• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week, horror), Reactor (YA SFF/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Ooof. It me.
• How spongy is YOUR city?
• Peanut butter popcorn.
• “Rice Krispie” treats made with popcorn instead.
• I like this one.
• Cute round MCM.
• Fun MCM but the shag carpet has to go.
• MCM that’s mostly ok, but something about the interior colors just feels off to me.
• Oddly laid out MCM with an exceptionally cold feeling kitchen.
• That’s a lot of purple.
• The Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge house was redone after the challenge and put on the market. Some more on that house.
• The statue thing is weird.
• One in St Paul, Minnesota, that’s been interestingly renovated.
• Seems like a renovation fail.
• NOLA shotgun house that’s a reno disaster.
• Creepy basement is creepy.
• Very odd and angular.
• This one’s just weird and ugly.
• Has a spaceship in the living room.
• Who thought that kitchen was a good idea?
• There’s a lot going on here – I particularly hate the kitchen counters.
• WTF.
• Huh.
• Why?
• When faucets become a tripping hazard.
• D’oh.
• Absolutely not.
• So many opportunities for disaster.

Some socks I recently gifted.

Harry, trying to figure out what I’m doing, plus the second pair of socks I recently gifted.

Polly’s such a sweet and goofy girl!

Mayhem *thlurrrrp*.

• New releases: Tor.com (scifi, fantasy, genre benders, YA SFF), Book Riot (best out this week, nonfiction, comics/graphic novels, paranormal romance, romance, mystery/thriller), Smart Bitches (romance, queer romance), Gizmodo (scifi/fantasy/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• “Good Omens lines that I can’t believe are canon“.
• “The 2024 Audie winners for best audiobooks“.
• “10 iconic fantasy books ripe for rediscovery”. I read most of these when I was growing up.
• You can pay your fines with cat pictures in Worcester, MA.
• Ways to celebrate National Reading Month.
• There’s a trailer for the Reading Rainbow documentary.
• This quote from the second season of The X-Files is still very relevant.
• You’ve heard of FOMO – now get ready for JOMO.
• Environmental storytelling indeed.
• Tiny trees!
• Lemon cloud cookies.
• Nice Minneapolis loft. The HOA fee includes heat, AC, internet, and cable, so it’s not as bad as it sounds initially.
• Gorgeous MCM, but I think it needs more barriers around the edges of that conversation pit.
• Comes with manatees.
• Funky little MCM.
• Another nice MCM.
• And another not scary dome home.
• Quirky Gothic Victorian.
• Interesting, but how do you get out of those bedrooms in case of fire?
• Converted convent.
• Round house is cool, but the decor will haunt you.
• Castle on the outside, boring on the inside.
• It has a “living roof”.
• You’ll notice they don’t show the basement of this former funeral parlor…
• The bedroom isn’t contiguous with the rest of the apartment.
• Wouldn’t railings be nice?
• Must be acrobatic to stay there, apparently.
• D’oh.
• Bad kitties!

Polly is very subtle about asking for chin scritches…

Is Harry yawning or yelling?

Mayhem!

• New releases: Book Riot (best out this week), Smart Bitches (romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• A ficlet.
• Another, about the Arthurian femme fatale.
• Cute little comic.
• This was good to read, about how Minnesota company Minnetonka is dealing with their history of cultural appropriation.
• I bet the Lego set for Walt Disney’s original animated Snow White sells out quickly.
• Spinning 243 ply yarn (aka rope).
• Cool art.
• Snickerdoodle cookie cake.
• I like this.
• Cute and actually nice dome home (usually they’re disintegrating).
• Interesting place in Taos.
• Nice, kind of fancy MCM.
• Absolutely not my style, but it looks great.
• “Inside, it’s absolute drama”.
• Has an indoor pool just off the kitchen.
• I’ve never seen a house shaped like this before.
• A bit odd and very pink.
• There’s over the top and then there’s this place.
• You can definitely see why it needed some help to sell.
• Mansion with an apocalyptic bunker.
• In which I learned that “portable fireplaces” exist.
• I can’t believe the location of the washer.
• Own your own strip club…
• I can’t even tell if we’re looking up the stairs or down.
• Hmm.
• Ah, our old friend, the glass door at the bottom of the stairs.
• When those get icy, yikes.
• Nope.
• Also nope.

Some Regia socks for me from yarn I got for Xmas.

Poor sleeping Mayhem – when she went to sleep, I was in the midst of a Pilates class a few feet away. When she woke up, the living room was dark and I was reading in bed!

Polly is a very chatty kitty!

Usually Polly’s the goofball, but Harry has his moments…

I tweaked some blog settings yesterday, specifically related to email. Here’s hoping I didn’t bork things up! 🙂

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance, graphic novel romance), Book Riot (best new books out this week)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Dictionary.com’s new/updated words for 2024.
• Part of the Merril Collection (“a research collection of speculative fiction [science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism]”) has been digitized.
• Ficlet… wait for it…
• “The best friendship duos“.
• Tumblr as commonplace book.
• Every year nonasuch does a fabulous job reviewing the Miss Universe national costumes – here it is for 2024.
• The saga of the airport cheese.
• Intarsia in the round.
• MCM, complete with flocked wallpaper.
• The Coca-Cola house.
• Plaid cabinets – WHY?
• This house “has a wing that’s a replica of the wild west town Tombstone, Arizona, circa 1800s”.
• The sellers had a decorating vision alright.
• This one has some mysteries.
• Converted grain mill that’s sadly boring.
• Just odd.
• Boggled.
• A barn with a Tudor inside.
• Micro condo on the upper floor of a mall and the front of it is all glass…
• Careful of that first step!
• How much weight do you think a vanity is designed to hold?
• Nope.

Polly grooming her tummy.

Annoyed Harry with Polly in the background.

My collage meeting was fun! 🙂

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance, more romance, queer romance), Reactor (scifi, fantasy), Book Riot (romance, best out this week, cookbooks, horror,  comics/graphic novels, nonfiction, sff, mystery/thriller, best out last week, queer, cozy mysteries), Gizmodo (sff/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more!
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• “Good Omens in 35,000 dominoes“.
• NASA has a new free (and ad-free) streaming service.
• The saga of Zoozve.
• The saga of bringing home a cat from the shelter. This links to newer updates. (These links work in a browser, but not if you’re on mobile and using the tumblr app. Maybe it works that way for all tumblr links and I just don’t do link checks very often?!)
• Minnesota’s snowplow names for 2024.
• Knitted mohair shoes…
• That is way too many buttons. Put some back.
• One of the best Windows blue screen of death examples I’ve seen.
• How to terrify children at the doctor (actually sort of humorous).
• Some Minnesota humor from xkcd. Hover cursor/long-press for caption.
• Much less boring than the exterior would lead you to expect.
• Very colorful!
• And another very colorful one.
• Cute little desert compound.
• Over-the-top quirky.
• It’s not my style, but it seems like a renovation gone right for a change.
• Nice MCM, although 1978 seems awfully late to be mid-century.
• MCM with too many interior boulders.
• Mostly original MCM. The carpet needs to go!
• Time capsule MCM with acres of horrible carpet.
• Renovated MCM that’s a bit of a hot mess.
• MCM with an indoor koi pond.
• Poorly converted library.
• Converted gym that doesn’t live up to its potential.
• “Tropical basement oasis“.
• This has too much going on.
• The murals are cool but not what I would like for a home.
• Sort of castle that was also featured on McMansion Hell.
• It already has so much stuff in it, unless you’re buying it as a winter home and aren’t planning to use your own stuff.
• There’s an awful lot going on here.
• I would faceplant into that tree constantly.
• Umm.
• Plus they look hella steep.
• D’oh.
• Why.
• Nope.
• :shakes head:

Harry and Polly generating some major teenage energy here!

Poor Mayhem always looks so rumpled these days, even after being brushed.

One of the most unflattering photos I’ve taken of Polly, lol.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week, science), Gizmodo (SFF/horror)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• “The shocking truth of what goes on in our public libraries!”
• What if Gandalf just carried the Ring himself, using some tongs?
• The Can Opener Epic.
• Knitting that looks like crochet.
• If you’re curious about Jimbriel’s sweater/jumper in Good Omens 2.
• “13 things you didn’t know about the International Space Station“.
• As compounds go, it’s quite nice.
• The colorful outside does not adequately prepare you for the more colorful inside.
• Time capsule MCM complete with airstrip and decrepit airplane.
• Kind of a cool factory conversion.
• Interesting one in Las Vegas.
• Little pink houses for you and me.
• A NYC penthouse with a cottage on the roof.
• Cute condo with furnishings included, but that HOA fee…
• Fancy earth ship.
• Where do you find someone to maintain a thatched roof in Utah?
• Parts of this MCM are cool but parts are WTF (the stove, the outdoor tub).
• Only the Pirates of the Caribbean pool room is worth bothering with.
• The interior has been updated out of any personality it had, but the house does come with a decommissioned fighter jet in the yard.
• Well, this is a helluva project.  (The mentioned lawsuit.)
• Just kind of weird.
• WTF.
• Ick.
• Mysterious shower or tub.
• Can’t tell if this is a repeat or there are just multiple similar death stairs.
• Are we sure it’s not scaffolding?
• Hmm.
• NO.
• I believe tetanus is your third option.

Mayhem has seen some sh*t.

Polly on my lap, lounging against my reading pillow.

Harry spilling out of the kitty canoe.

• New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Book Riot (best out this week)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• “You’re not imagining it: Google search results are getting worse…” Might I suggest DuckDuckGo? I switched a month or so ago and I must say it’s a relief to not have to wade through all the ads and sponsored crap.
• Also, apparently Google News “is infested with AI garbage”.
• The “Visit Oregon” site has Oregon Trail on it!
• You’ll be able to buy a portable cassette player again soon, if you’ve been needing one in your life.
• “MCM” but built in 1991 – I love how colorful it is.
• A modernish Irish castle with a grotto swimming pool.
• It has a wishing well and a castlesque interior.
• All of the eclectic furnishings are included.
• It’s very dramatic, but that’s just too much glass.
• Another dramatic house, but with an unfortunate excess of taxidermy.
• Converted mill that looks challenging to heat.
• If you’ve always wanted your own bunker…
• “Brutalist lite“.
• What the heck is going on with stairs above her head in the background?!
• That pole is not placed well for gripping.
• Stairs on which tiptoeing seems to be required.
• Huh.

And the last pair of socks I gifted over the holiday season. These aren’t perfectly matchy matchy because of a knot in the skein. Grrrr. But really only the heel flaps differ.

Mayhem enjoying the new fancy sherpa “mink” blanket (from a vendor) (and of course the pet warmer is under the blanket).

Winking Polly!

Harry apparently doesn’t trust me, based on that look.

• New releases: Reactor (formerly Tor.com) (horror/genre-benders, YA SFF, scifi, fantasy), Book Riot (audiobooks, best out this week, romance, manga), Smart Bitches (romance, queer romance)
• Linkity from Smart Bitches.
• Linkity from BookWyrm Knits.
• Download the Nov/Dec 2023 free short fiction bundle from Reactor.
• Get a 38-book Terry Pratchett bundle for $18 (US only, sorry). Must have a Kobo account to redeem.
• Very cool Good Omens music box.
• Some perfect words.
• “…how will I ever manage“.
• This is exactly what working in a bookstore is like.
• A dark ficlet.
• “13 New Year’s resolutions for saving democracy“.
• “Asexuality is finally breaking free from medical stigma“.
• “Kohler’s newest bidet finally brings Alexa and Google to your butt“.
• The Door Saga.
• Caramel s’mores bars.
• All the built-in bookcases!
• I adore the book stairs.
• This is pretty nice.
• Cool MCM, although those cliffside locations make me nervous.
• Converted grist mill compound.
• The glass turret and its lift are quite unique.
• Fancy place on NYC’s West Side with a fireplace mosaic that hasn’t aged well.
• Log cabin mansion in Nova Scotia.
• Completely over the top ridiculous.
• Is it just me or does this place have major bar vibes?
• Must love their wallpaper choices…
• Never has plywood been so lovingly finished.
• That’s too many bottles – put some back.
• Another strange one in Utah.
• Yikes.
• FAIL.
• I guess at least there’s a warning at the top? Although when you crouch close enough to read it, you’ll probably fall down the stairs.

More socks that I gifted in 2023. These were Meilenweit Intenso.

So cute, Polly!

Mayhem deeply asleep on the couch (yes, there’s absolutely a pet warmer under that fleecy blanket!).

Harry and Polly on my lap.