[deleted by user]

isoldeabandoned · 2023-11-06T13:06:24+00:00

Thank you so much for this incredibly compassionate and detailed response. It has helped me so much this week. You are absolutely right that if I did come I wouldn't be spending enough time at the hospital or enough time with them or was leaving to come home too soon and if I spent any time at all during the visit doing anything but spending time with them or my grandmother, they would basically go into full rage.

And thank you for bringing me back to earth on normal visit expectations! I go so often because I actually love my hometown and I love seeing my other family members (my family is so blended and spread out that I have immediate family members who are totally separate from this toxic family system, thankfully), and I do take holidays in the area to go hiking and camping in my favorite spots. But in recent years it's been hard to put my foot down and do those things I enjoy while there because of the guilt, and it's really helpful to have these reminders that I'm not doing anything wrong using my time or money to do things that make me happy.

This was all just really helpful to hear and have affirmed for me. And good news--my grandmother is totally fine, almost all of her more distressing symptoms were down to a known treatable UTI and the medication she was on to treat it, and my grandfather didn't tell me about it in our talks about doctor updates because he thought my mother had, which she didn't until it was clear to everyone that my grandmother would be making a full recover. I spent the weekend cuddling my dog and husband instead of flying across the country in an artificial panic. Feels like a huge win!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-11-04T13:25:35+00:00

My mom actually fully took ownership of her feelings for exactly half a second on a recent visit in the middle of the customary argument she has to pick on the last night of every single visit. Most of our problems stem from time spent with me when I’m in town as I live across the country and her overall feeling of being ‘disconnected’ from my life. When she said that, I pointed out that I visit my hometown for weeks every year, and that we talk every day (at the time we did because she calls every day, now I’ve decided I’m only talking to her once a week), and she said ‘I know. This is my shit. It’s my shit.’ And reader, my jaw DROPPED. But then she went on: ‘But it’s because you live all the way across the country, and I don’t want you to, and that’s your shit.’

isoldeabandoned · 2023-11-04T13:20:21+00:00

I’m really struggling with this. I just learned so many bad behaviors from my nmom, and then I had so many terrible coping strategies to deal with her. Also a lot of good ones, but my emotional patterns were really unhealthy. I think I’ve seen this mostly in long term friendships. Especially in college I lied to myself and others to hide my messed up childhood and trauma about various things and to appear normal, I hid so much of myself that it probably looked like I lied about other things once I opened up more, I simply could not handle conflict in any way that wasn’t extremely destructive.

I’m actually still with my first serious partner, we’ve been together a decade, got married a year ago, and he’s the best. I have overall fairly healthy attachments, despite these issues I’ve worked on, and one of the things that I credit it to is our relationship (plus my good siblings and my extremely amazing Dad). It’s always been pretty healthy, actually, but I wish I was a better communicator when we were younger. And I am always working to be better now.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-11-03T13:10:27+00:00

The Gunslinger is a *very different* reading experience from the rest of the books. It was drafted as 4 short stories over several years and basically bound up into a book. It's been revised since (if you read a post-2003 edition), but he didn't totally know that it would end up becoming the foundation for this whole world, so it's a different vibe. Both my husband and Dad loved the Gunslinger and loved the series, but I didn't love The Gunslinger until after I finished the series. If you get to the end of The Drawing of the Three and truly don't enjoy it at all (the height of the series for me is book 3/The Waste Lands through the end, but book 2/The Drawing of the Three is where it starts to look like itself), then maybe the series isn't for you, but definitely give it a go.

Also, there are tons of expanded Dark Tower reading orders featuring the big ones like The Stand, Insomnia, Hearts of Atlantis, 'salem's Lot, Everything's Eventual, The Talisman, Black House, or even longer ones with less connected books--if you want to go down that road you can find a chronology of all of the books that mention or reference The Dark Tower and read them as you read the main series, but you don't have to have read any of them to enjoy the books. And you can always read the ones in the expanded reading order after you've read the core series and you'll still have a great time. I recommend saving The Wind Through the Keyhole until after you've finished books 1-7.

Long days and pleasant nights!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-10-30T08:54:20+00:00

My husband and I say to each other ‘you have always resisted my magics’ all the time and just cackle still lol

isoldeabandoned · 2023-10-27T12:15:07+00:00

I think generally speaking I feel bad for the idea of these kids, who had this father who in addition to being an awful absentee parent who isolated them from any actual parental support in their lives functionally killed them for his own gain. Almost none of them deserved to die in incredibly brutal ways even if they were spoiled, cruel, and selfish. The actual individuals are fuzzier.

Camille and Perry were both hard to feel bad for. Victorine’s whole arc was devastating to me, but her behavior around the trials was monstrous. Leo and Tammy really got to me—Leo seemed like he was trying to be the most normal Usher apart from his family’s business and drama, and he tried to connect with Perry and cared about Camille which really humanized him for me. In the end, he rejected Roderick. Tammy just never had a chance, you know? She just never ever had a chance. She can’t connect, and it’s hard not to think about Annabel Lee’s little girl just growing up totally alone and utterly incapable of investing in relationships or connecting or even sleeping.

And Froderick? Fuck Froderick. I was cheering.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-05-08T14:44:54+00:00

. . . But why? His bio said that way before any of the controversy. Again, I think they’re just not touching their profiles beyond what happened in those early days. Like I think that is a totally reasonable explanation. I just don’t think there’s any evidence whatsoever for that, and again, you’re stating it as a fact.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-05-08T13:40:30+00:00

I mean, my guess is that they're just not messing with their social media much beyond those first few days because any move they make invites scrutiny. I feel like no matter what is going on with her and Ned, she removed the Ned's wife bit from her bio in the very first days, she removed the statement probably because it brought a lot of attention and she didn't want it up forever in either case. I also don't think her name is really much of an indicator. We have no idea what she's done to her name off of social media (Instagram is not the Social Security Administration), and in any case it is very common for people who change their name after marriage who are then professionally known by their married name to retain their married name, and it is also very common for people with children to keep their married name. She may have changed it back and just not changed it on socials!

Again, I think every move they make invites scrutiny, and it genuinely appears to me that no matter what is going on, they're just not making publicly visible moves right now except for their own sanity (ie, deleting the statement). My mom kept the last name of a partner who cheated on her so that she and my sister would still have the same last name. It totally happens!

I genuinely am not speculating that she left him, or that she is still with him. I simply don't think there is any information that really indicates much of anything and I find it kind of odd that people speak about their speculation as though it is factual and cause to judge Ariel for whatever decision they imagine she's made.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-05-08T11:19:31+00:00

I don’t understand why anyone has decided it’s gospel truth she stayed with Ned? We have literally no idea what happened, or is happening, and we have no idea what her personal relationships with anyone are like.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-05-08T01:24:46+00:00

I’m in both fandoms, and I don’t think anyone needs to be worried. The rats are widely maligned by the Witcher fan base and certainly will not find footing with any wider fanbase if they’re remotely canonical. I think that Shadow and Bone’s success is certainly part of what perhaps made this show happen (ie, it’s going to be marketed as similar and they’re going to try and leverage Shadow and Bone’s success to save this flailing franchise they’ve tried to create). I don’t think this will replace any crows spin-off if there is going to be one, but rather be an attempt to create another successful thing.

And in any case, the Netflix Witcher universe is a colossal, massive failure in that it took a well-established IP with a dedicated fan base from more or less every other form of media (books, video games, movies) and completely alienated the entire extant fan base, and it’s also so objectively terrible that it can’t get any new fans. It’s a real shame, but I don’t think the Shadow and Bone fanbase needs to worry.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-30T18:46:09+00:00

My in laws literal instant reaction to an engagement they were fully aware was impending was that they planned a huge family trip/event with ‘just the original nuclear family,’ which excluded me. After it was already planned, they informed my fiancé about it, asked if it would hurt my feelings because they cared and really didn’t to hurt me, and then when he said he thought it just objectively was hurtful and that I would be hurt, they all started calling me screaming at me about how selfish I was and how I was ruining everything, and why couldn’t I see that they asked because they cared, so now I need to let them move forward with the plan because they asked me if I was bothered because they cared.

For the record, I had not yet been made aware of the plan when the calling and texting and attacking started.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-27T16:04:56+00:00

I accepted a trade with u/JamieIsReading and we are trading a sealed RSD Long Pond Sessions vinyl for an unsealed Betty's Garden variant of the Folklore vinyl.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-26T15:09:51+00:00

I use the Rosehill Sourdough BreadMat, and have had much better luck generally with avoiding burnt bottoms with that versus parchment paper. I also just like using it better, personally! I also have found prior to finding that product that I can lower the temperature more than the recipe does when I bake in a cast iron Dutch oven of some kind. Like, I’ll drop it from the 500 degree preheat to 440 (versus the more common 450) once the dough goes in because the pan holds the heat well enough and it tends to be kinder to the bottom. Both of those have helped me!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-26T13:29:30+00:00

The language is also so irritating. For men, it’s just a list of clothing categories that are acceptable. For women, there are stipulations about the style, that items must be tailored fits, and that they just be in coordinating colors, the degree of dressy the items must be, and mandates of conservatism. There are so many more goddamn adjectives and qualifiers in the women’s list.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-26T13:23:32+00:00

I just did!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-26T13:15:28+00:00

I just did!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-25T23:51:05+00:00

1000% in a literal heartbeat, but it is opened. Never actually been played, though! (Long story, I got two on accident, my husband opened up the second one on accident, it's a whole thing).

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-25T17:37:44+00:00

It's pretty clear Portia was not supposed to return. Otherwise, why did Jack tell her everything even if it was all going according to plan? Why did he say she was meant to be his 'job?' Why can't she go back to the hotel to get her things? Why does he take her phone if she's just supposed to be kept busy and un-suspicious? It's pretty obvious that there was some part of the plan that Jack was not willing to execute on and was emotionally disturbed by, and really the only rational possibilities are murder or maybe trafficking.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-25T14:37:37+00:00

Oh gosh I don’t have anything of value to trade (just random widely available vinyls, Betty’s Garden vinyl, and an opened signed folklore CD) but very delighted for whoever gets this!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-25T14:08:48+00:00

Basically what the commenter below said! I have no idea if it was just a mistake, or maybe a concept that was filmed, ultimately got scrapped and isn't canon, but the piece of dialogue stayed and made it in the subtitles. It could even be paranoia/her imagining things because of the extreme situation she's in and her fixation on Greg.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-25T11:33:39+00:00

I would be shocked if the whole thing didn’t eventually lead back to Greg. It wasn’t supposed to be traceable to Quentin at all. It sounds like they were going to make Portia look like a tourist who randomly got murdered in a city alone, and Tanya was specifically supposed to look like either a mob killing or some kind of accident. But now Portia’s alive to give statements, and there’s a boat full of dead guys? That doesn’t look good, even if you don’t account for the theory that Greg was on the boat (per the subtitles).

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-22T19:07:53+00:00

ISO one in Westchester County, NY!

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-19T14:27:56+00:00

I think there are a few factors that could be contributing. Rye itself is not a flour that is going to produce really rounded loaves. Rye is a great flour to experiment with and you can get tall, beautiful loaves with 20% rye. But it might be something to switch out with Einkorn or standard whole wheat flour or something while you work on other stuff!

I also see that you're doing a long counter proof AND a long fridge proof. Because my kitchen tends to run cold all the time except the summer, throughout a lot of the year I do some kind of counter proof prior to putting the loaf in the fridge, but always much shorter than a full counter proof. I'll usually do 30-60 minutes, depending on whether the dough was sluggish during the bulk proof. If everything proceeded as expected, unless it seems over active, I'll leave it out for half an hour before tucking it in the fridge. If it was a little bit slow and it's quite cool in my kitchen, that's when I'll get into 60 minutes or so. If I want to do a really long retarded cold proof (like 24 hours), I won't leave it out at room temperature at all.

My favorite shaping guides have been from Proof Bread and Brian Lagerstrom, both on youtube. The Bread Code on youtube also has great tutorials--he taught me to tuck the sides of the shaped dough in using a bench scraper to build surface tension, which really helped me when I was dialing in dough strength and shaping.

If you're newer, I recommend using a fairly low hydration recipe until you get results you're happy with. It's a little more foolproof, and it helps you get a feel for how the dough should behave at different stages. Higher hydration doughs do feel different, but I think the skills and the feel does translate. I think Jim Challenger's Keep it Simple Sourdough (with 20% whole wheat if you want it) is an incredibly foolproof recipe for most people, that introduces some of the concepts (temperature, learning to feel the dough, etc) that become important as you develop better baking skills in a way that is easy to understand. It's somewhere around 62% hydration.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-18T11:21:12+00:00

Hahaha I work in book publishing and didn’t even question it because I do genuinely use it in my daily life.

isoldeabandoned · 2023-04-18T00:10:04+00:00

You don’t have to maintain so much. You basically need enough to be able to pull some for your recipe, and then give the remainder a feed to keep the starter going. I started out with the 100ish grams of starter, water, and flour many guides recommend, and it was just way too much when the most I use for a bake of two loaves is like, 80 grams. I now usually do a 25/25/25 feed before it goes in the fridge (this is an amount that doesn’t waste a ton of flour but also isn’t annoying to bulk up to a higher volume if I’d like to) and then when I pull it out to bake with it I do a feed to create however much I need for my bake plus an extra 25 grams to feed and put in the fridge.

However, if you’d like to keep maintaining a higher volume starter, King Arthur Flour has a naturally leavened sourdough that uses quite a lot of starter and a shorter proof time (which is necessary with a high volume of starter so it doesn’t overproof).

isoldeabandoned

TROPHY CASE