#July to be read pile

[libertyreads]

July TBR--

This is going to be another month that is split between books for the Christmas in July TBR and a regular TBR. I only physically own three books for this month’s TBR while the rest will be coming from my Kindle, NetGalley, or the library. I’m excited for a few more Christmas books, but I’m most excited to see how I feel about a hyped new release AND one of my friend’s favorite books.

1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee-- I picked up the first book in the Montague Siblings series on recommendation from a friend. I want to say it was about a year ago when I got is so it’s about time I actually read the thing. I’ve heard that it’s pirate-y as well as historical. We follow Monty as he embarks on a Grand Tour of Europe with his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice. But his family has expectations of him--to take over the family’s estate upon his return. I don’t know a ton about this one and I kind of want to keep it that way until I get the chance to pick it up towards the middle of the month.

2. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells-- The third novella in the Murderbot Diaries. I’m continuing my reread before the new one comes out later this year. We continue to follow Murderbot as it attempts to help the floundering case against GrayCris and avoid the questions about just where Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit has gone.

3. Starsight by Brandon Sanderson-- Another reread for the month. I’ll be reading the second book in the Skyward series. A lot of people didn’t like the fact that we are yet again following Spensa in a flight school, but I enjoyed the fact that the universe has expanded so much. Yes, we do see her in flight school with all new characters but the difference in species and the different political issues popping up were things I found to be so interesting. I’m looking forward to the reread.

4. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Library)-- Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders. Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general--also known as her tough-as-talons mother--has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. This one is so hyped right now on the bookish spaces of the internet so I just gotta know what I’ll think of this one.

5. Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane (NetGalley)-- Roisin and her boyfriend Joe join their friends for a weekend away to celebrate a birthday, an engagement, and the launch of Joe’s new TV show. But tension starts to rise when they watch the first episode of Joe’s new drama and she realizes that the private things she told him--which should have stayed between them--are right there on the screen. With her friend group in chaos, and newly single, Roisin returns home to avoid the unwanted attention. While there an old friend becomes the shoulder she can lean on.

6. Snowflakes and Sparks by Sophie-Leigh Robbins (Kindle)-- Suzie is an L.A. girl who gets volunteered to help keep a small town bookstore going after the manger dies. When she makes a return to Old Pine Cove ten years after her embarrassing exit, Suzie comes face to face with the one person she never wanted to see again. But Alex is a cute, charming, baking yoga instructor living right next door. Will old sparks fly again? Or will Suzie be overwhelmed by her past?

7. Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison (Kindle)-- Stella enters a contest to try to save the Christmas tree farm she’s loved since she was a kid. But in order to make the farm seem like a romantic destination for the holidays she lied on her application and said she owned the farm with her boyfriend. Enter best friend Luka. Fake dating around the holidays? I’m so here for it.

8. The Christmas Wager by Holly Cassidy (NetGalley)-- This book is pitched as an enemies-to-lovers holiday rom-com set in a quaint town about a city girl and a small-town boy competing in the town’s annual holiday games. This one sounds so cute and I’m so prepared to find another favorite NetGalley Christmas in July ARC. It’s three years running of loving NetGalley ARCs about Christmas romances. Let’s do it again.

9. The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict (Library)-- Last year I read a murder mystery centered around Christmas for the final book of Christmas in July and I plan on doing that again. This one is centered around a moneyed family who has an unsolved murder in their past which has outcasted the murdered family member’s child. The annual Christmas Game is afoot at Endgame House and Lily Armitage has no interest in attending. Until she receives a letter from her aunt promising that this year’s riddles will give her not only the keys to Endgame but also to the identity of her mother’s murderer. 

[tarotwithdanise]

15 changes and blessings that will happen to your July

༉ ‧ ₊ ˚ how to choose a pile? ✧ . ˚

꒰⠀from left to right ; intuitively choose the pile your mind, heart and soul desire for. if you are having trouble choosing the right pile for you, here’s some tips you can do ; (1) take a deep breath (2) close your eyes (3) ask guidance from your guides (4) finally open your eyes and you can choose the right pile for you by the guidance you ask from your guides. if you are still having trouble by choosing the right pile for you let me know because i am willing to help and guide you.

1 - 2 - 3

SOURCE AND CREDITABLE : All of the pictures are collected and downloaded from pinterest , I don’t own any of them but credits goes to the rightful owners however edits goes and the reading itself belong to me. Expect grammatical errors with this reading, bear with it because english isn't my mother tongue.

💌 check out my back-up account @melodicbloom bio ; click the link, choose your favorite deals that you wanted to purchase and then send all of them to my email account (daniseallure@gmail.com)

PILE ONE

New energy shifting for your spiritual gifts and abilities.

Your whole family will be protected and watched by God and Angels.

Commitment to a new relationship. Meeting new people in person not online nor virtual.

Joining a spiritual or religious groups.

Old things and something that will remind you of your past will bring attraction to you this month. It's the perfect to work on them, if you haven't in before.

Collecting memories or vintages stuffs.

Your spiritual path is growing, you are now open and recognizing the truth and will soon uncover them.

A confession from S, T or J.

Allowing yourself this time to be feel supported by others and be their supporter as well.

A new positive outlook for the future and present.

Old debt is about to be paid off.

Someone will get married or attending a marriage celebration.

Practicing new languages and instruments.

A birth of a child is a blessing in disguise. Can be starting something new again.

Be patience about what you are asking, you might not able to see it's result this month.

PILE TWO

A big responsibility for yourself to your own family.

A great personal recognition and a positive solution for a problem.

Inheritance or a great fortune for a family.

A blazing love for platonic and familial one.

Moving on from a heartbreak, pain or shocking attack and dating and meeting someone new.

Surprise invitation or meeting from someone. Love is coming for the next months.

Visiting places which is reminding you of your childhood.

July 6 is the most important date. Can miracles and blessings is about to enter in your life.

A dream clarification about a situation.

Influencing others through words and actions.

For spiritual gifts and abilities, you are about to uncover the things about these abilities and gifts.

Big incomes for business and jobs.

A shy person, pretty and psychic is about to reach out to you to ask for your advice.

Redeeming yourself and following what your heart desiring.

Leaving an unhealthy situation.

PILE THREE

Forgiveness, a color green is significant for this pile.

A stabber will caught on act.

Sweet words or actions from a Pisces.

New hobbies, career and friendship is about to shift for your own good.

Exchange something from a true friend.

A dark night will soon to revealed a bright dawn.

Travelling and meeting an old friend.

A letter or message from someone will bring so much joy for you.

Gaining physical and emotional strength.

Openness for good luck and positivity.

Facing a stressful situation or decision.

Healing from fears and traumas.

Travelling from one place to another.

Being ready to change themselves and determine to put themselves away from toxic addction.

Starting believing at oneself.

[beamingdesign]

just be here for a while

[gender-trash]

so for the past few months i've been doing a Thing where if i read at least as many books (for the first time; rereads don't count) as i acquire (and add to the TBR pile, so reference books/craft books/etc don't count) i get a beeminder get-out-of-jail-free card

and i REALLY THOUGHT that july was gonna be my month because i read a bunch of books and only bought two!

EXCEPT

yesterday (july 29) i went to san francisco with @combat-epistemologist for an event (where we ate a shitload of free food and did not talk to anybody) and then afterwards we went to A Bookstore and then Another Bookstore when the first bookstore turned out to be 90% italian books (i don't know italian) and i bought 45 books total between the two bookstores and guys i do not think i am going to win july anymore

[franticvampirereads]

Today really feels like summer. It’s sunny and hot and I’ve got a TBR list a mile long. Here’s my July TBR:

Winter’s Orbit

Psycho

Coyote

In An Absent Dream

Muscles & Monsters

This One Summer

Into The Drowning Deep

Nothing To Lose

Captive Prince

I’m so excited to dive into all of these! 😊

[rockislandadultreads]

More Independence Day Recommendations

Friends Divided by Gordon S. Wood

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slaveowner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government. They worked closely in the crucible of revolution, crafting the Declaration of Independence and leading, with Franklin, the diplomatic effort that brought France into the fight. But ultimately, their profound differences would lead to a fundamental crisis, in their friendship and in the nation writ large, as they became the figureheads of two entirely new forces, the first American political parties. It was a bitter breach, lasting through the presidential administrations of both men, and beyond.

But late in life, something remarkable happened: these two men were nudged into reconciliation. What started as a grudging trickle of correspondence became a great flood, and a friendship was rekindled, over the course of hundreds of letters. In their final years they were the last surviving founding fathers and cherished their role in this mighty young republic as it approached the half century mark in 1826. At last, on the afternoon of July 4th, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration, Adams let out a sigh and said, At least Jefferson still lives. He died soon thereafter. In fact, a few hours earlier on that same day, far to the south in his home in Monticello, Jefferson died as well.

Arguably no relationship in this country's history carries as much freight as that of John Adams of Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Gordon Wood has more than done justice to these entwined lives and their meaning; he has written a magnificent new addition to America's collective story.

First Principles by Thomas E. Ricks

On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works--among them the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world.

The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew.

Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts 

While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. Roberts brings us the women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. While the men went off to war or to Congress, the women managed their businesses, raised their children, provided them with political advice, and made it possible for the men to do what they did. The behind-the-scenes influence of these women -- and their sometimes very public activities -- was intelligent and pervasive.

Drawing upon personal correspondence, private journals, and even favored recipes, Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed, and Martha Washington -- proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might never have survived.

Rush by Stephen Fried

By the time he was thirty, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, and become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment. As the new republic coalesced, he became a visionary writer and reformer; a medical pioneer whose insights and reforms revolutionized the treatment of mental illness; an opponent of slavery and prejudice by race, religion, or gender; an adviser to, and often the physician of, America’s first leaders; and “the American Hippocrates.” Rush reveals his singular life and towering legacy, installing him in the pantheon of our wisest and boldest Founding Fathers.

[bookishluna]

July 2023 | Using a Prompt Generator to Make My TBR

This month I decided to do something a little different and I wanted to use a prompt generator once again to pick my TBR. I did this quite a while ago, you can see what it ended up picking for me last time here: To Be Read | November 2020, Using a Prompt Generator. This time around I ended up using Random Prompt by heyreader. Without more of a delay here are the prompts it sent my way as well as…

[felix-is-awake]

July tbr :)

Its a bit ambitious but I want to get through my entire physical tbr this summer. I think I’ll finish at least most of them but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading ‘In Memoriam’ as it’s been getting amazing reviews !!!

[thoughtsofthegirlwiththecurl]

tagged by: the fantastic @theunembarrassedalto (thanks!!)

favorite color: blue, just all the blues, closely followed by a warm, butter yellow

currently reading: ha. hahaha. uh...well, according to StoryGraph, I'm currently reading 21 books, but we'll just include the ones that I'm like most actively reading:

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

Jackalope Wives and Other Stories by T Kingfisher

A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

Paladin's Grace by T Kingfisher

Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

Dracula (via Dracula Daily)

So much fanfic....just....so much

last song: "We Could Form an Attachment" from the Bridgerton season 1 score

last tv show: Ghost Files (can we count that? I'm counting that) and the new season of Bake Off

last movie: hmm....I think it was Everything Everywhere All At Once, I haven't been watching a lot of movies

sweet/savory/spicy: I think savory just ekes out the win over spicy. Like, I don't think I could eat spicy for every meal of the week the way I could savory, but I do crave spicy more because I don't eat it for every meal. Regardless, sweet is a distant third

currently working on: finally knitting myself a hat with the very sexy yarn I bought like 10 months ago, finishing my coding portfolio website, emerging gasping from the funk of my seasonal depression now that the weather has finally cooled to a reasonable temperature, getting really into spooky season

tagging: @dancemakestheworldgoround @cricketnationrise @pendwick @bookish-owlette @tulips-and-tangled and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it!

[gallusrostromegalus]

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[libertyreads]

June TBR--

June is going to be a mix of things for me and that makes me so excited. I’m going to have a few rereads, a book about asexuals on a heist in Las Vegas, and the start of my middle of the year Christmas reads. Why “middle of the year Christmas reads”? Because I started with Christmas in July and it has just gotten longer and longer as time has gone on. The plan is to read Christmas books for the last two weeks of June and the first week of July. Let’s get into the books:

1. Aces Wild by Amanda Dewitt-- An all-asexual online friend group meets up in Vegas to attempt to break into a high stakes gambling club. I saw this when I went to a Barnes and Noble that was moving to another location and since it was half off and full of asexuals like me I decided to give it a shot. Also, that title just got me. Happy Pride Month, y’all.

2. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells-- The second book in the Murderbot Diaries and the second book in my reread before the new book comes out this Fall. In this series we follow a SecUnit that has hacked its governing module as they explore the galaxy and spend time savings humans and watching their shows.

3.  The Host by Stephenie Meyer-- Okay. Let’s get this out there. Meyer’s books are trash. I know this, I understand this. But The Host has taken over me since the first time I read it in college. I tend to do a reread every couple of years and it’s time. I need the love of my reading life to grace me with his presence yet again. This one is about an alien race taking over the world and one of the last stands of humans who haven’t been taken as hosts.

4. Skyward by Brandon Sanderson-- I was really considering not rereading this series before the final book comes out, but I feel like so much of the tangible parts of these books have just slipped out of my brain. In the Skyward series we follow Spensa who is the daughter of a disgraced pilot in this militarized society. Her one goal is to become a pilot and she will do everything in her power to make it happen. Even if becoming a pilot forces her to face the harsh truths about her father.

5. Christmas at Fireside Cabins by Jenny Hale-- I’m starting my middle of the year Christmas reads with this one. Lila has the perfect remedy for her December blues: a blissful getaway with her closest friends to the resort of Fireside Cabins, tucked away in the snowy Tennessee hills. Once there, the group encounters grumpy coffee shop owner Theo who wants nothing to do with this holiday loving crew and their peppermint lattes.

6. The Christmas Clash by Suzanne Park-- Chloe Kwon and Peter Li are rivals whose parents operate rival restaurants in the Riverwood Mall food court. Now it’s the holiday season and Chloe is the photographer at the mall’s Santa Land while Peter works at the virtual reality North Pole experience right across the atrium. But they must team together as the mall is being sold to a developer to be demolished for condos.

7. Snowed in for Christmas by Sarah Morgan-- This is an anthology of Christmas romances set while the characters are snowed in. I don’t know a ton about this author or this collection of stories, but I always love a snowed in romance.

8. Plot Twist by Erin La Rosa (NetGalley)-- This is a contemporary romance novel about a romance author who accidentally goes viral when she’s drunk at a karaoke bar screaming into the microphone that she’s never been in love. She and her handsome landlord Dash end up devising a plan that not only handles the PR nightmare but also manages to handle her writer’s block.

9. Boyfriend by Sarina Bowen (Kindle)-- The hottest player on the university’s hockey team decides to hang up flyers around campus to help line his pockets: Rent-a-Boyfriend for the holiday. He’ll bring your mother flowers, talk hockey with your dad, wear a nicely ironed shirt and be polite. It’s hockey, it’s fake dating, it’s set during the holidays. This should be right up my alley.

I also have a whole list of books on my library app that I can add in as the mood strikes. If you’ve seen my May wrap up, you’ll know that the mood struck quite a lot last month so I want to leave some space in there for that.

[moonreader1010]

Pac- how you'll meet your future spouse and some details about them.

Note- minors dni as this reading is very suggestive.

(the pictures used do not belong to me. All rights go to the original owner.)

Pile 1. Pile 2.

Pile 3^

Pile 1: "I'm thinking 'bout you (Ooh no, no, no)

I've been thinking 'bout you (You know, know, know)

I've been thinking 'bout you

Do you think about me still? Do ya, do ya?"

So much water and earth energy omg. You might meet your future spouse in the months of November, July or February. Okay so You might meet your future spouse in a setting that combines both professional and personal growth. Like it will be a setting that combines these two worlds. Office party or something yk. Also I'm really getting that your future spouse will be someone who is really emotionally intuitive and sensitive, could be younger or just youthful in spirit. Despite this young energy they will be very confident, authoritative, and passionate. So yeah you fs might catwalk into your life through a work or financial environment. I also feel that there will be prominent themes of diligence and effort when you meet them. And omggggg your family is gonna LOVE your future spouse. Lol. Your relationship with your future spouse will be very joyful and yk they will feel so fulfilled when they get into a relationship with you. They'll definitely care for you. Very very caring. Alsoooooo this relationship will definitely DEFINITELY align with your ideals and your standards. However, past heartaches or challenges may need to be addressed. Don't let them come between your relationship with your future spouse and listen listennnn it's essential to take time for rest and introspection to heal and prepare for this significant connection because it will be soooooo amazing for you.

Additionally you may encounter this person during a period of personal growth and self-improvement, possibly when you are focused on building your career or finances(get that money bby). They will also be someone who balances practicality with a deep emotional connection. You get me? Like they might seem like someone who is solely focused on practical things but boom suddenly they will surprise you with their emotional maturity. And girllllllll that person is gonna support your aspirations!!!!!!!! Also, they will definitely share your visions. You two will have very similar goals.

Additional- late night drives, play fight, water bodies

Song for you- thinkin about you by Frank Ocean

Pile 2: "They say I'm too young to love you

They say I'm too dumb to see

They judge me like a picture book

By the colors, like they forgot to read

I think we're like fire and water

I think we're like the wind and sea

You're burnin' up, I'm coolin' down

You're up, I'm down"

Okay so the cards kept going EVERYWHERE! Anyway, Meeting your future spouse could be a chaotic journey. It will require you to be courageous and putting on the big boy/girl pants. Your connection is so soooo intense and to understand it you'll require great emotional depth. Andddddddd your fs is soooo Charming? Like for what? Lol. Very charming. Very romantic and dudeeeeee the passion in your relationship will be just chef's kiss. Mwah fr. And passionate in many ways(👀 if you know what I mean). Literally everything your spouse does reflects soooo sooooo much passion. They could very much be physically strong yk. Great physical strength for sure. and wow such a dynamic presence. They could be a water sign or have their moon in 8th house. They will definitely have a really strong sense of intuition so yeah nobody can deceive them. Your future spouse is a legit human lie director. Haha. And your future spouse has this aura around them. Like this air of mystery and they will be so wise!!!!. Andddddddd Your relationship will be marked by a balance of power and mutual respect. Your future spouse will respect you so muchhhh. Such a gentleman. I'm sooooo sure that BOTH of you possess high charismatic energy. Awwwwww. Your connection will be so nurturing, abundant, and full of hope and inspiration. You'll be their muse 😤

Omg girl? you may encounter your future spouse during a time of inner reflection(start journaling bby) or when faced with a difficult decision.and your future spouse will be the one that'll help you find some clarity about that situation. They'll complete you. awwwwww. A very spiritual connection. Heavy themes of inspiration. You two will inspire eachother so much.

Additional- art, Greek, body paint, suits

Song for you - Brooklyn baby by Lana del rey

Pile 3:"Cross my heart, hope to die

To my lover, I'd never lie

He said, "Be true", I swear I'll try

In the end, it's him and I

He's out his head, I'm out my mind

We got that love, the crazy kind

I am his, and he is mine

In the end, it's him and I, him and I"

Very veryyyy clear and straightforward energy. Some of you might meet your future spouse soon or have already met them (👀). And you guys will be sooo quick to know that they are the one. Some of you will get married quickly too. You guys will be so eager to go on your honeymoon lol. Like chill guys. Won't be able to keep your hands off each other. Meeting your future spouse will be an exciting and stimulating (what could that mean👀)experience. And girl your person will be sharp-witted. Like they will have a comeback for EVERYTHING. So sassy omg. But they will also be curious. Like they would be continuously learning something new and will be soooo soooo ready to know everything about you. Obsessed with you. You guys will try a lot of things together (👀). you guys will celebrate a lottttt. Idk why but so sooo many celebrations are there in your relationship. One of you will have an amazing social life. Bby, you may meet your future spouse through social gatherings or community events(interesting). They will be soooooo smart and intellectual. You will LOVE having a conversation with them. Not at all boring. They will make your life more ..... adventurous. One of you(i think you) worries sooooo much and worries all. The. Time. And this other person in the relationship (i think your spouse) will help you deal with it and overcome it.

Additional- bodyguard au, cupcakes, books, anxiety.

Song for you - him&i by halsey and G-Easy

[beamingdesign]

take care of your soul

[reasonsforhope]

"An environmental toxicologist in California is cleaning up areas contaminated with heavy metals or other pollutants using fungi and native plants in a win-win for nature.

Where once toxic soils in industrial lots sat bare or weed-ridden, there are now flowering meadows of plants and mushrooms, frequented by birds and pollinators: and it’s thanks to Danielle Stevenson.

Founder of DIY Fungi, the 37-year-old ecologist from UC Riverside recently spoke with Yale Press about her ongoing work restoring ‘brownfields,’ a term that describes a contaminated environment, abandoned by industrial, extraction, or transportation operations.

A brownfield could be an old railway yard or the grounds of an abandoned oil refinery, but the uniting factor is the presence of a toxic containment, whether that’s a petrochemical, heavy metal, or something else.

Noting that she had read studies about mushrooms growing around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, she came to understand further, through her work, that fungi are an extraordinarily resilient species of life that consume carbon, and even though petroleum products are toxic to plants, to mushrooms they are essentially a kind of carbon.

In fact, mushrooms break down several categories of toxic waste with the same enzymes they use to consume a dead tree. They can also eat plastic and other things made out of oil, like agrochemicals.

At the Los Angeles railyard, as part of a pilot project, Stevenson and colleagues planted a variety of native grass and flower species alongside dead wood that would incubate specific fungi species called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which assists plants in extracting heavy metals like lead and arsenic from the soil.

Alongside traditional decomposer fungi, the mixture of life forms demonstrated tremendous results in this brownfield.

“In three months we saw a more than 50 percent reduction in all pollutants. By 12 months, they were pretty much not detectable,” Stevenson told Yale 360.

Decontaminating soil like this typically involves bringing in a bulldozer and digging it all up for transportation to a landfill. This method is not only hugely expensive, but also dangerous, as contaminated material can scatter on the winds and fall out of the backs of trucks carting it away.

By contrast, the plants that draw out the toxic metals can be harvested and incinerated down to a small pile of ash before cheap transportation to a hazardous waste facility.

The technique, which Stevenson says has some scaling issues and issues with approval from regulators, is known officially as bioremediation, and she’s even used it to safely break down bags of lubricant-soaked rags from bicycle repair shops.

“People who live in a place impacted by pollution need to have a say in how their neighborhood is being cleaned up. We need to empower them with the tools to do this,” she said."

-via Good News Network, July 16, 2024

[neil-gaiman]

Hey Neil, you have such a way of talking about grief that brings me an immense amount of comfort. I read American Gods when I was in highschool and I picked up on a lot of the grief talk and appreciated it. I read it again after I got out. Then again after that. The July after I got out of highschool, my mom passed suddenly and without warning. I had lost my childhood dog the December before that. My understanding of that book went from an appreciation to a deep feeling of being seen. The suddenness of everything, the coping afterwards, it all hit in such a different way on those other 2 read throughs. I just wanted to say thanks for that. No advice about grief has ever hit the same as reading that book. I've loved your books since I could read and I'll love them for a long time yet. I know you probably get a million messages like these, but I feel I must add to the pile. Anyways, here's a doodle of Mr. Wednesday I did during doctor who trivia with my dad.

I'm so very glad it helped. And thank you for the drawing.

[rockislandadultreads]

Happy Independence Day!

Brothers at Arms by Larrie D. Ferreiro

In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded. France and Spain provided close to the equivalent of $30 billion and 90 percent of all guns used by the Americans, and they sent soldiers and sailors by the thousands to fight and die alongside the Americans, as well as around the world.

Ferreiro adds to the historical records the names of French and Spanish diplomats, merchants, soldiers, and sailors whose contribution is at last given recognition. Instead of viewing the American Revolution in isolation, Brothers at Arms reveals the birth of the American nation as the centerpiece of an international coalition fighting against a common enemy.

The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed

In the mid-1700s the English captain of a trading ship that made runs between England and the Virginia colony fathered a child by an enslaved woman living near Williamsburg. The woman, whose name is unknown and who is believed to have been born in Africa, was owned by the Eppeses, a prominent Virginia family. The captain, whose surname was Hemings, and the woman had a daughter. They named her Elizabeth.

Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the highly acclaimed historiography Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, unearths startling new information about the Hemingses, Jefferson, and his white family. Although the book presents the most detailed and richly drawn portrait ever written of Sarah Hemings, better known by her nickname Sally, who bore seven children by Jefferson over the course of their thirty-eight-year liaison, The Hemingses of Monticello tells more than the story of her life with Jefferson and their children. The Hemingses as a whole take their rightful place in the narrative of the family’s extraordinary engagement with one of history’s most important figures.

As The Hemingses of Monticello makes vividly clear, Monticello can no longer be known only as the home of a remarkable American leader, the author of the Declaration of Independence; nor can the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president have been expunged from history until very recently, be left out of the telling of America’s story. With its empathetic and insightful consideration of human beings acting in almost unimaginably difficult and complicated family circumstances, The Hemingses of Monticello is history as great literature. It is a remarkable achievement.

The Second Founding by Eric Foner

The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States.

Eric Foner’s compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.

1776 by David McCullough

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence—when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King’s men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.

Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough’s 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.