
This is Ray's fault.
85 posts
Ashesinthewest - Oh Gods, Why Am I Here? - Tumblr Blog
Yo, do you know how much my world view tilted when the neurologist I've been referred to for my oh-so-fun new experience of vertigo-spells told me that headaches without cause (like knocking your head on something or being sick) are not normal and not experienced by the average person?!
Blew my fucking mind. Now I'm on a fun journey learning about headaches and migraines. Yay.đ
Seeing as you know a lot about migraines, I was wondering if it's normal to have auras and malaise without the pain? And if you do, does it last more than a day? I tend to have migraines with the headache pain, but every once in a while it's like my body sucks and I need days of sleep. Thanks for being so helpful to everyone.
Those are sometimes called âsilent migraines.â
I get them sometimes, and yeah they can last as long as regular migraines.
Headache is only one symptom of a migraine attack but not everyone gets them, itâs just more common to experience a headache with a migraine than not.
Ooooo! I've been running into an issue with my wrists after crocheting for a few hours for a couple of days in a row. Then I have to stop for a few days for the pain to go away. These will be game changing. @musicandteddybears check it out!
btw Iâve found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:

Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!
especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but itâs really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)

Any red state can turn blue if enough voters turn out.
This needs to be in every library.

Really happy to see this at my local library










reblog if you believe fanfics are as valid as books that were published and sold by authors who write as their main careers. I'm trying to prove a point
This is amazing!
Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?
Well, have I got the html for you!
Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!
Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">
Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">
nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">
yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">




It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know âď¸)


weird anti ideology finally leaking out into the mainstream
Well this was not on my bingo card for the day, but was an interesting tidbit to learn. I'll keep a better eye out for the migration habits of the furry community going forward. I certainly don't want to be left on the platforms where the toxic haters are.
Never trust a social media site that doesn't have weird furries
Working on a last minute add-on to my collection of birthday gifts to my little brother. He loves yellow and took my solid yellow skein of cotton yarn to practice crocheting a wash cloth after I taught him a basic stitch when he asked me to teach him. This will hopefully be the kick in the pants he needs to finish his washcloth so we can move on to the next stitch. Bonus: him adding his completed washcloth will make him a set.


Reblogging this so I can get through all the articles without the fear of losing the track of the post.
they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts
Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.
In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2].Â
In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight.Â
1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.
Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].
4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicareâs Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.
The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called ânormalâ weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000Â [5].
5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). âProbability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.â American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1âe6.
Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesnât work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7], addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].
6. Magro, DaniĂŠla Oliviera, et al. âLong-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.â SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. âDeath Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.â Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007. 8. King, Wendy C., et al. âPrevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.â Jama Network, 20 June 2012. 9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. âMineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.â Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.
Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].
10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. âLongâterm Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?â Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.
Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].
11. Patton, GC, et al. âOnset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.â BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.
The idea that âobesityâ is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12].Â
12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. âIdeology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationshipâ Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.
âObesityâ has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].
13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. âObesity and Insulin Resistance.â The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. âUse of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.â Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010. 15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. âObesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.â Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009. 16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. âObesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.â The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007. 17. Mullen, John T, et al. âThe Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.â Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. âObesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.â Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.
Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being âoverweightâ conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].
19. Flegal, Katherine M. âThe Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.â Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.
Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called ânormal weightâ people are âunhealthyâ whereas about 50% of so-called âoverweightâ people are âhealthyâ. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20].Â
20. Rey-LĂłpez, JP, et al. âThe Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.â Obesity ReviewsâŻ: An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.
While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25âbranding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnightâto match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].
21. Butler, Kiera. âWhy BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.â Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014.Â
Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].
22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. âEvidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environmentâ American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.
Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23]. Â
23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. âHealthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.â Journal of the American Board of Family MedicineâŻ: JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.
Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].
24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. âWeight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .â Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.
Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].
25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. âBias, Discrimination, and Obesity.â Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. âGlutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?â Slate, 5 Oct. 2009. 27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68â78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. âSo My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.â Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. âWeight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.â Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.
There's my "proof." Where is yours?
I did this for my siblings and brother-in-law. My husband and I are 10-12 years older than our siblings, so when they entered their teen years I would take them shopping around their birthdays and the holidays with a $20-50 limit and tell them to pick out what they liked with a list of what was already in the hope chest and what necessities were still needed but simple awesome finds were okay to add too. I'd occasionally just sneak basic kitchen items like a can opener or some solid color hotpads into them that I would pick up individually whenever I went grocery shopping. And I kept their items in separate storage totes with their names on them and when they moved out themselves, I gave them the totes.
Because let me remind/inform you! Starting your household from scratch?! Is FUCKING EXPENSIVE! Between the dishware, cutlery, pots and pans and everything in between to a simple can opener to the towels for the bathroom to the sheets for your bed to the basic cleaning supplies of a broom, scrub brush, and cleansers? It very quickly adds up to hundreds of dollars and not everything can be bought at the dollar store.
So yes, I fully agree. Bring back hope chests for children. And depending on the home life you have, it can be a fun bonding experience between family members or it can be the box that's a physical representation that you WILL get out of there one day and use it to dream of what YOUR home will look like when you do.
I really love the concept of the hope chest when adapted to modern values. Putting aside nice things in a chest as you grow up so that when you move out you have things to make a home with???? like???? sign me up?????
I wish I could adopt them all. Sadly I have yet to win the lottery and have to make do with loving my 3 cats.







This was meant to be a quick warm up, but it turned into a comic that Iâve wanted to draw for a while. This is something that is extremely important to me, and I appreciate it if you read it.
A while ago, I heard a story that broke my heart. A family went a cat shelter to adopt. The daughter fell in love with a 3-legged cat. The father straight up said âabsolutely notâ. Because he was missing a leg. That cat was that close to having a family that loved him, but the missing leg held him back. Why?!
Many people have the initial instinct of ânopeâ when they see an imperfect animal. I get it, but less-adoptable does NOT mean less loveable. 9 out of 10 people will choose a kitten over an adult cat. And those 10% that would get an adult cat often overlook âdifferentâ animals.
All I want people to do is be open to the idea of having a âdifferentâ pet in their lives. Choose the pet that you fall in love with, but at least give all of them a fair shot at winning your heart.
Donât dismiss them, they deserve a loving home just as much as any other cat. They still purr, they still love a warm lap, they still play, they still love you. Trust me, next time you are in the market for a new kitty, just go over to that one cat thatâs missing an eye and see what heâs all about!
Found my new slang.
I asked one of my (male) friends to stop using the phrase âman upâ and he has been using âfortifyâ for the past two weeks instead and itâs just a little thing but honestly it makes a difference
and tbh itâs also pretty funny when I start to deflate in the library and he leans over and goes âFORTIFYâ
Very cool.

helen âtrans people are perpetuating gender steriotypesâ joyce is now upset that the scientific american is writing about how women were hunters too back in the day, not just mothers and caretakers. feminist win!
Mr. Hargrove sounds like a hell of a teacher.
So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school⌠let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didnât take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.
Okay, so, freshman year, Iâm deep in my âeverything sucks and Iâm stuck with these assholesâ mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, letâs call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didnât get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.
One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.
All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the olâ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.
So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.
And Mr. Hargrove loved it.
It wasnât just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.
Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, âSome pipsqueak.â
And thatâs when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.
Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.
One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargroveâs complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix âizeâ to a verb.
That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added âizeâ to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.
And, people⌠The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.
And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying âfuck youâ to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)
So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.
Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.
Same.
The reblogs have some interesting advice and tidbits. Very use.
"Which spices go with which foods" lists are of limited value to me because, like, I have functioning taste buds. What I really need is a "spices that need to be added at the start of the cooking time in order to properly develop versus spices that need to be added in the last five minutes because extended heating fucks up the flavour profile" list â that shit is not intuitive.
Puritanism is getting worse around the globe and conservatives and fascists will absolutely be first going harder against porn, then use that against queer people. You HAVE to realise this and oppose anti porn measures and laws, be in solidarity with sex workers, and listen to them when they call this shit out. It's going to be vitally important.
My husband has argued multiple times that it can't be anything but witchcraft. How else does one take a hook or two needles, a length of string, make some fancy knots and tangles, and have a complete blanket/clothing/toy?
It's witchcraft. Nothing else.
honestly yeah, fiber arts is magic. you cast spell of warm gloves, spell of nice hat, spell of stuffed animal.
material component: yarn
wand: single hooked wand or double pointed wands, depending on caster's preference
mechanical component: specific motions repeated in a particular pattern
time component: a while
look seriously the first step in a knitting recipe is "cast on", and then it's a bunch of letters and numbers incomprehensible to anyone not versed in the arcane art. that's a spellbook. yes it's a book of knitting patterns but also. it's a spell book.
I've seen a lot of fics disappear from my bookmarks, some 10+ years old, because they were added to an unrevealed collection. It makes me wonder if people realize what your fic being added to a collection actually means and if the authors approved it automatically without realizing what would happen.
If someone adds your fic to their collection, they can hide it! They can mark the collection as unrevealed and your fic will be unreadable to anyone other than them! If you're writing works for a surprise event, like a Secret Santa, this is really nice.
But if you're just writing and someone adds your fic to a collection for their own personal use and marks it as unrevealed, that. . . really sucks.

I bookmarked this fic in 2017, almost 5 years ago. Knowing me, the fic itself was probably at least a couple years old at the time I bookmarked it.
This is a 5+ year old fic that is completely inaccessible now because it was added to a collection that, as far as I can tell, is literally just for the collection owner's own reference. There's almost 30 fics in the collection, all of them unrevealed.
Please don't blindly accept collection requests and if your works ARE in a collection, make sure that they aren't being hidden without your knowledge or consent.
@c3rvida3 you are the exact reason why my cats are kept in doors.
Walking around my neighborhood wearing my sick as fuck custom T-shirt that says "I STEAL EVERY FRIENDLY CAT I MEET WITH NO REMORSE I DO IT ALL THE TIME DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK I BEEN HERE FOR YEARS KEEP THAT BEAST ENCLOSED LEST YE FACE MY LIGHTNING CAT GRASP" and smiling politely while my neighbors' indoor-outdoor cats gently trot down the sidewalk towards me as the neighbors themselves read my shirt with a growing sense of panic.
Where has this been?!
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, âwhatâs the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?â and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is âunofficialâ, and we know thatâs not the right word, but itâs the only word we can come up withâŚuntil finally itâs like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is âartificialâ.
SING IT! I WANT TO BUY A FINISHED AND COMPLETE PRODUCT!
