A bracelet that uses a variety of bead materials and sizes to represent our solar system. Most of the beads are round, and all of them are polished and smooth. It includes: obsidian spacers for the void of space itself; blue goldstone and a star-shaped hematite bead for the stars and our night sky; orange agate for the Sun; peach quartz for Mercury; crazy lace agate for Venus; sodalite and cat's eye for Earth and our (main) Moon; red bamboo coral for Mars; a rondelle-shaped lava rock bead for the asteroid belt; tiger's eye for Jupiter; mother of pearl in a black and white shell ring for Saturn; shell in a mix of brown, green, and white for Uranus; blue shell for Neptune; and green jasper for Pluto.

I haven't posted in a while, so here's a pic of my new "space-let" from Etsy store GeoGeniusEP. Isn't it cool? :D

The cover of the Mappa Mundi box. A group of Chroniclers (the player characters) are marvelling at the monster (roughly like a hybrid of whale and an Eastern-style dragon) flying out of a waterfall.

Top left: one half of the cards, facing down to show the back art (a compass surrounded by flowers). Top right: the underside of the box's top, showing the setting map. Bottom left: the rest of the cards, fanned out to show some of the art for locations. Bottom right: the cover of the book itself. A group of Chroniclers looking over a vast landscape, over which flies a three-headed dragon.

Mappa Mundi, an exploration+ ecology RPG by Three Sails Studios, is GORGEOUS! (Photos of my Kickstarter copy below) And it's available now from Three Sails Studios and DriveThruRPG!

WMGSO Presents: Our Land, A Choral Concert - Full Concert VOD YouTube video by WMGSO

youtu.be/GEvGXH3X3zc

My new quilt. The back is light brown with a few turquoise hearts. The front has three kinds of squares: solid turquoise; turquoise hearts on a beige background; and plaid of various browns, greens, and blues.

But the best present was the quilt that my aunt hand-made for me with lovely earth tones 🤎💚💙🤍

And finally, the two physical books still on their way:
• Mage: the Awakening 2e (shipped yesterday); and
• For Small Creatures Such As We (shipped two weeks ago, but coming from Scotland, so idk when it'll arrive).

(Yes, I know it's a lot 😅 but after recent events, I wanted some retail therapy)

Also from itch: Blades in the Dark, & the Deep Cuts supplement.

Digital from Green Ronin: the Fantasy AGE supplements Cthulhu Mythos & Technofantasy.

Digital from Rowan, Rook and Decard: Spire: the City Must Fall.

I also backed the Mappa Mundi Kickstarter.

Presents from itch.io:
• Animon Story;
• Apothecaria (a solo game about being a witch);
• Cortex stuff (TorchLite; Xine Two; Save the Jacks!; & Manual of Monsters, Minions, & Mountebanks);
• Ironsworn: Starforged, + the Sundered Isles expansion

Some dice

Presents part 2:
• a set of 4 "ghost" Fate dice (pale greenish-blue); and
• the dice that came with Naasii. 9 white d12s with black numbers, & 3 black d12s with white numbers.

A small collection of tabletop roleplaying game books

Belated TTRPG presents to myself:
• the Coyote & Crow rulebook, & the related dice game Naasii;
• the Ki Khanga rulebook, & the anthology of stories using that setting;
• the Fabula Ultima Techno Fantasy Atlas;
• the Blue Rose rulebook; and
• the Girl by Moonlight rulebook (standard edition).

SHARE WIDELY.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights.

You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one.

(1/3)

opensecrets.org is a great source of information about which companies buy which politicians.

Had a late holiday get-together with family. We sorted through some estate stuff (we're spreading the process over the year bc it's a LOT); mostly cheap jewelry, unused kitchen things, and some furniture.

And a banjo. TIL Dad used to play it. It needs to be refurbished before use.

Recovery is going well. I can't drive or lift heavy things for a few weeks, but I can sleep on my side again. While I'm not eating many fatty foods anyway, they aren't causing digestive issues.

Gallbladder removal was successful, and my bile duct was healthy. I'm home now and recovering well so far.

Please remember that alt text is ESPECIALLY critical on emergency information.

Gallbladder is gone, and so is the ping pong ball-sized stone inside it.

(Most of that was scar tissue, but still ‽‽‽)

Staying here overnight for monitoring, but I have a good chance of going home tomorrow!

MRI in half an hour

Correction: 13 hours from time of original post

Main surgery in 12 hours. MRI still not yet scheduled.

Surgeon told me that if we haven't heard from the MRI team by tonight, we could go ahead with gallbladder removal tomorrow, then get the MRI post-op to see if they need to do more.

At least my pain is low and I'm not dehydrated right now.

They want to monitor me overnight. Oh well. At least they finally gave me IV fluids.

Signed the consent form for gallbladder removal, and the surgeons will decide based on the MRI how to clean out the main bile duct. Progress is finally happening, and hopefully I can go home tonight 🤞🤞

The trouble with charitable billionaires The long read: More and more wealthy CEOs are pledging to give away parts of their fortunes – often to help fix problems their companies caused. Some call this ‘philanthrocapitalism’, but is it just c...

Charities are soft power to influence public policy priorities policy priorities without the accountability from an electorate. They are an insidious way of claiming resources. The Gates’ foundation is the largest landowner in Africa through “philanthropy”

www.theguardian.com/news/2018/ma...

I'd like to add emphasis to two words in this post: Pretty Book. Objectively one of the most gorgeous TTRPG books ever.

Much love to my parents for being with me all day. They've spent way too much time as hospital visitors lately and don't deserve all this stress.

May not actually need the gallbladder removed? 🤞 We'll know for sure after the first procedure.

So another family member is in end-stage Alzheimer's, and I'm on my way to get gallstones removed from my bile ducts, and gallbladder removal will be scheduled after that.

I hope everyone else's new year is going better than mine.

A fresh-baked, perfectly-browned apple pie. You can tell it's homemade by the patchwork crust.

We got bit by the baking bug again, so here's another apple pie. May still make one more for a late holiday get-together next month.

We also made oatmeal cookies with chocolate & peanut butter chips a few days ago, but I forgot to take pics before we ate them all.

A pecan pie (above) and an apple pie (below) on cooling racks.

Third time's the charm. This apple pie is perfect 🙌 Also made my first pecan pie. We usually use smaller tins for pecan pies (these glass dishes are deep), so some of the crust fell in, but it turned out well otherwise.

To everyone in a similar scenario: the tactic my doctor's office has taught me is to ask, in writing, for:
1) the name, board specialty, and license number of the doctor making the determination the treatment was not medically necessary;