ultimateaclrecovery

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Not me over zealously preparing for my birthday brunch next week.

Can you guess the theme? ✨💜✨

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Finally mostly recovered my hamstring strain and back to my usual level of doing ~far too much~ but having a wonderful time.

Private lesson followed by masters practice. The lesson was good but hard. Still got work being straight, independent body parts (especially keeping relaxed hips and not throwing my shoulders at things), quality of canter and like actually riding up to the jumps. The biggest takeaway tho being that I need to keep my chin up over jumps (and not curl into a ball). Basic but critical.

And frisbee was really fun! Still getting back into the swing of things a bit and trying to not play too much and over do my hamstring but it’s so so nice to be back running and sprinting around.

I read once that like maybe 70 or 80% of people won’t ever sprint again after age 30 and I am very glad that that is not me. It’s so fun! And I am so incredibly grateful that my body still lets me do it

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My mean rant of the day

There’s a girl on my frisbee team who’s coming back from an acl injury and she told me that her biggest struggle is simply being out of shape. And I truly do not understand why you would set yourself up for failure like that??? Like I’ve come back from two acl tears and you have to do so much pt and injury recovery stuff that I was in fantastic shape coming back from both? And it’s also so so important to have really strong knee muscles to help support your joint? And I just don’t understand trying to ease back into sport but not putting in the work ahead of time to actually be ready to do that? Truly baffling to me

[ultimateaclrecovery]

World surpasses 40% clean power as renewables see record rise

This is from the Global Electricity Review 2025 by Ember. Although this isn't something you are going to see in newspaper headlines, the progress we made with renewables in 2024 is a pretty big deal and if you're someone who likes a lot of data and graphs it's really worth reading.

I'm going to leave this video here because Hank Green does a better job of covering it than I am going to.

"This to me feels like news. It feels like a big deal. It feels like things are changing, like we are hitting a moment with electricity generation that really does matter. And over the next five years we will hit the point where we are generating less and less energy with fossil fuels every year. That's great. And that's not news. I didn't see anyone covering this [...]. It's not news because it's not bad and it's also not news because it's not like 'we did it, we hit the moment!'."

I think this quote from Hank's video does a good job of encapsulating how the slow, gradual progress that is happening often doesn't make it into the news--because it's not a dramatic emergency or a "we did it, we fully solved climate change!" kind of moment that makes for good headlines.

But that then gives people the idea that we're hardly making any progress on addressing climate change, which is not true at all. The fact that we need to continue to double-down on this progress to do it more and faster does not negate that so much progress has already been made.

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Above image is a pride flag with every color band represented by a NASA image. White is Earth clouds, pink is aurora, blue is the Sun in a specific wavelength, brown is Jupiter clouds, black is the Hubble deep field, red is the top of sprites, orange is a Mars crater, yellow is the surface of Io, green is a lake with algae, blue is Neptune, and purple is the Crab Nebula in a specific wavelength.

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I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

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Fun day at work! The bathrooms on my floor don’t work and the proposed nasa budget cuts my program and every program I’ve ever worked. Yay!

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Ok, so. The Trump budget. It has already passed the House and now just needs 51 senators to pass it and send it to Trump for signature.

There are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democratic ones, and 2 Independents that vote with the Democrats. VP Vance is a tiebreaker vote.

So to block the bill, at least four Republican senators need to find their spines and the Democrats and Independents all need to keep their spines. This will not happen without direct action from voters.

They are only going to resist this bill if they hear from voters in their states. They do not care if some person from California calls them.

It's really fucking bad for everyone except the ultra-wealthy, surprise surprise.

I'm going to go through some of the features of this budget in reblogs, but trust and believe that it's horrible for the vast, vast majority of Americans, including you.

Highlights include:

Extends the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017. This continues $3.7 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. If this budget does not pass, these tax cuts will expire and go back up without any action.

$150 billion in additional military spending

Work requirements for Medicaid. "childless adults without disabilities would be required to work 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits.". They expect millions of people to fail to meet work requirements and lose Medicaid.

Planned Parenthood and trans care. "Bans Medicaid from providing funding to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization continued to provide abortions, and would bar Medicaid from covering gender affirming health care to any beneficiaries. "

Reduces SNAP food stamp access that 40 million people use. "mandates work requirements for able-bodied SNAP enrollees who don't have dependents.".

Clean energy "dramatically scaling back many of the tax credits for clean energy."

Border walls and ICE. "$46.5 billion toward completing Trump's border wall. It also allots $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and more than $6 billion to hire and retain more agents and officers"

Student loans. "cut $330 billion from the student loan system by scrapping several existing repayment options, including the Biden-era SAVE program that based payments on income and household size.". Does anyone want to have student loan payments that you cannot afford?

Guts Obamacare. "Saves $100 billion, but will result in millions of Americans becoming uninsured if they fail to adhere to new paperwork requirements or can no longer afford insurance premiums."

Weakens federal courts that keep using orders that his actions are illegal and unconstitutional. It prohibits courts from enforcing contempt citations for violations of injunctions or temporary restraining orders unless the plaintiff pays a bond. Bonds can be EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE and are not currently required in these cases. The provision "would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable," says the god of constitutional law, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

So, you folks in red states and you folks in wobbly blue states (PA, NC, etc), you need to call your senators and save us all.

Call every day. Call after hours so you can leave a voicemail and not talk to anyone.

For real y'all, millions of people are going to starve, go broke, and be without medical care if this bill passes. Which is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.

And it will balloon the national debt to pay for these tax cuts for the wealthy.

[ultimateaclrecovery]

May in photos

Bookend with A jumping show with bunny Luna and a dressage show with two blue ribbons (bonus purple dyed saddle pad)

A 50k relay race with friends where I ran 6.5 miles

Gardening, my lilac bush that I thought I killed but I think it will survive! Flowers from the garden and a Winslow seedling

Embroidery, ube waffle Sunday brunch and butterfly tea and grilling in my purple backyard

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Ahhh

A spot just opened from the waitlist for the dressage show Saturday and I have to register for it by 6 (so two hours) and I still don’t know if I could a trailer ride there or if my dressage trainer is going (would go). I have text both BO (and go initially offered to trailer) and dressage trainer but idk.

I also really wanted to jump in the cross country field on Saturday like my jump trainer said we could, but also it’s been dumping rain this week so it might be too muddy regardless.

Ugh. It’s too much and too many decisions.

There will be another dressage show there on September 7 that I SHOULD be able to go to and my dressage trainer has already said she is planning to go to. So maybe I just plan for that even though it feels so far away

And of course (like @xanswerxthatx kindly reminded me) there’s always virtual shows. Even though that feels less “fun”.

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Topped off my arm workout with a hard bike ride. My gyms bike has fun off brand peleton workouts and this hiit workout was so. So. Hard.

Also the gym today was so full of badass women doing hard things and I loved it.

I’m finally reaching the point with my hamstring strain where I can do real workouts again and my mood has shot through the roof. I am such a sad potato girl when I don’t get enough exercise

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Really been feeling like I’ve been letting myself down and just creating my own problems. In addition to blowing tryouts, I left my kobo at the gym, missed signing up for the dressage, missed signing up for today’s jumping horse show and now regret it, got a ticket for running a red light, couldn’t due my saddle pad because I stained it and didn’t get the stains out in time. And it just sucks to be the cause of your own problems.

But! Instead of dwelling in my shortcomings (much as I love rumination) I am choosing to (try at least) focus on all of the good things!

I got my kobo back from the gym.

I had a good lesson today and she said we could go out to the cross country next week!

My hamstring is not sore after going to the gym and doing a fair bit of legs.

My breakfast sandwich this morning was delicious (English muffin,turkey sausage, cheese and a fried egg)

I have a sun flower sprout!

And look at my beautiful bouquet of flower courtesy of my weird side yard and they smell amazing!

[ultimateaclrecovery]

I tried to donate blood today but instead I fainted! And was unsuccessful.

And I forgot to take out the trash last night so now my trash can will be full of rotting smelly chicken all week!

And my hamstring is still sore! And I keep spending hours watching instagram reels and staying up way too late! And the dressage show is full! And I found out that my barn is going to a jumping show this weekend that I had been planing/hoping to go to but then didn’t sign up for because the trainer didn’t confirm she was going until like an hour before entries were due and I don’t want to pay a late fee! And after not doing anything social my two friends want to do things on the same night so I have to miss one! And my lilac bush hat I just planted is dying!

Truly nailing life right now!

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Molly brown just released their and everyone else of the seven last people in the running made it except for me. So I really truly did blow it at that last tryout where I also hurt myself…..

[ultimateaclrecovery]

I didn’t have a frozen sandwich for lunch and I didn’t want to eat my bbq chicken for lunch so instead I made peanut butter ramen with a soft boiled egg and I am feeling so chefy 👩‍🍳

Added corn and green onions from my salad to round it out 😋

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Ugh. I was going to sign up for a dressage show in two weeks but it’s full 😭😭😭 I guess I can still sign up on the waitlist but idk if the bo is actually taking a trailer to it. She initially said she was going to but I’m not sure anyone else is actually going. And I thought there might be others I could go to but the one in June I almost certainly have a conflict for and my barn is host an unrelated clinic so I doubt the bo would take a trailer. And the only other one on the schedule is in September. And I’m bummed because the dressage trainer said I could do a first level test and that feels like it would be cool.

But now I will do nothing.

And I’m still so bummed about not making Molly brown. Or any other good team. And the team that I am on, that was such a big deal for me to make last year is taking a major step back and is going to be worse. And it just feels like I was on the cusp of greatness and instead I get nothing. And I’m just sad about it

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Documenting the Damage: 100 Harmful Policies from the First 100 Days of Trump's Second Term

The second Trump administration has had the busiest first 100 days of any US presidency in nearly a century. Since January, I've been keeping a spreadsheet documenting 900+ policy changes and political developments. I then bundled many of the most important changes into 100 topics areas and wrote a summary of each of them, providing a semi-comprehensive account of the tremendous changes to US politics which have occurred.

PDF version of the full report

Website version of the full report

Medium versions:

Introduction + Part I: Democracy and Government

Part II: Civil Rights and Liberties

Part III: Economy and Public Services 

Part IV: Environment and Energy

Part V + Conclusion: Foreign Policy