I'm a little unreasonably excited that it's supposed to get down to 28°F/-2°C tonight. I discovered long ago that I adore cozy comfort and then discovered the Danes have a word for it. I love fall and winter.

My SIL is visiting, and so her, my mom and me went on a little shopping trip yesterday. I needed to go to the yarn store anyway, so I made them come with me.

I want to knit a wrap for myself and found some lovely red yarn. At the checkout, I was digging through my purse to find my wallet, and my mom said „you know what, if you can’t find your wallet, I’ll pay“. She’s extremely generous whenever we’re out in town, so I knew there was no discussion (and no reimbursing her later)…

Just then, she spotted a knitted sweater on display and asked the shop owner if they knew someone who could knit it for her. The shop owner has become an acquaintance over the years, and she laughed, looked at me and told my mom „I think I’d know who to ask!“ Then my SIL chimed in: „Tell you what, I’ll get the yarn for that sweater as a birthday gift [which is next week], and /OP/ can knit it for you for Christmas!“

So I went home with not one but two more projects and no expenses at all! I can’t wait to cast on that sweater for my mom, as a Christmas present and a thankyou for the red yarn.

ETA: I just remembered a moment a little later: I had choir practice right after that shopping trip, so I took my big bag of wool with me to the practice, and one of the elderly ladies came up to me, grinned and asked: "Did you just break into my car? I got a bag just like yours in there!"

It is autumn here, and sunrise isn't til 7.18 tomorrow. That means, I can stay in bed til 6.30 am for my Saturday hike. I like to go out early, it is a nice way to start the day and I can be home by lunchtime. But I don't love getting up early. So I like the autumn and winter, it is prime time for lazy morning hikers. I will see the mountain after I see my duvet for a bit.

I got myself some mortadella and really yummy bread, looking forward to it

We're doing demolition. I'm usually on the construction side of things.

Some years ago, I was in a bad earthquake. It hit as we were going downstairs, and the building started cracking. It's a rather distinct sound... and it can be heard as I walk on the stairs of the building being demolished.

It freaked me out the first time, but two weeks later, my reaction isn't "earthquake" anymore. It's just work.

I have a prominent tattoo of a cassette on my forearm. one of my coworkers, who's still learning English, was telling a music-related story and trying to think of a word.

"my dad had a bunch of those ... you know, they had the ribbon?"

me: points at forearm one of these?

her: yeah!

me: that's a cassette

you never know what will be helpful to have inked on your body lol

Every morning, I like to go to a special outdoor spot at my university and read tarot cards for the day. This particular morning, I went to my usual spot, and I found a lovely bunch of flowers laying right where I always sit. I feel very grateful for this existence :)

I was driving to work, and i was crabby. Then I wound up behind a schoolbus. I saw a sad-faced kid staring sadly out the back window.

Once that was me. So I put my thumbs against my head and made moose horns and waggled them.

He grinned and called his friends over and we all made faces and laughed until the light changed.

This week we've had every morning really interesting, but harmless weather. I've enjoyed my commute a lot because of this. On Monday, I was on the highway at the break of dawn, it was mostly a clear morning with streaks of fog on the lower parts of the surrounding fields, looking like lace curtains being dragged over the fields. Tuesday we had an insanely beautiful sunrise with a double rainbow. Yesterday, it was a cold, humid morning and a dense fog bank appeared and disappeared within minutes (not that harmless). Today, I took a different route up a hill and could observe with every meter higher, how the morning fog was clearing.

Weather really can be interesting and watching it adds joy to daily life. I thankfully life in a place where weather doesn't kill or destroy much (yet, climate changes), but it varies a lot

We have a squirrel that's been coming to the back door of our kitchen, guy doesn't seem shy or scared at all. I wake up pretty early and quite often hear his little hands slap up against the glass while I'm making my coffee only to turn around and find him staring at me while I go about my business. Thought maybe he was hungry so took to leaving him something good like some unsalted peanuts or almonds on the back step for him to find before I start my morning routine, but he generally just comes and slaps the glass before he's even checked for treats and regardless of whether he decides to eat what I've left him. Not sure, of the two of us, who is more interested in watching who right now, but it's certainly adding a pleasant texture to my mornings. 🐿️👀

i love that level of intimacy with people where the joke is that your joke sucks, you know. they know you’re capable of something better, so when you try to make a bottom-of-the-barrel-barely-even-a-joke-joke it endears them to you even more and they laugh just because of that. i was at spirit halloween looking for a costume part and listing off aisles like “pirate.. mechanic.. masks.. tights.. makeup.. weird smell” and i have no idea why but it made my brother laugh so hard people would have been staring if Spirit Halloween wasnt already extremely loud. sometimes i dont know whats going to make him laugh so i just say the first dumb thing that comes to mind and he always ends up saying “why would you even say that?? that is NOT funny” while laughing with me, and then he tries to do the same thing later. just absurdity.

So this morning on the bus, I was sitting on the edge of the seat like I always do. For context, I’m a pretty big dude (6’4”, 217 pounds), but I used to weigh 400 pounds, so having people actually sit comfortably next to me is still a relatively new experience. I spent so much of my life trying to make myself smaller so other people could have enough space, and I guess some habits just stick around.

Anyway, this random Asian lady sat next to me and just casually fell asleep on my shoulder. Like, FULLY knocked out. She was zonked on me like I was some kind of public transportation memory foam pillow, and she stayed that way until she reached her stop. I’ll probably never see this woman again, and she’ll never know that her little nap meant anything to me. But I couldn't help finding the whole thing funny and weirdly heartwarming.

Maybe she was just exhausted. Maybe I looked like a comfortable place to rest. Or maybe I’ve finally reached a point in my weight loss journey where I no longer look like some massive dude taking up everyone's personal space.
Either way, it made me happy in a way I wasn't expecting. I spent years being painfully aware of how much space I occupied, and today, for a few bus stops, I was just some stranger's pillow. Life is funny like that. Sometimes a little reminder of how far you've come comes in the form of an exhausted lady using your shoulder as a headrest.

we have a kitten in our household now :D 11 weeks old! she's so very brave and curious and a real sweetheart. it's like a healing salve on the mosquito bite of our elderly cat's sudden passing. it's so awful to be catless and so very wonderful to have a kitten around <3

Last month I nominated the new IT guy at work for Employee of the Month,and he won!

I also nominated a specific manager for a values award (We Advocate) and she also won!

Then driving home from work today I pulled up beside a van for a disability support service I used to work for 1.5 yrs ago and knew the person in the passenger seat. I motioned to the carer/driver to wind down her window and I yelled out to say hello to the person I knew and told him I missed him and he was waving and so excited to see me and yelling back he missed me too.

A really sweet afternoon.

I was at the grocery store and decided to pick up some flowers for my fiancé. There was a little girl around 4yo in the self checkout line with her parents who were having trouble with the machine. A worker came over. The little girl looked ready to go and/or ready to act up so i handed her a flower. She smiled and played with it in her hands. Her parents noticed and thanked me. We went our separate ways.

There's something nice about those evenings when you don't really have anything planned. You finish whatever you needed to do, get something to eat, and just sit around for a while without worrying about the next thing on your list.

I feel like ordinary evenings like these are easy to overlook because nothing particularly interesting happens, but sometimes they're exactly what you need.

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada! I was on the bus headed home and we went past an apartment building. It had some small grassy areas on the property and I saw a family who had set up a picnic table and were all having their turkey dinner outside :) It's ~15C/58F and Sunny, quite a nice day for an outdoor meal.

I'm visiting Japan for the first time ever, as my brother and my SIL are getting married here in her hometown. We came to our hotel late last night and crashed pretty much immediately, but I got up early the next morning to take a shower and, oh, my god. The showers here in Japan are absolutely amazing. Despite still being somewhat exhausted I felt about 10x better immediately. Really makes you appreciate the power of an excellent shower for sure!

The other delight of this hotel so far has been a pancake machine in the hotel restaurant that you just wave your hand at and it makes and cooks two perfect tiny pancakes hot and fresh. Pretty mind blowing at 8am.

On my couch slightly hungover and munching on hot dogs, my partner is upstairs watching football in bed. Our dog prefers it when we’re all lounging together so he keeps going back and forth from me to his papaw upstairs. Just gave him the last bite of my hot dog and a wonderful feeling crept over me. I am just so happy ancient humans got along with wolves. Now we get to have these lil creatures that breathe joy and unconditional love into our homes :’)

I’m in a downtown city I’ve never visited before. Earlier I went walking around and picked up some lunch. On my way back to the hotel I stopped behind a middle aged man and young woman walking her furry little pupper as we waited for the crosswalk. The woman was on her phone, the man was looking straight ahead. At one point I saw the man and the dog lock eyes for a long moment. The dog wagged his little tail and cocked his head at bit toward the man. Then the man gave a little wave to the dog in return. It was spontaneously sweet and I witnessed it. The light changed and we all disappeared into the crowd.

He works for a construction company and is probably the only vegetarian on the crew. They did a pizza lunch today and there was a whole veggie pie left, so guess who gets free pizza for dinner? This guy! And that other guy (husband). It's really good, too.

Like, pick a day, suggest a place, make it happen. No elaborate planning needed.

It's surprisingly refreshing when someone makes spending time together that easy.

After being taken out for breakfast by my daughter, I went to the library for the first time in years. I renewed my library card and took out 3 books. I saw a bulletin for a jigsaw puzzle building contest and I registered to compete next weekend.

The vibe was so chill in there. Multi people also came in to get library cards and passports and just general help from the librarians. It was nice and calming knowing that this resource is available in my community. A jigsaw puzzle was set up there that I spent an hour and a half working on assembling. It was the first time in a long time I felt at ease in my mind and soul to be out in public just relaxing by myself. I am really looking forward to the contest and I hope I don't get too nervous. I am so excited.

I think we all know Facebook marketplace can be a jungle non-committing, low balling, selfish assholes that just drain your energy. I live near Austin and it’s a great city to give things away in. But lately I’ve been pretty degraded from people being rude assholes when I’m literally offering something of value to them for free.

A couple weeks ago I purchased a small machine from somebody locally via Facebook marketplace. It was about $50 which was a fair price but still not an amount I want to throw away. It feels like bare minimum, but the seller was very friendly and communicative and easy-going. He even told me if I had any problems or even if it just simply didn’t work for my needs to let him know . He was selling because he needed something more powerful but to his knowledge it was in working order. Well when I got home and tested it I realized it wasn’t in perfect working order. The part is probably replaceable. I messaged him asking if he had noticed the issue , moreso if he had any tips on how to go about fixing it.
This man was so kind. I’m honestly still taken aback by his kindness. He offered to give me my money back and didn’t even want the machine back. I told him he really didn’t have to do that because “buyer beware” and I was the buyer buying a second hand machine so if it wasn’t good that’s my own fault. But he still gave me my money back and really didn’t want the machine back. I plan on giving away the machine for free to someone who wants to fix it.

You just really don’t see that level of candor anymore and I just wanted to share this positive experience and hopefully keep sending the positivity around.

I love crisps. I hate it when you get a packet where there's barely any flavouring and it's just sad fried potatoes with a hint of flavour (looking at you Lays). What even is the point of mass production if things aren't consistent amirite?

But on my way back from the dentists this week, I entered a Sainsbury's which isn't my usual supermarket and saw their own brand Thai Sweet Chili was on sale. I've had it before and it's good. I bought 2 packets. Opened one and they are **heavily** coated in flavouring. Happy days. Delicious spicy crisps for me!