#In a few days my free time will be reduced significantly and I won't be able to draw as often TwT

[arkaix]

Manifesting Alex and Mortimer becoming friends in my life

Also bonus Clyde hearing the toon Lankmann voice for the first time and in general being a creechur

[bardoftheflame]

Keeping up the flame

It's interesting the many ways in which we can come to learn and understand things, specially when related to our faith, our devotion and our gods.

It hadn't been long since I had decided to become Brig's devotee, when I went through a medical and family situation. I won't give much details, but my grandma had a little accident, and she's had to stay in bed for almost to months by the time I'm writing this. Being only my grandma, my mom and me in the house, this obviously meant an increase of responsabilities for each of us now that we didn't had her help, besides those that came with taking care of her and college left us with a significant less amount of free time and close to no energy by the end of the day. The result of this was, mainly important to this post, a big dealy in my devotional duties. I haven't been able to do many rituals, meditations or my flametending works (that had been requested by Brig when I just started). Besides, due to stress and exhaustion, my creativity significantly suffered as well, and I had to pause both my poems, my creative writing and my recorder practice. All of this left me with a sense of failure and discouragement, feeling unable to properly connect with the gods in general and, specifically with Brig.

A few weeks passed, and not only this feeling lingered, but I also started feeling frustrated because I felt like I was being charged with the mood inside the house. It felt like, whenever I felt down or in a bad mood, everyone home felt the same, and it was exhausting. Besides, taking care of an injured person is not an easy task, specially when added to the usual responsibilities like dishes, house cleaning, and all the chores previously divided between the three of us. For a couple weeks, it felt like I had more than I could handle on my shoulders, and I didn't know what to do at all. However, I did my best to stay positive. Even if I felt it like an unnecessary preassure, I felt like it was something nice I could do to help with the situation, since I wasn't able to help monetarily, so I focused on keeping my spirits up, my mood bright, and try to get that same mood to influence everyone else. Living with a depressive mother and being depressive myself, it was harder than it sounds but I managed to make it work.

It was with all this that I was chatting with a friend a few years ago. We're both part of a little polytheist friendgroup, and we're both fairly new to our own practice. We were talking about our respective devotional work lately, when I realized that, I was wrong, basically. I was telling her about all these things that I've been doing when I realized, aren't all these things related to Brig? Closely, too.

When we think about Brig, we usually think of her more creative aspect. She's the goddess of poetry, the woman who all poets followed. She's the spark of inspiration, the creator or keening, of the whistle, related to poetry, music and ingenuity. But that's just one of her faces. One of her names.

The myths tell us about other two, equally important faces of hers. Brig the blacksmith, and Brig the healer.

Along with her more creative side, Brig is also heavily related to the home, healing, taking care of the ill. It's a known practice for Imbolc to bless pieces of cloth in her wells for her to bless them and make them more effective when used to take care of the ill, reduce fevers or aliviate pain. Alongside this, she's also known to be a keeper of the home. Her crosses, wether celtic or christian in tradition, are often used to guard the home from fires and similar damage. Similarly, she's closely tied with sheep, that used to have symbolic relation with women and their traditional "duties", which are no longer (or shouldn't be) related to gender.

Besides this, we must not forget a really important aspect of hers. Not only she's a guardian, a mother, a blacksmith, a poet and a healer. Primarily, Brig is known as a goddess of fire. Purifying, inspiring and transformative fire. In this particular way, her fire can also be seen as the fire of hope. It's well known she's the one that ends the winter season, taking the earth from Cailleach, and gives the warmth and light back to the world. In this way, we could also see Brig as a goddess of hope. She's the light that shines in the darkness, she's the warmth in the cold. She's loving life and accepting death by doing so.

And it was with all this I realized, I've never been closer to her in my whole life. Yes, maybe I'm not actively seeking her, but I've been kinda forced to shape my behavior in a specific way to endure and go through this hard time, and the way I've done it is completely in line with her. I'm devoted to her and, withouth noticing, that's shaped me in a way where I naturally find her teachings applied in my day to day life, specially dealing with issues. Of course, I sometimes lose focus and don't act like you'd expect, but I blame that on being human.

It was sort of reassuring, realizing how close I actually am to her already. Realizing that, maybe, there IS a reason I feel so drawn to her after all and why she accepted me as a devotee. Since becoming a celtic pagan, I've never felt alone, but I doubt myself a lot, constantly unsure if I'm doing it right. This realization has given me a feeling I hadn't found yet. I feel constantly accompanied by my goddess and, by extension, my faith. We so often focus on our own expectation. What should we look like as devotees and followers of our gods, that we forget to change perspective. Ask ourselves, "yeah, maybe I want to look like this as a devotee of x god/goddess, but what would they want me as a devotee to be like? What does my devotion mean to them?"

I know there's much to go through yet and that this won't be a perpetual change from my doubts, but I love realizing this and feeling this close to a goddess I love so deeply. I hope this blog actually helps someone in a similar situatioin. We are enough. And the gods will be able to appreciate it. Even better than we do ourselves.

I'll try to write a little prayer based on these thoughts and share it with you. I hope you have a blessed path, whenever you may find this. Slán.

[stefciastark]

Metal Arm ~ Webpril Day 7

A/N: Here is Part 1 of what will be a 2 part mini-story. Doombots threaten Manhattan, but with a significantly reduced team and some bad luck, things don't go so smoothly for Peter. It only briefly touches on the 'metal arm' prompt, but this is also inspired by a request from Hannah on AO3 to write a bit of 'post-battle injured Peter hides his injury and won't admit anything is wrong.' I'm really excited to write Part 2 tomorrow, had a lot of fun writing this first part!

~Read on AO3

~Read on FFN

Peter had never really been strangled, yet today it had happened not twice, not thrice, but it was bordering on his fourth time being on the receiving end of a chokehold. The Doombot cutting off his air circulation ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time however, as three out of its four limbs were obliterated and sent to mecha-heaven. All except the one heavily bicep-ed metal arm that clung to his throat like shit to a shovel.

“Get. OFF,” he gritted through his teeth, tearing the appendage off of his throat and tossing what was now just a torso, head and forelimb onto the growing pile of Doom scrap metal.

He had to take a breather for a moment and remind himself that these were robots and not real people. Despite how convinced their A.Is were that they were in fact the real Doctor Doom, their suicide missions were nothing more than a result of malevolent - albeit skilled - programming.

“You good, kid?” The Ironman suit hovered a few feet away from Peter, appearing to dance slightly in the air as Peter’s brain started playing ‘catchup’ with oxygen. He felt himself nodding in response, muting his comms momentarily so that what was present of the Avengers wouldn’t hear his breathing; he was pretty sure the exhaust pipe on the old Vauxhall Cavalier his uncle used to own sounded healthier.

The team was small today; Thor was offworld, Bruce didn’t feel like having another near miss after almost levelling another city during an incident the week prior near Seattle, and Clint was - as Tony put it - too busy ‘playing house’ in the country. That left Tony, Peter, and Natasha Romanoff on the mission. Peter was unsure whether to call her Nat, Romanoff, or use her Black Widow alias, and instead anxiously settled for using none of the above and simply avoided using any moniker to address her whatsoever. It had worked out for him well so far.

While it was by no means a three person job, they would have to make do, and so far, they were making...something happen. The showdown had initially begun in Hell’s Kitchen and was progressively and concerningly migrating towards the Lower East Side. The closer the action got to the east side of Manhattan, the closer it got to Brooklyn, and the closer it got to Brooklyn, the more there was a chance of the threat moving to Queens, and Peter wanted to keep the rough and tumble away from his neck of the woods if he could. So far they had left in their wake twelve office buildings turned to rubble, eleven burst sewer pipes, and at least ten separate fires that he was pretty sure were still burning. All they needed now were nine civilian casualties and they were almost halfway to rewriting ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.

Tony didn’t have time to follow up with Peter’s uncharacteristic lack of a verbal response as two Doombots that had split from the herd attached themselves to the red and gold armour, their green capes combining with the suit to make a metallic caricature of a Christmas tree. Tony had a whole three seconds of warning before their self-destruct protocols were activated, and everything within a 300-foot radius erupted in a shower of rubble, flames, and smoke.

The suit - for the most part - diminished Tony’s impact with the building adjacent to the Tenement Museum. Peter didn’t quite have the luxury of inches-thick armour, and as he sailed diagonally across Delancey St through the glass window of Double Chicken Please, he made a personal vow to make them his new go-to fried chicken joint as a form of apology.

“Stark, was that you?” Nat (Peter decided that was the name he felt most comfortable with) queried over the comms, the distant sound of shots being fired and the purring motorcycle beneath her leaking into the background.

A stream of expletives from the man in question poured in through his suit’s speakers. Peter found it funny that if it were anyone but Tony in any other situation other than their current predicament, the frankly obscene amounts of swearing would be concerning.

“How many left on your end, Rushman?” There was a groan and the uncomfortably familiar sound of shifting rubble. “I think we’ve just about wrapped up here.”

Peter had been working on gently extricating himself from where he lay in a supine position behind the bar, struggling to hold onto consciousness through a haze of pain. The wall between Double Chicken Please and Subway had collapsed, half of it inconsiderately laying across his chest. He noted wryly that he didn’t expect himself to be battling unconsciousness behind a bar until he was at least twenty-one, yet here he was, five years too early.

A large bang went off from what sounded like only a block away, which was then followed by a moment of complete and utter stillness.

“I think our last guests just left the party,” offered as an explanation from Nat, finally breaking the silence.

“Don’t you hate it when you have company and they don’t even offer to help clean up? I am sickened by the youth of today.” Tony had managed to disentangle himself from what could now barely be called a building. The engineer was able to identify the date of manufacture on the most recent wave of Doombots - they were only three months old. “Speaking of, Spiderling, let’s get this cleaned up. I have a date with takeaway and my favourite sweatpants waiting for me at home.”

“Try not to wreck any more buildings while I’m gone, boys,” Nat said, immediately beginning her commute to the Avengers facility.

Natasha had become the face of the Avengers during the inevitable PR followups that seemed to accompany any and every brush with threat since the Chitauri attack on New York. She was level-headed and presented well, and so far had the least amount of tallies on the “PR Fuck-ups” chart that hung in the communal kitchen in place of a calendar. It was the team’s personal inside joke that S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t approve of, which of course made them double down their efforts if it meant ruffling Nick Fury’s feathers.

“Try not to wreck my public image, it’s what funds those luxury bath bombs you keep ordering,” Tony shot back, no venom in his teasing words.

Peter was otherwise occupied during his teammates’ little exchange. He had his arms arranged in an upside down tricep pushup position, palms pressing against the sizable concrete slab that occupied the space from his waist to his sternum. As he lifted the offending cement off of him, he very nearly dropped it back down as the air rushed out of his lungs. Something in his chest shifted sickeningly, followed by a stabbing pain that burned everything from his ribs to his airways. Failure never an option, he persevered, relieved when the hunk of wall finally slid gracelessly down the pile of debris.

He thought having a literal chunk of concrete off his chest would feel better.

“Pete?” His name was said with such a mixture of impatience, exhaustion, and concern that Peter found his nerves standing on red alert. This would be the first hour of many on cleanup duties

Taking a wavering breath, afraid to breathe too deeply, he steadied his voice and activated his comms. “Sure thing Mr Stark, on my way!”

Peter winced; he definitely overdid it on the enthusiasm. With every step he took his discomfort grew until the pain from his chest radiated down to his hips and he had to stop himself from hunching over and limping his way back to the Delancey St intersection. There were only two of them now, a whole lot of city to tidy up, and not a whole lot of time to spend fussing over what was probably just some deep tissue bruising. Plus, this was his first call to action since July, and it was now approaching the end of November.

Bracing himself for the amount of suckthe next few hours would entail, he gritted his teeth against the throbbing that rolled like waves from deep within his chest, and prepared to put on his best Oscar-worthy performance he’d titled: “I’m Fine - A Teenager’s Pledge”.

There was no way he was going to let Tony down.

A/N: There we have it! Things didn't go so smoothly for Peter, and I know he has superior healing and all but this poor boy needs some more safety built into his suit. Tomorrow will be the Part 2 fill for this mini-story, so check back in for the concluding part :) Thank you for all your continued support, kudos, and comments. Please feel free to send any fic requests into my Asks! Sending hugs to you all <3

[weightlosswhizz]

Getting Along in Life with Your Diet

I just finished reading about a new diet plan in which participants are instructed to remove all food from their cabinets and drawers. In the short term, this leaves you with very few options for what you can actually eat, despite the fact that this may appear to be excellent news for the supermarkets.

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Is it possible to spend the rest of your life subsisting solely on salad topped with flax seed oil dressing?

People have the misconception that they need to make amends for the sins they have committed by eating. The idea that torturing one's body through diet and exercise is good for one's conscience and the prescription of the day is absurd. How else are we supposed to make sense of bizarre eating plans and rigorous exercise routines?

What ever happened to consuming food in a moderate manner and making rational decisions? Even if you are eating a cookie that is specifically designed for dieters, you still can't eat as much as you want.

In order to maintain a healthy diet while traveling or dining out frequently, it is important to eat in moderation, spread out your meals, bring along healthy snacks, or go to the salad bar at your neighborhood grocery store. There is a wide variety of high-quality options available, and the prices won't break the bank.

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When you eat, you shouldn't feel overly full after you've finished your meal. This causes your digestive system to work more slowly, analogous to the way a log jam works, and as a result, you might not be able to eat for at least six hours, depending on the quantity of food that you ate. At this point, your body is begging you to get outside and take a stroll.

You should always be able to get up from the table feeling completely satisfied, and you should eat five or six times a day, with three meals of a manageable portion size and at least two healthy snacks in between.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but diet cookies are rarely good for you. If they had any sort of health benefits, I would eat chocolate chip cookies every day for the rest of my life.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's face the facts: if you enjoy dessert, you simply can't give it up permanently.

It is possible that you will need to significantly reduce your intake if your health continues to deteriorate.

Therefore, make an appointment with your primary care physician, find a diet that makes sense for you, and please walk, swim, or otherwise exercise on a consistent basis.

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[psycloneofsouls-blog]

Diet Secrets: 13 Things Experts Won't Tell You About Weight Loss, From 'Good Morning America' and Reader's Digest

(They recommend six for women and nine for men.) While cutting back on sugar consumption all around is a smart, healthy move, you should also consider swapping some of your sugar for honey. Honey has also shown great promise in animal studies for reducing weight gain and adiposity (fatness) when substituted for sugar. Research shows that those who have deficiencies in calcium hold a greater fat mass and experience less control of their appetite. Skimping on sleep can negate your calorie cutting. The best way to burn fat is with interval training. Nod your head if you do the same workout over and over. That means you'll feel hungrier and are more likely to indulge in poorer eating behaviors. But TV isn't the weight loss devil that many experts make it out to be, particularly if you use it to make you smile and laugh. Here's why: Stress takes an enormous toll on your health (research shows it can increase belly fat and slow down weight loss), and laughing is the perfect stress-relieving, fat releasing antidote. What's more, it's a pretty potent calorie burner in its' own right. Besides giving you a great psychological boost right out of the gate, losing weight quickly may also help you keep it off longer. "Good Morning America" is teaming up with Reader's Digest on a special series, "13 Things Experts Won't Tell You." This month, Reader's Digest unveils the secrets to weight loss, as outlined in the new book, "The Digest Diet," a new, healthy-living plan that lists foods, exercises, and lifestyle tips that help http://www.dictionary.com/browse/salud you release fat fast. 1. It's a nutritious fat releasing alternative that also boasts antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties. And the more I ate, the more I needed to exercise to maintain a healthy weight. Since the work requires glucose for maximum brainpower -- well, we naturally reach for more fuel. To outsmart this fat increaser, it's important to fuel up on hunger-fighting foods high in filling fiber, protein and calcium. You just hit that treadmill, elliptical, or jogging path and you put in your time. Your secret weight loss weapon may be a good HEPA air filter. Exercise alone leads to a very modest decrease in total body weight: less than 3 percent! I learned this lesson the hard way. Ditch the long cardio sessions. Now numerous animal studies are highlighting its great promise as a fat releaser. In one large study of more than 19,000 middle-aged women of normal weight, those who were light to moderate drinkers had less weight gain and less risk of becoming overweight than those who drank no alcohol. So the next time you feel that hunger pang, reach for a fat-free Greek yogurt or baby carrots with a tablespoon of peanut butter instead of a bag of chips. 10. Unfortunately, this exercise strategy can actually backfire when it comes to weight loss and fat burning. Aerobic exercise demands that you increase your energy output. Cocoa contains more antioxidants than most foods and is good for so many things, including -- when consumed in moderation -- weight loss. In a June 2011 study from the Journal of Nutrition, researchers looked at the effect that antioxidants found in cocoa had on obese diabetic mice. A daily dose of chocolate can trim your waistline. If you're like us, you welcome any new excuse to add more chocolate into your life. From 1998 to 2006, I was the executive editor of Fitness magazine. One study found that dieters who got 8 1/2 hours of sleep nightly lost 56 percent more body fat than they did Ir a when eating the same diet but got just 51/2 hours of sleep a night. Other sources of good fat are the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs); found in fish and its oil, and in many nuts and seeds, PUFAs help release fat, too. Unfortunately some myths persist that dairy sabotages weight loss, but science proves this couldn't be further from the truth. For years, I believed that I could eat anything I wanted because I was exercising so much. And as we know, diabetes and obesity are close cousins (80 to 85 percent of those diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes are obese). Click here for more information about weight loss from "The Digest Diet." Read more "13 Things ..." from Reader's Digest . Studying the fitness research and trying the trends were all part of my job. (Since a diabetic's lifespan is, on average, seven years shorter, they were looking for any antiaging promise that increasing dietary intake of this flavonoid might give.) Their findings: The mice lived longer. Good news: Many studies clearly show that a small glass of red wine a day is good for your health. But the more I exercised, the hungrier I was. Here's what happened: I saw a steady increase in my body weight of a pound a year. 6. A Dutch study found that consumption of PUFAs lead to a higher resting metabolic rate (the calories used just to live), as well as a greater DIT, or diet-induced calorie burn. You have to eat fat to beat fat. While too much of the wrong fat (certain saturated fats in highly processed meats and trans fat found in some cookies and crackers) is bad for your health and waistline, a diet rich in the right fat -- good unsaturated fats -- can help both. Good fats, like monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) in olive oil, nuts, and avocados have proven to be powerful reducers of belly fat. What's more, studies have found that dairy sources of calcium -- like yogurt, low- or nonfat cheese, and milk -- are markedly more effective in accelerating fat loss than other sources. In one study out of the University of Tennessee, researchers showed that eating three servings of dairy daily significantly reduced body fat in obese subjects. Losing weight early and fast is best. Because our body is always trying to stay in balance, this type of movement may actually act as a biological cue to make you eat more, which can sabotage weight-loss efforts. Besides that, research shows that continuous aerobic exercise isn't nearly as effective a weight-control strategy as surprising your body with aerobic interval training (short bursts of heart-pounding work, also known as HIIT, or high intensity interval training) or strength training (push-ups, squats, anything that builds muscle and power). 8. A glass of wine a day is an effective fat releaser! So many people have asked me if it's okay to have a drink when trying to lose weight. To those of us who are used to hearing that slow and steady wins the race, this news is a little shocking and counterintuitive. In a 2010 University of Florida study, when researchers analyzed data on 262 middle-aged women who were struggling with obesity, they demonstrated that shedding weight fast lead to larger overall weight loss and longer-term success in keeping it off. 5. If they restricted calories a bit while continuing with the same dairy servings, it accelerated fat and weight loss. 4. So a small nibble of something yummy, like a handful of nuts or some peanut butter on whole wheat crackers, can help you feel full for hours. 2. PUFAs are also burned faster than saturated fats in the body. What's more, fats help you feel full--they have 9 calories per gram compared to 4 for protein or carbs. When British researchers looked into the number of calories burned by intense laughing and compared it to the calorie burn of other daily activities (strength training, running, even vacuuming), they found that an hour of intense laughter can burn as many calories--up to 120--as a half hour hitting it hard at the gym! 9. Also, you may look for more energy in the form of unhealthy snacks! 13. Dairy promotes weight loss. Exercise alone is not an effective weight loss tool -- you have to pair it with the right diet. Thinking you can eat whatever you want as long as you work it off later is actually a pretty dangerous mind-set, particularly if you look at the current research. More and more research reveals that the toxins, chemicals, and compounds riddling our food supply and self-care products are contributing to the nation's collective fat creep. And air pollution is a particularly bad fat increaser: A 2011 study from the College of Public Health at Ohio State University found just that: Exposure to fine particulate matter (air pollution) induced insulin resistance, reduced glucose tolerance, and increased inflammation, leading researchers to mark long-term exposure to air pollution as a risk factor for diabetes. And in another separate animal study done in 2006, the researchers found that resveratrol, a powerful antioxidant found in red wine, improved exercise endurance as well as protected against diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. 11. How long you sleep directly affects your body mass. The difference between being overweight and a healthy weight may boil down to one move: fidgeting. Research shows that people who are naturally lean--you know the sort: They seem to eat all day, whatever they want, and never gain a pound or an inch--automatically, even subconsciously, find ways to move to make up for any extra calories they may be ingesting. Believe it or not, spontaneous physical activity (SPA) like fidgeting, bending, brushing your hair, doing dishes, etc. It may improve blood sugar control, is a great cough suppressant, and it boosts immunity. 12. The cocoa reduced degeneration of their aortic arteries, and it blunted fat deposition. To add more cocoa into your diet, buy unsweetened cocoa and add it to shakes, coffee, and other recipes. 3. Other Columbia University research revealed that people may eat 300 extra calories a day when they get a few hours less sleep than usual. Sleep deprivation interferes with the hormones leptin and ghrelin that regulate appetite. can burn 350 or more calories a day, according to Mayo Clinic research. 7. All sugar isn't evil when it comes to weight loss. It's no secret that America has a sugar problem: According to the American Heart Association, we eat 22 teaspoons a day on average. The real reason you're craving junk foodh You're thinking too hard! If you're like many office workers, your desk job gives you a double fat increasing whammy: Not only are you sitting, inactive, at a desk for most of the day, but this type of mental, knowledge-based work actually makes it more difficult to control appetite and may make us eat more calories and fat. Research suggests that because brain neurons rely almost exclusively on glucose as fuel, intense mental work leads to unstable glucose levels. TV time is OK -- but make it a sitcom. We're not recommending you ditch your exercise routine and sit on your couch popping handfuls of chips. To release fat, here's the trick: Go heavy on the cocoa and light on sugar