Home Economics 101

Today we went to the Effingham County Fair.

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We made it to the end of July! \o/ If you have completed some of your medium-term goals or subgoals, and/or you're still chugging away at your ongoing goals, then pat yourself on the back. You worked hard for that. We're now most of the way through summer. If you're doing seasonal goals, hopefully you have made good progress on the summer batch.

This year I'm trying something new, continuing to track goals at the end of each month. So far it seems to be helping, so that's encouraging. I'm looking at my goal list more often and trying to keep ticking off more of them. The main drawback is that this update becomes more of a chore each month.

These are the previous check in posts:
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 4
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 10
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 17
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 24
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In February 28
New Year's Resolutions Check In March 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In April 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In May 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In June 30

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I made blackout on my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo Fest. \o/


B1 (Bad Girls) -- "Provoking Change by Bringing Nature" (standalone)
B2 (Close-knit Community) -- "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" (Frankenstein's Family)
B3 ("Put me down!") -- "A Stronger Woman" (Polychrome Heroics: Fortressa)
B4 ("I tried being reasonable. I didn't like it.") -- "The Pleasure of Escaping the Responsibility" (One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis)
B5 (Black Hats / White Hats) -- "Upholding It, Wherever Found" (Polychrome Heroics)

I1 (Resist Oppression) -- "Happy Instruments of Salvation" (Peculiar Obligations)
I2 ("He's all hat and no cattle") -- "No Such Thing as Finished" (Polychrome Heroics)
I3 (Dodge) -- "A New Twist" (LIFC)
I4 (Firefly) -- "Something Elusive and Mysterious" (standalone)
I5 (I'll Get My Revenge) -- "The Well-being of All Our People" (Clay of Life)

N1 ("The Wayward Wind") -- "Maho Shoujo" (standalone)
N2 (Buffalo) -- "Legs of Grass, Feet of Flowers" (standalone)
N3 (WILD CARD: Clean Up the Town) -- "Indicative of the Extent" (Polychrome Heroics: The Big One)
N4 (Defenestration) -- "In Effigy" (Frankenstein's Family)
N5 (Independent Woman) -- "But an Empty Shell" (Polychrome Heroics)

G1 (The Harder They Fall) -- "Always Surprised by Consequences" (Polychrome Heroics)
G2 ("Cool Water") -- "Beautiful, Damn Hard, Increasingly Useful" (Polychrome Heroics: Kraken)
G3 (Redemption Story) -- "The Future by Consequence, the Past by Redemption" (Frankenstein's Family)
G4 (Immigrant) -- "Fed from So Many Sources" (Frankenstein's Family)
G5 (Sunrise / Sunset) -- "Strong, Competent, Capable" (Frankenstein's Family)

O1 (Captive / Slave) -- "Four Marks of True Repentence" (Polychrome Heroics)
O2 (Gambling) -- "Finding the Gold in the Spirit" (Polychrome Heroics: Shiv)
O3 (Silver / Gold) -- "The Bee Tree's Gift" (standalone)
O4 (Horse) -- "Nuwneek" (The Bear Tunnels)
O5 (Emotionally Constipated Man) -- "New and Innovative Approaches" (Polychrome Heroics: The Big One)

This poem is the freebie for the July crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by himejoshiheart. It also fills "The Wayward Wind" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo Fest.

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Today is partly cloudy, humid, and hot.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen much activity yet.

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I picked 2 red cherry tomatoes and a Cherokee Purple tomato.

Some of the goldenberries and ground cherries have little fruit lanterns on them. :D

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I potted up 2 white peach and 2 white nectarine seeds.

EDIT 7/30/25 -- I took a few pictures around the yard.

Cicadas are singing.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Shanidar 1 is probably the most famous disabled person in history: missing an arm, blind in one eye, hard of hearing or deaf, mobility impaired, and more. He belonged to a Neanderthal family who exerted maximum effort to keep him alive, far beyond the typical lifespan of the time. Because he strove to survive, and they helped, his story lives on through his bones -- concrete proof that compassion, not brute force, is part of what made us human from the very beginning. The ability to care for each other, and to value people for themselves, not just for what they could contribute, made a difference in our survival.

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Israel is not a lawful state

Heartbreaking testimonies gathered from medical staff, parents of children hospitalized for malnutrition and displaced Palestinians struggling to survive paint a horrifying picture of acute levels of starvation and desperation in Gaza. Their accounts provide further evidence of the catastrophic suffering caused by Israel’s ongoing restrictions on life-saving aid and its deadly militarized aid scheme coupled with mass forced displacement, relentless bombardment and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.

Even worse, the food aid stations are set up as bait, drawing out parents of starving children to be gunned down by Israeli snipers.

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