- The Wrongest Bird in Movie History - Surprisingly fun deep dive into a pygmy nuthatch that wasn't and how it ended up in the Charlie's Angels movie.
- A nearly-lost perfume bottle archive - Beautiful drawings of Art Deco/Art Noveau perfume bottles that are part of a collection that was sold at auction last month. I tried to find more info but either it isn't out there or my Google skills aren't that great. However, I did stumble across this unrelated auction listing for the L.T. Piver Perfume Sample Album which has several lovely 19th century drawings of perfume bottles and other scent containers.
- compost.party - I found this through one of my RSS feeds and thought this was such a neat idea! It is a web server comprised of a repurposed Android phone running on Linux, powered by solar energy and located in an attic in Berlin. There are already "sites" on the server and they invite people to contact them if you want to be part of this.
I was still waiting for my cross-stitch supply order to come in so I did another quick project - check out my Lava Lamp Kitty!

The pattern is from Daily Cross Stitch and the fabric is 14 ct Aida in the color "Mystic" from 123stitch.com. I had originally bought that fabric for another project but I didn't actually measure, just went off vibes, and it ended up being too small. I think it was perfect for the kitty lava lamp, though!
My order came in yesterday with the floss I needed to continue stitching the interminable fabulous kitty project. Oof, going from 2 projects stitched on 14 ct to this one which is on 18 ct caused my eyes to put up a fuss! What was I thinking? I know what I was thinking, that he'd look even more fabulous stitched on the smaller count fabric and he will!
I had almost all the floss I needed for the kitty lava lamp project, except for 2 colors. I found the coolest resource, which you may be interested in if you cross stitch or embroider: Find the Closest DMC Color Chart Thread. It's interactive! Click on the color that you don't have and below the chart there will be a list of possible substitions. It worked a treat - I had to sub 2 colors on the lava lamp piece and I think it looks great.
Listening
Some podcasts I've listened to this week:
Reading
I finished The Curse of the Pharoahs, the second book in the Amelia Peabody mystery series, and was all set to read the third but I was denied as both library copies were checked out. So I switched gears and chose The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. This space opera features a smuggler captain and his alien sidekick who take on a job with a motely crew on a ship that's not all that it seems. Fun book! I'm about halfway through it. This is listed as book 0 (huh?) of the Icarus Saga, of which there are 6 more books. I'm enjoying this enough that I might be invested in reading the rest of the series.
Watching
There is a series of reality TV shows where they plonk people into a certain time period and have them live that life. The 1940s House and Frontier House are 2 that I've enjoyed. I was introduced to a new-to-me-but-actually-old series, Tales from the Green Valley. This is a BBC series from 2005 which takes 5 people and puts them on a 17th century farm where they spend a whole year living as if they were in 1620.
This was really cool and I highly recommend it if this kind of historical living show is your jam, with one caveat. They do use the farm animals as a food source (as one did in the 17th century!) and there are some scenes which depict this (usually the aftermath, nothing violent, this is the BBC after all). If that bothers you, take that into consideration. Otherwise, I've linked a YouTube video which has all 12 shows in one. I believe there are time stamps in the comments so you can pick which episode to watch.
I'm still rewatching Babylon 5 - I just finished episode 5 yesterday. I usually don't remember a whole lot regarding plots but it is amazing that just in these few episodes I've seen I'm seeing things that I can remember are explained a few seasons later. This was such a well-written show!