cloudsinvenice | Reading (rl stuff)

renay posting in

2025 was the first year my reading started to feel less like a miracle and more like, "oh yeah, reading! I do that without struggling." I read 78 books, although a lot of them were rereads. I'm happy to reread The Murderbot Diaries and a bunch of my favorite romance novels a few times a year. The brain craves familiarity.

I have elevenish favorites this year (I combined books in series, because I make the rules). My top book, which is no big secret as I've been shouting about it for months, is the only one ranked; the rest are here in alphabetical order.

( Favorite Books )

( The numbers and musings )

That's a wrap on 2025! If you read any of my favorites and have readalikes, I'm always hyped for recs. If you wrote a favorites post for your SFF reading, I'd love to see it (and then link it in Intergalactic Mixtape, haha).

signoftea posting in

common_nature

It started snowing yesterday, and now there's about 5 cm of snow, an amount that is very rare here. I went for a walk to see the beach, because it looks so cool when it's covered in snow. To my surprise, there was even ice on the water! A fragile crust of little floes had formed and seemed to slow down the movement of the waves as they licked the snow away from the breakwater bit by bit.

At first, I didn't hear any bird calls. I did see a few sanderlings darting around, some big birds (probably black-backed gulls) hovering over the sea, and a huge swarm of smaller birds, but they were all far away. I was about to leave when suddenly an impressive formation of geese appeared in the sky. My birding app identified them as barnacle geese. Then the app recorded some more calls, including one from a dunling, a bird I had never seen or heard before.

The snow and the greyish sky skewed my perspective in interesting ways, so that it looked like there were mountains growing out of the sea near the horizon, or like there was a huge wave rolling towards the beach. It felt surreal and a little eerie.

North Sea beach with snow and ice

bookscorpion posting in

common_nature

I went to the cemetery today to take photos of all the snow we've been getting, and it was gorgeous. Even better, the snow came out - only for about fifteen minutes but it was magical

( Read more... )

gravemind posting in

little_details

Hello! I have three questions, all about the work of trauma/critical care/acute care surgeons in the US:

1) Would it ever be feasible for a TACS attending at an academic Level I trauma center to take semi-regular lunch breaks when on day shift (obviously assuming there’s no major trauma needing resuscitation and/or immediate operation, and assuming they have adequate support from residents, etc.)? What if it was decreed necessary by their doctor or their psychologist?

Narratively the goal here is to get the character outdoors near the hospital at a regular-ish time for ~30 minutes at least a few days a week, on at least some weeks. Judging from what I’ve read from people in this specialty on reddit it sounds as though this might (???) be achievable at some hospitals, especially if their setup happens to be rotating weeks of ICU / non-ICU trauma / EGS / admin-and-research, but given the apparent prevalence of hospital workers in acute care specialties not getting any breaks whatsoever I really can’t tell.

2) At what point is the TACS attending no longer involved in a patient’s care if the patient ends up requiring a long-term (at least several months) hospital stay to recover? Would it be as soon as the patient is stable enough to be out of the ICU? My understanding is that since trauma surgeons are largely doing non-surgical critical care and may often be in charge of the ICU they might be managing an operative trauma patient for a while post-op, but I’m not clear on at what point that patient stops being their problem.

3) To whom would a TACS attending (again, at an academic Level I) report to within the hospital hierarchy? Would it be the chief of the trauma service(?) (And would that person be the same or different from whoever they would need to clear FMLA leave or vacation time with?)

Any information or corrections on any of this greatly appreciated! Thank you!

ysabetwordsmith posting in

common_nature

Tonight I happened to glance out the window and spotted a colorful sunset. So I grabbed my camera and ran outside to take pictures. This gets me started on my goal of taking and posting photos at least once per season. \o/

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

full_metal_ox posting in

common_nature

Taken on 2 January 2026 at 19:44 U.S. Eastern Standard Time.

The lunar halo of mackerel clouds, darkly dappled by the spaces between, keeps the moon from being reduced to just another circle of warm white light in the electric constellation of the apartment complex—which has usually been the effect when I’ve tried to take a picture. (That startling peacock-blue color was a happy artifact of my cheap-ass flip-phone camera!)

You can see how the moon continues an arc formed by the walkway lights—somewhat resembling the head of Scorpius, with the stairway light standing in for Antares.

dialecticdreamer posting in

journalsandplanners

Does anyone else in this group create their own planner? Not a BuJo, in that it's got a framework and elements of a commercially sold planner.

lennymacb posting in

little_details

Howdy! My screenplay takes place in rural North Dakota in November 1996, and two teenage characters are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know the bat'leth as a weapon was introduced in the show long ago, but when did replicas and toys become widely sold? Would it be realistic for a working-class young woman to have a mini bat'leth she could use as a knife in that year? I also read that the mek'leth (smaller Klingon scimitar) was introduced in DS9 and also appeared in First Contact. How early were replicas of those available to fans?
Thanks a million to you all! Would also love to hear any other miscellaneous stories or details of the TNG+DS9 fandom of the 90s, to give some extra oomph and care to an underrepresented community :)

sixbeforelunch posting in

journalsandplanners

I don't know how interesting this will be to people other than me. I'm not the most artistic or creative person, not by a long shot, but I've decided to share my current primary planner anyway. This set up served me really well last year. This year I've made a few minor improvements, and it's possible that some of these ideas will be useful to other people.

The journal I'm using is the Panobook from Studio Neat. I love the wide landscape layout and the dot grid, and I can vouch for the quality of the paper. I use cheap ballpoint pens (I might experiment with fountain pens at some point, but I haven't yet), and also cheap markers. Neither bleed through these pages. The cover is sturdy, and the spiral binding is resilient. It's 50 sheets, 100 total pages long, which is enough for the entire year and then some. I stay on one side of the page, and then when I get to the end, I flip it over and start writing on the reverse side, so the spiral is always on the left side as I use the notebook. You could obviously just use both sides of the page as you go, but I found this works better for me. (If you're a lefty, in theory you could do the opposite and keep the spiral on the right as you go. The pages have no set orientation.)

( Image heavy below the cut. CN: brief mention of weight tracking. )

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

We were surprised to see the heron out on the ice last week, since we had thought it migrated each year. But apparently it's not unusual for them to stay put. It was not having the easiest time on the ice though, as up top it had nearly fallen over while trying to walk.

( Read more... )

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were written by

tabular_rasa.

1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?

2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

starryeyedknight posting in

little_details

Hello! I’ve got a rather niche one particularly for Arabic speakers/historians - my writing is set in the medieval crusading period, where European/Catholic individuals would often use expressions of annoyance/surprise/exasperation that are largely religious-based, such as ‘oh sweet Christ’, 'dear God', ‘Christ’s bones’, ‘Saint Jude’s eyes’ etc etc. (One can then make as crude as you like while focusing a lot around divine/saintly body parts!).

I also have a few Levantine Arab Christian characters with mixed Arab/European heritage and I'm wondering if the above sort of religious-based swearing might have been used also in the Levant (particularly if they've taken some verbal influence from their European father), or if would come across as jarring to use these more western-associated idioms in a Middle Eastern setting?

Also: I've done some research around Arabic idioms already, but it would also be great to hear of any Arabic phrases (either in Arabic or transliterated) of annoyance or surprise similar to 'oh Christ' or 'for God's sake' that might be used? (I know ‘ya Allah’ is one such phrase but I’m trying to diversify) Similarly, any other recommendations of non-religious exclamations (of the ‘damn, bugger, blast’ varieties) would be very helpful!

Current Mood: chipper

halfcactus posting in

journalsandplanners

I got into documenting neighborhood birds in 2025. What I did was take pics on my phone (if the zoom could capture them) and try to trace them on my journal (since I can't actually draw). Technology!

Planner: 2025 Laconic (A5)

Photos here!

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

3 for the Memories' 2025 session will be open for posts on January 3, 2026 and will run for 3 weeks until January 24. Event participation is as follows:

1) Three photos only per person during each annual session. Members are encouraged to discuss the reason for their choices.

2) Photos can be hosted at Dreamwidth or elsewhere, and should not be larger than 800 px width or height.

3) All three photos should be in the same post. Cut tags should be placed after the first photo.

3 for the Memories is not a competition, and entries are not being judged. Rather, participants are encouraged to share photos they took in 2025 that they find meaningful in some way or which represent how they experienced the year.

Questions? Visit the announcement post at

threeforthememories

michelel72 posting in

little_details

I'm hoping these are straightforward questions, but I couldn't find a way to word the first to get any relevant results in web searches, and the second got weird on me.

The context is a civilian with extensive field-medic-style training providing off-the-books, in-home medical/supportive care to a preteen who is ill with a viral* fever-inducing illness. (* Viral seems easier; but bacterial is possible if necessary.) The setting is the modern-day (or at least vaguely post-2010) United States.

1. Is it feasible to administer intravenous (IV) saline without an infusion pump? (I've been assuming it is but want to double-check.)

( cut for IV details )

2. Is there a point at which a childhood (viral) fever is dangerous?

( Read more... )

Many thanks!

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

1. You have the summer and plenty of money to travel abroad. Where all would you go?

2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat?

3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see?

4. What airline would you use?

5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e., would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French?)

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

Profile

cloudsinvenice

my Linktree

February 2022

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28

strange coordinates and lines

a completely different zodiac of unfamiliar signs

Reading (rl stuff)

Navigation

Let's Get Literate! 2025 Reading Recap

Nature diary

Cemetery in the snow

Trauma/Critical Care/Acute Care Surgeon Work Conditions & Day-to-Day

Photos: Sunset

Full Wolf Supermoon, 2 January 2026.

Planner question

1996 Star Trek Merch

my 2026 planner and tracker

Heron on Ice

The Friday Five for 2 January 2026

Medieval 'Cussing' in the Middle East

bird journaling :)

Three for the Memories Coming Back Next Month!

IV saline without infusion pump; childhood fevers

The Friday Five for 26 December 2025

Profile

February 2022

Links

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags