Super cute! 💜

I suppose the quotation marks are pretty loaded these days…

But honestly, when you’ve lived on the other side of things… as bad as it gets in the “West”… many people will still sacrifice everything to make their way there, where a better life might be found… even if many of those countries are actively trying to keep immigrants out… 🫤

And nothing will be done.

I’m so tired, just trying to keep up.

I don’t know how any Gazans can bear to live under this.

They need help. They need hope.

How long must this continue? How long will the “free world” continue to allow this?

😫

Super neat! We have a Japanese Cherry Willow, which is a graft. We inherited it with the house and are slowly trying to bring it back to better health. It got pretty unbalanced, but it’s already looking better each year. Grafting is such an interesting thing!

This is really cool. Have you had luck in the past with such projects?

Har har.

I hear that welcoming migrants is a great way to address this problem…

Oh my. 🤦🏽‍♂️ 🤣 💜

This is rather wholesome. 💜

I don’t really understand how this benefits Ukraine…

😝

💜

What an incredible effort! This is genuinely one of the coolest things I’ve read. Unfortunately, one predator that comes to mind when I think of birds though are cats. I looked up the city and it’s 200k+ pop. I couldn’t imagine people giving up cats. And sure enough, the project doesn’t target cats. Their FAQ says, “We encourage residents to be responsible pet owners. This means keeping cats at home where they are happiest and safest (especially overnight), so that our native wildlife can be happy and safe too.”

Anyway, a really incredible project. I appreciate the share.

Also, good for you! What an incredible experience!

Annnnnd, I also thought the same about New Zealand! 🤣

It’s a place I wouldn’t mind visiting some day. 💜

I’d love to hear a little more about this photo, if you care to share.

What a pretty bird. My first thought was that it was another interestingly colored corvidae, but then I noticed the beak and felt silly. Not being sure what it was, I looked it up. I tried several of the words from this post and the answer was tūī (prosthemadera novaeseelandiae). It’s a honeyeater, a family of birds that I’m not sure my travels will ever allow me the privilege to see.

This is one of the reasons why the internet is wonderful. You can find info and photos and videos on anything! They have the funniest neck feathers. 🙃 It’s also an example of why the internet is one strange place. I looked up “honeyeaters eating” and got the most strange results. 🤣

It’s possible you’re conflating asocial and antisocial behavior.

Humans are social creatures and we communicate in more than just words. How you respond to people, or in this case don’t respond to people, says a lot to them. What the other person interprets may or may not be true. Frankly, humans are prone to storytelling so they have a tendency to presume the worst. If you aren’t reinforcing otherwise with your words and your behavior, then they will naturally become upset.

I’m really really glad to hear that you have people in your life that seem to care about you, ask about how you are, and provide various things for you. However, even though you may not feel like it for whatever reasons, refraining from reciprocating that behavior will starve out those relationships.

Human relationships are always quid pro quo. If you are receiving, then you will be giving something back. It doesn’t have to be one-to-one and not usually immediate.

If you want relationships of any kind to be healthy, then reciprocating when people invest into you is important. Again, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same way or amount, but there does have to be a response. Without that, the relationship becomes unhealthy or eventually over.

On a side note, I’m really proud to see you being forthright and honest with your mental health. I know it’s more commonly spoken about these days, but it can still be hard. I hope that you’re getting help as you navigate through it. You might find that some of the internal healing work you do will also positively affect the very relationships you are talking about in this post.

May your tomorrow’s be better than each today. 💜

For the first question, you might find answers more helpful if you ask the aforementioned people that you’re actually interacting with.

And regarding the second question, it’s probably related to the first. Young people who grew up texting and using social media have adopted abbreviated writing styles. Older people using the same technologies tend to retain more proper forms. Of course, people aren’t monoliths. There’s plenty of young people writing in complete sentences and plenty of older people utilizing short form words.

Only 400 to 700 nanometers, give or take.

I tell her to be nice and to love her stuffies, but even the ones that are designed to be super tough somehow always manage to offend her and get their guts pulled out.