Geekstress Wonders

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you so much. It’s been over 11 years since your passing and there is still a hole in my heart from your departure. It was a torturous one. Watching you go through so much pain, so little they could do for you towards the end. None of it was how I expected our lives to play out. I kept envisioning you and I growing old together, in matching rocking chairs on the porch, having lengthy discussions about science, politics, and philosophy.  I fully expected you to live to at least eighty years old like your parents. We both felt cheated and were unprepared when they diagnosed you with cancer with the grim outlook and short timeframe. This is when I stopped believing everything happens for a reason. After watching you twist and writhe in pain, especially the last few weeks, me continuing to beg the doctors to keep increasing your pain medications at the hospice? I cannot believe in a universe where there is a reason for you to go through that, especially to th

National Hug Day! Be the Hug that changes someone’s day! Here are some Hug facts! The record for most hugs given in one hour? 1,749 hugs  🤗   A twenty-second hug releases the bonding hormone and neurotransmitter Oxytocin, which is nature's anti-depressant and anti-anxiety hormone.  Hugs reduce a person’s blood pressure. The New York Times reported that the hug has become the favorite social greeting of teenagers when meeting or parting in the United States. Several schools in the US have issued bans on hugs, which resulted in student-led protests against these bans in some cases. Go hugs! A hug can indicate support, comfort, and consolation, particularly where words are insufficient. Α full-body hug stimulates a person’s nervous system while decreasing feelings of loneliness, combating fear, increasing self-esteem, defusing tension, and showing appreciation. Hugs can alleviate our fears of our own mortality.  Hugs boost a person’s immune syst

Play time! Spell your first name with your favorite movies. Put your answer in the comments. Or reply to my tweet on Twitter. Maybe you will have better luck than me.     I may have to change my name to something unpronounceable. I even tapped into fav TV shows and still have blanks. See my list of fav films even further below. Proves I do have taste, just the wrong name. CINDY   C     Clueless I     IT Crowd (British TV) N     NCIS (TV) D     Deadpool Y     ? My Ultimate Favorite Films 1.        To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) 2.        The Rocky Horror Picture Show 3.        Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 4.        Hackers 5.        War Games 6.        The Day the Earth Stood Still 7.        The Pit and the Pendulum (Vincent Price, king of horror) 8.        It’s a Wonderful Life 9.        Hangover 10.      Pulp Fiction 11.      The Time Machine 12.      Good Morning Vietnam 13.      The Gods Must Be Crazy (Saw it in 1980, initial release

This is one of several reasons why I no longer trust or respect you if you are still a Trump supporter. I was patient when I saw that you had drank the koolaid. I normally try to not let politics get in the way of my connections to others.  But now I am just disgusted by you as I cannot ignore the fact that you see this and still support this openly horrible human that holds so much power over us.  True to form, as Trump was being impeached, he mocked the death of the late House Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who served in World War II in the U.S. Army and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, by suggesting that he is now in hell, because his wife, Rep. Deborah Ann Dingell, voted to impeach him tonight. The audience at his rally laughed and cheered. Trump supporters, this is what you support. You own this. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/18/trump-targets-dingell-late-husband-during-battle-creek-rally/2692307001/

Knitters! I've published my first knit pattern on Ravelry! Free and perfect for the advanced beginner wanting to try out various lace patterns. Plenty of tutorials within the pattern.  https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/quintet-lace-scarf

Mental Health PSA Often people are nervous about starting therapy, don’t know what to expect, or how to find a good therapist. Or they are in therapy but unhappy and don’t know how to change the situation. These are some excellent resources. I hope some of this helps a few of you. Hugs to everyone out there struggling with depression and anxiety. My heart goes out to you. ❤️ 1) Crisis Hotline. They do NOT track your phone. They are also there for those who are not suicidal but struggling and having a bad day. You can text them. You are never bothering them. They look forward to chatting with you. Know that they are your 24 hour mental health resource. https://www.crisistextline.org 2) Everything you wanted to know about therapy. If you look at the list, it even talks about what to do if you can’t afford it. This article is a WEALTH of information! It will answer so many of your questions! https://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/how-to-start-therapy?utm_source=dynamic&utm_ca

My own words as someone who has intimate experience with grief from this beast: Suicide does not know your color, gender, sex orientation, number of friends you have, how much is in your bank account. There are so many myths about suicide even today which make it harder to address the issue and attempt prevention. This is not depression. Just because you have depression does not mean you are now on some slippery slope where, if not careful, it could tip you to become suicidal. This is different. Yet, no one is safe from it despite what they believe. Being suicidal is not a mental illness. It can happen to a person with no mental history who has undergone a great deal of trauma. Or not. This is an very personal beast that is unique to each person it attacks. And you will never know the details of the personal hell that made this person believe they no longer had the resources to deal with their pain. People do not want to die. They just want the pain to stop.

Education on what free speech means.  Because there seems to be some confusion.

Reality Check I really, really want to clarify something. Trump supporters being shut out of the Ravelry website is FALSE. It is also bad reporting by several news sources. A quote from Ravelry's new policy: "You can still participate if you do in fact support the administration, you just can’t talk about it here." They made it clear Trump supporters are not banned. It is the display of support for Trump and his administration that is banned. There is a very, very huge difference. Nor are they banning support of conservatives or Republicans. But because 95% of the news reporting states that people are being outright banned, it is causing half of this problem, this outrage. I was shocked by how many respected news outlets were either making things inflammatory and getting this huge detail wrong - or flat out lying in an even more major way. Truth is, they did not go off and ban a whole group of people. Though I am not a Trump supporter, I am really get

I use these instructions to get rid of pesky ads on websites with knitting and crochet patterns before I save the page as a PDF or print it. But you could use this for any website. I suggest you first save it as a PDF then print it out later. (If you need to print it out.) The usual story for a knitter or crafter? We find a wonderful pattern only discover it is littered with ads all over the place. To print out the page would be to print out so many ads as well.  I will be honest and say I haven't checked to see if the other internet browsers have this available so this post is specifically for the Chrome browser.  In your Chrome browser, go get the extension "Print Friendly & PDF" https://www.printfriendly.com/extensions/chrome (Check out www.printfriendly.com as they may have extensions for other browsers.) Install it the Chrome extension. To try it out, you can use this page that has both a pattern and ads within it: https://www.creativec