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spaceorphan18 · 4 years ago

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1-15 for the writers meme for ‘With Every Broken Bone.’ (I’m in a rereading mood for fanfic and I’m thinking about rereading this). Also you know I love this one!!

Aww thank you dear <3 Now I won’t shut up about process and the ins and outs of writing, lol...

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

When season 6 came along, admittedly, I had a really hard time reconciling going from a happy ending in season 5 to broken in season 6. And writing about it kind of was an interesting cross-section of therapy and analysis. While I was figuring out the timeline of events -- I noticed that there were some interesting parallels/juxtapositions going on, and because I thought I may not be writing more Klaine fic after this one (ha) I might as well take my own spin on a few famous portions of Klaine’s story.

2: What scene did you first put down?

I tend to write chronologically, so the opening flashback scene was probably first. I can’t fully remember. I did have a whole outline, though, before writing.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Hmmm, I’m not entirely sure, since a lot of the specific narration I don’t remember as much anymore. I do love the entire month of June chapter, though, which is mostly narration. I love that it’s Kurt finally getting what he thought he wanted -- to be alone -- and finding himself through that, but also that even he can experience loneliness when having too much distance from everyone else.

Also early in the story when Kurt goes dancing with a guy and he starts to connect to him -- feeling Blaine through him -- only to realize the dude isn’t Blaine and basically has a panic attack. That moment was always really clear in my head, and I liked writing that one.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Oh, ha, it’s, like, my favorite line of dialogue ever, cause it’s a delightful metaphor for Klaine’s story at the time (And I’m sure people aren’t really that impressed with what I find clever, and are sick of me quoting myself, but I’m still amused by it)

“You know what it’s like? It’s like I stubbed my toe. And my toe hurt. A lot. And I tried to ignore the pain in my toe, but after a while it got so bad that something had to be done. So, instead of taking care of my toe, I chopped off my foot. Do you know how much worse chopping off your foot feels? Of course it took me four months to figure out how much it fucking hurts. And now I don’t have a foot. Just a bloody stump. I shouldn’t have cut it off. I could have fixed the toe.”

In addition, I also really enjoy some of the convos with Mercedes -- the one where she’s discussing her break up with Sam, and how, in a way, the two break ups are similar. I also love the July flashback with Mercedes -- because it foreshadows a lot of the story, and I thought it was rather clever.

5: What part was hardest to write?

The July chapter! Oh god, I think I had most of the rest of the fic done and kept having to put that on pause. I wanted Kurt to have another romantic interest during the summer - and get a sense of what casual relationships are like, and discover what he’s like in relationships that aren’t with Blaine. And to have to do that, set it up, pay it off, go through the whole thing and have it be meaningful was really hard. It took a long time to figure it out.

Not as difficult, but still I found challenge with, the flash back to the first break up. Trying to figure out how Kurt felt differently, and exploring how it was a different thing in a short amount of time was difficult.

The September flashback was difficult, too, because I needed Blaine to be frustrated without being too needy, or too much a bad guy. I know betas and talking it out helped a lot on that one.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

This was my first big fic for Glee, and the first one where I felt like I was a decent writer. It also helped me figure out Kurt and the show in a way that I hadn’t before, and I love the character more from writing it.

7: Where did the title come from?

The lyrics of ‘I Lived’ -- I thought it was a nice touch that it was the last song on the show, and it fit with story I was trying to tell.

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Yes! A lot of my experiences of New York I wrote into it here and there.

Also the story about thunder being god bowling. I had a cousin who used to tell me that so it didn’t seem so scary.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Not really? The only big thing I cut out was an extension of the stuff with June Dalloway in chp 3 (?) -- my betas talked me into cutting that way down, and they were right to do so.

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

I mean, well, they’re who I write. The pairing picked the story.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I really love the story it explores with Kurt in it. I’m proud of how Kurt grows in it, and how I feel it does bridge the two seasons nicely. I really love how it gets deep into Kurt’s psyche -- drawing on canon as much as I could to paint a full picture of who he is. I think he’s a fleshed out and flawed character, and he feels real to me in this one.

I also really love that I was restrained in my use of Blaine -- he’s a ghost that haunts this story, and I was fascinated with the idea. I think it really comes through. Blaine is always there, even when he’s not, even when Kurt’s trying hard to move on. You miss Blaine in the story, but that’s intentional -- because Kurt deeply misses Blaine.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

There are still some parts that feel a little clunky to me. Certain sections that maybe go on too long, or not long enough. I can tell it’s an earlier fic of mine -- I could have worked on better and more concise sentence structure in a lot of places. I could have fleshed a few ideas out. And the October chapter, which is all of season 6, goes on a little too long -- and it feels slightly out of place, but I knew it did even when writing it -- I’m not sure how I’d re do it, but it feels slightly different than the rest of the fic.

I give myself a lot of leeway because it was my first time writing one, but the sex scene was a bit on the simple side. It felt more like an obligation - and I was super scared to write it, and basically my betas had to help me construct it cause I had no idea what I was doing and felt funny writing it.

I also think the Nov. flashback is a little too cheesy, but I was trying to get in all the last minute canon references, so I left it in there.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

Yeah, I had a whole playlist for this one!!

Chapter 1 (March): Teenage Dream - Darren Criss

Chapter 2 (April): Shake it Out (Acoustic) - Florence and the Machine

Chapter 3 (May): Rockstar - A Great Big World

Chapter 4 (June): I Shall Believe - Sheryl Crow

Chapter 5 (July): Daydream Believer - Mary Beth Maziarz

Chapter 6 (August): Dream City - Free Energy

Chapter 7 (September): Head Over Feet (Acoustic) - Alanis Morissette

Chapter 8 (October): Halo - Beyonce

Chapter 9 (November): I Live - Fate Under Fire

Each of the chapters kind of had a musical aesthetic going on with it! Also intentional were the use of Kurt solos as chapter titles -- those paired along with each chapter purposely.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

I have no idea - that’s up to them to get anything out of it.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

I did! I learned a lot about writing (which having a few fantastic betas really be strict with my writing helped a lot). I got myself out of some bad habits, and tried to be more introspective than I had been with previous writings. And I just felt like I stepped up when it came to writing. I think this is far from a perfect piece of writing, but I’m proud of how it turned out.

I also learned a lot about Kurt, he became a part of me writing this, and now his story is much more special to me than it had been before. And I learned a lot about Glee -- how it is as a show, and how it works, cause I looked at the structure of canon, and how it was written.

#gorgxoxus #thanks so much! I could talk endlessly about this one! :)#that's how s.o. sees it

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prepare4trouble · 5 years ago

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It had been three days, and nothing. No word from Heaven, or from Hell, no divine judgements, no Hellfire; nothing.

Aziraphale didn’t like it.

Sooner or later, they were going to make their move. He didn’t know when, and he didn’t know what it would be, but the one thing that he did know, with absolute certainty, was that it would happen. They wouldn’t let what they had done go unpunished.

And Crowley too; he wouldn’t get away with it either. There was little doubt in Aziraphale’s mind that Hell was plotting something for his friend, and likely something even worse than Heaven could come up with. It was true that most demons lacked imagination, but they were extremely good at punishing people.

Right now, Aziraphale wished that he lacked an imagination. His was currently working overtime, feeding him terrifying images of all kinds of things that he was quite certain were worse than anything Heaven actually had in their arsenal.

But then, maybe Heaven and Hell would work together to punish the two of them. They had, after all, been completely united in their anger at their respective agents. With the war called off, it wasn’t completely outside of the realms of possibility that they might combine their efforts to do something about the angel and the demon that had stopped all their plans.

And if the worked together, well, the possibilities were so much worse. Not bad enough, though, that Aziraphale’s fertile imagination could not come up with suggestions. He had, after all, spent millennia lost in the writings of creative human beings. he had picked up a thing or two.

It would be keeping him up at night, if he slept. It was certainly having that kind of an effect on Crowley, who was currently pacing the limited floor-space of the bookshop like a caged elephant in a very old zoo, slowly being driven mad.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Maybe they’ll just let it go,” he suggested, not really believing it.

Crowley paused in his pacing to look at him. Something in his gaze suggested that the Aziraphale had taken leave of his senses. He shook his head. “They’re not going to let it go, angel. This is Hell we’re talking about. They know how to hold a grudge. Your lot do too.”

He was right, of course. In fact, Aziraphale might even go so far as to say that Heaven was better at holding a grudge, although not knowing the exact state of affairs in Hell, it was difficult to be certain. They were certainly not as forgiving as humanity seemed to believe.

“No, they’re biding their time,” Crowley told him. “And they’re doing it on purpose. Both of them. They’ll wait until we finally relax, until the moment we let ourselves believe that we might have gotten away with it, and then…” his words tailed off into silence.

“And then?” Aziraphale prompted.

Crowley shrugged. “I don’t know! Could be anything; that’s the whole point, isn’t it? You keep your victim good and scared, and not knowing what’s going to happen, or when, makes it worse. It’s basic stuff.”

Aziraphale straightened the fabric of his jacket with the backs of his hands and sat up a little straighter. “Well, I wouldn’t know. Punishing people isn’t exactly in Heaven’s remit.”

The demon stared at him, eyes wide in disbelief. “Not in their remit?” He shook his head. “Ever heard of the Fall? You know, millions of angels burning in agony as they were cast out of Heaven? Ring any bells?”

Aziraphale looked away as he desperately tried not to think about that, not to imagine it being his own fate. “Yes, well, that was a little different…”

“Kicking Adam and Eve out of the garden just because I managed to convince them to try a piece of fruit? Drowning people, drowning children in forty days and nights of rain because… what exactly? Because humans were doing what humans do? Sodom and Gomorrah? Murdering all the firstborns of Egypt? Not the ones doing the actual enslaving, but kids again. Heaven’s so good at punishing people they punish the ones that don’t even deserve it.”

“Alright,” Aziraphale conceded. “Fine, yes. Alright.” He sank into a chair, no clue what to do.

“And as far as they’re concerned, we do deserve it,” Crowley added.

Aziraphale really wished he could switch off his imagination, just for a little while. Because Crowley was absolutely right, and he didn’t want to think about it.

Every demon was an angel once,” Crowley continued. “Where do you think they get that penchant for torture from in the first place?”

Aziraphale checked the time on the old grandfather clock that stood against the wall between two overcrowded bookshelves. It had been a week. Seven whole days, right down to the minute, since the world hadn’t ended. Seven whole days of waiting for the hammer to fall. Holding his breath, expecting it at any moment.

“Maybe that’s it,” he mused.

Crowley looked up. He wasn’t wearing his shades and for a moment, Aziraphale thought that the stress of the situation had brought his eyes to full snake. On second glance, he realised that the whites of his friend’s eyes were not yellow, but bloodshot red with exhaustion and lack of sleep.

“You should really get some rest,” he said. He didn’t sleep, personally, but he knew that Crowley did, and apparently over the years his human body had grown accustomed to it, not unlike his own with food.

“Maybe what’s it?” Crowley asked, ignoring the suggestion.

Aziraphale considered his answer carefully. “You said a few days ago that they would wait until we relaxed before they made their move. Maybe if we never do, that will keep them away.”

“Great,” said Crowley. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “So all we have to do is keep feeling like this for the rest of time.”

He was right, it wasn’t the best solution. Especially when one considered that believing they had a way out of their predicament was the kind of thing that was bound to let them relax a little anyway.

“Not possible, anyway,” Crowley continued. “Nobody can keep up that level of anxiety forever. Not even you, Aziraphale. Eventually you’re going to start to think you’re safe.”

Aziraphale sighed. Crowley was right. It had begun to happen already. This time last week, he certainly hadn’t been making plans for the future, now he found himself wondering what the weather would be like tomorrow and whether it might be a good day for a stroll in the park.

He wondered how relaxed was too relaxed.

It had been almost two months. August had long-since faded, first into an increasingly chilly September, and then into a drizzly October. The nights had been drawing in for some time, but they appeared to have accelerated, and it had long-since passed the point where there were more hours of darkness than of sunlight.

There was a chill in the air. People had begun to bring out their winter coats, their gloves and scarves and wooly hats. Some of the larger shops had begun to stock items for Christmas. Aziraphale wondered whether he would still be on Earth to see it this year. He did so enjoy the decorations, the fairy lights, the same old songs on the radio and the sense of love they appeared to provoke in the people around him. For a short time every year, at the end of December when life should have been hardest, love appeared to pervade the whole city for a short time, and it was beautiful.

Maybe, just maybe, they really had been forgiven. Or maybe whatever Adam had done when he had changed reality had made Heaven and Hell forget what they had done. Maybe, as far as they were concerned, there was nothing to forgive.

He didn’t believe that though. Not really. As much as he wished that he could. All had been quiet from Heaven since that day at the Airbase in Tadfield. Complete radio silence. That didn’t happen. If Gabriel had really forgotten the incident, somebody would have been in touch with some task for him to perform. The fact that they had not, told him that things were very much not okay.

He wished that someone would get in touch. It didn’t matter what for. If he could just have a short conversation with another angel, he might be able to work out the mood in Heaven from the way that they spoke or the words that they used.

But nothing. Nothing at all.

He had imagined a thousand scenarios by now, each one worse than the last. He was quite sure that no matter what Heaven decided in the end, he had already lived through worse in his own mind.

Aziraphale sighed and pulled his old coat a little tighter around himself, reluctant to use a miracle when he didn’t really need to, for fear of drawing attention to himself. He passed a shop with a Halloween window display of pumpkins and autumn leaves next, to one where a young woman with messy hair and a beautiful smile was putting the finishing touches to a Christmas one.

Soon, he supposed, it would be time to begin his annual campaign of attempting to put customers off from entering his shop in search of gifts. The thought made him tired, and some quiet part of his mind began to suggest that really, was there any point?

“Do you think we got away with it?” Aziraphale asked. He spoke in a whisper, although he knew that there was no point. If Heaven were listening, they wouldn't be deterred by quiet voices.

It had been six months since the world hadn’t ended, and it was the first time that Aziraphale had dared to voice the question aloud.

It was the middle of February and snow glistened in the trees and on the untrodden areas of the park, while the paths, and the rest of the city, had been rendered the dirty grey of well-trodden sludge.

Crowley hesitated. His hand stilled inside the brown bag that he was holding on his lap, and a nearby duck quacked in frustration when the food it had been expecting failed to materialise. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”

Aziraphale sighed, and he could see his breath.

The demon tossed a handful of duck food — they didn’t throw bread, not anymore. Not since Aziraphale had learned how bad it was for the ducks —to the waiting birds.

“No,” Aziraphale agreed. “I suppose you’re probably right.”

It had been two years. Aziraphale wasn’t sure how, but those two years had appeared to last longer than the entire last decade; maybe even the last two decades put together. Perhaps maybe time was slowing down as a way of prolonging their misery, or perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps it slowed as a curtesy to them, to allow them to make the most of the short time that they had.

But most likely it was neither of those things. Most likely, it was simply his perception, growing confused under the stress of not knowing.

The human body he wore had grown thin from lack of food. He still did eat, but certainly not with the same gusto as before. It was difficult to enjoy a meal when you managed to convince yourself every time that it would be your last.

He knew that he should forget about it, just try to carry on as he had before. It wasn’t as though worrying about it would stop it from happening. All worry did was ruin the time that he had left. But he couldn’t help it. He had always worried, right from the beginning. He had worried when he had given away his sword, and every time he had spoken to Crowley. He had worried when they had struck up the Arrangement, and he had worried when Crowley had suggested trying to save the world.

Worry was familiar. Without it, he didn’t know who he was.

But it had always been something that came and went. He had never lived with so much anxiety for so long without respite. It was beginning to wear on him.

It hadn’t even been that long, he reminded himself. In Heaven, two years could pass in the blink of an eye. The judgement, when it came, could come at any time.

He tried not to think about it, and in doing so, found himself thinking about it even more.

It had been twelve years; long enough to see the world beginning to move on around him. He was beginning to see changes in technology, and to notice new regular customers coming into his shop; young adults that had been children when the world hadn’t ended. People that had had a life because of what they had done.

It was gratifying, in a way. Twelve whole years of people meeting and falling in love. Twelve years of friendships. Twelve years-worth of new literature and movies and all the other things humanity could create with their clever minds. Twelve years of new babies being born that would never have existed if the world had ended.

He and Crowley had done that.

Well, no, not them alone. Adam had done it, with the help of his friends as well as Crowley and Aziraphale. And the witch and her boyfriend, was now her husband, and Madam Tracey, and even Shadwell.

Twelve years of weddings. Of people growing old together.

But also twelve years of loss. And of heartbreak.

He liked to think that the good outweighed the bad. And even if it didn’t, the world continued. It had the potential to go on for millions of years. It could be so much more than just a battleground in the war between good and evil.

“What are you thinking about?” Crowley asked.

The demon was lounging in a chair in a way that did not look comfortable at all; sitting the wrong way around, curved around it in a manor that for anybody that wasn’t actually a snake, would have been quite impossible

He was wearing new sunglasses. He tended to change them every few years or so, when he got bored of a style, or they fell out of fashion, or simply because he saw a new pair that struck his fancy. It had been an unusually long time since he had updated his look though. In fact, this was the first new pair he had worn since… well, for twelve years.

That was encouraging, Aziraphale supposed. It meant that he was starting to move on, starting to stop worrying about what might happen tomorrow.

He only wished that he could do the same. The night before, as he had sat drinking a cup of cocoa and allowing his mind to wonder in a way that he rarely did anymore, he had imagined that he had Fallen; been cast out of Heaven and into the depths of Hell. That he had awoken as a demon, cut off from God’s love.

On other, similar nights, he had imagined that he and Crowley had become human; that they had been forced to age and eventually to die, and face a different kind of judgement. Other times, he imagined Gabriel standing over him, gloating as he pronounced some torture or another. Whatever it was going to be, he just wanted it over with. He was ready now. He had been ready for a long time.

It couldn’t be as bad as he was imagining.

“Angel?” Crowley asked, concerned now.

Aziraphale shook his head. “Nothing, dear,” he lied. If Crowley was going to move on, he was going to do his best to pretend to do the same. “How about a spot of lunch?”

He wasn’t sure how long it had been. A long time; he knew that much. He could probably work it out, if he tried. He didn’t want to. It felt as though it was better not to know.

It had been a long time, and still nothing had happened. He felt sure that by now he should be able to relax, but he just couldn’t. Every time he felt himself enjoying something, or looking to the future, he remembered the threat hanging over his head, and the anxiety returned.

He knew, deep down, that this was the punishment. That it had probably been their plan all along, to keep them guessing to the point of madness, to have them constantly looking over their shoulders, to make sure that they could never again just relax and enjoy the world.

He knew it, but at the same time, he couldn’t be sure. Heaven and Hell could still be biding their time. A judgement could still be waiting around the next corner.

He almost wished that it was. That they would simply make their move, whatever it was, and then leave him to deal with the consequences. He didn’t care what those consequences might be; he just wanted it to be over.

But it never would be, would it? It would always be there, waiting.

Crowley had been right; if Heaven were not better than Hell at punishment, they were at least exactly as good.

He shivered despite the heat of the summer morning, and glanced around the bookshop. It looked different now. Old books sold off, replaced with new. It had happened slowly, so slowly that he had barely noticed that it was happening. One book sold to a particularly enthusiastic collector, another to an old woman that had cried with joy when she had picked up a first edition of her childhood favourite from his shelf, and little by little, his collection had begun to dwindle.

After all, if he could no longer enjoy them, why not sell them on to somebody that could? Only his very favourites remained, in a box in the back room, out of view of customers. It had been a very long time since he had read them, perhaps it was time to sell those too.

He would think about it, when he got back.

He took a deep breath and released a sigh, then turned the sign on the door to ‘closed’ and headed out into the city to meet Crowley in the park.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #aziraphale #crowley #alternatives #last one #I wish tumblr still let you put lines in to break up text #why can't you do that anymore?

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mysticsparklewings · 6 years ago

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2018 Art Summary!

I've never done one of these before because usually, I don't even have to look to know I'll have several months left blank, as I have a bad habit of finishing things and either just waiting to post them or uploading things in bulk. This time though, I felt more confident about having a piece for every month...Turns out somehow I lost February in terms of art-making . Oh well, 11/12 ain't bad. (And I'm very positive I drew something in February, but evidently, I didn't think to post it. Which is weird because February usually isn't that busy for me ) Also, I think I'm a few days late to the party on these, but whatever. And now for a short description and links to each artwork so you can understand & see them better. January: Coraline One of my earlier attempts at just straight fan-art from one of my favorite movies. I'm still really happy with how it turned out, almost a year later February: Surprisingly, nothing! (Seriously, I have no idea what happened to February...) March: Killjoys, Make Some Noise! The first piece of My Chemical Romance fan-art I ever made. Poor me and poor them, they look a wee bit feminine, but I'm working on getting better at that. Maybe this year I'll take the time to color the line art to honor the anniversary again--we'll see! (I put this one in sideways because I couldn't size/crop it to fit the other way to my own satisfaction) April: Ivy Enchantix 2018! You know, I would've thought if there was any month I had no art posts, it would've been April. There was Spring Break and Easter, school stuff including taking a trip to New York...And yet it seems April was actually one of my busier months, considering what all I had to pick from. But it was really no contest of which one to pick as my favorite. While I definitely only rarely make Winx art anymore, when I do there's a lot of heart and soul poured into every piece, to the point there isn't much I can find fault with. This may not have been the "grand return" I was hoping for, but it stands as a reminder that I'm not ready to fully let Winx Club go anytime soon. May: Watercolor Stars The tail end of May 2018 marked a big milestone I almost never thought I'd see; My first display drawing tablet, a Wacom Cintiq that I stalked eBay for months (possibly even years) to finally get my hands on. This was also the first time I actively revisited my Mini Magnet Challenge from the year prior, using one of my favorite poems as inspiration for the first piece of art made with the tablet. Looking back on it now, I really am in love with the overall atmosphere. June: The Sandman This month proved to be a busy one, and I have to say honorable mentions go to my Art Style Challenge and The World is Ugly, the second piece of MCR fan-art I made. But ultimately I went with this one because I'm still obsessed with Mr. Sandman's unique character design and for as simple and quick as the image was, it's honestly one of my most favorite pieces I think I've ever made. (I even have it posted as a Portfolio piece on my website). The other two are great and easily tied for close seconds, but they don't haunt me the same way this one does. July: One Little Spark Early July was time for my family's annual theme-park vacation, specifically to Walt Disney World. After we got back, I had that feeling I usually do about being just so inspired by everything we saw and did, but not really knowing what to do with it. Every year I want to do a small series for every day we're at the parks, but I never have the time or means to do so. So an obscure crossover of Figment from Journey Into Imagination at Epcot and Animal Crossing: New Leaf was my compromise for 2018. I still think it's adorable and though it is ridiculously unlikely, I have to say I would absolutely love to see Figment appear in an Animal Crossing game someday now. August: Grav3yardGirl Once again, August had a few different options but ended up being a no-contest. This is the first piece of fan-art I ever made of my favorite Youtuber, Grav3yardGirl , made and posted at basically the last minute for her birthday on August 3rd. I'm not sure she ever saw it or knows it exists, but there's always next year! I do still think it turned out really cute for how much of a rush I was in to complete it. Also, someone needs to remind me to use that parchment paper in my artwork more often... September: Marco Renoir Colored Pencil Test This month was relatively calm with only a few art pieces to choose from. I went with my test piece for the Marco Renoir pencils because I do still really love how it looks and also because it sort of marked the beginning of my hunt for colored pencils and would eventually lead me to pick up a few other specific brands. Plus doing all these test pieces ends up boosting my colored pencil skills overall. This also marked the beginning of me using galaxy/sky pictures to test colored pencils, which has proven pretty effective, I think. October: Outfit of The Day This was my busiest October art-wise in a while, I think. For once I wasn't competing with art/theatre classes that demanded a ton of my extra attention, and this was also the first time I was super committed to seeing Inktober through to the end. And admittedly my Inktober 2018: Wrap Up! picture was very close to getting this spot, but I ultimately decided against it since I would be really hard to tell what it actually is and that seemed like cheating since I'm not sure I could pick a favorite Inktober piece anyway . So I went with my first-ever Outfit-Of-the-Day drawing instead. I am still really thrilled with it and it was one my first real holiday-specific pieces I made also. I was also rushing to get this one done, and I still think it came out really good, all things considered. November: Why, Curious Butterflies! This one was honestly the hardest to pick because this was easily the busiest November I think I have ever had art-wise. For at least four years prior I always had a ton of theatre stuff to do, but not in 2018. (Don't get me wrong, I really miss that class but it was definitely a big commitment). In the end, I went with the picture that makes me the happiest; this little fan-art inspired by a purse I had just gotten IRL. It's cute and its mixed-media, which I am increasingly convinced is where my artistic talent really shines brightest. December: The Nutcracker Oddly enough, this feels like the sparsest December I've had for art in a while because I think before Winter Break was like my main comeback after months of having to put stuff off. I may not have made that many art pieces this December, but the ones I did were pretty elaborate/in-depth for me. I went with my Nutcracker girl since it's a concept I've been wanting to play with for a while now, and once again this was a mixed media piece that I think really showcases my skills. And it's also one of the first real like Christmas-y drawings I've made. I also spent a good chunk of this month acquiring new art supplies to play with . All in all, I look back and I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished art-wise is 2018. It was a year of experimenting and milestones, and I think I'm in a much better place as an artist now than I was a year ago. Lord knows my journey is not over yet, but I like where I am so far. Art Goals for 2019: Keep experimenting, maybe learn to draw faster, post more consistently; and most importantly, keep striving to be better. ____ Template (c) DustBunnyThumper Artworks (c) me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#2018artsummary #artsummary2018 #artsummary

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awakeandalive2012 · 3 years ago

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The Long Overdue Wedding Post

**This post is LONG overdue so apologies on that front**

*Also, it’s going to be a little long, so grab a snack and enjoy*

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Before I begin, I want to first reach out to every single person who liked and commented on our photos, sent a message via any social media platform, sent a text, called, emailed, and spoke with Caleb or I directly, and/or helped with any aspect fo the wedding at all. For all of you, THANK YOU. We could not have asked for an amazing support system to help with with our May 2021 wedding. We sincerely appreciated all of your gifts (if you gave any) and your kind words of congrats and well wishes. So again, from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU. We feel so loved and are truly touched by each and every one of you. No amount of words can adequately communicate how I am so grateful to have you all in my life.

Now, since it's been a few months since the nuptials, even though I reflected some in my last blog post, I wanted to take the time and focus one blog post about the wedding specifically. This post will focus on the proposal, the planning of every single aspect and the day itself. I know that some of my friends on here recently engaged, so I wanted to give them some advice that could potentially help them down the road. This could also be a good reflective piece for those that have recently tied the knots themselves. Every wedding is different, but I wanted to walk you through what my planning process was like.

Now without further ado, let's teleport back through time.

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July 2020 - The proposal. This is a time for celebration. Aside from the wedding, this should be an exciting for the couple. Many people choose to throw an engagement party as a way to introduce yourself as an engaged couple. We did not have one of these, we opted for a more private dinner amongst family instead. As many of you already know, Caleb and I got engaged on July 22nd, 2020. This was on the same week as my sister’s wedding and during our annual family beach trip. It was such a sweet and memorable moment of our lives. Shortly after we got back from our trip, I traded in my makeshift ribbon ring for a beautiful silver one. That was our way of celebrating our new status as an engaged couple.

Biggest tip: Enjoy the moment. This is only the beginning for you and your future partnership.

August 2020: This was when I got right down to planning and the nitty gritty. Discussing what you want for your wedding between you and your fiancé is an essential first step in planning a wedding. You want to be on the same page, after all it’s BOTH of your days, and it’s not one sided. There were several points that we wanted to take care of right off the bat: who was invited, if there would be a theme or not, basic necessities/vendors to have or cut, etc... In the initial planning phase, you both want to figure out what to keep and what to cut from the wedding in concerns with your budget. Right from the start, we figured out ways to minimize costs, thus we decided not to get a DJ and opt for Spotify playlists instead (a great money saver for sure). Pinterest was my best friend throughout the whole process in concerns with the vision of our wedding, as well as wedding looks for myself and my bridal party.

Biggest tip: Organization is KEY. I used both a physical file folder and Microsoft OneNote to keep track of all of my wedding planning. Zola, a wedding planning website, was also a super handy tool that I used. You can do everything; from checklists and guest counts, to seating tables, website and registry management, and so much more. I used Zola and TheKnot extensively in the wedding planning process, which saved me so much stress. You will most likely be multitasking, especially if you are balancing wedding planning with working. Organization will save you time and stress at the end of the day, so it’s Important to be organized from the get go.

September 2020: This was the month when I got the ball rolling on several wedding related tasks. One of the things I wanted to do was involve my bridal party as much as possible and shower them with so much love and affection. After all, they were going to share this special day with me. I sent these adorable bridal party packages to each of them. I also began research engagement photographers during this time. It was important to me to capture photos of us as a couple. These photos would also be used for our wedding invitations as well.

Biggest tip: Reach out to vendors ASAP. Do your research and make inquiries for any company that sparks your interest. They get booked especially quickly, particularly around spring and summer weddings. Some of the important requirements that helped narrow down my vendor selections included budget, services provided, available for our wedding date, work/samples of past projects, and reviews from previous customers. Even in today’s modern computer age, social media prescience is also another factor to consider, especially if you want to see their previous work. Other details would depend on the specific vendor but it’s important to look at these aspects and see if they line up with your vision for the big day.

October 2020: This was a big month for us as a couple! We booked our venue, and we got a lot of our vendors finalized/booked too! It's better to book the venue sooner rather than later, because like the vendors, venues get booked up, especially if they are popular in the wedding community. This was the date when I officially booked our venue; we decided to rent a lake house for our big day. It was such a huge weight lifted off my shoulders because without a venue, a wedding can't happen. In my particular case, I paid half the deposit this month and then paid the second half a month before the wedding. You can pay it up front (super pricy but it is all taken care of in one swoop). The lake house was significant to us as a couple. We also finalized and booked the caterer and HMU (hair and makeup) for the big day. These two caterers are heavy hitters; you cannot have a wedding without food and you sure want to look amazing on the big day.

Biggest tip: Pay off as much as you are able to for your vendors; ideally, the more earlier on, the better. Depending on your budget, balancing it out with your every day expenses can be a challenge. Stick to your budget in order to stay afloat financially. There will be deposits for most, if not all the vendors you decide to book. Be sure to include those additional fees, tips, and deposit payments in your budget.

November 2020: Around this time, we were finalizing all of our vendors and booking them for the wedding date. We also began going into more detail with each vendor. For the photographer/videographer, I sent an ideal shot list for them to work with for the wedding. We even had time to do our engagement photos! They turned out so lovely and the entire experience on the shoot was memorable for all involved.

Biggest tip: Be in constant communication with everyone involved in the wedding. I was talking with everyone involved and tracking every step of the way throughout the process. You do not want any mix ups or wrong information being given.

December 2020: Holiday season is the hardest time to plan details for the wedding because money will be tight and family gatherings are the #1 priority. By this time, I was in holiday mode, so not a lot of remaining details got finalized until the new year. The only thing I remember accomplishing in concerns with wedding planning was making our website and registries go live. We used Wayfair, Zola, TheKnot and Amazon for our wedding registries. They were super easy to set up and manage our gifts and RSVPs. The engagement photos we took earlier were incorporated beautifully into our website and fit our wedding theme beautifully.

Biggest tip: Remember to take breaks and enjoy life. Wedding planning is stressful but it should be something enjoyable. I sometimes got sucked into the details only to get carried away and whisk my time away. Granted I only got one or two small things done, but do not let that get to you. You have accomplished a lot at this point (the hallway mark) Good for you!!!

January 2021: This was around the time that I went dress shopping. This is the day (or multiple days if you are going to more than one store) in every girl's life that she dreams of. I walked into the store with somewhat of a concrete idea as to the style of dress that I wanted. The bridal shop I went to was very accommodating to all of my concerns and style choices. They were very supportive and took note of my concerns when I brought them up. I also got to share the day with my mom and my sister (via Skype). I tried on six dresses in total before I found my one (on the last dress actually). They were able to take the time and consult on each dress, where they would be able to make alterations, what worked and what didn’t, etc). It was an enjoyable experience and one I will not forget. We also sent out our save the dates. To save on costs, I noticed a lot of couples were sending electronic save the dates. I simply sent emails (also since our guest list was so limited) with a template I crafted from Canva (a design platform - free to use!)

Biggest tip: Take your time with picking the dress. Choosing your wedding dress is a big decision for a bride to make. Whether you find the one on your first store visit or your 10th, it’s a big investment. You will be wearing this dress for the full day. You will most likely be saving the dress afterwards to cherish forever. Choose the dress that makes you feel your best.

February 2021: One thing that couples forget to include with wedding planning is the legal aspect of the wedding. Requesting marriage license and finding officiants for the ceremony are two essential services that make a wedding complete. Depending on the state that you are wanting to get married in, there are certain steps and fees to take in order to get a license in a timely manner. Be sure to do your own research in order to dot all of the legal “I”s and cross all the “T”s . You can also research officiants in your nearby area which fits your preferences and price range. This was when I managed to purchase the majority of the items that were incorporated into the wedding ceremony/reception. A couple of my favorite items that I purchased via Etsy were our ketubah (wedding contract in a Jewish wedding ceremony) and our cake topper.

Biggest tip: Shopping online has changed the game in concerns with the wedding world. Especially when you want a specific item to round out the wedding decorations. Sites like Etsy, Amazon and Oriental Trading are great jumping off points for purchasing gift items, decorations and accessories for the wedding. I got the majority of my items from Etsy and Amazon, and they really completed the wedding’s look. In person shopping experiences like Michael’s, Walmart and other big name stores, can be great for those who like DIYs.

March 2021: Another big month for wedding planning! The big item for this month was sending out invitations. Because of the COVID pandemic at the time, we had to severely limit the amount of people invited. The look of the invitations mirrored our website and it included all of the information for our ceremony/reception. We also added the food options for the wedding (previously confirmed from our caterer). This was also the month where I went and dd my bridal trial. The trial is basically a preview form your HMU team for the big day. Here, you can see what works with your look and what needs to be fixed for the big day. I got my hair done first and then my makeup second. With the whole look done beforehand, you can see what the final look will be. This is really beneficial for brides that are undeceive. Our final accomplishment this month was booking the final vendors (the florist and cake) and sending a wedding day timeline to all vendors. It’s important here to track all the times as precisely as possible. Most vendors pay per hour (pre negotiated in contracts) so it’s important to have a schedule which they and your party will follow to keep everything orderly.

Biggest tip: For invitations, sending those out ASAP is important. That way, your guests can have an appropriate amount of time to respond. Also, this would be a good place to put meal selections on your invitations, that way, your guests can tell you what they want for the wedding. Knocking out two birds with one stone! Finally, triple check and confirm details (date, time, place, dress code, etc) that should be included on the invitation. More than likely, you will want to save a copy of your invitation to scrapbook for later. You do not want to be plagued by a small typo on your otherwise beautiful invitations.

April 2021: With one month out from the wedding, we were mostly focusing on tying up any loose ends and paying those remaining invoices. During this time we also sent out the finalize guest lists to our vendors, and ordered cakes (we used the same place for rehearsal dinner and wedding cake). We also sent rehearsal dinner invite, in a similar email format that we sent the save the dates. This would also be the time to inform all parties of the wedding day (or for us wedding weekend) schedule. Give your guests the information for the venue/parking information for all the events, and the timeline for the day. On your end, be sure to finalize all preparations, gifts, decorations, dress alterations for you and your bridal party, and any other item on your check list.

Biggest tip: Deal with any outstanding items while they are fresh on the brain. You do not want to run into any issues with the wedding being a month away.

May 2021: Wedding month!!! It's the big month! This is when we finalized every single detail. Last minute shopping trips, last minute checking over every single item, food, guest. All bills paid and finalized. No stone left unturned. But what good is this month full of celebrating when you are spending all your time finalizing your plans? Take some time too and CELEBRATE! We were fortunate enough to celebrate in big and small ways. I got the chance to pamper myself and my wedding party before the big day and felt so ready by the time the big weekend came. As soon as I finished the final detail (literally the day before the wedding). It was chaos right before, but with my amazing support system (my bridal party, family and of course my now husband), everything went smoothly.

Biggest tip: Enjoy every second of your wedding day!

*I might do a Day Of Blog later on to explain the details and how everything came together*

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Even after the big day is done, you are still not finished!

POST WEDDING:

June 2021: Be sure to THANK YOUR VENDORS. I sent hand written thank you notes to each vendor, wedding guest, and those that gave a gift from our registry. It’s so important to express your gratitude for them coming out for your wedding. Leaving reviews for all the vendors is also extremely important. It not only shows follow through on your end as a client, but it also shows potential new clients of your experiences so they can make the right decision for their special day. We also got our photos from our photographer and yes I shared those all over social media :)

July 2021: We got our videos back from the videographers. For our package, we got both a highlight reel with a song of our choice to play over it as well as an overall video of the whole day. I believe it was totally worth the price we paid for both videos. This month, I also got my dress preserved from the same place that I bought it from which was really convenient. We also framed our ketubah and it will hang in our house when we get around to buying one.

August 2021: It finally feels like I have finally settled into married life. There were still a couple of ongoing items to deal with post wedding. Changing last name is the next big milestone (for another posts when it eventually happens) but as of right now I am at a stalemate here because of COVID protocols and the SSA in office visits being unavailable at the time. I have (and still have as of writing this post) leftover wedding items that I plan to sell/donate for other people to use for their weddings.

TODAY:

It seems insane what a year will do for reflection on my special day. It’s crazy to imagine planning everything months, nearly a year even, to pull off a beautifully orchestrated event. And yet, here I am, months after, hardly believing that we did that. Honestly, what got me through the majority of the planning was having the best support system. No matter which aspect of the wedding was weighing me down in the moment, I was able to confide in my closest friends/family and they helped me make the best decisions possible for the best day.

Fro those of you that have a wedding on the horizon or if you just want to swap stories, I am always around to help in any way I can.

Happy planning!

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shubhgemsstone · 6 years ago

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Birthstone according to Zodiac Sign

There are lots of popular published graphs equating your birth month with your birthstone, but these are only partially true within an astrological framework. Since ancient times, astrologers noticed the intense positive effects which certain gemstones had when worn by men and women belonging to certain zodiac signs. The most potent matchups between gemstone and birth sign became fixed into astrological lore in the following list:

Aries Birthstone: Diamond March 21 – April 19

The Ram is the most hardheaded animal in the zodiac and represents the Aries tendency to move on to bigger and better things.

Taurus Birthstone: Emerald April 20 – May 20

The green colors of this emerald were said by the ancients to have been the dewdrops left by the barefoot goddess, Venus. When the Bull wears an emerald, your normal sensitivity will mix better with your profound selectivity. You are at your best when your passions have standards.

Gemini Birthstone: Pearl May 21 – June 21

Forged out of a speck of irritating sand in an oyster, the ancients long ago realized the duality of the pearl matched that of the Gemini. From a nuisance hidden in a shell is created a world of pure beauty. Whenever the Twin wears pearls, an ease at being just two individuals in one fills you with a sense of calm.

Cancer Birthstone: Ruby June 22 – July 22

Save for only the diamond among precious stones, the blossom is the hardest gem. Like the Crab that signifies Cancer, its hard exterior protects an inner beauty which exists nowhere else. When the Crab wears a blossom, a protection of your feelings occurs, allowing you to end up.

Leo Birthstone: Peridot July 23 – August 22

Legend has it that Cleopatra dropped her peridot amulet on a journey home, only to arrive and discover that she had been betrayed by her lover, Mark Antony. Wearing the gorgeous olive-colored peridot protects the Lion from having your understanding of the natural order disrupted.

Virgo Birthstone: Sapphire August 23 – September 22

The deep blue of the Sapphire protects any Virgo who should wear it. This rock is quite impervious to damage and you will be too. The intense energy of this gemstone sharpens your mind for details with an eye for beauty.

Libra Birthstone: Opal September 23 – October 22

This mystical stone has the ability to absorb bad energy out of those around you. Libra has an affable character and can get along with people that others might judge difficult. Just a little protection against your very own bad judgment may go quite a distance.

Scorpio Birthstone: Topaz October 23 – November 21

The more orange the Topaz gemstone ensconced in your jewellery is, the more relaxed your friendships will be. The Scorpion has a troubled time maintaining relationships when loyalty and superficial disagreements get confused. Wearing a Topaz brings out the fog of misunderstandings.

Sagittarius Birthstone: Turquoise November 22 – December 21

This is one of the more brittle of gemstones, so Sagittarians are advised to have lots of pieces of turquoise jewelry to choose from. The infamous optimism of the Archer is reinforced, and you can get what you need when you wear this rock known to withstand even volcanic temperatures.

Capricorn Birthstone: Garnet December 22 – January 19

The status-conscious Capricorn will delight in donning the garnet – this stone has mystical tendencies to open the doors of victory that are otherwise locked. Just as the Goat modifies his or her behavior to get ahead, garnets look different under changing light sources.

Aquarius Birthstone: Amethyst January 20 – February 18

Ancient legend gets got the god of wine, Dionysus, crying tears of wine over a woman who would not submit to his debauchery. These purple crystals, amethysts, will maintain Aquarius levelheaded when you wear them in your jewellery. The stone’s title literally means, “Avoiding drunkenness.”

Pisces Birthstone: Aquamarine February 19 – March 20

We know this blue rock is linked to the emerald, but ancient legend has it that the sky was once solid and these stones would be the remnants. Pisces needs solid character to hold on to. The soothing “solid reality” forces of this aquamarine gem make this piece of the skies the perfect accessory to affirm and display your own great looks.

When you read a jeweler’s pamphlet, you might notice that these very same stones have been suggested for birth months instead of zodiac birth signs. The motive behind this is that marketing departments wish to appeal to everybody, not just believers in astrology. If you were born close to the end of the month and your zodiac sign is different from the one which begins the month, your birthstone will be listed as belonging to this month which follows you.

How did this occur? Consider that gemstones are as ancient as civilization, while modern calendars have their origins in recent history.

After the Romans introduced the Julian calendar in 45 BC, the chance to align every month in correspondence with the beginning of a zodiac sign was ignored in the face of other political worries. The nation had official religions and goddesses while groups who believed in astrology, primarily the Chaldeans, were not the most influential forces in ancient Rome. In the late 16th century, the Gregorian calendar made up for imprecise measurements of leap years in the calendar of Julius Caesar. Incorrect leap year measurements revealed themselves over a 1700-year span when spring began on March 10, 1580 (spring begins when the Sun aligns with all the equator on March 20 or 21 of each year). The radical adjustment of the Gregorian calendar was to eliminate ten days from the 1582 calendar. Europe followed suit, slowly during the next few years. Russia held out until the early twentieth century and had to erase 13 times in 1922. These calendar adjustments may have easily been lined up to signal the beginning of every zodiac sign, but other interests prevailed. And so, ancient alignments of gemstones with their harmonious zodiac signs are imbalanced according to the newer calendars.

If your birthday happens near the end of the month and belongs to the next zodiac sign listed for the month, then you may have a sentimental piece of jewelry that was intended for you because of a jewelry graph that assigned a gem to all people born in your month. Fear not if the gem you’ve was meant for the sign before you.

While wearing your zodiac birthstone empowers you with the best energy that reflects your potential, the birthstone of the zodiac sign before you is known as your twelfth house gem. The twelfth house is your zodiac’s code for psychic energy, therefore wearing this type of rock may not give off the power of who you are, but it will allow you to pick up on the energy of those around you.

#birthstone #zodiac #zodiac sign #astrology #submission

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meganambers · 6 years ago

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When you sit and listen to the founder and creator of “Urbane by Charles Jay“, Charles Jay, not only do you walk away with a genuine knowledge of what it takes to build a fashion empire, you walk away inspired. Dealing with the difficulty of being diagnosed with a Wilms Tumor at the tender age of 2, it was evident that Jay was born a fighter. Dedicated to living his life the way he saw fit, Jay played sports (basketball) all throughout his middle school and high school years, despite doctor’s orders, leading up to broken records as the starting point guard at Rutgers. Now at the age of 27, Jay has implemented the memories of going through the “hardest fight” of his life, fighting Kidney cancer into his brand, making him an icon in his own right. “When I was going through my treatment, when I was at the children’s hospital, I would play with these building blocks. And I was inspired to use the same style of the building blocks on my products, It’s the staple point of the brand, it is the brand.”

Celebrating his 25th year of remission, the designer talks about the challenges of building his own fashion brand, while attending school and working full-time, witnessing his clothing on VH1’s Love & Hip-Hop: New York for the first time and meeting his idol Rapper/Producer and Culture Advocate Swizz Beatz.

Who is Charles Jay?

“So at age 2, I was diagnosed with a Wilms Tumor, that’s cancer of the kidney. I had my right kidney removed, I went through chemotherapy, I stand today a cancer survivor of 25 years. Looking back on that experience, the building blocks meant that I was taking everything that I’ve been through as far as the cancer experience, and using that as the foundation of how I wanted to live my life.

Growing up, I wasn’t supposed to play any sports, no physical activities of any kind because with one kidney, if I was to get hit too hard it could cause your single kidney to fail and you would have to get another transplant or you could possibly die. But I played basketball up til college, I played all throughout middle school with a kidney guard. It was very uncomfortable to wear. Once I reached high school, I told my doctors that I did not want to play with the guard anymore and they told me that I could at my own discretion. So throughout high school, I went through a lot of experiences of me being undersized and coaches would tell me that I was too small to play in college. So after high school, I was supposed to attend a university in Florida, but due to tuition being very high, I attended Rutgers, getting in two days before classes started. I walked into the coaches’ office and told them that I wanted to try out for the team. And I ended up starting since my freshman year, starting point guard. The school never had won a season in the entire school history, my senior year I had set five records.

But throughout my college years, I have always been into fashion. I was that guy that sat in class 8 AM in the morning, with a blazer and a bowtie on. (laughs) And I always helped people developed their brands, along with my schooling. I worked with photographer Devon Dooley, who has worked with Sneaker Villa, Ryan Leslie and etc. I also worked with some artists to help build their brands as well, but I wasn’t doing anything necessarily for myself. So when I graduated I knew it was the perfect time to start a clothing brand. And I had a tunnel vision of knowing that I was going to make this happen regardless of what anybody thought. The main goal of my brand has always been to tell my story, my cancer surviving story through the product. So whatever collection is released, Whatever product of mines that are released, they all do tell a part of my story.

My very first collection is called “the survivor” collection, an all-white baseball jersey with a big fist, a description of what a survivor is, on the back with the year “93”, which is the year that I was diagnosed with cancer. And the “93” is important and will be seen on all of the products. That jersey released for $300, out of the gate and I didn’t really care about what people thought in a sense, I just wanted to make clothing that I knew was high quality and that meant something to me. And from there I started dealing with overseas manufacturers, which that is a different realm than from anything that I have ever experienced before. When you deal with overseas manufacturers, you have to deal with minimum order quantity, you have to order from at a minimum of 100, 200 or 500 pieces of that one style or color. So the cost can be extremely high and the risk is also very high because you’re not necessarily there at the factory, so if there was something to go wrong with the production, you won’t know until the product comes in. So fast forward to this past February, we were featured on VH1’s Love and Hip-Hop. A stylist reached out to me and we sent some products to her and about two months later, I received a text message telling me that my brand was featured on Love and Hip-Hop on Rapper Jaquae. So after that, I had a new windbreaker that was set to be released at the end of March. Which would have been perfect after the LHHNY appearance, and the brand would have been able to elevate to its fullest potential. Unfortunately, that did not happen. I started production, I am taking customer’s preorders, we are about a month in and I receive a message from the manufacturers notifying me that they could no longer continue this production. I had already sent them money, I had to deal with explaining to the customers who had preordered what the circumstances were. So I was in the middle of negotiating with the manufacturer for over a month and a half, trying to get the order down from 100 to 80 because the order was already at $6,000. So in the middle of a negotiation, we agreed on a new release date of April. It got pushed back to June, and then July, August, and September and wasn’t released until October. So the brand went seven months without any social media push, no presence on the socials, no products, and no revenue to even generate any other type of products. All my money was tied up into my business and I had to go seven months without my products. So throughout that time, I had to find a new manufacturer, which is the factory that I used for my “Unbreakable” collection and I am currently using for my entire line.”

“Whether it is a financial or a personal situation, anything that I have endured now is just a minor stepping stone because I already overcame the biggest obstacle of my life.”

How would you say your four years at Rutgers impact the way you wanted to express your mission statement of Urbane Clothing?

“Being a full-time athlete, full-time student and working full-time, it was an experience in which I had to grow up fast and it put me in a position where I had to make things happen. For example, my financial aid was dropped and I had to pay my tuition on my own, so I went through a lot of adversaries in college. Whether it was personal, my athletic career or with family. So I want to instill that into the story behind my brand because being born with cancer, I am not supposed to be here today. If you look at the statistics, I am not supposed to be here. And with anything that I go through in life, I always look back at that experience with the mindset that anything of the present time is minor. Whether it is a financial or a personal situation, anything that I have endured now is just a minor stepping stone because I already overcame the biggest obstacle of my life. And that’s what I live through with the brand. And at Rutgers, I was tested. I had to go into school full-time, I had my basketball team full-time, and I had to pay my tuition, by working full-time. It tested me mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So when I move into my collection, I literally take everything that I have been through into consideration when I am picking the fabrics, I make sure that the quality is up at a certain level, I literally put everything that I have ever been through into my products.”

When you speak of your collection, how did you come up with the three unique pieces, “The Rugby”, “The Cloak”, and “The Set”? What sets the three apart from one another?

“So growing up, I was and still am a huge Harry Potter fan. I literally live, breathe and sweat, Harry Potter for like the longest time. I read all of the books and I watched all of the movies. And with “The Cloak”, the inspiration kinda stems from Harry Potter, especially when he would put on the invisibility cloak on when he didn’t want to be seen. And I know that may sound super, super corny, but I am a Harry Potter fiend. But from a clothing and fashion standpoint, Panchos has always been around, but they haven’t necessarily been developed to a point where it is considered as a high fashion statement piece. Which is what I wanted to bring into the market. I designed the cloak back in March, which is crazy because Northface did a collaboration with a japan streetwear company and comme de garcon just dropped a cloak as well. So as far as being intuned with where fashion is heading, I kinda know where things are going. And that has been the inspiration behind the cloak. The capsule collection is called, “unbreakable” because everything that I have been through could have broken me. But I haven’t been broken yet, I went from beating cancer, seven months with a product, it just shows the resilience of me and the resilience of the brand. Even down to the material used for the cloak, it is completely water-proof and weather resistant. So the fabric behind the collection actually speaks to what the collection is about as well.

“The Rugby” is made from a material that is simply amazing, we use a 300GSM french terry. Most people don’t exactly know what GSM is. GSM is pretty much the weight of the fabric, like grams per meter. So 300GSM for a shirt is extremely heavy. Most french terry shirts are anywhere between 140 and 180, and on the occasion 200GSM. But a 300GSM polo or rugby shirt is not necessarily seen a lot. It is more so in high fashion, like the Gucci or Burberry brands. And the inspiration behind the design is the Rugby looks like a referee shirt. I played basketball my whole life and that was the inspiration behind that whole look. And even with cultural differences, like for instance, China where my clothes are made, they don’t use vertical stripes because it is not something that their culture has not brought into. And a lot of the designs that you see you rarely see vertical stripes because most people don’t want to do it because it is not common. I am literally that person that would go off into the deep end and do something completely different from anyone else has tried and I will try to find ways to make it work. So that was the approach when it came down to the designing of the Rugby. Even with the design on the back, we did a digital print onto the fabric, which again, digitally printing onto the fabric of a 300GSM french terry cotton, it doesn’t normally happen. The ink could bleed through the fabric, but the design came out amazing. We did a drag logo, so that is like seven different colors, 93s on top of each other. And then, of course, we have the color blocks that is embroidered on the front of the shirt, and we have a cancer ribbon on the right sleeve of the shirt. So again, as far as putting the story into the products, every single symbol means something.

And finally, the Anorak is simply a pullover that is a half zip. And the idea behind the Anorak was me wanting to create a sweatsuit but I didn’t want to use the traditional cotton material, I wanted to do something completely different, and that it follows the guideline of the collection. So the Anorak is made of Pu, it’s not real leather but it is a substitute of leather. But it is completely weather and water resistant. Also on the joggers, there are velcro straps at the bottom that allows you to adjust the size of the pants at the bottom so you can change them from joggers to a wider fit at the bottom. We really wanted to implement the customization aspect of fashion because that is where the fashion industry is going. Everything is going to customization, functionality and tech wear. And this is to take place within the next four to five years, so we wanted to get on it as early as possible to start implementing new techniques to our products.”

You just recently released the BTS visual of the “unbreakable” collection, what inspired the aesthetics of the visual?

“Earlier this year, I linked up with a photographer by the name of RooCastro, an amazing photographer. And he actually tracked me down and he told me “I want to shoot for your brand. I feel like the way that it is being shot now is not necessarily doing the brand justice.” And I am the type of person if someone approaches me with an idea about my brand, I am going to entertain it. I am never going to shut anybody out. I always listen to everybody’s opinion. So I ended up meeting up with him at a networking event and he was like, “listen, man, I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for like forever and now that I’ve found you, we got to shoot.” He told me that the direction of my brand is awesome and he felt like I could do more high fashion in my photo shoots because that is the quality of my products. So after linking up with Roo, we did our first photo shoot and we killed it. The whole aesthetics of the brand changed from one single photo shoot. We went from an urban streetwear company to high fashion brand just from doing one photo shoot differently. And with this campaign, Roo and I sat down with the products and bounced ideas back and forth. We just felt that the vision for this campaign has like a futuristic kind of feel. And we want to do something down to the way that the models are styled. I linked up with two of my boys, who are brothers, and they run their own styling company called, “A gentleman’s journey”. I added them to the project because I trust their fashion sense and gut instincts on how certain pieces should be styled. So we ended up finding a location, an empty warehouse, and we all just put our heads together to make this very edgy, high fashion, rugged looking campaign. And we also wanted to implement something completely different to where models are moving past each other and just selling their clothes through the photo shoot. But also getting people to see and feel the concept behind the capsule collection. The ruggy, that darkness into lightness kind of feel. And that was the whole vibe of the shoot. And I also have a young kid that I met at a mall, four days prior to the shoot. He told me that he loved the brand and wanted to shoot for me as well. I explained to him that I couldn’t pay him at the moment, but if he still wanted to work that was cool, but if not that is also cool. He ended up coming to the shoot and producing the whole campaign video. He directed and edited it all on his own, without any direction from me. He literally killed the BTS video.”

So I understand that you just came back from Art Basel. What was that experience like? Was it your first time and will you go back?

“Well, that was my first time attending Art Basel. The crazy thing is I wasn’t even supposed to be there. The only reason why I even went was that I had sent Swizz (Beatz) a direct message and in the message, I sent him an article that was on Philly.com, about me playing basketball at Rutgers, beating cancer and starting a clothing line. The dude gets like a million DMs a day, people sending him music and etc, did I think he was going to read it? Probably not. But I took a shot and sent it to him. He actually had the opportunity to not only read the article but to also send me back a short message, “This is really dope. Keep going.” He is not the kind of person to give you full on sentences, he is going to give you these short statement but they will mean a lot. So fast forward to two and a half weeks ago, I sent him the pictures from the “unbreakable” collection, he sent back a couple of the fire emojis and a target emoji. From there I told him that I wanted to get some products out to him. I shared that he has been a huge inspiration since day one and I follow his story since forever and how involved he is in the culture. He sent me back the invite to “No Commission”. The invite was completely VIP, where I did not have to pay for anything, I got full access to every event for “No Commission”. I literally called my job, which I am still a manager in retail and it is really hard to get time off especially on weekends and during holidays, and I called my District manager and told them that I have a once in the lifetime opportunity and I can’t miss it.

So the week before that was when the “Unbreakable” collection was supposed to start shipping out, and I had to put out like $8,000 for that order and the shipment on top of that around $1,200. The product reached the HUB in Cincinnati and with some new tax laws, I had to pay an extra $1,500 to get the product out. And if I didn’t pay that $1,500 within seven days, the product would get shipped back to China. I was literally down to my last dollar and I had to put that money towards getting the product out. So I didn’t even have the money to get to Art Basel, I was literally on my last dollar. So my girlfriend was like, “Listen, I will book the trip, you have to go. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you have to go.” So she booked the trip for me, we left Thursday morning and landed just in time for the first event. It was a panel discussion, featuring Tyler Michelle (Beyonce’s VOGUE photographer), a couple of other very prominent photographers within the industry. So I am at the panel discussion, I did not have any of the product with me, just the Intype of the photographers about branding and everyday life as a creator. Of course, Swizz was there and I got to talk to him for about a minute. I caught him on the way out, I shook his hand and I thanked him for the invite and he thanked me for coming down. And that was the only conversation that we had that day. So later that night, there was a concert with DJ Black Coffee, two other DJs and then Swizz had a set, I sat in the front of the concert for four and a half hours with the Rugby shirt in my hand. He came up for the last statement of the evening and I placed the shirt over the gate and his security guards grabbed it and he shouted me out over the microphone. The next event was the following day, the paint and sip and it was completely VIP. There were about 40 people there, photographers, videographers, just people getting footage of the event and Swizz literally walks in wearing the Rugby shirt that I had given him the night before. And Swizz is the type of person that if he wasn’t feeling something or didn’t rock with it, he is not going to support it at all. So for him to come to the event with my product on, that was one of the most mind-blowing experiences ever. Because of the night before when I passed the shirt to him, I didn’t think he was going to wear the next day. The fit was perfect on him to the point where he just threw it on with a pair of sweats and it still came across as elegant.

So I spoke to him again at this event, this time was wearing the Anorak and he jokingly asked me “So you weren’t going to give me the pants too?”. It was at that moment that it became clear to me that he really rocks with my brand. And about two-three days ago, I posted a picture on my (personal) Instagram and he commented, “Yo, when are you going to send me my box?” with some laughing emojis. He is a very genuine person and when you are for the culture, he will rock with you. He put me on with a lot of people that were in attendance, like Akon’s little brother and Busta Rhymes. There were so many creatives from all around the world that saw my shirt and when I wore it to the concert the next night, at least 40 people stopped me, complimenting not only on the shirt but also telling me that they saw it on Swizz. And it was such an unreal experience. I went from the bottom of the bottom with my finances, my mental capacity and dealing with all of this the week before meeting him. Fast forward to the following week, I am at Art Basel with Swizz Beatz. And it just showed me that with my faith and trust in God had literally shifted to a 110% faith.

It does appear that Swizz is a huge supporter of your brand, wearing one of your shirts to his Son’s soccer game in South Africa. So of course, the question on everybody’s mind is can we expect a collaboration between yourself and Swizz in the near future?

“Yes, in South Africa. It was absolutely crazy because he had just worn the shirt the week before. As for a collaboration, I am not one of those people that will press an issue or an opportunity. If it happens, that would be amazing, because I know creatively, we can create something that would be completely off the wall. But to me, the business relationship is cool, but being able to have that personal relationship with somebody like that is ten times more important to me. I can learn from someone like him and I can learn so much. I would cherish that so much more rather than from a business standpoint on how can I maximize this opportunity. When things happen, it will happen. I am not going to press an issue, because I feel like that can damage a relationship. When you have access to these type of people the moment you start to press them, is the moment that they will see you as someone who is just trying to get up off of their name. I am the complete opposite of that type of person. But a collaboration would be fire.” (laughs)

“Finding the people was hard. I had to learn how to trust people and understand that given the opportunity, people can flourish and do well.”

You once said that you have built an “amazing team” around you, and in your experience, what is the key to developing a great team?

“That was exactly one of the most difficult things that I ever had to do. The reason why is because I am one of those people who believe that I can do everything and although I can do a lot, it is when I try to do everything I become overwhelmed. Finding the people was hard. I had to learn how to trust people and understand that given the opportunity, people can flourish and do well. But if I don’t give them the opportunity to flourish and be fully creative, they won’t have the ability to get out of their comfort zone and grow. So that was one of the biggest things that I had to overcome. I think the biggest thing is having trust in people and believing that they can deliver. I learn that I can’t do everything and be effective at the one main thing that I need to be effective at.”

What advice would you give a young creative that wants to leave a footprint in the fashion industry today?

“One of the pieces of advice that I would give them is to never conform to the fashion industry. I think that is one of the biggest things that I have learned from day one. I don’t care about what is going on in the fashion industry. From a business aspect, I care about what is going on behind the scenes, the business of fashion. But as far as the designs, the trends, you have to stay true to your vision and trust it 100%. The moment you don’t fully trust your vision or you don’t trust your process, you will start to conform to what everyone else is doing. If you are in it for the creative aspect and you really want to be different and leave your stamp in the fashion industry, you have to do some things that are not traditional and test the waters. You will have to try different designs and think outside the box. If you are designing based on trends, that is what your brand is going to be. Your brand will become a trend. I have seen a million brands sell 100K in their first or second year, and by the following year, they are nonexistent. The reason for that is because they haven’t done the work to build a brand, therefore there is no brand. Their company is based on the people that wear their clothing, which is the influencers. If you choose to only work through the influencers and not build an actual brand and have a story behind your brand, your brand becomes reliant on the influencers.”

Finish these statements:

When I get dressed in the morning, I think about…

I don’t even think I think in the morning. (laughs) I literally just throw clothes on and run to work. When I get dressed in the morning I think about I am constantly thinking about my next design. That is just kind of like where my mind goes, it immediately travels to what’s next? What is the next step? What is the next design? What is the next project? What is the next thing that I am doing to help get my brand to the next level? Yeah, that is pretty much what I think about. (laughs)

The soundtrack of my life is…

Victory lap [by Nipsey Hussel]. That is the soundtrack of my life right now. Granted I am not a drug dealer and I haven’t sold drugs (laughs), from the figurative message behind it, I feel like I have had it [the album] on repeat for the last six, seven months. Just from everything that I have gone through over the past seven months, with everything that Nipsey talks about on that album speaks on how I was feeling throughout that entire process.

If you could recreate a capsule inspired by one album, what would it be and why?

I can’t remember the name and I feel like I am going to get yelled at. (Laughs) It’s an Outkast album. Why am I having a brain fart right now? [This is when I look up a list of Outkast albums and came to the conclusion, Jay was thinking of Speakerboxxx/The love below] Speakerboxxx. Yes. The creativity on that album was through the roof, down to the visuals. Most of the visuals had a high school or college inspired theme, so I would take that and create a varsity, very sporty vibe.

The most treasured thing in my closet is..

Would be the first design that I ever made. The ‘Survivor’ jersey. It’s white on white, all embroidered, the material is amazing. It is the staple point of my life.

I could never travel without my…

Well right now, I can’t travel without my girlfriend because she will kill me. (laughs) That would definitely be the first thing, but the second thing would be my laptop. I get so much inspiration from the things around me, the environment and the energy, to the point if I do not have my laptop on me, I will drive myself crazy.

The last thing that I googled was…

Something about google analytics. (laughs) I was looking at it this morning. I’m a cornball, but it’s alright though.

I will always be excited to work in Fashion because…

I get to express myself. And I don’t have to worry about what anyone else thinks, I don’t need confirmation from the fashion industry. When you are a creator and you get to that space where nobody on the outside truly affects the way that you create, there is no ceiling. You can literally reach as far as you want. I am so obsessed with my own progression and I continuously want to outdo myself with every single thing that I do. That motivation is always in the back of my mind.

IAmMeganAmbers Exclusive: Charles Jay, Founder of Urbane By Charles Jay Talks Childhood Cancer, Meeting Swizz Beatz and Beating The Odds When you sit and listen to the founder and creator of "Urbane by Charles Jay", Charles Jay, not only do you walk away with a genuine knowledge of what it takes to build a fashion empire, you walk away inspired.

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ninetay89 · 8 years ago

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what the last four months have taught me

Disclaimer: This post is going to probably be very lengthy and I apologize in advance for that, nobody has to read this at all. I wanted to post this for myself, because I feel like my blog is a place I can vent. These feelings have been stuck in my heart for so long, I think it’s time I finally just lay it all out there so I can heal.

The last four months of my life have been some of the hardest months I have ever had to go through. Believe me I’ve been through a lot of hard times, but it’s been quite some time since my heart has been in so much pain. I’m not quite sure where to begin but here it goes;

2016 started off a fantastic year, 2015 was god awful. 2015 held so many awful memories, that could be a whole other novel of it’s own. But I was so damn happy to leave 2015 behind me and 2016 was a brand new year and a new clean slate to move on from it all. I went into 2016 leaving behind people I didn’t want in my life anymore, keeping the one’s that I wanted to keep, and even bringing someone new into my life, my current boyfriend. But I am honestly so sick of talking about that past me and those past memories, I’m sick of telling that story that haunts me everyday.

The first 8 months of 2016 were fantastic, I was learning plenty of new things and experiencing things I never thought I would experience. I was learning how to fall in love. Love is a damn toxic thing, it can be a curse. I didn’t think i would lose my head over someone that I loved, but I did. I got so wrapped up in loving someone, I took it for granted. I started to not care because I was under the impression that when someone promises you forever that they meant it. Falling in love with him was a blessing, in many ways he taught me how to embrace the parts of me I didn’t even know existed. You begin to almost become this reckless monster when you believe you have someone forever. Forever does not exist, but it is a beautiful concept.

In August I felt a shift, I didn’t feel on top of the world anymore. The last 8 months were so beautifully written that now it was evident something had cracked. We ended up having a fight, but at the end of the fight there was a makeup but no reassurance. I knew right away that I was going to lose him, and when I would ask he would tell me it wasn’t true, but I didn’t believe it. It was in what he said, “No matter what happens to us I will always care about you.” How in the world was that something that would make me feel better? I lost sleep over it for 2 weeks, I was already grieving him and I didn’t even lose him yet. I just knew though. I knew him like the back of my damn hand.

September came and it felt worse, maybe it was because school was starting again or maybe because I knew what was to come. The Friday before it ended he came to my house, held me in his arms as I cried for him afraid things were changing between us. We danced to Calvin Harris in the car and I felt like maybe we would be alright and I was just crazy. I kissed him goodbye through his car window like I always did before he left my house, I had zero idea that that was our last kiss. If I had known that I would have held onto him tighter, but as I said before I took for granted that I was going to see my baby again so I didn’t give it a second thought. That Sunday I was so busy at work I hadn’t texted him the entire day, I didn’t think this was going to be a big deal, this has happened before. There were days we would go hours and hours without texting if we were both busy. I came home from work that night and he was upset with me, in a way I didn’t expect. Still I wonder if I had texted him that Sunday if I could have changed what had happened. Monday came, he didn’t text me the whole day, I was wondering if it was on purpose, a salty move on his part. He texts me at 6:04 asking me how my day was, I tell him, he gives me a one word answer, I get upset, ask him what the short responses were about, he says nothing, I get more wound up, I say I hate feeling like he’s upset with me, he says me too I can’t do this anymore, I ask him what that means, he tells me to pack up his stuff and leave it in my car so he can come get it. I stare at my phone, no tears, just no airflow to my lungs. I try and reason with him, I try to stay calm realizing that if I were to blow up and call him an asshole that it would make things worse and he would just slam the door, I thought I could stop him, news flash you can’t stop people from leaving this is a lesson I am constantly learning. My reasoning with him did not work, he left, he slammed the door in my face, told me that he didn’t want anything to do with me and I just sat there staring at my phone watching him pour gasoline on our whole relationship and set it on fire in front of me and just leave me there to watch it burn. After the text messages stopped coming I realized he was really gone.

I stared at my phone for a good 5 minutes and then I just broke down. I truly believe that a piece of my heart broke off that night. The first thing I did was turn to my friends, I told them everything I told them the entire conversation, screenshots and all. I realize now that this was a mistake and that I overshared and that would soon bite me in the ass, but I didn’t believe that things would turn around. That night I laid in my bed crying until my body twitched and my muscles were so sore that I couldn’t stand up because my knees gave out. I couldn’t believe I lost my best friend and my love. It’s so easy to fall in love with someone, but to forget them is impossible. I couldn’t believe he was gone, for the next week I didn’t go to school, I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I spiraled and I just hid in my bed and cried until I felt like I was going to throw up. I didn’t want my life to be that way, I didn’t want to live my life without him by my side. I knew that what we had was too special to throw away, he was apart of me and it just messed me up in ways I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t go anywhere without remembering a memory of us in the same place.

I am so grateful for my friends, they helped pick me up off the floor when I had become nothing. They tried to get me out of the house, they constantly texted me asking me if I was alright, they were so good to me. I don’t know what I would do without them, they were here before any boy and they will be there after any boy and they always will.

I was starting to feel myself again, I had left the house, I had put on makeup and I was dancing to girl anthems in my room wearing red lipstick and underwear just to feel worth something again. I finally was able to get at least 3 hours of sleep and eat a meal, I was finally able to breathe a little. I came to understand that maybe being alone fine, I sort of embraced the idea of New Romantics, making it my damn ringtone to try and feel better.

10 days after he left I decided I was going to get up and get dressed and try going back to school after making a home out of my bed. Every morning I would wake up thinking he would text me like he used to, I would sometimes forget he wasn’t mine anymore. But that morning I rolled over to turn off my alarm and his name appeared on my phone, I was almost certain I was dreaming. I wasn’t, he texted me a lengthy paragraph saying how he was sorry about what he did, not expecting any response from me, calling what he did unforgivable. I was late for class that day because I was texting him back telling him how he broke my heart and how he made me lose a piece of myself. Later that night he called me late at night when we both couldn’t be caught by our parents, we talked about everything, we both cried over each other, we both talked about every little thing that we had done wrong. It was the most clean I’ve ever felt, I felt so refreshed. But it wasn’t over, both of our family and friends had heard the story of the nasty split, there was no way that they would understand us getting back together. We decided to hide away, we became Bonnie and Clyde, we went and saw each other undercover even if it was for 10 minutes. We spent 2 weeks talking about our problems and reconsidering our entire relationship and we were really in the best place we had ever been in. This didn’t mean I forgot what had happened, because I could never forget that pain.

Towards the end middle of October my mom ended up going into the hospital unexpectedly, this rocked my world. I had dealt with my mom being in the hospital back in 2015, and it was so so painful. It taught me how to step up and became the leader of the house while my dad was gone taking care of my mom, it made me appreciate her more, it changed me so much. I didn’t want to go through that again. I was at work when I heard the news, my boyfriend worked just down the hill. When I texted him he left work and ran up the hill to be with me, he met me in the parking lot and held me as we cried together in the rain. It felt so weird that just 2 weeks ago he wasn’t mine, and now he was suddenly mine again and that my mom was in the hospital and maybe that was the last time I had seen her. It’s a strange feeling having someone ripped from you and then they’re just handed back to you so gently. Having him there meant so much to me, he held me in the back of my car until midnight while I sobbed and we listened to Taylor to feel better. I didn’t want to go home alone, he called me all night long while I cried. I cried for a whole day worried that I was going to lose my mom for real this time, I didn’t know how many chances she had until she would hit the end of her life. I was so scared this was her last chance, I was petrified. I needed people by my side, I needed support. All my friends were busy with college, nor did I want them to drop everything for me because I feel so selfish asking for help. At this point my boyfriend and I were still a secret, we thought it would be smart for him to come to my house and see me while I was alone and nobody would know. I didn’t care about the consequences because I was so devastated my head wasn’t screwed on right. We ended up getting caught, but it had to happen. Now we could be completely honest with everyone about our relationship. It didn’t go as I had hoped…

Telling my parents was hard, but they understood and they were behind me. Telling my friends was worse, no one understood. No one understood why I wanted him again, they weren’t there for the last 2 weeks as we talked and mended each other, they just remembered the nasty screenshots from the break and didn’t want me to get back with him. I understand completely, I understand seeing your friend in pain would be enough to not want you to see them back in that place. But I just wanted them to understand that I was happy and that I had thought so carefully about my choice. I don’t think you realize how hard it is to put your heart out on the line a second time especially after it was so brutally murdered the first time, I wouldn’t want to willingly set myself up for that pain again if I wasn’t sure of the outcome.

One of my friends thought she was trying to be honest with me about it, but ended up hurting me in more ways than she knows. I’m petrified that she’s going to read this, but I’m sure she wants nothing to do with me now so even if she were to read this, it won’t change a thing now. Our friendship had been rocky since summer, something I also felt shift. I knew we were headed for disaster too, but I didn’t want to comprehend the thought I was losing another piece of me. She had asked if we were back together, I was terrified to tell her the truth. I knew she wouldn’t be happy with me, I knew she would act like everyone else and she did. But instead of telling me she didn’t want me to get back together with him I got a slew of nasty text messages where she called him a fuck boy, she called him ugly, she told me weren’t meant to be together and I was going to get hurt again. I didn’t know how to take what she was saying, it hurt me so badly. Not only because she was insulting me and him but also to see the lack of support. I understand that it’s one thing to hate and not approve of the person your friend might be with, but to just insult that and to put someone down because of it is just a new level. All I wanted was for her to say, “Hey I might not like him but you need to do what makes you happy.” I didn’t mean to start a fight with her, but with everything I’d been through, how I had to literally fight to get out of bed everyday, I couldn’t take it anymore. I exploded, I told her how wrong she was, I told her how she didn’t understand. Nothing got better from then on, we just went down faster and faster. I didn’t think I was going to lose her completely, but once again forever is never promised is it? We fought over my boyfriend, we even fought over my mom being in the hospital, she made me feel like I didn’t care about my own mom who was half dead because she told me I was too preoccupied with my boyfriend to go and see her. I couldn’t believe she would say this to me, I was so down, I was so numb, I didn’t know what to say anymore. We didn’t talk for 2 weeks, I tossed and turned about our friendship. I tried to weigh out the pros and cons, the truth was our friendship was never perfect. I was afraid of her, I was always afraid that I was never going to be good enough for what she wanted because I felt like she had a lot of expectations for me, and they weren’t high outrageous expectations, but I just felt like I could never make her happy I felt like I was always messing up and making her upset and I was so insecure around her to the point I stopped telling her things out of fear of what she was going to say to me about them. We had an argument about concert tickets, she had bought tickets to see her favorite band, she told me that if her friend couldn’t make it that I could go with her. I was upset by this, I didn’t want to be a replacement and I felt like one so I decided to buy tickets of my own for my boyfriend and I. I was terrified to tell her that she had hurt my feelings to the point I went and bought my own tickets, especially for me and the boy she didn’t like, but I had to because eventually she would find out and she wasn’t happy. She thought I knew all along and had lied to her face when it was because of what she said that made me do it, and she doesn’t know that, and maybe now she does. I thought about the arguments we had over the summer about not seeing each other, I thought about the times she had accused me of caring more about my boyfriend than our friendship. I barely saw her over the summer, we both had work, I had my family, I had my boyfriend, I had other friends that also wanted to spend time with me. I tried to make time for her too just as I had tried to make time for everyone else, but once again I was never enough. I was put out to be some terrible boy crazy bitch who didn’t care about anyone’s feelings but my own. There was a time when we had hung out and I had asked her to take me home an hour earlier so I could go and see my boyfriend before I went to work because he not only was having a bad day but needed something from me that he had left at my house for school, she took that as I didn’t care about her and put me down for that too. There was a day we planned to go the beach and I had completely forgotten I had work and she didn’t believe that story, she thought I lied to go hang out with my boyfriend to which I didn’t but she wouldn’t believe how sorry I was. She claims to have gotten snapchats of me from my boyfriend’s car on days I said we couldn’t hang out. None of this out of spite for her. Sometimes maybe this was true, sometimes I did make plans with him days in advance before she had asked me but I was too afraid to tell her it was because of him, but what was I to do? Tell my boyfriend to forget his plans because she asked me to hang out? I felt like I was running around trying to please everyone but myself, and I couldn’t make anybody happy. She thought that I was so obsessed with him I couldn’t put the phone down when we hung out cause I was just talking to him, when most of the time I was on tumblr, believe me we don’t text that much. I thought about the time that her grandmother was in hospice care fighting for her life and she had texted me to talk to me about it and I had said all the wrong things making her think that I didn’t care. A time when I wasn’t trying to upset her but to try and make her feel better in a way I didn’t know how, how do you comfort someone when they’re losing someone they love so deeply, it’s impossible to make someone happy under those circumstances, but I tried, I tried because I loved her with everything in me, but I had upset her. But nothing I said was ever a valid enough excuse for her. She would never accept my apologies when they were all sincere, but she would tell me they were half assed.

So after 2 weeks of thinking about all of this I still didn’t want to lose her, and I guess that was a mistake. I texted her telling her that I was sorry about everything that had happened, she told me she didn’t know if we could just pick up where we left off which was completely understandable. We had a lot to fix, and there was a lot of damage that I think we didn’t want to address with each other. I know that I had so many things I wanted to say but I couldn’t because I didn’t know how and I didn’t want to hurt her because I didn’t want her to feel like a bad friend because she wasn’t. We had talked on the phone, she cried telling me that I had hurt her feelings. I was crying on the other end of the phone, but I tried to not make it obvious. I was so broken hearted knowing that I had upset her this much so unintentionally and I was so mad at the same time that she couldn’t see that I never did anything to upset her and that I was just trying to make everyone happy but I guess I had just failed miserably. I didn’t know what to say, what was I supposed to say. She wouldn’t have believed anything I told her. I wanted to break down and say I’m sorry that I was such a shit friend, but I knew that I hadn’t done anything to hurt her purposefully. We hung up the phone and I felt worse, I tried to text her again telling her I was sorry but it didn’t work. I didn’t know what perfect combination of words to use to express how I felt. I didn’t want to tell her how she had hurt my feelings over the last couple months, I didn’t want her to feel as badly as I did about myself in the friendship and that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have tried to protect her feelings because it just made everything worse because I didn’t open up to her. After that we had talked on and off for a week or two, we were talking normally but it was tense at times.

Then I get a group text at 2am from my friends asking me if I had seen what was on tumblr, I couldn’t believe it. She had written something about me, about how she felt about me, I was so taken aback. That’s how I learned we were no longer friends, through a tumblr post. No closure, no conversation, just a long tumblr post of my mistakes. Calling me a negative person, telling me she was completely done with me. I never heard from her again after that. Her feelings were valid, I’m not saying she can’t feel how she feels, but I just wish she knew the whole story or had even tried to talk to me again, tell me to my face that it was over, but it’s too late. The last month has been harder than I’m sure she understands. I spent the last month laying there until the sun came up thinking of why everyone I love just leaves me and slams the door in my face. I’ve cried and grieved the loss of our friendship as I lost another piece of me. I loved her more than she would ever know. If she wasn’t happy she didn’t deserve to stay, she didn’t deserve to keep being unhappy. Her choice to not be friends with me anymore was what made her happiest, and that is what she deserves. I wish we could have fought for what we had, but that’s not something I think is possible now. I had problems with her too, I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time with her, I think our friendship became toxic but we just tried to push that away until it just plummeted to nothing. In a way her being gone feels like a slight relief because I’m not as anxious, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the memories we had. It still messes me up and I’m sure it will for a really long time but I’ve been moving on and I’ve been realizing my worth slowly and I hope she does the same because that’s what she deserves.

I’m now terrified of being a screw up, I’m terrified if I fight with someone it’ll be the last time we talk, I’m terrified of not making people happy. I’m afraid everyone is going to walk out of my life unexpectedly even my closest friends. I don’t want to keep losing pieces of myself.

I’m terrified to tell people about my boyfriend because no one understands. I’m terrified to post pictures of us on Instagram because I’m afraid people will judge me. My friends won’t like any picture of us that I post. I can never share a story I want to share because I’m terrified they’ll roll their eyes. I’m so upset they don’t understand that he makes me so happy, that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life because of him. Our breakup made us a more powerful couple, we are changed people, we realize what we can’t live without. But no one sees that, and that hurts me so badly that I feel like I can’t share a single thing with my friends about my boyfriend.

This has changed me, this has matured me, this has made me realize that fighting with someone should always be honest and to always show someone that you love them and not to take them for granted no matter how much you believe they’ll stay. All of this has changed me, the last four months have changed who I am. It’s made me realize that forever isn’t promised, that relationships are fragile and they can burn out so easily and you’ll never get them back. You have to fight for who you love, relationships are work, that is required by both sides. Loss is probably the hardest thing to deal with. These last four months have been so tragic and so painful but I feel myself slowly becoming more clean everyday and learning new lessons from these experiences.

I’m so blessed to have the people that I have in my life, I have the best friends I could ever ask for, and I feel awful for being such a pain in the ass to them. Sometimes I wish they would just tell me to stick it cause I’m so annoying. I’m so blessed to have my boyfriend, I’m so blessed that he is my best friend I’m so grateful for this second chance at our relationship. I’m so blessed to have my family, that my mom is still here. I’m blessed to be able to wake up everyday and breathe and listen to Taylor and dance.

So here’s hoping that the next couple months are all about the healing and less about the regret because now I need to realize that I shouldn’t live for other people. That I can’t live to make them happy, that I shouldn’t be afraid to be myself to please others. This is going to take so much time to learn, but one day I hope to be clean from all of this.

xxx

#personal #wow that felt so good omg #i love you if you're reading this

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elrhiarhodan · 8 years ago

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2016 - A Year in Fanworks

By the Numbers (2015 numbers in parentheses) Stories: 82 (49) Words: 466,385 (288,525) Monthly Average: 38,865 (24,044) Daily Average: 1,278 (790) Longest: 162,000 for a story that I don't want to announce here (more about that below) Shortest: A variety of Tumblr prompt fills at 100 to 300 words each To compare, my 2015 Review | 2014 Review | 2013 Review | 2012 Review | 2011 Review | 2010 Review Total number of words since 2010: 2,554,295 The rest of this exercise in navel-gazing is under the cuts.

The List of 2016 Stories January – 7 The Slow Hand of Time The Slow Burn of Anger Beneath the Words The Slow Dance of Madness First Time, Forever Like a Line in the Sand A Knotted Cord Untying February – 6 A transparent house that you and I built Recompense A Sticky Situation Bitter Hearts Well, This Could Have Gone Better You Are Not Alone In This March – 2 The New S.T.A.R. Labs Harrison Wells Eats Snacks April – 5 Early Days of a Better Nation Message From the Dead The Scent of Speed The Silence Between the Birdsong So On We Go May – 34 A Smile in the Darkness Windows To the Soul A Dark and Unwilling Desire Mine In His Pants The Act of Creation Running to a Standstill Sweeter Than Candy on a Stick A Most Improbable Miracle As Brothers We Will Stand It's a Thin Line (Between Love and Hate) Crazy from the Heat In the Winter Newton's Second Law Time On My Hands Still Alive The Braille of a Blind Affection (memories pursue me) And The Storm Watch Brews (a concert of kings) When it Comes to the Bennett Family Legacy, Size Matters The Value of Experimentation Sons of the Silent Age Blood-Stained Hands, Blood-Stained Heroes Whatever You Desire Hour Follows Hour (like water follows water) A Stolen Gift Hour of the Slack and Escape Interlude, With Adults Eternity's Sunrise The Edge of the Coin Join the Club Her Barry, His Barry I Like You, Too Love's As Short as Summer Nights The Race of Their Lives June – 4 In the Silence of the Night (innocence is here) The Best Laid Plans We Stumble, We Falter (but we're no different from anyone) In the Kingdom of the Blind July - 2 Allsorts Ani L'Dodi, v'Dodi Li August – 4 I Never Dreamed That I'd Love Somebody Like You (The Wicked Game Remix) Pleasure and Prerogative A Well-Earned Punishment The Central City Examiner - Society Pages (The Marriage Bargain) September – 3 Show Me What You're Good At (and you're good at everything) Tugging at the Darkness We Two Are One October – 3 You Only Kiss Twice You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies Dreamers With Empty Hands November – 4 New Tricks Birdsong Before the Dawn I'll Come Running You'll Find Magic Wherever You Look December – 7 We Followed an Unlikely Star Call Out My Name Whatever May Come, Whatever May Go (don't give up) Cast Your Fate To the Wind Don't Let it Bring You Down What's in a Name The Slow Bite of Desire Overview As usual, for 2016, I have included stories published on my journal and AO3 from January 1, 2016 until December 31, 2016. It includes stories that were works in progress/unpublished in 2015 (or earlier) and published in 2016, and doesn’t include any comment fic or other works that were not published as stand-alones on my journal or AO3, or any unpublished works in progress, or any completed but unpublished works. Ruminations 2015 was a low point for word count (my lowest full-year total) and there were a lot of contributing factors. When I did my analysis last year, I attributed much of it to my workload and big writing projects. In retrospect, there was another factor I was not willing to consider. I was, to be honest, burning out on White Collar. Six years, two million words of fan fiction spread over nearly 700 stories - it's not surprising I felt like the story well was running dry. (And yes, I know that 288k is still a very respectable number of words, but it was a low point for me and kind of felt like a failure.) So, what was different for 2016? Well - a bright and shiny new fandom! Last year, during the time I took off for the winter holidays, I discovered The Flash. I'd tried watching The Arrow on Netflix a few times, but couldn't really get into it. The Flash was a completely different kettle of fish and it had something that was like catnip for me: a curious relationship between the young hero and a very shady older mentor. In describing it to my White Collar friends, I said it pulled me in the way the Neal/Alder grabbed me. I got hit by the plot bunnies in early January and started writing. The words poured out of me like water and the faucet still hasn't turned off. Of the eighty-two stories, sixty-five were for The Flash, eleven were for White Collar and five were Flash RPS. And for the first time in three years, I did the full complement of MMOM – 31 stories in 31 days, and unlike prior years, I deliberately didn't try to limit myself to 300-word ficlets. Some of those stories were quite meaty (please pardon the pun!), and my efforts for the Merry Month of Masturbation contributed significantly to my total word-count for the year. Although I only wrote eleven White Collar stories and did not participate in this year's Big Bang, that isn't to say that I'm not writing White Collar anymore - far from it. I'm just a lot more selective about my stories. I'm continuing established 'verses like Wonder(ful) Years and Dragon'verse, and I hope to get bunnied for Gloriana, too. It's a heady thing - having a new fandom. If there's one regret - it's that there's no real presence for The Flash on LJ - it's pretty much all on that shiny shithole known as Tumblr. I don't think I'll ever quite get used to that. The Year End Meme Questions… And now to answer the questions that everyone asks themselves… 1. Favorite. Oh, that's really kind of hard. I recently did an Ask the Author meme, and I'd picked The Slow Dance of Madness as the favorite, but in retrospect, I have to reconsider. I think I'm going to have to say A transparent house that you and I built, which I wrote for the poetry_fiction challenge. But that's not quite right either. I really do want to tout the massive story I wrote and published (in sorta-secret) and I discuss more in a bit, but that's not fair. Maybe the whole Dominance Hierarchy series, which started out as a bit of tumblr prompt fun and became something far too lyrical? 2. Best. Since I can't really keep signal boosting a story that no one can yet read, I'm going to have to say that As Brothers We Will Stand is my best story of the year. It was a long and plotty epic that started out from a simple premise – what if Barry hadn't been able to rescue Harry from Zoom at the end of S2.14 – Escape From Earth-2. It was supposed to be short and smutty but got legs and lots and lots of moving pieces. I'm proud of how everything tied together and nothing was left hanging to explain in a sequel or timestamp. I'm particularly proud of the sex scenes – which is not something I ordinarily tout about my fic. This was (believe it or not), the first time I wrote three men in a bed, and I'm seriously pleased with how it all worked out. 3. Most Fun. Easy to pick - Harrison Wells Eats Snacks. I'd been binge-listening to the M.A.T.E.S. podcast (Mike and Tom Eat Snacks) and that infected my brain. And I should make honorable mention to both The New S.T.A.R. Labs (Harry needs to make some money and decides to invent over-engineered sex toys) and You'll Find Magic Wherever You Look (Cisco invents a new gun, Harry is transfigured, and much angsty cuteness ensues). 4. Most Under-appreciated. One of my early Flash stories got very little love, and I can understand why. A Knotted Cord Untying was a fusion between The Flash and Ed (the light romantic comedy from the late '90s that made Tom Cavanagh a star). I resurrected the original Harrison Wells and his wife, Tess Morgan, and set them in Stuckeyville. I thought I'd done a clever job of integrating the two worlds, but the fandom voted with their silence (and someone I respected made an off-hand comment about not really liking these types of fusions, that they 'never really work anyway' and so my writer's soul kind of died a little at that). 5. Sexiest. Like I said above, I wrote all thirty-one days of MMOM, and that's a lot of smut. And almost all of my Flash fic is shippy and sexy (looking at the list of stories, out of the sixty-two, I think that maybe three are purely gen). So picking the sexiest will be hard. But I think I'm going to have to say that it's a tie between The Slow Dance of Madness, which has the most creative sex scene I've ever written, I Never Dreamed That I'd Love Somebody Like You (the Wicked Game remix), which is a sex pollen story, and the entirety of the Dominance Hierarchy series, which is really all about smut (until you get to the third story, then it's smut and heartbreak). 6. Holy Crap, That’s Wrong Even for You. The past few years, this category has been filled by something in my Transformations genre, something usually unbelievably cracky. But not this year, because this year, I wrote some seriously smutty smut, including a story that involves daddy-kink and fantasy incest. Yeah, VERY VERY wrong. Hour Follows Hour (like water follows water). Read at your own peril. And it's het. 7. Hardest to Write. I don't know if any story was particularly difficult to write this year. Words flowed like water. I was stymied a bit when I was writing my White Collar Pairings story The Best Laid Plans – I couldn't seem to find a focus for it, but when I did – it simply exploded out of me (pun NOT intended). I also had some trouble getting started on one of my Fic-Can-Ukah stories, the long anticipated wedding story for The Wonder(ful) Years - We Followed an Unlikely Star, if just because I'd written the engagement and the honeymoon, as well as so many references to the actual wedding that I struggled to find something fresh to say. 8. Biggest Disappointment. I can't think of a single story I'd want to rewrite. 9. Biggest Surprise. Okay, now I get to talk a little about the epic story that was published in a place that no one will find it. It's called Truth out of a Lie and it wasn't supposed to be 162k words. It wasn't even supposed to be half that length. Or a third. It was, at its inception, supposed to be about 40k and when I started writing it, I wondered if I was overestimating myself. I had one square left on my Gen Bingo card to make a blackout and instead of taking the easy way out, a conversation with my enabler in chief made me flip the script and take an unexpected path. Another surprise was just how easy it was to write – the story simply poured out of me. I started writing on June 22 and finished the story in chief on October 28 – about 154k. There were two scenes I needed to write and in the writing, I realized I wanted to make some significant character changes, which entailed another whole chunk of words. That was also something I've never done – gone back and shifted a major plot point. And so, what's it about? It's the origin story for a series I created during MMOM - EoBarry Revealed - where Eobard and Barry are happily married, immortal speedsters. It's a close canon A/U – which means it tracks with canon events through seasons One and Two, but some important things are different. Basically, Eobard is about eight-five percent less murderous. So, when is this really going to get published in my space (it's already published in a comm not to be named, but is available if you're diligent, but please don't – it's not beta'd and likely full of mistakes and gaping plotholes)? Soon. My beta-reader is faced with a rather Herculean task of editing this monster and that takes time. I'm also very strict about not publishing a story until it's done and if my beta reader has to go back and make recommendations in the early part of the story after reading the end, I'll be screwed if I've already started publishing. When it is ready, it will get two chapters a week and there are 36 or 40 chapters (I really don't remember at this point). But they will come without fail. 10. Riskiest. I am going to have to say my first Flash fanfic, The Slow Hand of Time. It was a big risk because I was writing for a brand new fandom and I hadn't consumed all of the available canon. I just got smacked in the face with EoBarry feels and had to write it. Looking Forward… Any Story You’d Like to Rewrite: Nope. I'm pretty satisfied with my writing in 2016. How Will New Canon Change Your Writing: No more new canon for White Collar, which still makes me very sad. But new canon for The Flash starts arriving at the end of the month. I'm definitely looking forward to it, but I don't know if it will affect my writing. I'm basically EoBarry trash right now, and unless EoWells makes another appearance, I'll be writing A/Us until the end of time. Goals for 2017: None. Just write what I enjoy writing. Avoid challenges that make me anxious. And that’s the 2016 Year in Review. Acknowledgements, most heartfelt As always, I must thank my dearest sinfulslasher, who keeps enabling me in the hopes that someday I'll write that Neal/Satchmo story for her. And also, my bestie, theatregirl7299 who picks me up and dusts me off when I fall down. And I must acknowledge my delightful new friend – @timeforalongstory, who rolls around with me in the EoBarry trashcan like no one else, who enables me to write the wildest headcanon and keeps me going with the most amazing feedback. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! And to everyone who reads my stories, thank you, thank you and thank you again – my appreciation for you is boundless. I haven't been so good at responding to feedback as I want to be, but please know that I cherish every kind thought and word you leave for me.

#Elr Writes about Writing #2016 Words #A hellalotawords

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ryker2015-blog · 7 years ago

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My story

Life was like a fairy tail for me everything was going great for the first time in a long time. I had two kids and a beautiful wife to be. We lived in a little war home on south hill in Moose Jaw sask where we were growing our family to be. But that all changed one night. I'll start you at the beginning where I meant my wife to be. It all started in July 2015 when a friend asked me to go for supper with her and her friend. So I thought heck why not. So we went to bps on top of the hill and had super this women that I just have meant had a little baby girl that was six months old so we're sitting there for super waiting for our food to come and it strikes me that this women who is sitting in front of me I need to get to know her more maybe take her and her daughter out on a couple dates. So where sitting there me being quiet like I always am and the waitress bring out her food first so I said the this young lady let me hold your baby and she looked at me strange and said are you sure you can handle her and I was like up and once I had that little girl in my hands and seen the smile she gave me i fell in love with her mom. So super ends and we go back to her place with me and my other friend and we're sitting there and my friend and the baby momma are talking about buying new couches so I was like hmmm maybe I could get her number by selling her my couch then when she wants to buy it I'll tell her I just wanted her number so I could be with her. So that what happened I got her number by saying I'd sell her my couch and then never sold her the couch. So we started talking about this and that and then one day she picked me up so we could go look at buying a new truck because I was driving around a Volkswagen Beetle at the time. So we go looking at truck and I end up buying a Dodge Ram 1500 sport. Then a week goes by and we talk about going to the Calgary zoo so we go to the zoo and spend the nights at her ants and uncles place in Calgary. So this is pushing in to September now we're hanging out the three of use me her and her daughter I'm coming over to her place before work just to feed the little one some mushed up baby cereal and then I head to work for my night shift. At this point in time I'm thinking man I gotta ask this women to be my Girlfriend. So on September 20 we shared our first kiss then on October 7 2015 I got the ball to ask her to be my girlfriend. Then in November we went to Kelowna Bc to meet her father and then went to Edmonton to her first oilers game. Then in December 2015 I asked her to move in with me to my house that I was living in alone. Then in January of 2016 she told me that she was pregnant with our second child and then in august 24 we had our son. Life is great I have two children one girl and one boy and a happy wife to be. The in December of 2016 things take a turn for the worst it seams. I was working night shift down at my job I came home from work and things just felt off about that day so I'm sleeping in my sleeping room down stairs in the basement due to its quiet and dark down their. So she comes downstairs to let me know her and friend are going to the mall to do some shopping for the day and that I can sleep till I gotta work agin and she will cook supper. So her and her friend come back to the house around 2pm and I'm getting ready to head to work to do some stuff I forgot to do so I walk to work due to it being a block away. Then I get down my stuff at four and say hmm I can go back home for an hour then come back to start my normal shift. So I go home and she has a spaghetti super made mu favourite so I pack it up give the kids a kiss by and hugs and then she comes up to me give me the biggest kiss ever and says she love me and I say babe I love you more then anything in this world and the hardest part of my day is leaving my three loves. So she give me the keys to the Dodge Journey and I drive to work on my way to work I just have this funny feeling like something is off so I ignored it and continue my shift at work at approximately 1am in the morning my phone rings and it say further wife on the phone so I answered it and this is the life changer she crying on the phone saying she has been attacked some one broke in to our house and she bleeding everywhere. So I drop my phone out of my hand out of disbelief and run out of my office doors with my radio and personal cell phone in three pieces and got the shop phone in the other calling 911 to get her help I get in our journey and put it into gear and speed away from work at 110 Kmh and I get to my house in 2 mins flat. This is where it gets graphic I walk in to my house and first this I see is the door wide open and blood all over the floor then I turn the corner to look in the kitchen and I see my future wife standing there with this other guy that a neighbour performing medical help for her she was bloody head to toe. So the cops come and ems come and then I'm taken the kids from there rooms to putting them in the car so the cops can do their thing so I meet my future wife at the loco hospital and she getting 80 stitches to the head. Then I get a call from the cops saying there all done with the investigation I can now clean up and board up the window. So me and my day go back to board up the window. Next couple weeks go by I get a cleaner in to clean up the blood that was all over the house I get a window repair guy in to replace the window. We are currently living at her moms and stepdads house. I end up putting all our belongings in storage and we end up moving to her grandparents place out at the lake for two moths. Then she tells me she wants to move to Kelowna bc due to her not felling safe in our current city. So I say yes babe where ever you like. I ask my job for a transfer to bc they say yes we can get you to golden bc we just have to hire three supervisors before you can go. So she's now living in Kelowna Bc at her dad place with the two kids and I'm still In Moose Jaw working waiting on that transfer to golden so we can start a new chapter in our life's. I tried talking with a therapist about what life has put me throw and was told to quit my job that feeds my family and let's the. Do what they want. But I'm suppose to quit and let my mom and dad pay for my shit till I can get my self back on my feet. So I quite going to the therapist. It's been 8 months waiting for a transfer and I'll probably have to Waite till the end of the year. My kids are happy where they are but it's a 14 hour drive to see them on my days off. I'm not happy on how I'm living. My bank account is now in the red due to having to drive our fly to see my kids their the only reason for my smile. My relationship between my parents isn't very good due to the fact that I have let my future wife move to Kelowna. My relationship with my future wife is rocky I love the women to the moon and back and want her to be happy but it seams like I'm the only one who is giving and all I receive back is negativity feed back. Will add more tomorrow Thanks

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junker-town · 8 years ago

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Temple might win ‘only’ 7-8 games this year, and that’s disappointing? Times have changed

Just in case any of you had any delusions that college sports are about purity, fun and honest competition, you're kidding yourselves. It's a cold-hearted, calculating, bottom-line business. For many years, the Big East has specialized in being cold-hearted. What goes around comes around, and in losing its two premier football schools, the University of Miami and Virginia Tech, to the ACC, the Big East is getting what it deserves.

In 2001, the Big East conference made the announcement that it was kicking Temple's football program out of the league. [...] The conference chose to boot Temple despite the existence of pitiful and pathetic Rutgers, which has been an even bigger football doormat than Temple.

That's Philadelphia columnist Larry Atkins in the summer of 2003, writing about the Big East getting raided (for the first time, but definitely not the last) by the ACC.

Temple was so hopeless a program at the turn of the century that even when it was losing big programs and looking to replenish its stock, the Big East still chose to let the Owls walk at the end of the 2004 season. Rutgers stayed, UConn joined, and Temple got the boot.

The Owls had to go independent for a couple of years, missing out on a Conference USA invitation and settling in the MAC. It was never a great geographical fit — akin to New Mexico State joining the Sun Belt — but it was at least a home.

North Alabama head coach and three-time Division II national champion Bobby Wallace had gone just 4-18 in his first two years in charge when the conference first decided to ditch the Owls. Wallace rallied a bit, winning four games each year from 2000-02, but as the Big East's decision became final, recruiting cratered and so did Wallace. He went 3-31 from 2003-05 and was let go, eventually returning to North Alabama. He and his Lions made the Division II championship game in 2016. The guy can coach; he just couldn’t coach Temple.

At the time of Wallace’s dismissal, barely 11 years ago, Temple was maybe the hardest job in FBS, a football program with an uncertain future, at a land-locked school without an on-campus stadium, in a metro area not known for overflow prep talent.

Big East membership brought some big teams to town, but it didn’t enhance recruiting enough to make a difference. But then Al Golden came showed up.

I’ve written a lot about how Boise State became powerful by making a good hire, then a great one, then an amazing one, etc. Coaching hires are almost impossible to nail consistently — insert go-to examples here (Oklahoma hiring John Blake before Bob Stoops, Florida hiring Ron Zook between Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, Alabama hiring Mike Shula before Nick Saban, etc.) — but if you make a few good ones in a row, you can improve your lot in life. Temple has done just that.

Al Golden: great hire. The Penn State alum and former Virginia defensive coordinator stripped the house down to the studs, went 1-11 and finished dead last in S&P+ in his first season, then began the upward move: 111th and 4-8 in 2007, 77th and 5-7 in 2008. Temple won 17 games in 2009-10 and made their first bowl in 30 years. Golden left for Miami and was replaced by Florida offensive coordinator/Central Connecticut alum/all-around dude Steve Addazio. Miami fans might think poorly of him, but before his arrival there, he had pulled off one of the most impressive coaching performances in a long, long time.

Steve Addazio: decent hire. Addazio wasn’t around very long, but he stuck the landing the one time he absolutely needed to. Temple went 9-4 and surged to 45th in S&P+ in 2011, and in March 2012, the university scored a re-invitation into the Big East, this time for all sports. The Big East would become the AAC and lose its power conference status soon after, but Temple was still upgrading. Of course, the Owls then went 4-7 in 2012, and Addazio left for Boston College.

Matt Rhule: incredible hire. Under Addazio, a good defense had begun to lose its way, and an improved offense wasn’t making up the difference. Rhule needed a reset season of his own (2-10 in 2013) but engineered stunning, linear progress thereafter: 6-6 and 81st in S&P+ in 2014, 10-4 and 55th in 2015, 10-4, AAC champs, and 32nd in 2016.

Geoff Collins: ???

Temple’s 34-10 win over Navy in the 2016 AAC title game was Rhule’s last. He left for Baylor, and the Owls missed out on a shot at a program-best 11th win with a disappointing performance against Wake Forest in the Military Bowl.

Still, everything changed under Rhule. Temple went from hard-job success story to seeming like a far less difficult job. The stadium issue is still as unsettled as ever, and Philadelphia isn’t suddenly producing 40 three-star recruits per year, but from first Golden, then Rhule, emerged a blueprint for how Temple can succeed.

In the 11 seasons since Golden arrived, Temple has not yet produced an offense better than 64th in Off. S&P+. But the Owls ranked between 37th and 70th in Def. S&P+ every year from 2007-11, and after a two-year reset, they ranked in the top 25 each of the last three years. You can build a decent offense and killer defense in North Philly. And now it’s up to former Florida defensive coordinator Geoff Collins to keep the good vibes (and low point totals) going.

2016 in review

2016 Temple statistical profile.

Temple’s defense was excellent out of the gates; the national average for yards per play is around 5.8 in a given year, and the Owls allowed greater than 5.6 only twice, against outstanding Penn State and USF offenses.

The offense, however, took some time to round into form under first-year head coach Glenn Thomas. The line and receiving corps each had key pieces to replace, and the offense was below average for about half the season.

Things picked up in mid-October, however.

First 7 games (4-3): Avg. percentile performance: 58% (~top 55) | Avg. yards per play: Owls 5.6, Opp 4.8 (plus-0.8)

Next 6 games (6-0): Avg. percentile performance: 77% (~top 30) | Avg. yards per play: Owls 6.4, Opp 4.5 (plus-1.9)

After a 34-27 loss to Memphis, Temple began to figure things out. The Owls eked past UCF in Orlando, 26-25, then romped, beating their last six AAC opponents by an average score of 34-11. They beat good USF and Navy teams by a combined 40 points.

They played hungover in the bowl game, giving up 31 consecutive first-half points before embarking on a furious comeback to lose only 34-26. But what a team this was over the final two months of the regular season.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

Geoff Collins has an impeccable defensive résumé and a hardscrabble, work-your-way-up track record that should play well in Philly. The Western Carolina grad was named defensive coordinator at Division III Albright in 1997 at age 25, then took over the defense at Western Carolina in 2002 before landing at the FBS level. He served as DC at FIU, Mississippi State, and Tulane, trademarking an aggressive, swaggering (on and off the field) brand of defense along the way.

So the odds are strong that the Temple defense will remain mean and exciting. Great. What about the offense? Will Collins be able to figure anything out that Rhule et al couldn’t?

For an affirmative answer to that, Collins turned to Dave Patenaude. Patenaude was Joe Moglia’s offensive coordinator at Coastal Carolina over the last five seasons. He established consistent run success in Conway, S.C., but late in his tenure there, he seemed to be trying to create more of a pass-first attack. It didn’t stick because CCU couldn’t keep a quarterback healthy, but it makes his intentions a bit unclear at this stage.

Patenaude has hinted at more of an up-tempo style, but we’ll see if Temple has the efficiency to pull that off. Temple produced plenty of big plays over the last couple of years, but inefficiency let the Owls down at times.

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

Ryquell Armstead

Here are some of the pieces Patenaude inherits:

RB Ryquell Armstead. The junior exploded in 2016, topping incumbent Jahad Thomas’ numbers in just about every category. He had 20 carries for 210 yards in the win over USF, then posted 20 for 133 against UConn two weeks later and 10 for 76 in the AAC title game win. He showed far greater efficiency potential than the all-or-nothing Thomas, and his “alls” were a little bigger than Thomas’ as well. He will be the offense’s rock with Thomas now a Dallas Cowboy.

WRs Ventell Bryant, Keith Kirkwood, and Adonis Jennings. The trio of 6’3 wideouts (Kirkwood is big enough that he moonlighted at defensive end this spring) combined for 123 catches and 2,017 yards at 9.9 yards per target last year. Thomas was a scary receiving threat, and tight end Romond Deloatch is gone, but these three were the heartbeat of the passing game, and they’re all back. So is Brodrick Yancy, a smaller option who averaged 8.1 yards per target.

Five offensive linemen with starting experience. Temple has to replace second-round pick Dion Dawkins but, among its returners, gets back three 2016 starters and senior guard Brian Carter, a 2015 starter.

Temple played quite a few bad defenses in 2016, so the raw numbers maybe overstated the potential a hair, but there’s still obvious upside here. (Plus, there are plenty of bad defenses once again on the schedule.)

At least, there is if a quarterback emerges. Sophomore and 2016 second-stringer Logan Marchi and three three-star prospects — junior Frank Nutile, redshirt freshman Anthony Russo, and true freshman Todd Centeio — embarked on the beginning of a QB battle this spring, and the fight will continue into August.

Centeio and Marchi bring solid mobility to the table, while Nutile and Russo might have the best arms. There’s variety — a very good thing, as Patenaude can go a couple of different ways with his intended offensive identity — but there’s no surefire success.

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Adonis Jennings

Defense

Under Rhule, Temple won with offensive explosions and a dynamite defense. We’ll see how much the offensive identity changes, but it should be more of the same for the defense. In terms of raw defensive averages, unadjusted for opponent, Collins’ Florida defense was almost a mirror image of Temple’s last year.

Success Rate: Florida ninth, Temple 10th

IsoPPP (explosiveness): Florida 42nd, Temple 56th

Finishing Drives: Florida seventh, Temple 26th

Temple had a better run defense, while Florida was better against the pass, but both defenses were ultra aggressive, well rounded, and willing to risk big plays in the name of turnovers and three-and-outs but pretty good at avoiding big plays, too.

Collins and defensive coordinator Taver Johnson (a former defensive backs coach at Ohio State, Arkansas, and Purdue) do inherit a defense that has some holes to fill. Rhule recruited a lot of front-seven talent, but all-world end Hasson Reddick is gone, as are all three starting linebackers and two other starting linemen. That’s a lot of churn to overcome.

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Michael Dogbe (98) and offensive lineman James McHale (74)

Junior tackles Michael Dogbe and Freddie Booth-Lloyd should serve as nice anchors, but the key to success up front could be young former star recruits. Four-star sophomore tackle Karamo Dioubate and mid-three-star sophomore linebackers Chapelle Russell, William Kwenkeu, and Sam Franklin represent the next generation of Owl defenders, but after easing into roles last year, they’ll be thrust into the spotlight. Kwenkeu and Franklin were working with the first string this spring, and Dioubate should be, at worst, the top backup tackle.

The key could be the defensive end position. Reddick, Praise Martin-Oguike, and tight end/pass rusher Romond Deloatch combined for a patently absurd 39.5 tackles for loss and 22 sacks last year, allowing the Owls to generate major pressure without blitzing. There are countless replacement candidates, from seniors Jacob Martin and Sharif Finch, to six freshmen (three redshirt, three true), to receiver Keith Kirkwood. But one way or another, the Owls will have to figure out how to generate pressure.

If Temple has a generally competent pass rush, the DBs will take it from there. Safeties Delvon Randall and Sean Chandler combined for 9.5 TFLs, six interceptions, and six breakups last year, and veteran corners Artrel Foster, Derrek Thomas, and Cequan Jefferson are joined by a potential stud transfer: Mike Jones was a lockdown corner (and phenomenal punt returner) for NC Central last year but decided to ply his trade at a higher level before going to the pros.

It would be difficult for even an elite recruiting team to lose the talent Temple loses on defense without at least a temporary stumble. This will likely be the Owls’ first year without a top-25 defense since 2013, but with this talent and athleticism, it’s hard to imagine that stumble being too lengthy or significant. Say, top 50 this year and top 30 in 2018?

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Delvon Randall (2) and Sean Chandler (3)

Special Teams

The addition of Jones might have more of an impact on Temple’s special teams than its secondary. In 10 returns for NCCU last year, he gained 220 yards and scored two touchdowns. If he finds similar success at the FBS level, then the combination of Jones and either Aaron Boumerhi or Austin Jones at place-kicker gives the Owls a couple of solid special teams anchors. And the upside grows if all-or-nothing kick returner Isaiah Wright becomes a little more consistent.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep at Notre Dame 17 -15.5 19% 9-Sep Villanova NR 23.8 92% 15-Sep Massachusetts 111 16.1 82% 21-Sep at South Florida 56 -4.2 40% 30-Sep Houston 49 -0.1 50% 7-Oct at East Carolina 100 8.5 69% 14-Oct Connecticut 125 20.8 88% 21-Oct at Army 102 9.3 70% 3-Nov Navy 71 5.3 62% 10-Nov at Cincinnati 75 1.5 54% 18-Nov Central Florida 78 6.9 65% 25-Nov at Tulsa 77 1.8 54%

Projected S&P+ Rk 67 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 90 / 30 Projected wins 7.5 Five-Year S&P+ Rk -1.5 (76) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 79 / 74 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* 6 / 6.0 2016 TO Luck/Game 0.0 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 57% (58%, 56%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 10.7 (-0.7)

Depending on your view of Steve Addazio, Temple is either 2-for-3 or 3-for-3 in its last three hires since Bobby Wallace went 0-11 in 2005. Golden, Addazio, and Rhule combined to completely change what we think Temple is capable of as a football program. The limitations are still obvious, but we know Temple can produce a hard-hitting defense and a big-play offense and win a lot of games, and the odds are pretty good that Collins will do something similar.

It’s hard to imagine Temple avoiding at least a couple of steps backwards in 2017, however. The Owls have to replace a first-round defensive end, a second-round offensive lineman, a multi-year starting quarterback, an explosive running back, and all three starting linebackers. Even if the replacements provide reason for optimism, S&P+ says Temple will be more like a top-70 team than a top-40 team in 2017, and I think I agree. I also think the 2018 Owls could be pretty ferocious.

Even with a projected step backwards, though, Temple is looking at probably a seven- or eight-win year. S&P+ projects at least a 40 percent win probability in 11 of 12 games, and like so many other AAC teams, the Owls’ fortunes will be determined by relative tossups — they have probability between 40 and 65 percent in six games.

A coaching change is always scary when you’re coming off of two of your best ever seasons, and we technically don’t know if Collins will be a good head coach until he proves it. We also don’t know how he’ll recruit; his first, abbreviated Temple signing class had an average rating barely higher than UMass’.

Still, he fits the Temple profile and checks a lot of boxes. And he takes on a job a lot less hard than his predecessors did. That’s enough for now.

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spaceorphan18 · 8 years ago

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Fic Related Thinky Thoughts

So. There’s a post going around : here : and self-indulgently, I want to answer these questions about my fic: With Every Broken Bone. For reasons I’m not fully aware of, though self-indulgence and self-importance often are brought up, it’s taboo to talk about your own art unless directly asked. And as usual, I’m throwing the rhetoric out the window and answering these questions. It’s not that I think my work is anything special, it’s not any more or less than anyone else’s, it’s just that reflection is part of my process, and I need to think these things out loud.

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

The fact that there weren’t many post-season 5 fics that dealt with what happened to Kurt pre-season 6. And I needed to explore that thought process my own way, to make the whole thing make sense to me. Also during season 4 @misqueue wrote her fantastic series Scenes Between a Break-Up that helped me figure out a lot of season 4. And I wanted to write a story that might possibly help people (though if it was only me, okay), understand season 6.

2: What scene did you first put down?

Technically, probably that first flashback, because it was easy, and the beginning of the fic had a lot of hard stuff about it. But - the idea, and how to work out why Kurt broke it off with Blaine is what I sketched out first.

3: What's your favorite line of narration?

I don’t have just one, but I do have various parts that are favorites. Chapter 4, the month of June, is my overall favorite -- because I loved writing Kurt isolated from the outside world, and just kind of internally dealing with everything. Also, loved the flashback where Kurt and Mercedes figure out who their Disney prince is, and the section where Kurt and Ben talk in a bar about thunderstorms are also high favorites. But there are a ton of little moments I loved writing.

4: What's your favorite line of dialogue?

“No, I don’t mean--” With a heavy sigh, [Kurt] manages to sit up all the way. “You know what it’s like? It’s like I stubbed my toe. And my toe hurt. A lot. And I tried to ignore the pain in my toe, but after a while it got so bad that something had to be done. So, instead of taking care of my toe, I chopped off my foot. Do you know how much worse chopping off your foot feels? Of course it took me four months to figure out how much it fucking hurts. And now I don’t have a foot. Just a bloody stump. I shouldn’t have cut it off. I could have fixed the toe.”

5: What part was hardest to write?

The July chapter. Good god! Figuring out the Ben (original character) so that it worked, and made sense, and accomplished what it needed to took forever. Also the ending sex stuff -- because I’m not a smut writer, and that’s hard yo.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Well, it’s a fully fleshed out work, where as all the rest of the stuff I’ve written have been one shots, and usually they’re comedic in some way. I consider this one a full out story comparatively.

7: Where did the title come from?

From a lyric in the song I Lived - which was Glee’s last song on the show. I felt like it fit really well with the narrative, and I like connecting things to canon whenever I can.

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

I’m trying to remember if there were any huge forth wall breaks. Putting in Pride felt important, case I think it’s an important thing for Kurt. Also, choosing Prince Eric as Kurt’s Disney Prince was a nod at Darren playing Prince Eric around the time I was writing it.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Not really, no. The sketch has less in it, and I ended up filling more out.

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Haha, I think they picked me ;)

11: What do you like best about this fic?

For me - it really puts the pieces together from season 5 to season 6, and I enjoyed writing it so much. It’s my favorite piece of fanfic that I’ve ever written.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

God, I’m still not great with prose, and I’m still learning and growing as a writer. Like anything, I see flaws and where I could have written parts better or more fleshed out or cut. It’s definitely an imperfect work, i’d be the first to admit.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn't listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

My play list:

Chapter 1 (March): Teenage Dream - Darren Criss

Chapter 2 (April): Shake it Out (Acoustic) - Florence and the Machine

Chapter 3 (May): Rockstar - A Great Big World

Chapter 4 (June): I Shall Believe - Sheryl Crow

Chapter 5 (July): Daydream Believer - Mary Beth Maziarz

Chapter 6 (August): Dream City - Free Energy

Chapter 7 (September): Head Over Feet (Acoustic) - Alanis Morissette

Chapter 8 (October): Halo - Beyonce

Chapter 9 (November): I Live - Fate Under Fire

It’s really an acoustic list, kind of stripping things down to just the emotions going on, and it kind of reflects that on your own, summer-y feel of the fic.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Learn? No - I mean, what the reader gets out of reading it is out of my hands. There’s not a message - but hopefully, Kurt’s headspace makes sense to people.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Everything about becoming a better writer -- and I’m grateful for the people who held my hand along the way to push me at the craft. Like I said, I’m still learning, always, but this pushed me in a direction that I’m glad I took.

Also -- it let me figure out Kurt’s headspace on my own terms, and I feel like I have a lot better understanding of a character I deeply love, and while everything is always open to interpretation, I feel pretty confident as to how I see the character.

#s.o. writes things #thank you for letting me think these things out loud!

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sitarskaola-blog · 8 years ago

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2016!

2016 was a challenge.

I made the decision to change two of the most important things in my life, and it consumed all of my energy for the better part of the year. Eventually it made me happier, stronger and closer to many people in my life. I’m happy about listening to my heart this year and learning to prioritise what’s best for me.

I’m happy about making so many new friends this year. London suddenly become very difficult to leave behind :) I also took a lot more time to actually chill, rest and enjoy life this year. I’d call this “wasting time” even few years ago, but this year it’s been very intentional, and I hope it’s going to continue.

In 2017, I’ve decided to take a hiatus from organizing conferences. In the last 5 years there hasn’t been a time in which I wasn’t involved in the organization of at least one event. It gives me a lot of joy to do it but I’m also very curious to see what will fill that empty space and time in 2017. I’m looking forward to doing more traveling just for pleasure, not business.

I’ve done this kind of thing in 2014 and 2015 before. Here goes 2016!

January

With the beginning of the year I jumped head first into helping organize DjangoCon Europe 2016. I wasn’t planning to be heavily involved in DjangoCon that year, but life happens and so I was.

Thanks to Ola’s Christmas gift for me, I finally picked up calligraphy and spent this month happily doodling away. It taught me a lot about slowing down and patience.

The fresh breath of New Year’s energy got me motivated to try running, and I managed to go running 11 times consistently this month. I wish I kept my consistency up throughout the year but I had ups and downs which I’ve grown to accept and move on.

Potato bought a whole leg of jamón for the office which I thought was notable enough to mention here.

I worked on and published the first Django Girls Annual Report which was important step towards more transparency and showing off the impact the organization makes.

Re-discovered that cycling to work makes me a lot happier.

February

DjangoCon mad rush continued throughout the February, but it was PyCaribbean that was the highlight of the month.

I flew to Dominican Republic to keynote the first PyCaribbean event. The event and all the people I’ve met there have been incredibly welcoming and friendly.

I also spent a week there Just Doing Nothing™, reading books and getting tan. Still in awe of the incredible beauty of that place. Never seen more mesmerising sea or palm trees.

Got hooked into Serial podcast which is still one of my favourite things to listen. Season 1 was incredible.

Helped kick off an office Game of Murderer, and had plenty of fun doing it.

March

On the last few days of my Dominican Republic trip, my beloved grandma passed away. Never regretted more that I wasn’t there for her. I flew to Poland straight after getting back to London.

Other than that, March turned into a blur. I took some time off to help Dad figure things out. I did some work for DjangoCon Europe. I’ve run. Did calligraphy.

Launching Django Girls Store brought me plenty of excitement. It’s something I’ve been trying to do for months and it took plenty of concentrated energy to ship. So happy to see it sailing smoothly now.

April

I went to Budapest! Took a night train from my hometown, and loved the experience. Sleeping in an actual bed while on a train felt very magical for some reason.

DjangoCon Europe went smoothly (well, almost, but no one realized!). It was also so so exhausting emotionally. I learned a ton about handling Code of Conduct issues that week.

Budapest is a lovely city. I loved the wine, the food and meeting so many fantastic friends.

I discovered the awesomeness of avocado toast with a poached egg while in Bristol.

We went to enjoy a picnic on a Brogdale Farm with Ola and Tomek and I loved every little bit of that trip.

Ola, Helen and I made Django Girls London happen, and yet again it was filled with laughter, hugs and confetti.

May

Discovered that my cortisol levels are up to the roof, so decided to give myself more breaks for the summer.

May was a chilled & wonderful month. It is my favourite month every single year.

I went to Poland to spend birthday with my mum.

Me and Ola went to Tel Aviv to keynote PyCon Israel, and we had a fantastic time there. The city is beautiful, food was amazing, and people oh so friendly. It was really fun to be there with Ola to have a bit of time just for the two of us as well.

Instagram reminds me that I spent a lot of time petting my cats, making pink cocktails and cooking green soups. Sounds like May!

I’ve read this fascinating piece on the tech industry.

June

Got obsessed with asparagus.

Enjoyed summer in London, hanged out on my pretty balcony a lot, and made even more cocktails.

Woke up with a gut wrenching feeling in my stomach to learn that UK voted for Brexit. That was such a sad week.

Missed a flight to New York City for a Creative Mornings workshop that I was so excited about. London got flooded and all of the possible transportation options didn’t cooperated with me to get to the airport on time. I was really sad about it, but then Ola surprised me with a watermelon and everything was good again.

July

I took three weeks off work in July, which led to some soul searching.

Spent two wonderful weeks in Poland. Summer in Poland is the best, and I was happy to have a chance to show my favourite places in Warsaw to some friends who never been there before.

Played plenty of Pokémon Go.

Travelled to Philadelphia and gave a talk at DjangoCon US. It was my first DjangoCon US, and I really enjoyed getting to know people I haven’t had a chance to hangout before. All that warm evenings on a porch, lollipops and ice cream were fantastic as well.

Spent a weekend in Brooklyn with friends I haven’t seen since I moved to London. Candlelight watermelon & wine dinner on the rooftop overlooking Manhattan is one of my favourite memories of this year. I could see myself living in Brooklyn one day.

Made a decision and follow through signing up for something I had huge anxiety about for months. One of the best decisions I made this year.

Wrote and published Django Code of Conduct open documentation that transparently describes how DSF Code of Conduct committee works.

August

The roughest month this year (or in the last few years, for that matter). Month of change, crying, sleeping and difficult decisions. Mostly just hibernated and did some really sad runs around London to let go of bad energy.

Actually the month when I’ve run the most in the year, sometimes as much as 8km in one run. But it wasn’t the kind of running I enjoyed.

Went to visit Potato’s team in Bristol, and loved the vibe of this city in the summer. Saw double rainbow.

Did a lot of work to organize Django: Under the Hood.

September

One word: busy. Month of travel, Django: Under the Hood preparations and gut-wrenching search for a new place to call home in London.

Visited Poland briefly to hug my family and visit a dentist.

Went for a day trip to Cambridge and had a wonderful time walking around this sunny city.

Spent a fantastic week in Tenerife with the Potato family. Got a chance to spend more time hanging out and getting to know people who are now really good friends. Some really wonderful memories made there.

Saw the new Ghostbusters twice. So. good.

Django: Under the Hood continued to keep me busy.

October

I didn’t travel anywhere!

Said goodbye to my old flat, and moved to a new one. Cats made my life miserable by not letting me sleep at night for 2 weeks.

Attended the wedding of the most awesome couple in the world. Ate all the food later.

Had a lovely time with sister visiting me in London.

Assembled an IKEA furniture all by myself. Huge milestone.

Made my new home feel like home.

Spent countless hours on repetitive manual labor for Django: Under the Hood. Totally worth it!

Tweeted a feminist thing that went viral

Shared the same fantastic article on Twitter multiple times.

Wrote two infinite loops in my code on the same day.

November

Hosted a good friend in London. Plenty of good food, wine and walks.

Spent a week in Amsterdam organizing Django: Under the Hood and then chilling out with the organizing team for 2 more days after that. Really love Amsterdam, despite the fact how cold and rainy it is in Amsterdam. Volkshotel was really fun again. It was great to catch up with friends as well. Had a secret onesie party.

Had a magical dinner in a cottage near Amsterdam. Everyting about that night was amazing.

Saw Arrival in the cinema. Best movie I saw this year.

Parted ways with Potato and started a new job at StreetTeam. Leaving Potato was one of the hardest decisions this year, but I’m happy that I got out of my comfort zone and challenged myself more. Potato is a wonderful place full of amazing people. I felt homesick for few weeks after leaving.

December

Mostly heads down, figuring out & finding myself in the new job.

Spent a lot of time with friends and pla on many awesome board game nights. Went to two very different but both very fun Christmas parties.

Invested significant time into Django Girls, trying to find new ways to scale and bottlenecks holding us back. It’s been sometimes emotionally difficult but rewarding to get stuck into this again.

Screamed my lungs out at massive Christmas songs karaoke in London. Lost voice shortly after.

Spent 10 days with a family back in Poland. The most relaxing and warm trip in a while.

Hearts, confetti and cat snuggles.

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