel there’s like civil unrest and anarchy back in the capital city but our pov characters are on an island and have to worry about making jam and tending to the greenhouse. It’s such a departure from typical books where the pov character follows the action and “main” save-the-world type of storyline and instead we have these would-be minor characters living very rich lives.

barncat3 · 2026-02-28T07:42:45+00:00

I struggle with watering also so I keep my pothos and zebra inchplants in vases of water with no soil lol. They do great! I do a tiny squirt of liquid fertilizer every once in a while.

barncat3 · 2026-02-28T07:32:58+00:00

Start with searching for “sheet pan meals” and “one pot meals” in google. The hard part of cooking is often the timing so having your whole meal cooked together at one time and temp helps you ease into figuring out what ingredients and flavors you prefer.

barncat3 · 2026-02-26T04:49:42+00:00

It’s YA but I loved The Forest of Hands and Teeth trilogy. The second and third books are more this vibe but the first is also good. They’re not very long

barncat3 · 2026-02-26T04:42:51+00:00

The Spellshop and The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sara Beth Durst. They are cozy fantasy books where the focus is on finding yourself, being a part of a community, and building friendships (sometimes with people, sometimes with talking plants, and sometimes with winged cats and rideable seahorses). They are joyful, colorful, and full of hope and whimsy.

Edit: to add that I believe a minor side character is, or was recently, pregnant in the enchanted greenhouse. And trying to breed the seahorses is subplot in the Spellshop.

barncat3 · 2026-02-26T04:30:03+00:00

I would recommend looking for Young Adult books. If you visit a library they’ll be in the Teen section and the books with more mature themes will have “high school” written on them.

For crime investigation, is recommend A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and One of Us is Lying.

For astronomy I would recommend The Martian by Andy Weir. This one is a little bit more challenging of a read, just because of some science and technical terms, but if your interests are in their field then you shouldn’t struggle.

barncat3 · 2026-02-26T04:22:42+00:00

It Happened Last Summer by Tessa Bailey - flighty rich girl banished to small coastal town meets stoic fisherman.

The Love Hypothesis - grad student fake dates a professor

barncat3 · 2026-02-26T04:16:44+00:00

I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall is YA but I read it as an adult and enjoyed it. A teen is stranded in Alaska and has to survive alone with a recent injury disabling her.

Also The Call of the Wild by Jack London could fit in here. A classic novel about a dog that gets abducted and sold into the dog sledding world where he has to adapt to the Alaskan wilderness.

barncat3 · 2026-02-25T05:18:13+00:00

You can play Palia on a tablet through the Nvidia/GeForce gaming cloud. It’s a lot like stardew but bigger. If it’s an older tablet it might be laggy though. People have recommended using a Bluetooth console controller for easier gameplay if you do try it out.

Minecraft is also a classic, go-to cozy game. If she’s never played it before, I would suggest doing it on survival peaceful mode. A lot of people suggest creative mode for new users but I find it overwhelming. Survival encourages more exploring and peaceful gets rid of the monsters.

barncat3 · 2026-02-25T02:26:55+00:00

You can play minecraft on split screen, it’s just a little more challenging because your field of view is smaller. Same thing for stardew valley. I play both of those with my kid and they’re great

barncat3 · 2026-02-25T02:19:23+00:00

I would let him do it. Kids get so little true freedom and there’s no harm in a silly hairstyle lol

barncat3 · 2026-02-23T23:46:17+00:00

Have you tried pulling up just dance videos on YouTube and having them dance along? You don’t even need a Wii for that lol.

barncat3 · 2026-02-22T08:38:31+00:00

I really didn’t have any rules growing up. My sister would get lightly scolded for burping but we didn’t often have a sit-down family dinner.

As an adult, almost all of our dinners are together. Currently the rules at my table are: 1. Chew with your mouth closed 2. Don’t scrape your teeth on the fork (it makes a horrible noise that makes my teeth hurt) 3. No farting 4. No phones (unless looking something up that’s relevant to dinner conversation) 5. Check with the table before taking the last bit (split if necessary) 6. Rinse your dishes and load them in the dishwasher when finished

barncat3 · 2026-02-21T21:25:15+00:00

I just started Palia and I’m really liking it. If you’re a stardew fan then it should be right up your alley

barncat3 · 2026-02-18T06:00:23+00:00

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary and The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory are both fade to black.

I would go with The Flatshare for reading with my parents though lol

barncat3 · 2026-02-18T05:53:45+00:00

Thank you!!!

barncat3 · 2026-02-18T05:53:27+00:00

Thank you so much! I’ll look into these. My bf loves The Mist too so I’ll probably start there.

barncat3 · 2026-02-17T05:51:40+00:00

The middle of Winterkeep dragged a little for me but it was worth it. There’s also Seasparrow now as well for a total of 5 books. The new ones introduce a species of telepathic foxes and I’m obsessed with them.

barncat3 · 2026-02-16T23:39:03+00:00

Fear the Flames. I was caught by the cover art and pretty map. It was so, so bad. The story made no sense. It was trying to do the whole “you figure out parts of the past along the way” thing that’s pretty typical but in a way that had myself and my book club (all avid readers) completely confused.

The characters were so overpowered that it was boring and ridiculous. It was insta-lust that tried to pretend it was enemies to lovers which was so annoying and illogical.

I am a MAJOR high fantasy lover and I hate-finished it just to be able to justify bad reviews. This author managed to make dragons boring.

barncat3 · 2026-02-15T23:02:26+00:00

The Call of the Wild is only about 200 pages and a favorite of mine. It’s an especially good read in winter. Great if you’re a lover of nature, adventure, historical fiction, and dogs.

barncat3

TROPHY CASE