AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

Wise Woman Photo Shoot

Oct. 17th, 2025 02:40 pm
pegkerr: (Default)
[personal profile] pegkerr
One of the suggestions I received this year for a Year of Adventure event from my friend John Walsh was the offer of a photo shoot. I've seen examples of what are called 'Crone,' 'Goddess' or 'Wise Woman' photo shoots, and the idea really appealed to me, as I wanted to spend this year exploring the gift of growing older. So John picked me up right before dusk, and we had a wonderful time shooting pictures along Minnehaha Creek, and on the outskirts of the Peace Garden, just across the street from the Lake Harriet Rose Garden.

I'm quite pleased with the pictures. What do you think?

Wise Woman Photo Shoot )
green_knight: (Ordnung)
[personal profile] green_knight
Depth year, 20x24 project, 8 of Pentacles )

I haven't finished the font project because I needed to think about what the final form of my font collection should look like, but I have processed all fonts I acquired prior to mid-June 2025.

Taming the Fonts, once and for all )

The lessons from this are twofold. One, working out a process that works for you will make life indefinitely easier. I haven't yet worked out processes for everything in my life, but I am working out more processes, and even when they're incomplete or insufficient, they're steps in the right direction.

I am also encouraged to look FOR processes instead of feeling overwhelmed.

But the other lesson is that while some of this probably *is* a character trait – something that will come easier to some people than others – it totally can be learnt.

Even in your fifties.

(Ugh, that sounds old.)

Lessons Learnt )

It's a bit of a revelation for me that earlier charity bundles created a lot of cognitive load (all those games and I have no idea what they are, and I'll have to at least make an effort to sort them, and they take up so much space, and I spent all this money and never play them [ok, with charity bundles that guilt is very much reduced], but they were a moderately high cognitive load and I mostly dealt with them by ignoring them. (I downloaded the solo bundle, I haven't downloaded several others).

Compared to the last bundle: I checked it out, found a few things I was interested in, it's for a good cause. I have downloaded everything and presorted it (video games, multiplayer games, solo games (though there may be some movement when I find out I was wrong from a brief glance), 3rd party games, supplements. I will back up everything, and delete the things that I'm not interested in right away.

And something miraculous happened. I'm looking forward to eventually playing these games, even if I will probably dump half of them unplayed (for there are many many lots, and many games I *want* to play), but they're not taking up that uncomfortable mental space of 'this is too much I can't cope, argh'. Instead, I can look at this bundle, go 'I feel in control', back it up, and remove them from my hard drive for now; I'm currently working my way through the Solo Bundle, and when I have a bit more brain and hard drive space, I shall download and process another bundle.

Step by step, I'm reducing technical debt, and it feels GOOD.

2025 52 Card Project: Week 41: Eagles

Oct. 17th, 2025 12:31 pm
pegkerr: (All we have to decide is what to do with)
[personal profile] pegkerr
This past week included another Year of Adventure event: I took a day trip with my friends Eleanor Arnason and her partner Patrick Wood to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota.

It was a splendid day for a drive--crystal clear, and a comfortable temperature. We had hoped for fall colors, but the warm weather in September meant that the trees were rather muted in tone. Fortunately, we could still take pleasure in the sepia browns of the corn fields, the languidly blowing grasses, and the water sparkling brilliantly from the surface of Lake Pepin. Eleanor and Patrick told stories of road trips taken in the past as I drove.

We stopped at Lark Toys for lunch, where the carved carousel was duly admired and delicious fudge was purchased to savor later. From there, we went to the National Eagle Center and listened to the interpreter's explanations about the eagles, their habits and life cycle. The eagles they had on site had permanent injuries that prevented their rehabilitation into the wild, but as eagles spend almost 90% of their time in the wild simply perching, watching the world around themselves, they were apparently content.

The second floor had exhibits examining the importance of eagles as symbols in both Native American and United States culture.

We resisted buying any of the adorable toy eagles in the gift shop, but it was a near thing.

Then, to my astonishment, Eleanor and Patrick directed me to a side road not far away where they happened to know of a hidden buffalo reserve that had a herd of about 150 bison. It didn't take us long to find a herd, and I got some pictures from the road.

A successful day, we decided as I drove us home. We will take more road trips together in the future.

Image description: Background: A buffalo skin mounted on a wall, painted by a Native American artist with eagle symbology. Center: Eleanor Arnason and Patrick Wood. Lower center: several buffalo, seen from the side. Overlaid over the buffalo: an injured bald eagle sits on a perch.

Eagles

41 Eagles

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
pegkerr: (Default)
[personal profile] pegkerr
This past weekend, my family had another wedding, with more family events the next day. Actually, it was on the other side of the family (Rob's family): one of his nieces got married.

Rob and I always said that one of the greatest strengths in our marriage was our family ties. Both of our families had very strong and warm family bonds and got along well, and we genuinely liked each other's family and enjoyed spending time with them.

I have talked to many widows, in person and online, and I know that for some, after their spouse dies, the spouse's family can drift away or even treat a widow cruelly. I am so very glad that is not the case for me. I feel as much a part of Rob's family as I ever have, and I was pleased to join them to celebrate my niece's wedding.

Rob's Mom and his siblings (two brothers and two sisters) gathered from all around the country, and I was so happy to see them all and catch up on their lives. It was also a special day because my mother-in-law got to meet M for the first time. Alona had dressed M in a lacy, frothy concoction that she herself wore as a child (at one point when M got fussy, perhaps bothered by the slightly scratchy lace, Alona remarked that she looked like an angry cupcake. Yes, she was utterly adorable. Yes, I admit that I am biased.).

I had found a new dress for the occasion and felt elegant. It was so wonderful to be there with Eric, and to have my children and their partners there, as well as Rob's family. It's such a joy to me that our ties remain strong. I wish the same for my niece and my new nephew: that they continue to draw strength and delight from both sides of their family.

Image description: Top: Peg's family: Peg and Eric, Fiona, M, and Alona (M's face is blurred) and Delia and Chris. Middle: The groom holds the bride in a dramatic dip/kiss. Bottom: Rob's mom and his brothers and sisters.

Wedding II

40 Wedding

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Profile

jenschmitadam: (Default)
jenschmitadam

May 2011

S M T W T F S
1234 567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031    

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Oct. 23rd, 2025 07:29 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios