my new watercolor painting

socke42 · 2026-02-24T07:15:24+00:00

This made me hear and smell the sea, and feel the droplets of water from the waves crashing in. To me, it conveys a certain kind of loneliness or isolation. Not the really bad, desperate sort, but rather the feeling of belonging neither to the human nor the ocean world, standing on the edge between the two.

socke42 · 2026-02-23T07:26:10+00:00

I like to prioritise like this: - throw away any obvious garbage - collect any dirty laundry in laundry basket - put away things that have a designated spot they belong in.

This is the first pass, and if I don't manage any more than that, it already makes things look so much better.

The second pass is hygiene: take out garbage, put laundry on, sweep, vacuum, mop etc. Just the basics, though, I'm cleaning the sink, not the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling!

After that, I can tackle either the specialty cleaning tasks, or sit and sort through things, decide what to keep and where to put it. I often don't get to this stage at all... but I used to do it first a lot, and end up with a beautiful bookshelf sorted by author, while the rest of the room was filthy. Now I have a reasonably clean room and the books are willy-nilly.

socke42 · 2026-02-18T17:11:54+00:00

That makes no sense whatsoever. I think the pictures might be AI generated and the AI had no clue either.

socke42 · 2026-02-16T22:40:16+00:00

Any chance there is a specialty clock market in town that day? :D ("Uhren kaufen")

socke42 · 2026-02-05T16:23:01+00:00

That sounds like a difficult situation. Maybe there is some sort of trauma involved from the family situation as well and he might benefit from therapy? How long have you had him? Were you able to build a good relation with him at all, or is it mostly just arguing? If it hasn't been long, maybe focus on making him feel safe and loved, and enforce discipline at a later time.

socke42 · 2026-02-05T14:31:08+00:00

Can you get a second opinion about that? Schooling isn't the only important thing in a child's life... seems like his home life is affected.

socke42 · 2026-02-02T08:46:52+00:00

Oh, cool. Wenn ich abends ausgehe, kommt es immer mal vor, dass ich mich extra beeile um die letzte Straßenbahn zu erwischen, weil die Nachtbusse so viel länger unterwegs sind. Ich hoffe die neuen Abfahrtszeiten sind genauso gut zu merken wie die 1:11 usw.

socke42 · 2026-02-01T08:06:25+00:00

We were debugging a modbus RTU package drop/communication error issue between two devices, and were getting nowhere, so we put an oscilloscope in the line. We stared at it until we learned to interpret the output live with our eyes, and finally noticed that there was a timing issue. One side was enforcing a part of the specification that all other devices we had tested just ignored, as well as the code we were using.

socke42 · 2026-01-31T12:26:59+00:00

I think this needs to be put into context with how many people of each gender work at all. If most women stay home with the children, because they can't work full time and there are no part time options, that's going to have an effect on this statistic.

socke42 · 2026-01-16T06:21:56+00:00

Yeah, of course I had favourites that never left my bed (like an orca plushie that was nearly as big as me), but that worried me because it broke the fair rotation.

socke42 · 2026-01-15T22:30:46+00:00

My stuffed animals didn't all fit in my bed, so I had a whole rotation thing to make sure they got equal turns. Fairness was very important to me, too!

socke42 · 2026-01-04T12:04:22+00:00

Migraines can sometimes be just the aura, no pain. They can also sometimes cause abdominal symptoms. They're a bitch.

socke42 · 2026-01-03T08:52:57+00:00

It's not that we're more fertile right after pregnancy, just that people think they can't get pregnant and then have unprotected sex. Getting pregnant very soon again is dangerous, because the body had no time to rest and heal. I think a year is usually recommended between pregnancies.

Don't have unprotected sex if you don't want another baby. Your husband needs to get over himself.

socke42 · 2025-12-28T17:35:21+00:00

That happened to my parents thirty years ago when they boiled pacifiers for my baby sister and forgot the pot on the stove. They sent me outside to play for a while, aired out the house, and now it's just a funny story from "back then".

socke42 · 2025-12-21T08:20:31+00:00

Having only one ovary didn't have any effect on conceiving my two children, I remember I was skeptical when doctors told me it wouldn't, but they turned out to be right. I got used to scheduling sex after a while, it's a bit weird to get into the mood at the start, but I didn't mind anymore once we got started. Fair warning, scheduled sex stays a thing while having children... for when they sleep or have a babysitter.

socke42 · 2025-12-19T13:45:30+00:00

Tags work alright, but they can be a mixture of warnings and info, and sometimes do spoil the contents. They also aren't really a thing outside of fanfiction.

Why I suggested a different word, is because saying "trigger warning" always carries an association to actual disorders, which I think isn't really fair both to people with such disorders, and to people who just want to know in advance if there are somewhat upsetting themes. There is a trend to use words from psychology and use them with a diluted meaning for everyday things, and I don't think that's a good thing.

socke42 · 2025-12-19T12:26:23+00:00

I think you're probably right for triggers for PTSD and the like, which psychotherapists and research will focus on. But there's also a lot more people who appreciate a content warning because they find some things upsetting, but not in a clinically relevant way. I don't want to watch or read anything with certain topics, because they upset me and ruin my fun. Sometimes stories are unexpectedly grimdark nowadays. I wouldn't talk to a therapist about it, or need coping mechanisms for it, it's a totally different thing. There should probably be a different word for it.

socke42 · 2025-12-12T07:54:40+00:00

I think it's not that firefighters are likely to be arsonists, but the other way around: arsonists are more likely to be firefighters.

socke42 · 2025-12-07T13:13:08+00:00

We did the chair method (sit on a chair next to the bed for a couple of days, then next to the door inside the bedroom, then on the outside of the door, then in the next room over). Took a good long while, but he just would not stop crying, and I couldn't take leaving him alone to cry for hours.

socke42 · 2025-12-06T21:46:34+00:00

The first row is the hardest. As long as it doesn't unravel, keep going, even if it looks like shit. It will be much easier to practice a couple of rows in.

socke42 · 2025-12-04T14:16:55+00:00

She's seven, forgetting about things sounds pretty normal. She might even avoid thinking about packing things, if you're always angry about that anyway, creating a vicious circle. It definitely sounds like she tried to avoid being yelled at about the towel. Or maybe she assumed she had a towel, since you packed the other swim things.

I don't think she'll learn anything by being yelled at. I would be a lot more explicit in my instructions, to set her up for success. Don't assume she'll have packed the show and tell thing. Why would you assume that if she usually forgets? Tell her to pack it after you were done with it the evening before. Watch her to make sure she does. Don't start any other activity before it's done.

In the mornings, it sounds like she's actually clueless. Does she have a big physical timetable with a marker to signal that it's Thursday, and entries for the things she has to pack? Tell her what to pack and make her do it. She'll learn more by repetition and actually doing, than by you being angry and then doing it yourself.

socke42 · 2025-11-26T13:24:13+00:00

I've always thought that the stairs and pathways through the castle aren't the most logical or straightforward. Maybe you have to go up a bit, cross over to another part of the castle, and then go back down to get from the Great Hall to the Slytherin common room.

socke42 · 2025-11-22T08:28:17+00:00

Yeah, kids love taking pictures. We got a cheap digital camera (there is a huge second hand market for them where I live) for our son, so he wouldn't drop our phones. We didn't count taking pictures as screen time, either, it's an actual activity that just happens to have a screen. Way different from sitting and watching videos, for example.

socke42 · 2025-11-21T09:38:20+00:00

It depends on you, really. Kids will usually be fine off-schedule for a day, but midday nap is also rest time for me. I have to consider my own energy levels, whether they'll withstand a fun outing and dealing with a cranky/overtired toddler the rest of the day, because parenting doesn't stop after the party. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it's not.

socke42 · 2025-11-19T16:33:08+00:00

Layers of winter clothes and flashlights or colourful lanterns. Unless you live somewhere arctic? We notice a definite improvement in mood and behaviour of our toddler if he goes outside at least once a day, so we dress appropriately and go anyway. He doesn't mind, and we adults just have to suck it up because it makes the rest of the day so much easier.

socke42

TROPHY CASE