Nigeria apologises over Burkina Faso military flight that saw 11 servicemen detained
nanowrimo 2025 posted!
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Title: Sanctuary Code
Author: marcicat
Fandom: Murderbot (TV), The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)
Characters: SecUnit | Murderbot, ART | Perihelion, Pin-Lee, Arada, Ratthi, Palisade Combat SecUnit, Gurathin, Iris, Dr. Mensah, Lutran
Tags: AU, Found Family, IN SPACE, mutual administrative assistance-ship, avoiding talking about feelings, or anything else, SecUnit to the rescue
Summary: A series of awkward conversations.
Authors note: This started as an AU look at one way 'Exit Strategy' might go in a Murderbot (TV) universe, then gradually went off the rails, as stories sometimes do.
on Dreamwidth
on AO3
sanding sanding
and then doing it
I taped all the important bits, cleaned the room out and rolled the walls in the afternoon while the light was good. I had been planning on doing a test corner to make sure I liked it and when I let it dry and I liked the color a lot, I just got a move on. I took a decent amount of breaks during the day, so painted the detail work during crafting that night, the edges near the windows, corners, near the ceiling and above the windows. Then I stayed late on the call and re-rolled the big areas for a second coat since it had dried by then.
Tuesday morning as soon as the light was good, I did touchups to all the places that I had missed, which wasn't too much. It wasn't actually noticeable from a distance but if you were close, it was possible to see the tan. Then I split more wood to get the pile of logs finish off. The creek down at west has frozen over far earlier than expected, so we won't be able to get a tractor across to skid logs from that hill. We have plans to go on the back hill at the main farm and get some trees from there. 9/25 bags for maple processing and a half tote for house wood. We think there's some basswood in one of the hedgerows that is shading future christmas tree fields, so we are going to take that down for wood.
This post has pre-paint photos. Room all painted. It's a very good color, in sunlight, it is more purple/blue and at night, it is more blue/grey. I like it a lot! It's lighter in person, the phone camera struggles.

( more house renovation details )
(morning writing)
If i miss writing in time, i hope everyone is able have the observations that make passing through this solstice period a joy or at least the darkness eased. I am enjoying my LED lit branch (up all year) and tree during the long dark morning, and found that BritBox has streaming holiday light shows to run in the background of doing other things.
Some quick notes
no car news, but we don't really need two vehicles, so we are OK. What we have is a good reliable car (that is now dmaged) and a vehicle for taking things to the dump. Christine managed to find a really nice take things to the dump vehicle some years back, so we'll drive it about more and live with the lousy gas mileage.
Bruno and Marlowe have had a step of improvement in how they get along and how Bruno believes he can access the rest of the house. He doesn't need coaxing to leave his safe room, Marlowe is not nearly as vigilant. It's odd to see how things seem to have little jumps and not gradual change. We went from much coaxing to get him to leave his room on his own to him dashing out in the morning.
Christine is having a more serious flare (infection) of the issue that sent her to the emergency room in June. Less than a month to the surgery that should resolve things.
I am fighting my own self denigration around gift giving and not really winning but avoiding. I hope i can take some time off today to label and wrap and pack and ship. I had so much joy making and thinking about giving -- years of it imagining when i could gift things from the orchard -- and ... anyhow, i will focus on that and try to take the insecure part of me and tell her ... that people already know i am a flake so it's ok? No, wait, that's not the message. We'll work on that.
i've gotten in my (pathetically low count of) steps the past two days. I think i feel better for it. I am worried about how fatigue hit me out of the blue a few weeks ago, but i have no evidence that the fatigue is caused by doing things, i just NOTICE when i am doing things. Acting like i am fatigued all the time is not the solution.
Trump announces 'warrior dividend' for troops as he defends economic record
Ecuador defender Pineida killed in shooting
Interesting Links for 18-12-2025
- 1. Why Do Commercial Spaces Sit Vacant?
- (tags:business property finance economics banking )
- 2. What Happens When Netflix Buys Warner Bros. (nothing good)
- (tags:netflix movies history WarnerBrothers video doom )
- 3. UK energy costs likely to halve by 2050, says system operator
- (tags:UK renewables electricity thefuture )
- 4. Teachers to be trained to spot early signs of misogyny in boys
- (tags:misogyny UK children boys )
- 5. One month to go: Edinburgh-Fife rail upgrades begin soon (closing the line for a week)
- (tags:Scotland transport trains )
- 6. Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Is Having a Renaissance
- (tags:hydroelectric electricity storage )
The Day in Spikedluv (Wednesday, Dec 17)
I did zero shopping which made the morning even better. I did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes, ran a load in the dishwasher, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, baked chicken for the dogs’ meals, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, scooped kitty litter, and showered. I cooked a strip roast with potatoes and baby carrots for supper. It was really good!
Today is my first injection of the higher dose of Trulicity (as decided when I had the appt with my PCP last Monday). I hope it doesn’t cause me digestive issues because I have not missed those. *fingers crossed*
I started Boyfriend Material, watched another ep of The Pitt and the current ep of one of my favorite HGTV programs, Fixer to Fabulous. Secrets of the Zoo was my background tv in the evening.
Temps started out at 32.9(F) (the temps got down to 22 before we went to bed, so it had warmed up substantially overnight) and reached 45.3!!! It was mostly cloudy, but the snow melted so that it was tough to walk in.
Today is the first of three ‘warm’ days (though it was only supposed to reach 39). Tomorrow is supposed to be mid-40s and Friday is supposed to hit the 50s! And then drop 20 degrees to being cold again. Me no likey.
Mom Update:
Mom didn’t sound good today. ( more back here )
Family release video of Matilda at beach as aunt calls for 'happiness and love'
French 'Doctor Death' who poisoned patients jailed for life
Heavy rains worsen conditions for displaced Gazans, UN warns
2025 Disneyland Trip #78 (12/17/25)
( Read more... )
Daily Happiness
2. We went to Disneyland for dinner. Still way more crowded than I would have thought with so many passholders blocked out, but not quite as bad as last Monday. We did have some really delicious food, though. And we finally managed to get some more of those cranberry orange loaves from Jolly Holiday and brought them home for breakfast tomorrow.
3. Jasper's really loving the warming bed now that it has lost its sides and become a warming cushion. Not sure if it's because of the new shape or because it's on top of a chest rather than on the floor, but he's into it.

- 2026,
- art,
- crafts,
- goals,
- signup posts
Signup Post: Arts and Crafts Challenges in 2026
You can pick whichever challenge(s) you want to set as a goal in 2026 and reply with a comment. Below the list of challenges is a short form for listing which you have chosen. Make a post in your blog like "I signed up for the Arts and Crafts challenge in
See also the Fannish 50 challenge, which simply aims to post fifty entries on any topic in fandom. If you want to crochet the crew of the Enterprise, sew a complete capsule wardrobe inspired by hobbits, or carve a replica of Hogwarts, go for it. Either writing about or posting pictures of your progress will count. You can even double-count anything that applies to two or more goals, e.g. stashbusting, crochet, and Fannish 50.
Do you know of any other arts and crafts challenges in 2026? Share a link so they can be added to the list of options.
( Read more... )
Community Thursday
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This did not happen .... although M.T. Anderson cannot stop himself from wielding a sharp knife on occasion, it it turns out the book is indeed mostly a comedy .....
Nicked is based on a Real Historical Medieval Heist: the city of Bari is plague-ridden, and due to various political pressures the City's powers have decided that the way to resolve this is to steal the bones of St. Nicholas from their home in Myra and bring them to Bari to heal the sick, revive the tourism trade, and generally boost the city's fortunes. The central figures on this quest are Nicephorus, a very nice young monk who had the dubious fortune of receiving a dream about St. Nicholas that might possibly serve as some sort of justification for this endeavor, and Tyun, a professional relic hunter (or con artist? Who Could Say) who is not at really very nice at all but is Very Charismatic And Sexy, which is A Problem for Nicephorus.
The two books that Nicked kept reminding me of, as I read it, were Pratchett's Small Gods and Tolmie's All the Horses of Iceland. Both of those books are slightly better books than this, but as both of them are indeed exceptionally good books I don't think it takes too much away from Nicked to say that it's not quite on their level: it's still really very fun! And, unlike in those other somewhat better books, the unlikely companions do indeed get to make out!
I did end it, unsurprisingly, desperately wanting to know more about the sources on which it was based to know what we do know about this Real Historical Medieval Heist, but it turns out they are mostly not translated into English. Foiled again!