100% agree. I’m not a fan of Earl Grey at all but Lady Grey is delicious. It has a gentle lemon and orange flavor that evens out the bergamot imo

I really enjoyed Fable for the End of the World. I picked a copy up at the romance bookstore on a whim because the cover was really pretty and the summary on their card sounded interesting. It was a really good book.

I LOVE The Expanse series. I was at a used bookstore over the weekend and a lady next to me was contemplating picking up the Leviathan Wakes. I told her she should grab it because it’s my favorite scifi book series of all time. She had watched the series and loved it, so I told her I think she would enjoy the books too.

There’s so much good stuff there!

I’m reading Road to Ruin by Hana Lee. I picked this up at a romance bookstore the last book crawl because the cover and summary on the back seemed interesting. It was a good choice!

I’m really digging it. Kind of like a Mad Max type world where people use magic to keep their cities safe. The main character is a sparkrider who uses her magic to fuel a motorcycle she uses to deliver items between cities. I’m about a third of the way through and I am enjoying it a lot.

Currently reading Hooked by Emily McIntire. I’m enjoying it, but the book opening is pretty brutal. I’m glad the book has an author’s note at the beginning because it’s not a book for everyone.

Just finished a couple of Fear Street books I found at the library for cheap. I kind of read those to prep me for Hooked. I’m going to drop them off at a local little free library location

Also finished the Consortium Rebellion trilogy by Jessie Mihalik. I absolutely loved this series. It had all the right amounts of science fiction and romance that made me so happy.

Omg thank you so much for providing that first link. I’ve wanted to try Linux and to run a home server, but I am like OP. I’m not as tech illiterate as most, but I also don’t know nearly as much as others here. I know just enough to not fuck up my pc, but I had trouble finding a start from the basics instructions.

The Linux skill challenge looks like exactly what I wanted,

Dkp for the loot system and I have always liked punk music

My avatar is my orc rogue standing over Orgrimmar at sunset. It was when I first got my Thunderfury, so I wanted a cool picture with the badass sword.

You know, I’ve been thinking about going to my local UU church for the last few weeks because I’ve been wanting to find community. I think you just gave me the kick in the butt I need to actually go. Thank you for that.

I grew up in a UU church and it was great, probably one of the healthiest religions to raise a kid in IMO. My old congregation’s general demographic was older, but was religiously diverse like yours.

No worries and thanks for the clarification! I’m a fan of all things scifi, but sapphic scifi and scifi romance have been my jam lately. I’m 100% cool with NB or being into guys, my current read is a scifi romance about straight folks :D

I can see what you mean about Faven Scythe. I enjoyed it, but I read it more to gauge how I feel about reading her other books since I have a trilogy of hers I have yet to start.

I have heard about Memory Called Empire, just haven’t read it yet. It sounds like it would be right up my alley.

If you read Stars Too Fondly, I hope you enjoy it and thanks for the recs!

I also LOVE sapphic scifi and scifi romance. I have not read the books you mentioned, but I will definitely look into them.

I recently read The Two Lies of Faven Scythe by Megan O’Keefe and The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton. Both very good sapphic scifi.

My experience has been the same and I’ve been on the internet since the mid-90s. I have always avoided voice chats unless with friends or trusted guildies and avoid things that will identify me as a woman because people can get so toxic. This happens in real life too, especially in gaming spaces. I’ve been laughed at when I said I taught my male partner how to play MTG until he confirmed it. I used to hear I’m “not a real woman” because I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid, it’s a lot better now, but it’s still there.

The womensstuff space is a huge breath of fresh air and I love having a space to speak about topics with fellow women. Quite a number of men have commented there and are very polite when they are corrected.

Field hockey

I already know the rules since I played as a kid. There is no physical contact, so it’s safer than some other sports, unless you get hit with the ball or a stick to the shins.

Working my way through Aurora Blazing by Jessie Mihalik. I have less than 100 pages left and I love it. I’m excited to see what happens, but sad to be finishing it, but also excited that there is another book after this. It’s a great scifi romance series that I recommend checking out.

I started reading A Little Tea Book by Sebastian Beckworth on the side. It’s cute and has quite a bit of information about tea. I’m not sure if I’ll read the whole thing, but I’m reading sections that interest me and skimming the others. This is a library book and I recently decided to check out any book that I spend flipping through pages for more than 30 seconds. I’ve been happy with this decision so far.

I collect earrings as souvenirs when I travel. I try to get something from a local small artist or at craft fairs, something that reminds me of the place. They are practical and good conversation starters too.

My favorite pair is from Alaska. They aren’t too long, but they are a piece of mother of pearl and Alaskan jade that dangle from a post. I bought them at a native education center from a lady who had a booth and was making earrings while she sat there. It was a really fun trip.

Dark Matter was the first book I read by Blake Crouch. I loved that book and I love pretty much every book of his I’ve read. He is one author that I will buy a new release, or older one I haven’t read, without even looking at the back cover. I love his high intensity and quick paced writing.

I’m so happy you are enjoying it! I wish I could read it over for the first time again!

How are these? I grew up reading His Dark Materials and they are my favorite books from my childhood. I have all 3 of The Book of Dust books, I just haven’t started them yet.

I loved that book and I’m really excited for the movie. I’m planning on rereading it before the movie comes out.

I even got my father in law to read it and he’s not as into scifi as I am, but he really enjoyed it too

I started Aurora Blazing by Jessie Mihalik last night. I barely started it and I’m glad I did. I love Mihalik’s work, she writes some really great space opera romance.

I started a book called The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Tutton because it became available at my library. I got about 40 pages in and I stopped because I’m just not feeling it at the moment. I’ll return it and try again another time because the premise of the book sounds really interesting. It kind of reminds me of The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, which I absolutely loved.

I finished The Illustrated Woman by Melissa Bobe. I loved the short stories in this, I also really enjoyed how it was set up; a woman is wandering through a carnival and finds a woman with magic tattoos that show her the stories of different women who have come to her and their struggles. There were 2 stories that I would love seeing turned into full novels because I found the world very interesting. Leave Your Fear, You’ll Be Just Fine was probably my favorite.

Thanks! I planned on starting soon What If for that exact reason.

I ended up going with The Illustrated Woman by Melissa Bobe. It’s a book of short stories I picked up recently at a book festival. I chatted with the author a bit and she signed it too. I’ll probably be starting What If and Aurora Blazing next 😁

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a similar story from a small business owner and I stopped using Yelp for the most part. I overheard a conversation that Yelp was really pushing the owner to subscribe for the same reasons. They got pretty aggressive about it. The owner said no and Yelp started boosting negative reviews to coerce the owner into subscribing. I checked Yelp vs Google reviews and there was a stark difference. Yelp was primarily negative reviews and Google was primarily positive reviews.

If they can hide negative reviews, they can also hide positive reviews.