I thought that Rupert Giles was the coolest man. Its who I want to be. A librarian who is also a badass.

Curtains are a god send. Make sure you have them to isolate things coming into and out of your house. So have a curtain to isolate your entry way. That way the heat stays there. Same things at the stairs so you can keep the cool in the baseline while you stay there

Also to note that depending on your house and the outside temp its not worthwhile to open the windows at night. But generally it is better. Make sure you have a fan in the window blowing the hot air out as well. Its best if its upstairs to draw the cool air in.

Pretty much anything on a roof will cool you down. The soil which will contain water is slower to heat while the plants will be be absorbing solar energy and “perspiring” to cool you down.

Locations under large trees can be locally up to 10 degrees colder in the summer and 10 degrees warmer in the winter.

My daughter is also due in September. I know that its just the voice for the first few months. So I got to practice my reading outload. My wife says I rush when reading to her belly. In my defense Heading Home with Your Newborn is important but not the easiest to talk through

I would drink it as a tea not smoke it for fever reduction.

Its great for children because catnip will reduce a fever without raising it first.

Someone below mentioned that dry ice would be needed to freeze the ethanol but you didn’t say you wanted to freeze it. That is partly why I was confused since freezing would damage compounds. Keeping it cold would not

Typically for herbal extractions I want everything from the plant. Herbalism basically says that the mixture works better than any individual compound. If you want to a more focused effect you take multiple plants with similar effects so you want to grab everything.

I have a friend who saved his sticks and stems from his homegrown cannabis plant. I will definitely try this if I want to try to extract from that. I bet that has much more undesirables than something like basis which is edible from root up.

When I was working I did more formulation (a.k.a. mixing and titration) and we had an analytical lab which did all of the NMR and mass spec work. Academics was all steam distillation.

It makes sense that heat degrades but that’s why I keep it low and slow for extraction. Water baths and keeping everything below 140 °F at most with the ideal between 100-120°F. That is just for oil infusions for lotions and balms. I know for honey extraction you want to keep the enzymes active to keep it at most 100 °F. I do alcohol at room temp.

I will have to try the cold method. Sounds like fun. Any excuse to try something new. Also playing with dry ice is a hoot

Done that before. It scary

Its never to early to read The Hobbit to get someone a lifelong addiction to the LoTR. I was trying for in-utero but my wife was not interested.

You are getting lots of advice to dump him right away which i can see with lots of red flags here. The constant J Peterson and misogyn are both large red flags that needs to be addressed. Presumably you live together since you talk about shared finances. If you went on one date with this guy I would say run but since you have been together for longer you might want to stay a little longer. This depends on if this behavior seems out of character for him based on your history together.

I would suggest you talk with him about you concerns about quitting his job maybe with a couples therapist. He seems like he is miserable and doing anything to change that up but quitting a job to do streaming full time is not a great idea. Talk about how you want to find something that brings him joy in his career and will support him as he finds a realistic way to do so. This may be keeping his current job while start streaming on the regular or find a new job or new hobby / side hustle.

I do think he might need therapy to talk about these feelings with someone else. The Manosphere attracts unhappy men with no / little support. He might need more from a therapist ( maybe a male one) to talk this through. These seem like signs of a desperate for a change man.

If you are kinky and are feeling bad about I would highly recommend you start listening and reading to my boy Dan Savage America’s longest running sex-advice columnist. Hearing and understanding other people’s kinks will put your own into perspective and you will understand that the only thing typical about human sexuality is how atypical it is. Almost everyone has at least 1 “non-normative sexual desires” so keep that it mind.

How do you get rid of kink? You don’t. You can’t. You can try but it will always come back. So you will need to understand this about yourself and accept it. Sexuality has been keep our species alive and fucking since before we were Homo sapiens. You can’t fight it.

There is a potential to pivot a kink if you understand what it is about the kink that turns you on. If you are interested in humilating and degrading the root of this may just be a power exchange. Power exchange is pretty typical and almost all kinks have an aspect of that which may fulfill that itch for in person sex. You also can keep a kink to yourself even in a relationships. So you might be “out” about being into a submissive role but not share you are in degradation with your partner.

If you are interested in learning more I would recommend you read The New Bottoming Book and the The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. (Note the cover change in these pdfs). They will really open your eyes about how kinks are not some curse but a fun quirk of your sexuality’s that gives your partners something fun to play with. Congratulations have Fun.

I would love to know where you found this method? I have read a lot of herbalism books and went to school for Chemistry and nothing I have seen would suggest this. In fact my organic chemistry knowledge is screaming that making things colder make everything run slower. By freezing something you may be rupturing the cell walls but the ice crystals are shredding and denaturing all of the compounds you are extracting. As a general rule things move fast at higher temperatures since the average speed of the molecules increase which has more energy to react. If you wanted to get this done faster you would need to heat the solution not freeze it. Especially since OP is using the standard Folk Tincturing Method method which works great if not fast. I have seen modifications that start with the solution below boiling and then let sit for time but that is generally done with things like honey which is easier to pour that way. I haven’t seen it with alcohol since that will reduce the alcohol content since the alcohol will boil before the water.

I know when making a cocktail you want to put the herbs in the cocktail shaker first and then muddle in some liquor. This will allow the cell walls to rupture and the alcohol will pull out all of the flavor. After you add ice and shake with the rest of the ingredients. The solid ice will continue to break the material and the additional water will extract additional materials while chilling down the drink which provides a better flavor. But you don’t freeze it.

I have been my own alcohol based tinctures using different herbs both culinary and medicinal. I made 4 oz of a basil tincture last summer with some of extra basil using a similar method. (I used 151 proof EverClear since we can’t buy the 190 proof here and I did mine in an exact 1:2 (w/v) ratio instead of the more traditional folk method like you used here.)

It shouldn’t only take 4-5 weeks to get full extraction and it is delicious. I have been using it in cocktails and taking a dropper full when I want the benefits of basil. (Most for digestion when feeling gassy or ate too much. But I do take it when I am feeling a bit of a cold coming on as well). It is super fun and nice to have a few tinctures around. I have almost a dozen now and its nice to have. If I have one recommendation is try to get an old cheap metal Potato Ricer which allows you to squeeze all of liquid out of your basil leaves when they are done. It is worth it.

I have seen dried mushrooms and never purchased them before. I love mushrooms but I only get them fresh which are mostly cremini and sometimes shiitake. I think I will have to purchase some because its great to just throw them into dishes.

That would be fun. Every game would just be a series of different fetch quests with a rotated list of the same enemies. Like a MMRPG but worse and more expensive

ChatGPT give some pretty generic DnD advice. I can’t wait until they make a terrible automated DM. I can’t wait to play the most generic DnD of all time.

I like the changes with weapons properties and I like some of the updates with various classes for some improvements to the weaker subclasses and feats. I overall enjoyed the majority of the changes.

However, from what I have heard and seen I did not enjoy the changes to the Monster Manual and statblocks.

Gross. I was really excited for 5.5 for a while but don’t really want to get it anymore. I liked the PHB class upgrades when I read it but don’t own anything from it yet

I love Christ Perkin and Jeremy Crawford. Who is even running D&D now? They are literally the only people I knew still on the project. They are both great. Were they forced out of WoTC?

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