iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Gourds I will be eating. They were part of a display with larger ones, and my child asked if I was getting pumpkins for decorating, and I explained we live in the South, and if we carved pumpkins now, in this false fall, they would rot. These are wee and for eating.

A trio of squashes I will be eating: a green kabocha, a red kuri, and a koginut.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Went strawberry picking with the kids after breakfast and then made whole wheat crepes with strawberries, homemade nutella/peanut butter. Top tier Saturday, 10/10 would recommend, but the only part I documented was my hens eating the tops.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Made a kimchi grilled cheese. I might have preferred just having a grilled cheese an kimchi on the side, but I’m not mad at it. On my homemade whole wheat sourdough.

Image of the described kimchi grilled cheese on a blue plate.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Free shipping this weekend if you order 6-12 boxes! My daughter’s site is linked in the quoted post.

Screenshot of the following text:
Girl Scouts North Carolina Coastal Pines

💜 Stock up on your favorites! 💛
Girl Scout Cookie Weekend | Feb 20–22
Enjoy FREE SHIPPING on 6–12 boxes!

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Aaand this why I didn’t share the NYT obit. Was this really necessary, Peter?

Screenshot of the following text:

His transcendent rhetoric was inseparable from an imperfect human being whose ego, instinct for self-promotion and personal failings were a source of unending irritation to many friends and admirers and targets for derision by many critics. Mr. Jackson, the writer and social commentator Stanley Crouch once said, “will be forever doomed by his determination to mythologize his life.”

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

And honey whole wheat sourdough sandwich bread baked in a Pullman (pain de mie) pan.

Image of a pain de mie loaf. Bread is rectangular with rounded right angles in the corners from being baked in a pan with a lid. Bread in cooling rack on black glass stovetop. Visible flour on top and sides of bread.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Homemade chocolate hazelnut spread. It’s glorious on toast or with pretzels, and our house has been stocked with it since I first made it several months ago.

Two glass jars of chocolate hazelnut spread, without lids. The spread is brown and shiny.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Do I love sourdough, or does it love me?

Image of a round loaf of bread that is scored to show a large heart and a smaller heart within the larger one. Photo shot from above.

Image of a round loaf of bread shot so as to show the side and part of the top. At the top, a heart with a smarter heart within is visible.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

When I tell you the ‘90s was a time. I could go on and on, and on and on.

Cover image of the Maxwell album, Maxwell’e Urban Hang Suite. Image of wallpapered wall in foreground, shot from above, and showing where the wall meets the carpeted floor. There are gold m, high-heeled sandals on the carpet.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Also, know folks got more into them in the aughts, but these two albums remain flawless to me.

Cover image of Radiohead album The Bends. Image of a person or perhaps a mannequin, eyes closed, chin tilted up, mouth open.

Image of Radiohead album Ok Computer. Image is washed out, with a lot of white space. A highway in greyscale takes up much of the image. There is an “x” mark on the right border, in the middle vertically.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Mofo just announced the Hunger Games. I am done. people.com/trump-announ...

Screenshot from People magazine online. Text reads:

Trump Announces 'Patriot Games,' a D.C. Showdown Involving 1 Young Man and Woman from Every State and Territory
The president announced
the competition while previewing plans for the celebration of America's 250th birthday in 2026
By Greta Bjornson

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

My little city has a lot of love. It’s nice to get some goodwill from folks elsewhere, too. I really appreciate someone so thoughtful—and I really mean thinks about people and place and love with attention and insight—thinking of us.

Screenshot from a social media post by Kiese Laymon, who says, “Durham is my dream city. Its where I want to live and fight. Thank yall for fighting.”

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

I made roasted pumpkin seeds and so much other food this weekend. It was all very quotidian. It’s abhorrent that this administration doesn’t think feeding yourself and your family is a basic human right, and considers it as a bargaining chip or something to be earned.

A photograph of a wide-mouthed, glass pint jar filled with roasted pumpkin seeds. Jar is on a wooden table, and a placemat, empty plate, and plastic lid are in the background.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Triangle Pride Marching Band practicing right before the parade starts.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Box o’ beans has arrived. I don’t know if I can communicate how pleased I am with this. These are mostly southern/ Caribbean beans, but I’ve had trouble finding some of these varieties dry in grocery stores.

Interior of a cardboard box with 9 pounds of beans. The beans are in clear bags with their names and the word Camellia and an image of that flower.
From top down: field peas, small red beans, black beans, blackeyes, pinto beans, crowders.
On the right side, labels up but upside down: pink beans, lentils, green baby limas.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Fruits of lunch walk foraging. If I forget these are in my dress pocket, I’ll have an unpleasant rest of the afternoon.

Image of a left hand holding muscadine grapes. The grapes are dark purple with splotches of green.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Reskeeting with alt text added to image. My answer? Get Out. I grew up in suburban New England. I loathed it, but I certainly know how to survive without getting pulled into the sunken place.

Screenshot of a post from X, DannyDrinksWine writes: “If you were offered $10 million but had to live and survive for a whole year inside any Horror movie world, which movie would you pick?”

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Ok. I had to take photos of this to confirm I heard what I thought I heard.

Screenshot of a tv image with captions: a woman in a navy-patterned dress, viewed from the waist up, is talking. She says, “Too much begetting and begetting for my liking,” providing her perspective on the Bible. The next line, “Shame,” is from the other speaker.

Screenshot of a tv image with captions: a man wearing a black jacket and coat, and the religious collar of a vicar, viewed from the waist up. He continues, from the word “Shame,” to say “The begatting’s the best bit.”

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

One of the things about being a parent is that I definitely have nicer first aid in the house than my otherwise cheap self would have. I still don’t get the “for kids” on this. What adult wants to sting themselves if they don’t have to?

Photo of antiseptic liquid on a countertop, held still with a hand. The text on the bottle reads:

NEOSPORIN®
BENZALKONIUM CI LORIDE FIRST AID ANT SEPTIC FOAMING LIQUID
FOR KIDS
Ages 2 and up
No Sting
Kills Germs to
Help Prevent Infection
2.3 fl oz (68 mL)

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

And the finished product. This was pretty simple, but took me way too long to make 😅 I really liked the crowder peas, which I hadn’t had in ages.

A green plate piled high with food: rice topped with crowder peas, collard greens, and a piece of corn bread.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Also, you don’t have to use black eyed peas. Other southern peas like field peas, sea island red peas, or crowder peas are good, too. I’m personally cooking crowder peas tomorrow.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Um, these are definitely NOT black lentils, but I bought them because I was curious.

Photo of plastic bag that says “Organic Black Lentils.” A portion of the bag is a clear window, and it shows small black beans that appear to be teeny, tiny black beans, lacking the typical flat disc shape of black lentils and other lentil varieties.

A close up of the same clear panel from the previous image. It is easier to discern the shape of the legumes in this photo, small black beans that appear to be teeny, tiny black beans, lacking the typical flat disc shape of black lentils and other lentil varieties.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

I’m pretty proud of this: I have added alt text to 100% of my images. Check out your stats using the link and instructions in the quoted post.

Screenshot from skyzoo.blue, which has a search engine to look up BlueSky user post statistical data. Page text reads:

@olamina.bsky.social
#424,291
7/29/2023

Insights (Rolling 21 days)

Kind of post🐝
Epic Busy Bee Explorer
Always working to connect the hive, buzzing between different conversations. Always venturing beyond, bringing external knowledge and resources to enrich conversations.

Arch graphic with 3 colors indicating relative amounts. When you click on the 3 colors, you see the following:
-Your new posts: 21
-Replies in posts you started: 14
-Replies to community: 32

Below, a circle with 4 colors indicating relative amounts. When you click on the 4 colors, you see the following:
-Text only: 48
-Link to outside: 8
-Link to other post: 8
-Image (you rock! 🎸 100% text alted): 5

The alt text statistic has been clicked on and is visible in image.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Post a film still from the year you were born.

Image from a film. A giant version of the muppet Animal bursts out of a roof of a building. In the foreground, the image shows several, at least 5, people from the back. Some of the people are flailing their arms, and the group looks disorganized and disoriented.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Chilled batter over night, and the madeleines are doing fine. Thanks again for the advice!

Image of an oven showing madeleines baking. They have humps and are browning.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Thanks so much for doing this. Here’s another to add to your list:

Screenshot of Blue Sky user cheflike69.bsky.social page. User has a post disparaging HHS staff.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Success! Happy because I liked that recipe, and the square pain de mie (aka Pullman pan) slices are so satisfying.

Rectangular bread loaf photographed from side. It’s on a cooling rack. The crust is brown.

Rectangular bread loaf photographed so square end is facing camera. It’s on a cooling rack. The crust is brown.

Rectangular bread loaf photographed at a diagonal. It’s on a wooden cutting board. The loaf has been sliced, showing square bread with a light tan interior and brown crust. One slice is on the cutting board.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Election Dy sourdough. I voted early, and took the day off with the kids. This sourdough was started on Sunday (starter fed Saturday night) and had a 36 hour cold fermentation in the fridge. 50% white bread flour, with the rest mostly KA golden wheat and a tiny bit of rye.

Round bread loaf photographed from above, on a cooling rack. It has one big score line down the middle, and smaller score lines—opened up into ovals with pointy sides—radiating from either side of the main line. Some flour remains on top of the loaf, highlighting the scores. Otherwise, it’s brown in color, possibly burnt in places.

Round bread loaf photographed from the side. It is on a cooling rack. A few pointy oval shapes on the top of the bread are visible, as is some flour. The loaf is brown. Nineties-era tile backsplash in background.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 21/10/2024

The personification of everything is getting out of hand.

Screenshot from a phone text chat. At the top, an image of a woman with short blond hair, wearing a tee-shirt and blazer, right hand holding an electric toothbrush like a microphone, left arm up dramatically, hand out of frame, in the posture of someone singing a ballad on stage.

Below, the text of the chat reads:

Philips: Hey I'm Susan Toothbrush, here to help you make better decisions about your oral care and let you know that it's time to ditch the old-school toothbrush for a Philips Sonicare. Click here to Make the Sonicare Switch! [link]

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 17/09/2024

Um. What the hell? “David Lochridge, who was in charge of marine operations at the underwater exploration company OceanGate until being fired in 2018, described the harrowing earlier trip to a U.S. Coast Guard panel that is investigating last year’s deadly implosion.”

Mr. Lochridge said he watched warily as Mr. Rush haphazardly deployed the submersible, a precursor to the Titan known as the Cyclops 1, and ignored Mr. Lochridge’s warnings to keep his distance from the deteriorating shipwreck about 250 feet under the Atlantic Ocean.

Mr. Rush “smashed straight down” when he landed the vessel, Mr. Lochridge said, and then turned it around and “basically drove it full speed” into the wreckage, jamming the submersible underneath. Then, in full view of the three additional passengers on board, Mr. Rush flew into a panic, Mr. Lochridge said, asking whether there was enough life support on board and asking how quickly a dive team could arrive.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 17/09/2024

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #414,786!

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 15/09/2024

Why does my dog listen to me best when I address her like Vampire Bill calling Sookie?

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 01/09/2024

Cupcakes! I tripled a recipe that lies about output, and ended up with 54 of them for 40-something people, who didn’t all eat them. Oh well. They are yummy. Vanilla with vanilla buttercream. I managed to get 2 colors of frosting in the bag for unicornish vibes.

Close up photo of 4 cupcakes, shot from above. They have sprinkles and the frosting has two colors.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 16/07/2024

The news reminded me of this piece, by Meredith McCarroll, “Hillbillies Need No Elegy.”

Screenshot of text from bittersoutherner.com:

The perception that mountain folk like to be poor serves someone — but it’s not the poor mountain folk. The representation of Appalachia as all white is not only inaccurate, but it preserves a false and destructive ideal of imaginary “pure white stock.” Images of decay and absence allow those in power to turn away from a place that has been forgotten, but has not disappeared. The narrow ideas that circulate about this broad place do active harm. To more fully understand a place — its real poverty alongside its potential for renovation, its history of fierce activism alongside the stories of extraction and abuse — requires a sort of patchwork panorama, made up of many angles and many points of view.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 04/07/2024

When hens start laying eggs, they are smaller than the ones they will eventually lay. In this photo, the smaller egg was laid by a 6-month old, and the larger a 3-year old.

A photo of two eggs in the palm of the photographer’s hand. The eggs are pale brown, and different in size, with the smaller egg on the lower left.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 28/06/2024

Whew. I went to college thinking I’d become an academic ascetic, devoted to my research because romantic relationships weren’t meant for me. Via Franchesca Ramsey, who is here, chescaleigh.bsky.social, but not posting here.

Collage with the text, “You were never an ugly duckling, you just went to a PWI.” The collage features items from school, like paper and a notebook, the outside of a school, a pencil, and a photo of a school-aged Franchesca Ramsey, author of the post. She is smiling in the photo, and is an African American girl.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 11/06/2024

I’ve been mostly baking sourdoughs with 25-50% whole wheat or rye flour lately. They’re yummy, and closer to what my doc would like. This one is only 10% whole wheat, and the height it achieved with so little effort!

Photo of a boule sourdough bread loaf on a cooling rack. Taken from the side, showing how high the bread rose. The loaf is round, and as high as the palm of the baker’s hand.

Photo of a boule sourdough bread loaf on a cooling rack. Taken from the top, showing a deep center score line, surrounded by smaller sore lines. The loaf is round, and as has some flour.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 29/03/2024

The petsitter excels at using the portrait setting to take photos of our pup.

Photo of a dog. Most of the image is taken up by the dog’s snout, which is very boop-able. The dog’s face is in focus, and the rest of the photo is blurry.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 17/03/2024

We did it! We made Irish Soda Bread.

Image of a round bread loaf with raisins visible in a cast iron pan, viewed from above.

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 07/03/2024

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk and being first isn’t always good. No subscription required for this link: www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/u...

Text image from linked article that reads:
“The Republican candidate appears eager to drive divisions, disparaging L.G.B.T.Q. people, posting comments that were widely perceived as antisemitic and calling Michelle Obama a man. He has also quoted Hitler on Facebook, embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims about election fraud in 2020 and that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.”

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Lauren Olamina @olamina.bsky.social · 27/02/2024

What fresh hell is this. Also, I’ve been in classes with and taught students who “seemed to not be paying attention,” but then provided a thoughtful, interesting response when prompted, or consistently submitted excellent written work.

Image of text:

Regardless of whether a facial recognition system for classroom management is designed locally or provided by a third party, decision-makers could aggregate the data and draw conclusions about profiles of students that are problematic. That might narrow the definition of what constitutes an “acceptable” student, which could further marginalize already marginalized students, according to a 2020 University of Michigan report. For example, a conscientious parent may skip class out of concern that they’ll be punished for checking a phone for messages when a child is sick. Similarly, an engaged neurodivergent student may fear discipline for behaviors beyond their control.

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