Rayen

I'm not sure why I decided to watch the Tawainese criminal thriller movie The Abandoned on Netflix. I've been so into avoiding darkness of any variety that these sort of movies no longer have any appeal for me. Life is scary enough, you know? But I think I was looking for something different because boredom got the better of me. Moving forward, I think I'll go watch a documentary instead. The film opens with a woman about to commit suicide in her car. Some frightened kids interrupt her, and she goes to see a corpse that has washed up on shore. Police later arrive, and we learn the woman is a troubled police officer. Gradually as she investigates the death of the woman she found we learn that she's deeply depressed over the suicide by gun of her husband, to the point of where she sleeps in the car where he killed himself (also explaining the beginning) and frequently touches the bloodied bullet hole in the ceiling liner. Finally she becomes drawn into the murd...

I want to use the rectangular blue basket I thrifted as a project bin, but the interior is a bit rough and would likely snag things. I went digging in my quilted pieces stash and found this vintage pillow sham that I've always wanted to use for something, and decided to make that the liner. I folded the sham first and pinned it in place to see if it would work with some tailoring. It's a bit thick, but I like the combination. I cut and sewed the sham into a basket liner. It's not perfect, but it was hard just getting through my heavy-duty sewing machine. Using a very long upholstery needle, I sewed the liner to the basket. I could have hot-glued it, but I prefer to be able to remove and launder the liner (so I used big, loose stitches that I can cut when I do that.) The finished basket. This is perfect as a bin for small crochet projects. Very happy with how it turned out.

As Fred Rogers is one of my personal heroes, I was interested in seeing A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood when it first came out in 2019, but by then my hearing made any movie viewing without captioning impossible. When I saw Tubi had added it to their collection of free movies I was really pleased. Tom Hanks plays Mr. Rogers with eerie precision, and an obvious respect for the man who influenced generations of young children. The relationship he develops with an angry, damaged journalist who comes to interview him is heart-warming but seems unlikely (if you've been around as many damaged people as I have, you know they usually don't respond well to kindness and understanding) but I was willing to go along with it. I just disagree with the message of bringing harmful people back into your life for the sake of forgiveness, especially when they have not changed or stopped causing harm. Everyone has their own opinion of Mr. Rogers, but he once said something that...

I like to regularly look back at what I was doing last year by going through my photo archive. In March 2025 I was pretty busy trying to keep my balance and calm through some tough times. This quilt made from thrifted fabric really helped. I was also working on the first granny square project I'd done in decades. I thrifted and refinished this table to serve as a stand for my sewing machines. I also thrifted the curtain that I'm currently making into a quilted tote for my calendar project this year. Seeing these photos is mildly distressing, actually. I was constantly bombarded by family drama in 2025, and tolerated a lot of inconsiderate behavior from others, which I am not doing this year. It's not that the situation has changed, it's that I finally put my foot down and started saying no to requests and activities that will result in my unhappiness. Just last night I was asked again to do something that in the past I've done out of polite...

It seems that the younger generations have just discovered that you can prepare and store meals by freezing prepped and/or cooked food in silicon molds that create bricks you can nuke and eat. They're calling it the " Lego Brick trend" and marveling over how wonderful, convenient and time-saving it is. My generation is just watching this and chuckling fondly. I have always frozen foods that are prepped or cooked for later use. My mother did and my grandmother did. Now granted, mine are in reusable containers and not silicon molds, but that's the only difference. My small freezer is full of them. Here I pulled four at random to show you. I use masking tape and a Sharpie to label the contents and the date I froze them (or the date to use them by, depending on the contents.) I usually label soup or stock with the use-by date because that I keep for a while. The rest I use the date I froze it. The lemon juice on the left is 4 tablespoons (I will ...

I'm currently rewatching My Little Happiness , a romance c-drama that I've already seen twice, and I have to admit it never gets old. From my first review: the romance begins with childhood friends Cong Rong (Xing Fei) and Wen Shaoqing (Tang Xiaotian). Rong is a fiesty little girl who can't stand seeing shy, chubby Shaoqing being bullied, and stands up for him. They quickly become best friends, but then Rong's father passes away, and she leaves the school, promising to return and see Shaoqing again, but never does. Twenty or so years later, a very short but quite cute Rong returns from abroad to China for an internship at a law firm, and is assigned to the hospital where the towering and now very handsome Shaoqing works as a neurosurgeon. There's a lot going on in this drama, from Rong's mom not wanting her to become a lawyer to Shaoqing's poet uncle being unable to move on after being dumped by his first love. Rong also has a rich best friend who is...