#i gave sunshine tidings a little bit of *spice*

[velvet-verve]

Yes, I did just post a new chapter of Fugue State but I’m already knee deep in the next one and lemme tell ya.

It’s a doozy.

We start the chapter going into Med-Tek. Super depressing, creepy, nasty place. Then our band of misfits find themselves in a very different place. Pretty much the polar opposite.

Sunshine Tidings.

A co-op full of like-minded individuals who believe in peace and love and chems above all things. Professor Goodfeels isn’t the only familiar face the gang finds there, either. 😉

Hilarity ensues. You’ll see. 

[ka-za-ri]

Tieguanyin (Barbatos x Reader)

Idk. I just like the idea of soft tea time with butler demon. Enjoy the soft I guess? Unedited because we die like heroes here.

Obey Me! Masterlist: here  Pairing: Barbatos x Reader (GNR) Genre: Non-genre/Character study Wordcount: 1,000 ish   Tags: Fluff, hopeless romanticism Summary: Teatime with Barbatos

Tea with two sugar cubes and the smallest splash of milk. Just enough to make the bitter brew palatable to you. The swirls of white meld into the dark liquid swimming and dancing in time with the silver spoon pinched between your forefinger and thumb as you mixed your drink to your liking. Not a word between you ever needed to be exchanged during this ritual. It was a sacred moment of peace from the world for the two of you.

Tea completely black, poured after a second steeping. Steam rising from the fine porcelain of a cup older than time. The gold leaf has peeled at some point but it only adds to the charm of the piece. He’s told you many times he would get to repairing it, but something tells you he finds the imperfection endearing. He waits only a minute and thirty four seconds before taking the first sip of scalding hot tea.

Barbatos’ long lashes brush his cheeks as he admires the scent and the flavor of tea. You never understood the appeal of tea until he told you to close your eyes. Only then could you see what he tasted.

Assam felt like fields of sunshine and a gentle spring breeze. A forest yonder and mountains on the horizon as far as your eye could see. A world built on scent and comfort all in a single ancient porcelain cup. He only ever chose that for you when the sky was dark and stress loomed over your head. “It’ll give you some energy without making you jittery..” He said, carefully dropping the sugar into your cup before adding the milk. He winks and adds just a drop of honey on top of it all. “For good luck.” 

Rooibos was served when the weather was bright and  after you spent most of the afternoon in the shade of some tree, catching up on reading. He served it with fresh scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam made last summer. “It’s refreshing even if it’s hot.” he explains, pouring himself a cup and you’re transported into a nest made of the softest sheets. They keep your spirit as warm as the sun you basked in hours ago. Even as the hours passed and it became late, you brought back with you the scent of butter and dried flowers. 

He only ever gave you darjeeling when you felt down. The hints of citrus and spice always uplifted you just enough to bring you to a bustling market during the harvest season. You could imagine, if only for a moment, the two of you being human enough to wander the crowded alleyways and the cramped stalls. You could pretend that you weren’t oddly alone despite being surrounded by friends. 

You didn’t ask for comfort during those long days. He would patiently wait while you cried whatever feelings you had out until there were nothing but hiccups and stilted sobs. It wasn’t until you’d reach out with trembling fingers that he would sit by your side and let you release the last of your homesickness onto his shoulder. 

It was a burden he bore without words. It was a weight he carried silently with him and a wound he sought to help bandage with shortbread and another cup of darjeeling. This time, with a touch of honey to help sweeten the bitterness that no doubt welled up from insurmountable loneliness. The bag of candied orange peels he let you bring back with you would tide you over until the next time the weight was too much for you to bear. 

Barbatos couldn’t ask to be a solution; but he could at least be a sanctuary of safety from the chaos. 

He saved the tea from Sun Moon Lake as celebration for all the things you’ve accomplished. He only allowed himself to serve it during the full moon and with rice cakes. It was the only tea he insisted that you drink plain. You were allowed to argue with demons on a daily basis, but his prescriptions on tea were scripture. 

You understood why he was so adamant as it was the only way to taste the faint traces of cooling mint at the back of your tongue while you drank it. Through all the chaos that surrounded you, he always found the best medicine through tea. That night, you counted the stars and drew your own constellations with your head on his shoulder. You told him stories of your home and the traditions that came with the bright harvest moon. 

Chang’e and the bunny on the moon were your best friends and you recounted the timeless words of Li Bai, admiring the beauty of lunar light. While you lamented about the tragedy of poets, he wondered if you realized that you were more beautiful than any celestial goddess you named.

When you mulled over the last cup of the tea that night,  he secretly wrote your name between Perseus and Andromeda, wishing he could immortalize his love for you as the stars had. 

He’s burnt the tips of his fingers from drying young tea leaves over a flame. The wounds ached no matter how much salve he put on them. Barbatos floated chrysanthemum petals across the top of your usual milky mixture, letting a little bit of sunlight seep into the murky drink. Two cubes of sugar with a splash of milk and a tonic to fight off weariness was complete. 

Seeing  you smile as you sipped the drink that came from his hard work was worth all the pain and he forgot about the blisters hidden behind his gloves. It was hard to think of anything but what heaven looked like when you were happy.  “What’s it taste like to you?” 

“Safety.” You replied, taking a crumbling thumbprint cookie between careful fingers and nibbling on it. The crumbs dropped to your uniform, but you were too happy to care. It tasted like home, like where you belonged. You thought of all the comforting things in the world and each image came back to an ornate drawing room where two sets of cups and saucers sat on a silver tray. The only image that stood out was the ritual of brewing tea at the right temperature and the look of concentration on Barbatos’ face as he counted the seconds before he could pour your drink.  

“It tastes like… spending time with you.” 

From that day on, he took his tea with two cubes of sugar and a splash of milk. 

[lotsofdogs]

Hilton Head Island Vacation: Day One

As we pulled away from the condo we called home for the weekend and heard the crunch of gravel under the tires of Ryan’s car, we waved goodbye to Hilton Head Island and I sighed and said, “I really needed that.” Ryan looked at me and said, “I know you did.”

His response surprised me and took me off guard but he followed it up with thoughts about the year we’ve had so far, one that feels marked by loss. We talked about our miscarriages and missing Ryan’s grandmother. We talked about how it’s weird little moments that set off a grief spiral – like driving past Talbot’s (his grandma’s favorite store) or seeing pregnancy announcements for babies now due months past our second “should be” due date. (When will those “should bes” go away? They are miserable.)

Though this weekend included times of reflection and sadness, something I think we both needed, it also included sandy beaches, long bike rides, doughnuts and laughter. Hilton Head Island was exactly what our family needed right when we didn’t even realize we needed it.

And then I woke up yesterday morning and read about the shooting in Las Vegas and the sadness came flooding right back in. What a horrible, hateful and senseless act of violence… an act of violence that only seems to add to the growing sense of desperation for peace and kindness in our country. I felt like I was in a bit of a fog as I began the day and then I read a tweet from Ellen that said, “Care. Love. Be outraged. Be devastated. Just don’t give up. The world needs good humans today.” We really do need more good humans. Let’s all try to be one today and every day. Las Vegas, I hope you can feel the prayers that are coming your way from millions of people right now.

Hilton Head Island: Day One

There’s really no graceful way to transition into sharing the highlights from our weekend trip to Hilton Head Island on the blog today other than to say that writing about our trip made me smile and count my blessings for the bazillionth time. The trip allowed me to unplug, focus on my boys and enjoy the things I so easily miss everyday like the feel of sunshine on my shoulders or the sound of crisp leaves crunching as a squirrel darted away from me as I walked by. 

Hilton Head Island is a gorgeous barrier island located approximately four hours from Charlotte in South Carolina. I visited the island years ago as a little girl but was too young to remember anything so this trip felt like a first-time visit for our whole family. We left for Hilton Head around 4 p.m. on Friday and settled into our condo a little after 8 p.m.

We were invited to stay at the Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort (they were kind enough to cover our accommodations for the weekend) and we commented on the wonderful location of our condo in Huntington Villas a number of times during our stay. It was warm and cozy and located within walking or biking distance of the beach and everything else we wanted to do during our vacation. We went to bed fairly early the first night, anticipating a full day of activity and adventure on Saturday.

Chase shocked us by sleeping in until almost 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. He went to bed close to 9 p.m. on Friday night (his bed time is usually closer to 7:30 p.m.) and since he didn’t nap very long on Friday, I think his lack of sleep caught up with him on the first night of our vacation. This gave me plenty of time to hop on a bike (we rented two from Hilton Head Outfitters) and ride to Palmetto Dunes’ General Store to pick up coffee, milk, yogurt and other snacky essentials to keep on hand during our stay. There was something so relaxing and vacationy about beginning the day by hopping on a bike and pedaling through the morning haze to get coffee that set the best tone for our trip.

I arrived back at our condo to find Chase still sleeping and Ryan reading, so I sipped my coffee on the back porch, painted my nails (this “Grey Matters” color I nabbed a week or so ago) and enjoyed a slow start to the day… a very rare treat indeed!

Once Chase was up, Ryan and I did our best to hype up biking and Chase’s “awesome helmet” since we weren’t sure how he’d handle our first adventure of the day. As it turns out, all the hype wasn’t needed because Chase was all-in on biking from the very beginning.

He loved his seat close to Ryan, thought his helmet was the coolest thing going and happily road around with us for hours over the course of the weekend. Though many of you recommended renting bikes during our visit to Hilton Head, I don’t think Ryan nor I anticipated using them as much as we did. We used the bikes the entire weekend to get us to and from everything from the beach to activities to food.

First up on our agenda for the day was breakfast! A couple of you told me we could not miss the pastries and food at The French Bakery, so we bike two miles from Palmetto Dunes to the beautiful restaurant and grabbed some food and drinks to go. The French Bakery is located in Shelter Cove Harbor, a charming marina lined with various shops and restaurants and, most appealing to us, a large community playground Chase absolutely loved!

Ryan and I ate our breakfast (the quiche was wonderful), shared a cinnamon bun croissant and spent a solid hour at the park with Chase. Everything was fantastic!

Chase ate a bit of breakfast back at the condo before we left for the park but seemed fixated on getting the doughnut we promised him on our ride over to The French Bakery. When the bakery didn’t have any doughnuts available, Yelp came to the rescue and directed us to Duck Donuts. We first discovered Duck Donuts in the Outer Banks earlier this year and even though they recently opened a location fairly close to our house, the doughnuts still felt like a vacation treat and I couldn’t resist trying their seasonal pumpkin spice iced doughnut with cinnamon and graham cracker crumbs.

So good!

Feeling adequately full, we set back out on our bikes and decided to use them to explore the island. We biked all over the place and meandered along the streets of Palmetto Dunes where we gawked at some of the stunning homes and admired the beautiful grounds.

We ended up biking out onto the beach and spent the rest of the morning kicking around a soccer ball, splashing in the waves and playing in the sand and surf.

As a former Florida girl, I’ve seen my fair share of beaches and yet I can completely understand the appeal of Hilton Head Island’s beaches. The shoreline is vast and the sand is mostly hard-packed, making it perfect for biking, walking or jogging. The ocean also creates tons of tide pools all over the beach which are great for little ones like Chase who want to splash around and play but get a little too scared around the bigger waves. Over the course of the weekend, the beach provided a great source of entertainment for our family and we loved swimming, biking and playing random beach games in the sun.

Around 1:30 p.m., we headed back to the condo so Chase could sneak in a quick nap. Ryan and I used this time to shower, make lunch and relax together and I gave myself full permission to keep my laptop closed all weekend which felt AMAZING. Once Chase was up, we hopped on our bikes again and rode off to Pirate’s Island Adventure Golf.

I am NOT a mini golf person mainly because it takes for-ev-errr and I am awful at it but we decided to give it a shot because Chase is in love with the mini putter he received for his birthday and hits golf balls around our house all the time.

Well, as it turns out, bringing Chase along on our mini golfing adventure made it WAY more fun for me, too, and I actually enjoyed the experience! We kept it short and only played around 12 holes, didn’t bother keeping score and laughed hard at Chase’s attempts to get the ball in the hole which often resulted in him picking the ball up and dropping it in. (I feel ya on that one, buddy.) We left when our stomachs told us it was time for dinner and biked to The Sea Shack, the restaurant that popped up over and over again as the must-try dinner spot on the island. When we arrived, the line was insanely long and long lines + toddlers + starving parents don’t mix very well, so we opted to grab food next door at Chow Daddy’s.

We had a great meal and and enjoyed dining outside as the sun began to set. (Pictured above is the avocado toast appetizer we shared to start and it was fantastic! The chewy multigrain bread stole the show!)

Ryan and I typically avoid going out to dinner with Chase because it’s rarely a fun experience (his interest in food has always been low and if you couple that with trying to keep him still in a chair for more than an hour, you’ve got yourself a recipe for the least-relaxing dining experience ever) but we were pleasantly surprised when Chase seemed to enjoy coloring and hanging out while we waited for our food and talked about the fun we had so far on our vacation.

We biked home at dusk and made a pit stop at the General Store for ice cream and wine to bring back to our place before settling in for the night. It was a great first day on Hilton Head Island and I’ll be back again soon to share a recap of day two!

[Read More ...] https://www.pbfingers.com/hilton-head-island-vacation-day-one/

[lotsofdogs]

Tuesday Happenings

Today’s blog post is a recap of our Tuesday with a focus on food and fitness! Thank you to The Laughing Cow® for sponsoring this post!

Hello, hello, my wonderful friends! How are you guys doing? All is well over here. I feel like this week is absolutely flying by and I think that’s due to the fact there’s some vacation anticipation going on in our house right now. (I’ll share more about that soon!) I just wanted to pop in this morning and share a little bit about our Tuesday with you!

Morning

My morning began with a hot mug of coffee and a little quiet time with my devotional before I meandered into our home office to get cracking on a blog post I have due for an upcoming brand partnership. I’m trying my best to “work first, check email second” – one of my happiness habits goals! – and it’s definitely making me more productive. Win!

I worked for an hour or so until my stomach told me to stop and make myself something to eat. Since I was on a bit of a roll with work, I didn’t want to spend too much time on breakfast and whipped up a smoothie with chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, cashew milk, peanut butter, MCT oil, chia seeds, frozen cauliflower, frozen kale and frozen banana.

Apparently I was in the mood to throw a bazillion things into my smoothie but it did a fantastic job of keeping me satisfied up until lunchtime when I typically would need a snack two hours or so after breakfast. Maybe I need to hop back on the smoothie train for a bit!?

I said goodbye to Ryan as I sipped my smoothie and worked up until Chase began making noises in his room. Once he was up and changed, it was time for him to dig into his breakfast. After a brief hiatus, Chase’s beloved whole wheat pumpkin muffins made a comeback last week and I reheated a frozen one in the microwave for 20 seconds to bring it back to life for him. And then it was off to the gym!

I got Chase situated in childcare before rushing into the group exercise room of my gym and grabbing a spot for the mid-morning Strength Training Together class. The last time I took this class, I arrived three minutes before it started and it was totally slammed and I wasn’t able to claim a bench. I came a little earlier and had better luck and enjoyed the 50-minute total body workout.

I picked Chase up after a little bit of stretching and we colored in the gym lobby for a bit before heading home.

Afternoon

Since Chase’s interest in cooking is still going strong, I’m fully embracing it and set him up on his kitchen helper stand to “assist” me with dinner prep. I chopped veggies and Chase added them to the crock pot along with some spices, pork, tomato paste and broth.

And yes, he did all of this while wearing a race medal from the 5K I completed with my family in the Outer Banks earlier this year. He found it in a basket in my office and in case you were wondering if I was wearing one, too, the answer would be yes. Saying no definitely wasn’t worth a toddler meltdown, so we dinner prepped in our race day bling.

Eventually it was time for Chase’s nap and once he was settled I went into overdrive mode and photographed two recipes before beginning this blog post. Lunch yesterday ended up being a hodgepodge of the recipes I made which always seems to happen when I take food photos around here. 

(I ordered some new food photo backdrops from Ink&Elm on Etsy and LOVE them!!! Great quality and tons of selections.)

Naptime flew by as it always seems to do and once Chase was awake, we read his new Halloween book in his room, ate a snack and hung out at home as we waited for a woman to stop by to meet Sadie. I put a call out on a local Facebook group asking for pet sitter recommendations since Ryan and I both experience major dog guilt whenever we have to board Sadie. I think pet sitting will be ten times better for her and the woman we met yesterday seemed wonderful and great with Sadie, too! I think she’ll be in good hands when we leave for our upcoming weekend away.

Chase and I filled the remainder of the afternoon with odds and ends around the house that included a combination of playing, chores and my best attempt at making chores seem like playing which occupied us for quite a while until Ryan arrived home!

Evening

Ryan recently transitioned into a new position within his company and its meant longer hours which is totally expected but these days when he’s able to get home before 6 p.m., it feels like a treat! Since the weather this week called for summer temperatures and sunshine, I crossed my fingers and hoped we might be able to make it out on the boat if he was able to get off work at a decent time. When he texted me a little before 6 p.m. and said he’d be home soon, I quickly changed Chase and myself into our bathing suits and packed a little cooler full of boat snacks to tide us over until dinner.

I packed a few packages of The Laughing Cow Cheese Dippers, some pretzels, carrot sticks and fresh berries for us to enjoy while we cruised around Lake Norman. The Laughing Cow recently sent me their new Creamy White Cheddar Cheese Dippers snacks to try as part of our ongoing partnership (I create content for their social pages throughout the year) and they are so good! Chase calls them his “Dip Dip” (he calls out for them whenever he spots them in the fridge) and the crunch of the whole grain breadsticks pairs perfectly with the cold and creamy white cheddar cheese. (I also love the Creamy Swiss Cheese Dippers with the tomato and herb breadsticks.) A great grab-and-go snack!

We actually didn’t end up doing any swimming last night (well, Sadie did!) but it felt so nice to be on the water and enjoy a little bit of peaceful calm with my family at the end of the day.

Once we docked our boat and drove back home, Ryan gave Chase his bath and changed him into his pajamas while I assembled dinner. On the menu for Tuesday night was Al Pastor Bowls so thankfully it was an easy dinner to put together since the crockpot did most of the work.

Once Chase was settled in bed, Ryan and I decided to call it an early night as well and climbed into bed to chat and read a bit before we eventually fell asleep. You guys, I am SO STRESSED OUT by All the Missing Girls! I know I asked you for suspenseful book recommendations but I am on edge the entire time I’m reading this one. Eek!

And that was our Tuesday in a nutshell! I hope you guys are having a great week so far!

[Read More ...] https://www.pbfingers.com/tuesday-happenings/