action design tips

403 Forbidden & Alt Text

I have a habit of breaking WordPress websites and putting them back together again. I’ve done so at work a few times and with this particular site. When I say “break,” it’s not that I’m trying to make them completely inoperable. What I’m attempting to do is make them more efficiently operable, usually by combining two separate sites. A little over a year ago, when the pandemic first hit, I didn’t have the energy to…

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action family ideas tips

Errand Hanging

This past week, my Eldest Son and his fiancĂ© came to visit for a day. There were a few errands I had to run the morning of the day they were heading back home and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with them, so I invited them along. It was fun! I’ve done this before with relatives, sharing errand-running time with them. I didn’t know there was a term for this until…

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action art health ideas

The Environmental Impact of Yarn Bombs

I LOVE yarn bombs! As a fiber artist, I appreciate the attention they bring to fiber arts, especially knitting and crocheting. The textures and colors and message of wrapping something in yarn outdoors, whether a tree or fence or stairs or whatever, makes me happy because yarn bombs are about spreading happiness. I recently saw this tweet from #WOMENSART that shows a massive yarn bomb covering the steps of Helsinki’s Cathedral. That amount of work…

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action challenge history observations

We Should All Be Political

I’m writing this post on January 3, 2021, just after an hour-long recording dropped from The Washington Post of Donald Trump trying to pressure Brad Raffensberger, Georgia’s secretary of state, into overturning the presidential election so that Trump could win. I’m writing my posts for January and February early and scheduling them because I’m expecting a lot of work over the next few months. By the time this post publishes at the end of January**,…

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history observations pragmatic historian

Let’s Not Wait for History to Make Judgements

Throughout the four years of the Trump regime, as report after report came out about corrupt, unethical, possibly illegal, democratic-norm-breaking behavior, joined by an incessant number of lies, conspiracy theories, threats, and nasty comments, there has been a common refrain on Twitter. “History will not judge these individuals well.” As though merely pointing out how future people will look back on this time, shake their finger, and say, “Tsk, tsk,” and individuals currently engaging in…

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