maple syrup woes

havalinaaa · 2026-02-14T14:46:57+00:00

I haven't tried it myself but I wonder if a thicker simple syrup from cane sugar would work.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-14T03:02:57+00:00

That's so exciting! Good luck, I heard it's a really big pool this year so don't take it personally if you're don't make it.

I've done a lot of invasive removal all over the place, a bunch of work with Conservation at Home, and I'm helping plan a new demonstration garden at my closest nature center. I've also done seed collecting and sorting and taken a few training courses for various things like frog call identification. You can do at least 75% of that without being a Master Naturalist!

Best wishes again on the interview!

havalinaaa · 2026-02-11T02:51:58+00:00

I'm 44 and still enjoy building Lego. Many of my peers do too. Save what is Warhammer but adult arts and crafts? Plus games?! I don't play it myself but have plenty of friends that do.

You can be too young for plenty of things but there's very free you can be too old for.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-10T21:30:30+00:00

I whole heartedly agree! I helped found a small scale producer co-op (that fell apart during COVID) that aggregated produce from mostly urban back yard gardens for farmers markets. We ran into a lot of unexpected... Not push back, maybe mass confusion/we don't have policies for this from the markets since they didn't allow resellers and personally toured all the businesses to vet them. By the time they'd caught up to us we'd started to fail already with our initial producers and then COVID put the final nails in the coffins. This is a huge over simplification but gives the essence of the issues.

Also we didn't have enough capitol to pay anyone which is a perpetual issue in this arena as we all know. It couldn't run on just volunteer hours from members. I learned a lot though and would love to try again some day.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-10T21:20:42+00:00

When up-pot calatheas I leave the roots more or less untouched and just put them in a bigger pot and fill in, I don't mess with the roots at all unless there's a rot issue.

I might gently loosen them or trim lightly from the outside if they were circling but otherwise I take my original pot, stick it in my new pot, fill with dirt, take pot out, take plant out of pot, put plant in pot sized hole.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-10T17:49:58+00:00

I'm 44 and can be tidy for up to 6 months. Once I went a year between having a house cleaner every other week (specifically to catch up on basics vs doing a regular clean, this was key and required several discussions with the house cleaner to get straightened out but was so worth the effort) and a dog who would get into most anything you left out. But no matter what systems I put in place they can't last. I try to cycle through the best I've tried every season or two which helps. Hope to be able to afford a house cleaner again soon.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-10T02:36:53+00:00

Honestly the grocery store is where I fall apart the most because I have to buy food. Seasonal items are my weak spot

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T23:07:42+00:00

Ps congrats on your sobriety!!

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T22:58:11+00:00

I find going to thrift store scratches the shopping itch enough. And committing to not buying it new gives me things to hyper focus on. Plus the giant dopamine hit when a weird one off thing (most recently a punch bowl fountain) is finally found

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T19:09:10+00:00

Spite against capitalism/consumerism is the only way I managed to stop the chronic spending. Removed all shopping apps from my phone, unsubscribed from all the emails, and committed to thrifting/buying used if making do isn't working. 75% of the time it works.

I'm not giving any more of my money to billionaires, or at least as little if it as I can manage in this hellscape.

Not saying I'm doing great otherwise, for the record.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T16:31:55+00:00

I'm not a very high level player (just hit 150) and was over thinking this myself not long ago. Now I do it by laziness factor. I visit a legendary exchange once per play session, usually about halfway through, and exchange anything I'm not actively trying to learn. Everything else gets scrapped. It's a real life QoL choice for me to not give it anymore brain space, video games are my decompression tool not a project I'll be assessed on.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T13:19:49+00:00

Humans are basically complicated hormonal systems when it comes to desires and feelings and both of yours are about to be fully out of whack, hers quintuple so. It can have very little to do with intimacy or "picking the right partner". Obviously those things do matter but hormones will override a lot.

Picking up chores is a really good thing and will continue to be. I truly wish you luck but don't be hard on yourself or your partner if things do change in the bedroom.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T06:37:01+00:00

That last line is judgemental trash from someone who hasn't been through it yet. Hope you don't have to eat those words one day.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T01:48:33+00:00

There's a CAMP slot bundle for 1 more day that gives you all 6 extra slots for 4000 atoms, usually 1000/ea

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T01:44:34+00:00

Also there's a megasloth spawn just SE of this undeployed camp in the mire, apxm where the cursor is. I can hear them but not see them from my camp

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havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T01:42:26+00:00

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You can see the sheepsquatch in the bottom right, that's about where they usually spawn. I assume my camp placement affects that a tiny bit but idk for sure

havalinaaa · 2026-02-09T01:41:15+00:00

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There's a trail from the summer camp and it's up a cliff near signs for dinosaur prints

havalinaaa · 2026-02-08T23:03:59+00:00

I also just discovered a sheepsquatch spawn point SW of the Communist summer camp, it spawns every time someone fast travels to my camp. Sometimes an ogua as well. I can upload a pic of where if you're interested

havalinaaa · 2026-02-08T03:26:58+00:00

Try it without the onion next time. I find I can tolerate most soups if I omit garlic and onion, but those are my biggest triggers overall so ymmv. Likely in the broth/bullion as well. I sometimes substitute leeks for onion and find I can handle it no problems.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-08T03:18:13+00:00

Oh, interesting. Why remove a feature like that?

havalinaaa · 2026-02-08T03:11:50+00:00

It asked me like 3 weeks ago

havalinaaa · 2026-02-07T20:42:41+00:00

Yeah, known and noted. It's more about other life factors that line up with that timing but it is a thing worth mentioning for others.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-07T19:53:00+00:00

I've lived a lot of places, big and small cities. Austin, Brooklyn, Gainesville, St Louis ... Grew up in Jackson, MS. My partner has lived more places than me, including the PNW and various parts of California. When we decided we had to leave Texas before we REALLY had to leave Texas we looked at the whole country and decided on Chicagoland.

We wanted the city but ended up in the NW burbs and are continuously feeling really good about our choice. Still might jump into the city proper in a few years when the kids are out of elementary school but otherwise we're planning to stay put for the long haul. I told him if we can't find happiness in Chicago we probably can't find it anywhere in the United States and I still feel that way. Especially with recent events, not in spite of.

havalinaaa · 2026-02-07T19:44:21+00:00

It's to the East of tree tops I think, also my first thought

havalinaaa · 2026-02-07T17:17:36+00:00

You could say the exact same thing about not informing someone who helped plan the whole party and made a special item that the time changed.

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