Category Archive

Life

We launched as Offbeat Home in 2011, but it has become clear that the site is about much more. In 2013, we relaunched as Offbeat Home & Life, with an expanded focus on Relationships, Budget & Career, Travel, and Style. This is the category for the non-home/rest of life stuff!

Bad-ass woman warrior costumes and armor for LARP, Ren faires, cosplay, or Halloween

I was thinking about the upcoming summer festival season, convention season, Renaissance faires, and of course, it’s never to early to plan your Halloween costume. And it dawned on me: this past year has been ALL about the woman warrior. From the Dora Milaje in Black Panther to Wonder Woman to Captain Phasma to Tessa Thompson’s epic Valkyrie, bad-ass women in armor are where it’s at.

So I went a-hunting for some not-too-revealing, super kick-ass woman warrior costumes and armor for all your LARPing, convention, Ren faire, cosplay, or sexy role play needs. Here are some of the best I found…

This Instagram of dogs eating gently is your new relaxation happy place

You haven’t reached the end of the internet until you’ve seen this relaxing Instagram account where sweet and mild-mannered pooches eat treats, noms, and fuds gently… oh so gently. They’re so sweet and so relaxing and ZZzzzzzz…

For fans of cute-ass puppies (and maybe ASMR for some of y’all?), this feed of gently scarfing dogs will be your new happy place. Get away from the news, from work, from your whole damned stressful life for five minutes while you remember that dogs are too good for this world…

Why it matters so much when a “limpy fat girl” wins the world’s biggest pinup pageant

I’ve been following New Zealand pin-up queen Fran Robertson on Instagram (@frantasy_island, natch) ever since we featured her wedding on Offbeat Bride back in 2016, and it’s been a colorful journey for sure. Recently, I followed along with her photos of traveling from NZ all the way to Las Vegas to compete in the Miss Viva Las Vegas pageant — which she totally won!

I asked Fran if I could interview her about how her experiences are setting new standards for visibility…

I might just need some of these ultra weird shoes and sandals

I might just need some of these ultra weird shoes (and some that are SUPER cute)

Don’t ask how I ran across these super weird shoes on Amazon. It was a series of weird events that led to fish shoes. But now you do and nobody can go back from this. You’re in it with me and we must proceed to see the weirdest shoes I was able to find. Are these your new gag gift, white elephant present, birthday gift for that weird uncle, or your own brand new fish sandals, pug slides, or grass-lined flip-flops?

Either way, you’ve got to see these weird shoes and sandals (and some that are downright adorable!)…

Harry Potter decor

Merlin’s pants! This incredible Harry Potter decor wins the House Cup

Sometimes I have dreams of recreating Hogwarts in my own home and finally get that admissions owl I somehow missed at age eleven. Then you see what Jasper Price and his wife Angie have done to recreate the Hogwarts common room and realize that you’re out of your quidditch league. They’ve amassed the most mystical of Harry Potter decor collections (Mrs. Norris lookalike included!) and turned their home into the wizarding world of our dizziest daydreams.

Spinning BB-8 heels tutorial

May the Fourth be with these spinning BB-8 heels (with a tutorial!)

It’s that time of the galactic year again: May the Fourth be with you! Sure, you’re probably already inundated with merch from the new Star Wars rebooted universe, but this DIY tutorial HAD to be shared. Why? Because it’s for spinning BB-8 heels. Seriously, the heels are BB-8 from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and they SPIN.

MoviePass changes

MoviePass users: are the new service changes driving you away?

Are you a fellow MoviePass user like I am? For a big movie-goer like myself, it started out as the almost too-good-to-be-true movie deal: see up to 30 movies per month (once per day with no repeats) for a low monthly fee. Like, really low, between $6.95 and $9.95 depending on the plan. I see about 6-8 movies per month on average, so for me, this is a solid deal. But recent changes are making me nervous about its future…

Dancer’s Flame by Jasmine Silvera

Bad Romance part 3: Demanding greater diversity in who gets a happily ever after in romance

One of the big success stories in self-publishing is romance. According to popular platform Smashwords, the genre dominates the market. With a few clicks any writer can become an author. Which makes it possible that a novel most major publishing houses and quite a few small presses would have turned down, one that hasn’t seen an editor’s red pen, or even a proofreader will wind up on Amazon more than in other genres.

There’s an argument for gatekeepers, right? Not so fast. Here’s part three in this series on romance as a genre…