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S'mores Blondies

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i think there's a difference, though, between saying, "i don't see or talk to my family all that often because of challenges presented by the physical and technological distance between us" and saying, "i have chosen to break all forms of contact with my abuser because they're my abuser; furthermore, i am no longer allowing my extended family to guilt-trip me into maintaining contact with my abuser because 'bUt thEyRe YoUr fAmiLy'"

many people of previous generations, prior to unlimited phone plans & social media, were also looked down upon & treated as traitors to the family for wanting to move out of their small town or limited geographical area, and from many people i've met, they moved off for a time & then created ways to move "back home" to be closer to family later. so while some of the mover-outers may have done so as an excuse to get away from abusive, controlling, narcissistic, or otherwise problematic family, many did it just for the reasons they stated--better financial/career opportunities--and that's a VERY different thing than choosing to cut contact for mental health reasons.

note that this is coming from my own experience with my biological parents vs my experience moving out of state & then moving back, plus my (adoptive) parents' experiences with their parents and siblings, and conversations with friends and acquaintances who have moved far away from their hometown and some who have moved back. other perspectives will obviously offer different insights.

though the timelines overlap, my choice to finally cut contact with my biological father is a VERY different thing from just having difficulty finding a good time to call my parents from a time zone 3hrs behind theirs. my (adoptive) parents and i didn't have as frequent of contact as before i moved out of state & only saw each other once a year because i couldn't afford to fly more frequently than that, but we still made efforts with the available methods of cummunication, and YES, even though flights are pricey, my husband and i planned for that expense and made it happen every year. on the other hand, i totally could have called my biological father more than once or twice a year, texted, or sent letters or emails if i wanted to, just as easily as with my parents, but I DON'T WANT TO because of his behavior and language when i did speak with him, hence my choice to go from low-contact to no-contact.

Something that gets really lost in a lot of discourse is that what we would now call 'going low-contact' or 'going no-contact' with your family used to be so completely within the normal range of familial contact that there wasn't even a term for it. Sure, in the pre-IM pre-social media days some people were calling their parents daily, but I'd wager the vast majority of people were not. Long distance calling used to be quite expensive, after all. If your kid went to the big city to seek their fortune you might hear from them every few weeks, or every month, or once a year, and that wasn't particularly odd. This was even more the case before telephones were common, of course - people would send letters, but definitely not more than once a week and probably a lot less. It was just a normal, accepted fact that you'd hear from some family members who lived nearby often, and some who lived farther away very rarely.

The minimum amount of contact with family that is expected of people in the groupchat-facetime-instagram era is so much higher than at any previous point in history. The ceiling is about the same, since then and now multiple generations often live under the same roof, but the floor is higher by orders of magnitude.

How many adult children who are 'no-contact' or 'low-contact' now would also have been the ones who moved to the city and sent a letter every three months then? Is family estrangement an actual current problem, or is it just an illusion caused by smartphones?

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hmm...if i were a geologist, i hope i'd like slate, because i do love a good riesling.

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this is not a burger. this is a vegetable soup sloppy joe, which is even worse than a regular sloppy joe. i didn't know it was possible to make sloppy joes worse but here it is, bubbly vegetable sloppy joes.

Creamy Beefburgers

Better Homes and Gardens: After Work Cook Book. Meredith Corporation. 1974.

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S'mores Brownies Recipe

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if you mysteriously disappear in this forest, be nice to the ghosts. they are my friends. the old hag that lives near the southwestern edge of the forest...well, our relationship is a little more complicated. it isn't...bad, per se, and i'm not certain i could call her evil, exactly, but...well, i suppose we didn't really get off on the right foot when i first moved here.

well, moved may not be the best word for it. to be more precise, i was hiking here one day, on an overgrown used-to-be-path close to the eastern side of the woods, running south, and then i got stuck here & couldn't find a way back out. i don't mean that i got lost, i mean trapped. supernaturally. i made my way back down the path i had cleared--it was pretty obvious which way i had come because i had used my machete (a gift from my uncle) to cut my way through the blackberry vines--all the way back to the trailhead I had marked with a neon-pink scrunchie tied to a sharpened stick (i had planned to make a better marker later, the next time i hiked), but as soon as I stepped back out into the clearing (that led up to the abandoned road i'd found the week before, which is what started this whole thing), i...huh. y'know i actually don't know what happened then. i just remember waking up back in the witch's little hut in the woods, with her pacing around muttering to herself as she examined bottles and jars full of questionable substances. it was clear that many of them were plants, but not like anything i'd ever seen growing around here.

yeah, of course i thought she was crazy the first time we met. i couldn't tell if she had rescued me from something, or if she had kidnapped me to prevent me from leaving the woods. i still don't have an answer on that. i've asked her how she found me that day, tried to piece together what happened there at the edge of the forest, but she never answered me. always just keeps on muttering to herself as she mixes her potions of...unknown intent. i've asked about those, too, of course, and her reply is always more mumbling.

i've been able to pick out a few words here and there, mostly names. Amos, Bill, Henry, Buck, and Adela are some of the ghosts. Some of the other names, I'm not sure about. Perhaps they're ghosts i haven't met yet. you might not know this, but most of the fog around here isn't actually fog.

at any rate...we see each other around the woods frequently, being that we both live and forage here now (though nothing growing in this forest seems to match the various jarred ingredients i saw in her cottage), and things are...awkward between us. perhaps it's because i initially thought she was an evil witch (i admit, i may have judged her unfairly at first). or maybe it's just that its difficult to communicate with each other. i've tried to be friendlier, bringing her food i've made and patching up the roof of her hut. in return, she gives me mystery potions. i have no idea what any of them do. i tried one once and woke up hours later next to the stream, hair coated in mud, and having inexplicably sewn patches of moss as epaulettes and cuffs onto my patagonia fishing shirt (why did i even have my sewing repair kit in my backpack for a quick day hike? i'm still baffled by that). needless to say, i didn't try any more of her "gifts" after that.

immersed in the fog

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S'mores Brownies Recipe

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Homemade Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

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I want to see how far across Tumblr my cat can get. Reblog if you see this

[Image ID: a grey tabby on his back on the floor looking at the camera. He has beautiful blue eyes. End ID]

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not sure corn chips would be my chosen side, but this looks fine? it's and open faced steak sandwich with onions & peppers?

like, really, the only crime this recipe has committed is the use of green bell peppers, but that's VERY easy to substitute with red or yellow bell pepper.

Steak Medallions

Illustrated Library of Cooking, Volume 14. The Family Circle, Inc. 1972.

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also probably a major reason why parents who do have children now have "ipad kids" who have a meltdown when they can't watch youtube.

children need to be allowed to explore their environment within established boundaries that increase as the children grow older. granted, this may be difficult to do at certain ages if you can't afford to buy or rent a house with a yard, which is generally an "easy" beginner boundary. obviously, babies & toddlers need much closer supervision, especially while in the "anything and everything goes in my mouth" stage of life.

as a child in the 90s/early 00s, my boundaries outdoors expanded in the following stages: our yard, then cul-de-sac, then to a certain point down the road that our cul-de-sac branched off of (don't go past the blue house with the white half-fence that has the hanging flower baskets on it), and to the neighborhood pool (first with my older brother, then independently when i was older, just had to call to say we'd gotten there safely & then we could stay all day by ourselves). it helped that there were several other families on our street & the one it branched off of who had children close to my age & my brother's, so there were several sets of parents who could just glance out the window every now & then to make sure we weren't dead or maimed.

we played capture the flag across 4 houses' backyards, with the street in between as a neutral zone. i remember one game in particular that we played in the rain, sliding & diving after each other in the mud.

i also remember my friend's older brother building a potato gun on their back deck & threatening us with it, so there's that.

but anyways, YES, we did roam pretty freely! and yes, we played in the mud, climbed trees, played street hockey, and rode our bikes to local pools and parks and each other's houses, like you see in movies. and YES, it's very healthy for children elementary age and older to become increasingly social (ESPECIALLY preteens & teens) and learn independence and responsibility for themselves within established boundaries. the expectation for children to be glued to their parents' sides and actively entertained by said parents 24/7 right up until they learn to drive is stupid and it puts children at a developmental disadvantage.

that is NOT to say that parents should ignore their children and thrust them out into unsafe situations, using the excuse that the children need to learn how to take care of themselves. it is the parents' responsibility to set reasonable boundaries and expectations & communicate those effectively, and to still be available to a reasonable degree to ensure that the children are safe. it is the parents' responsibility to ensure that their children KNOW that they are available and open to help when needed, and are willing to teach the children anything they're uncertain about or haven't faced before.

give a foundation of safety, security, and comfort to the best of your ability, and allow your children to explore beyond that in stages, as they learn to be their own people with their own lives, interests, and friends.

This is a legitimate and damaging cultural shift for all involved parties and it needs to be addressed.

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seven minutes apart. definitely not suspicious.

wow thanks Rebecca from Klarna, love that you were so excited about my background and resume you sent me the same message twice from different emails. this seems totally legit for sure

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this type of humor is a haw- thorne in my side.

If you’re pining you need to stop and pick a different tree. You know, spruce it up a little

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what i'm hearing is that tumblr is the mine from which all other socials source their humor.

"tumblr humor is only funny to tumblr users" NOT true. those bitches on pinterest love us.

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Is there a Clint Westwood? North and Southwood?

Westwood yes, but not north and south. The Clints Wood are:

Clint Eastwood:

Clint Westwood:

Clint Redwood:

Clint Neighborhood:

Clint Wormwood:

Clint Misunderstood:

Clint Feelgood:

Please note that none are related to Clint Elijahwood:

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what did lemon gelatin do to deserve this kind of treatment?

Jellied Old-Fashioned Coleslaw

The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook by The Women of General Foods Kitchen. Random House, Inc. 1959

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have you forgotten that monty python exists? those guys are def not gen z & they take absolutely nothing seriously, ever.

GenZ might be the only generation that does not take anything seriously in the human's history. 🤣🤣