#i read a post a while ago that said the lords' birthdays are on holidays

[itsdefinitely]

hey. do you think tinky's birthday is groundhog day

[fallen-in-dreams]

Rumours

Also on AO3. Pairing: Gaara/Sakura. Summary: Sakura overhears a spicy rumour about her relationship with Gaara and their friendship will never be the same again. GaaSaku. Canonish. Prompt: Week 1: Dating. Rated: T. Words: 4,433. Status: Complete.

Author note: My first of the weekly prompts for the tumblr GaaSaku Events. *Cross your fingers that I can do all of the ones I'm trying to finish.* Enjoy. ^_^

Warnings/tags: Just some mild angst and mentions of ShikaTema.

This is for the 2021 GaaSaku Event @gaasaku-fanfests​. I seem to be posting for events late or barely on time this year. Sorry. :)

.

  .:.

“Sometimes your heart sees what your eyes can’t.”

.

  It was supposed to be just another harmless outing. Sakura often took Gaara with her when she went shopping for presents. He was so hopeless at remembering birthdays and holidays like Christmas that she was doing him a favour by dragging him around with her.

And picking out gifts from both of them.

She hadn’t really thought there was anything wrong with that. Or that anyone would read more into it than it really was. Of course, the Kazekage spending time with a foreign kunoichi would get everyone’s attention, but like all exciting new things it would get old, and they’d soon move onto other things.

This was why, all these months on from their first public shopping outing, Sakura was still brushing off the curious glances as she pulled Gaara along, by the sleeve of his work robes. Twelve months she’d been in Suna. Six were spent aiding in a joint training of medical personnel as a part of a healing exchange program to further relations, and then eight weeks as the head of the hospital because Gaara was adamant nobody was doing it better. The last four months had been her lazy months, which consisted of her usual physical training regimen but also acting like a tourist and dragging Gaara along for the ride. So just what she’d been doing before, minus the teaching and hospital visits. Sakura had already achieved what she’d set out to do in this mission, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind to cut her time here short.

And she was finally used to being a constant source of scrutiny for the people of Wind. So here she was, for the second time this week, dragging Gaara out of his office on the rare occasion that he didn’t have either a shit load of paperwork or overdue training of his own to do.

The retailer looked up at them as they stepped into her shop, then smiled and bowed lightly.

“Welcome, Lord Kazekage. Haruno-san.”

“Kitana-san,” Sakura addressed her quickly before tugging on Gaara. He obediently followed and as usual, she did not notice the knowing smile of the elderly woman as she led the redhead around. Her eyes perused the rows of trinkets instead. They were supposed to be getting an engagement present for Temari and Shikamaru. It had been three weeks since the date for their party had been announced and nothing seemed to be good enough.

“Maybe we should get them each a present,” she thought out loud. “What do you think, Gaara?”

His eyes widened slightly. “One from each of us?”

“No, I mean one each from both of us.” He still looked confused. “A total of two presents,” she added, and he nodded. She didn’t remark on how he had stiffened and then relaxed at her words. Gaara was just weird like that.

“Ino got them a weird sex toy,” she said, rubbing her cheek with her finger as Gaara’s face turned pink. “Uh, and I think Hinata said she wanted to get her some wind scrolls.” Her friends’ letters had been all over the place. Everyone was excited that Temari and Shikamaru had finally gotten official and were moving their relationship forward.

“I…uh.” He crossed his arms over his chest, which was actually more of a nervous habit for him these days. “Well… we can do better.”

She giggled and locked arms with him. “Of course. I was thinking,” she said as they moved through the shop slowly. “Temari’s always gotta pretend to be this tough, warrior woman. But I’ve smelled the candles coming from her room. I was thinking of bath salts, but it isn’t a good gift for Shikamaru. But that was before this whole individual gift idea.”

Gaara thought that Shikamaru could use a decent salt bath. They could use it together. The idea of it made him blush and he pointedly avoided eye contact with Sakura as she babbled on about clothes accessories. Apparently, Shikamaru had once confessed to her that he thought belts were interesting.

“Maybe bath salts and candles.” Gaara said, interrupted her gushing about the embroidery on a handmade belt. “His & Hers style.”

Sakura squeezed his arm affectionately. “Brilliant idea.”

She pulled him along gently, not needing to tug too hard because he was fine with following her lead. This shop was mostly popular among young women and older couples. Their wares ranged from scented candles to antique dolls and handmade clothes.

“What do you think about this one?” Sakura asked, taking a strange bust off a shelf. Maybe his mind just went to stationery too quickly, but it just looked like an oversized paper weight to him.

“No good?” She asked when Gaara didn’t respond. He sighed and she tossed it aside. “Okay, next odd little smelly thing.”

He let out a light chuckle at that. Gaara pointed out a few more ideas and they half-heartedly argued over them. They picked up a few bath salts anyway, since Sakura was interested in some for herself, before leaving the story without a present for his sister and future brother-in-law.

“We’ll just have to keep looking,” Sakura said, nodding to herself as they made their way through the crowds of the downtown market. She was oblivious to the interested stares and giggling children.

Truth be told, Gaara was fine with letting Sakura make the decision for him. He hadn’t had to worry about choosing gifts for almost a year and he was happy with that. Growing up with no childhood had ensured he had little experience in the matter, but she was a good teacher when it came to social situations.

They agreed their last chance for a good gift would be the ninja resource store on the edge of the market. Such a place would normally not be in the civilian district, but the proprietors were very good at preventing civilians from buying shinobi utensils. Gaara bought an ornate spear from them two years ago that had been imported from the Land of Iron. He’d started collecting special weapons and suggested to Sakura that they have something ordered in.

It would solve the problem and save time. Not that he wasn’t enjoying himself. Gaara looked forward to these outings more than he was willing to admit out loud.

“Geez.” She hip-butted him. “You’re full of great suggestions today.”

Sakura watched as he blushed and mumbled about looking for something for himself in the shop and as he wandered away, this gave her the perfect time to sneak away. She knew full well he was collecting unique weapons and had one in mind for him. It wasn’t a gift for any special occasion, and she didn’t bother guying things for his siblings unless it was for something in particular, but Sakura couldn’t help herself with Gaara. Her friendship with him was on another level compared with Kankuro and Temari.

When it came to birthdays, Christmas, or just her wanting him to have something special, she’d long ago stopped agonising over the “what does one even buy a kage who doesn’t seem to want anything?” question. Personal gifts that showed she knew him were always well-received. He still had the katana shaped candlestick ornament that she’d bought him for his birthday, sitting in his study. Temari said he never lit it up, which to anyone who knew him, meant he loved it. It would never get used and therefore last.

Sakura kept one eye on where Gaara was in the shop at all times, and the other on the aisle of antique weapons as she perused. That was how she ended up standing in an aisle listening to two gossiping kunoichi. She’d just been minding her own business, looking over a row of ornamental kunai, when the voices carried over to her from the other side of the shelf she was leaning toward.

When she heard her own name being uttered, Sakura peered through the gaps in the shelf. They were a couple of chunin and either had below average sensory skills and didn’t notice her or didn’t care that she was eavesdropping. Sakura didn’t recognise them, so they definitely weren’t a part of the medical units she’d trained, nor did they frequent the hospital. They were also both staring off in the direction that Sakura knew Gaara to be.

The blonde giggled. "Lord Kazekage dotes on Sakura-san, it’s so cute! They just have to be dating!"

The brunette nodded. “Of course. But why haven’t they announced it?”

“Because they’re shy, silly.”

“Yeah right.”

“I’m serious. Minamo said everyone’s talking about it.”

“He’s probably still innocent I bet.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. It was so weird to hear people claiming she had a romantic relationship with Gaara while discussing whether or not he had sexual experience. But it was just a couple of awe struck chunin (and the claim of some random friend of theirs). She decided to turn away but stilled at the next line out of the blonde’s mouth.

“Maybe Sakura-san took his v-card,” the girl snickered, much to the appreciation of the other chunin. “Can you just imagine?”

Sakura flushed from head to toe, struggling to hold her composure. She didn’t want to imagine that. Her heart might just explode. Sure, Gaara was… attractive. But would she have sex with him? He was her friend. They’d never been anything other than friends.

Not that I would want more, she told herself, holding a hand to her chest.

“I bet he’d be a tender lover,” the other girl said, sighing deeply. “Haruno-san is so lucky.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the blonde said, a devious look on her face. “I think Lord Gaara’s hit the jackpot too. Sakura-san has all that medical knowledge about the body. Imagine what she could do with it.”

“Like what?”

“Get his blood pumping. Warm him up. You know,” the blonde waggled her eyebrows and they both giggled. “She’d have him hard in no time!”

They giggled again and the brunette snorted before covering her mouth, mortified at herself.

Sakura stood there like a stunned mullet as they turned away from watching Gaara and started giggling and whispering among themselves. What the hell had she just heard?

“Sakura.”

She spun on the spot, startled. She hadn’t noticed his approaching chakra, engrossed in the conversation she was overhearing. Sakura turned beet red. He looked concerned when she opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. When he made to move toward her, Sakura went into panic mode, charging at him and grabbing his arm. She ushered Gaara away, hoping he hadn’t heard any of that conversation. Knowing him, he wouldn’t even realise what they were talking about.

Gaara leaned in to whisper in her ear, “I found something special for you” and Sakura let out an involuntary sound she’d never heard before.

“Are you okay?”

Am I okay?

Two random chunin had just inserted mental images of her having sex with Gaara into her head. She was not okay. But she nodded anyway, not wanting to explain why her heart was now thumping. Blood rushing to her head. His hand fell to the small of her back. The warmth of his touch had never been more prominent than it was right now as he added a slight pressure to steer her toward the front counter. He wasn’t pushing her. Gaara never pushed her. He was always kind to her. It was so stimulating when he did that.

Feelings she’d kept buried for almost twelve months started bubbling to the surface and Sakura wasn’t prepared for the onslaught. How could she have forgotten this? Suddenly, she remembered the first time his touch had affected her. They’d known each other for years and two weeks into her long-term mission to Suna, she’d been lonely and exhausted when quite suddenly, Sakura realised those warm and fuzzies she’d been feeling were directed at a certain Kazekage. Her twenty-first birthday had come and gone, and she didn’t have any life goals other than revolutionising the medical world. It was a great goal. Professionally.

But after an innocent comment from Hinata about her love life, her birthday had gone from celebrations of “I have my whole life ahead of me” to morose “I’m going to die alone” thoughts, which were reflected in her spending the rest of the night drunk and being shadowed by Ino who was worried she might bring down a building or two, in her destructive angst.

Gaara continued to watch her as she worked through her mental problems but said nothing. He didn’t need to tell her he was concerned. It was written all over his face. It was just another thing she loved about him.

“Let me take you home,” he said. That deep voice of his made her shiver. Sakura felt her body flush again when she heard giggling behind her. (Were those girls following them now?) There was no way they hadn’t heard that.

After a few moments, he started rubbing her back in what he obviously thought was a soothing manner and she blinked heavily at him. Right. She needed to get out of here.

She cleared her throat. “Sure,” she said, her voice a little strained. Out of habit, she wrapped her arm around his. He was a lifeline as she tried to sort out her dysfunctional thoughts. The chunin girls’ conversation had opened a can of worms and she didn’t know how to put them back in.

Sakura glanced backwards in time to catch the women whispering behind their hands and staring at her and Gaara unabashedly. When had her outings with Gaara started such salacious rumours?

And more importantly: why did these people think they were dating?

  .:.

  “Gimme a screaming orgasm!”

Kankuro took the seat next to Sakura as she made her order to the bartender and chuckled.

“You might want to tone that drink down a little,” Kankuro said with a wink. “Gaara might get jealous.”

“Ugh!” Sakura groaned. “Not you too!”

“Whatever do you mean?”

She pointed a finger at him. “You all are talking about me behind my back. Starting rumours and talking about my sex.”

Kankuro snorted. “Your what?”

“I’m a joke, Kankuro-chan.”

“Please don’t call me that.” He grimaced.

She sighed. “What are you doing here?”

Kankuro waved a hand at the bartender. “Another screaming orgasm, please.”

Sakura snorted. “You’re getting more than I am, then.”

He chuckled. “Never delved into the local cuisine since you got here?”

Well, there was this one guy she danced and flirted with the first weekend after she started this mission, but her burgeoning feelings for the Kazekage wouldn’t let her do anything more. She wasn’t a slut and she appreciated that Gaara wasn’t one of those guys that slept around and used their testosterone to excuse it, either. So, she’d been able to settle into routine with him. Friends who gravitated toward each other. Friends who had dinner with each other (alone) quite often. Friends who decided important decisions together instead of alone. Friends who rarely had eyes for anyone else. Friends who didn’t have lives outside of each other...

She groaned and dropped her head on the bar. The awareness of her situation was painful. She wished she could go back to being oblivious. Because it was clear now that Sakura had been accidentally dating Gaara for almost twelve months. Did he know? Or was he as oblivious as her? Everyone had noticed apparently, according to two chunin and their friend. Did Kankuro and Temari know.

“I’m secretly but not secretly dating Gaara,” she mumbled. “And I didn’t know.”

Apparently, even though her face was pressed into the bar, Kankuro had heard her.

“I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”

Sakura groaned again. “We’re not dating!”

“Uh-huh.” He clearly didn’t believe her. “Going back and forth then. You’re in denial.”

“Why are you here?” He didn’t respond and Sakura lifted her head up slowly. “Kankuro?”

“He’s lonely,” he said, staring into his drink thoughtfully. “I know everyone thinks Gaara’s put together and doesn’t need anything more in life than family and friends. But I know that under that oblivious and calm exterior that he’s a romantic at heart. He wants what you two have. But he just doesn’t know how to go about getting it.”

She frowned at him. His seriousness was giving her a bad feeling. Everything had come together so quickly, and she wasn’t even sure what to do with her feelings yet, let alone whatever Gaara might be feeling.

“He’s a bit clueless.”

That was an understatement. Sakura used to think he wasn’t clueless, since he often said things with such confidence that she believed he was more aware than he let on. But then moments like that day in the shop with the chunin girls and Gaara seemed completely oblivious to what was going on. She had no idea what to think of him anymore.

It was why she’d been ignoring him. She couldn’t handle the idea that he might actually return her feelings. She was a coward.

Kankuro put his drink down and patted her on the back. “Just… don’t hurt him, okay?”

Right. Easier said than done.

  .:.

  There were many things Gaara was good at. And so many things he sucked at.

He was proficient with multiple types of weapons and political nuances. But in matters of the heart, he found that he still hadn’t learned anything. He had no idea why Sakura was avoiding him and why his siblings were being more careful about how they talk to him. It felt like it had been back when he housed Shukaku and went on rampages.

The knock on his door startled him and Gaara debated ignoring that chakra signature out of spite but gave in and called her in.

“Gaara?”

He looked up and the slight drop in her smile told him that she’d seen the hurt in his eyes. She’d been avoiding him, and they both knew it.

“I need to tell you something.”

Gaara swallowed heavily and braced himself. Her contract in Suna had only a few weeks left but since the particulars of the mission had already been fulfilled, she was free to leave at any time, if she wanted to. This made his hear race. More than anything he didn’t want her to go. He enjoyed her company and valued her friendship. What he truly wanted from her was more than that and it had taken him months of going along with her intrusion into his life for him to realise what that “more than that” meant for him.

Gaara wanted to date her. He wanted to be doing all the things with her that Temari did with Shikamaru and that Kankuro was currently trying to do with Matsuri. And for that to happen, she had to stay in Suna.

Temari and Shikamaru are dating and he’s still living in Konoha, he begrudgingly reminded himself.

But he didn’t care.

Gaara sat back in his office chair as Sakura closed the door behind herself and shuffled her feet, twiddling her thumbs. She was nervous. And worried about his reaction. He attempted to smile and shift his body language to put her at ease. It seemed to work and before he knew it, she was approaching him with a sad smile and sitting down across the table from him.

“Gaara…”

“Does this have something to do with why you’ve been avoiding me?”

She nodded, biting her bottom lip. “I, uh… found out something. And kind of overreacted to it, got drunk, and took it out on Kankuro.”

Gaara couldn’t help the snort that accompanied a chuckle. “Story of my life.”

She smiled a little wider now. “It does seem easy to do that.”

“Did you hit him?”

“A little. In the training grounds,” she added quickly. “He’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

She went back to twiddling her thumbs.

“You wanted to tell me something.”

Sakura nodded. “There’s no easy way to say this so I’ll just come right out and say it. The whole village thinks we’re dating.” She paused to see his reaction, but he just stared, stone faced at her. “And uh… we kind of have been.”

“All the outings and joint gift giving.” Not to mention how he treated her so preciously in public.

Sakura frowned. There was no question in his voice, just his usual factual tone. He wasn’t surprised. “You knew?”

Slowly, he nodded.

“Why… why didn’t you say anything?”

He blinked heavily and lowered his gaze to the table. Parchments were lined neatly across it as he rarely let them fall out of place. The only matter in his life that Gaara let get messy were his relationships. They were inherently messy, so he had no problem dealing with them as such. Which was why he was so anal about everything else.

“Gaara?”

Gaara didn't seem to want to explain himself.

He didn’t want to deny or confirm that he may or may not be dating the Fifth Hokage's protégé, to the public. He let the rumours spread and did nothing to quell them. Gaara had even played up to them which he’d known was wrong but couldn’t help himself. There was no way that admitting this to Sakura would go well for him. Perhaps he could inform her over time, but right now the realisation of what had been going on was too raw for her.

And she could see his hesitation for what it was. Avoidance of setting the record straight. Sakura frowned. Was it because of appearances? Or something more personal? It could be embarrassment. She knew he’d grown up with little human contact, none of which would’ve prepared him for adult relationships. It left him in the lurch for so many important social interactions.

But why wouldn’t he want to fix this? It would look bad for the village if the Kazekage was pretending to date someone. Especially since she was going home in a few weeks. Her heart clenched at that, and she had to close her eyes to stop herself from losing control. Sakura had only just allowed herself to remember and acknowledge that she’d developed feelings for Gaara months ago, she didn’t want to break down in front of him now.

Why didn’t he tell me?

What was he playing at?

Maybe it was because he liked her? Sakura felt her skin flush at that. No. It was probably pride or indolence. Likely, he didn’t fully understand the ramifications.

“He’s a bit clueless.”

Had Kankuro meant that romantically? Or sexually? Or perhaps socially? She bit her bottom lip as Gaara turned his head away. The skin along his neck was tinged pink and his face looked slightly flushed.

All of the above, then.

Maybe he really was too embarrassed to push back at the rumours. Gossip was a poison though. In order to successfully rebuke it, you had to do so fast. And with the truth, not silence or denial on their own. Sakura knew this from experience back when she was still listening to Ino’s ramblings about Sasuke. This rumour had run its full course and nothing short of a very public breakup would get them out of it.

“Is it…” he started slowly, breaking her out of her thoughts. Gaara looked up to catch her gaze. “Is it really so bad?”

Is the idea of us really so horrible?

She heard that unsaid question loud and clear.

Sakura stood up and circled the table to stand in front of him as he swivelled on his chair to face her. “No.”

Gaara smiled. But it didn’t reach his eyes.

“You want this?” She asked.

This was the moment of truth. He could lie and revert their relationship to the way it was before, except with them being more conscious about not appearing to be a couple. Or he could take a hold of her and ask for the one thing that had been plaguing him for months. He swallowed heavily and she watched the way his Adam’s apple bobbed. Was it weird to be turned on by that?

“Yes,” he said huskily.

Desperately, yes.

She didn’t react for a moment, just scanning his face. He held his breath, waiting. Then Sakura leant forward, closing her eyes as his widened. But he didn’t pull away as she pressed her lips to his gently. His hands went to her hips as she rested hers on the arms of his chair, caging him in.

Gaara deepened the kiss, making her gasp and then plundered her mouth. He’d never done this before, that much was obvious to her. So, she took control, slowing their pace and sucking on his lips gently when he tried to hasten her. Sakura fell into his lap, her hands tugging at his hair as he wrapped his arms around her waist. As she straddled him, she lost herself to the feel of his body beneath hers and Sakura moaned.

The sound broke their reverie and the Kazekage bit her lip. Without pulling out of their kiss, he sent his sand out to lock the door and knocked everything from his desk with no concern for their wellbeing. Fuck caring about that right now.

Sakura grinned into their kiss as he pushed her back onto the table. This had been the right choice after all.

  .:.

  Sometime later, Sakura emerged from the Kazekage's office to find his siblings nearby, like they’d been waiting to find out the result of her talk with Gaara. She knew she needed to reprimand them, but she was too happy right now to care.

Kankuro raised an eyebrow at her. She looked dishevelled. Like someone had snogged the crap out of her. He fought to keep himself from grinning like an idiot.

“Sakura?”

She cleared her throat and stared down at him. “You’ll be interested to know that Gaara is no longer clueless.”

Temari groaned as the Leaf kunoichi sauntered out of hallway. Kankuro waited until Sakura was out of earshot and gave his sister a shit eating grin then stuck his hand out expectantly.

“I won,” he said.

She scoffed. “No, you didn’t.”

“Hey! I said they’d end up dating!”

Temari shook her head and took a sip of her drink to hide her smirk, then said, “you said they’d sleep together within an hour of resolving this. They clearly just made out.”

“Temari!” Kankuro pouted.

“Not paying up,” she sung, before following Sakura’s lead and sauntering off.

He huffed. Siblings were evil.

  .:.

[priorireverte]

Congratulations Ash!

Your application for Theodore Nott has been accepted. As much as my inner government official is groaning and reaching for the headache potions already, I can’t wait to see what trouble this Unspeakable gets into.

Please look to the checklist for the next steps and reach out if you have any questions!

OUT OF CHARACTER

NAME & PRONOUNS: ash & they/them

AGE: twenty six

TIMEZONE: est

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m a front end dev for a virtual event platform who works between 5-7 days a week but I’m usually active after 6pm and on weekends. I have slow weeks when on lighter projects and busier weeks when we have a lot of shows.

ANYTHING ELSE: N/A on triggers. I’ve been roleplaying on tumblr for i think 14 years? Too long.

CHARACTER DETAILS

NAME: Theodore Cantankerus Nott

BIRTHDATE: July 7th, 1980

DEATHDATE: N/A

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cismale, he/him. Theodore hasn’t given much thought to his sexuality, not even as far as labeling it. In the past, he’s found his attraction hasn’t been limited to one side of the gender spectrum. Currently, he’s entirely too busy to even sit for a moment and identify his years-long attraction to his current roommate. In the same manner, gender is never something he’s felt the need to question.

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

OCCUPATION: Unspeakable in the Death Department.

FACECLAIM: Woo Do-hwan

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

TW. Child Abuse, Neglect, Parental Death

POSTBELLUM

Theodore finds himself deeply in the middle of moving on. His own experiences with the second wizarding war left a sour taste in the wixen’s mouth and not just due to his father’s involvement. He watched various classmates suffer at the hands of the Dark Lord, familial pressure, and expectations. He noted no members of the high and mighty heroes seemed to think of the lowly slytherins. No hands were outstretched. No children saved from their situations. That was the heart of the issue. They were children then and aren’t now. How is he to trust that his generation will act any differently? Theodore has always preferred to be on the sidelines, to watch before acting, and to have his actions be as discreet and unnoticed as possible. Growing up, the lesson of fading into the background had been indoctrinated into him and that was a terrible thing to try to shake. Theodore’s never been a fighter. He’s always preferred to have knowledge on a situation before speaking.

Becoming an Unspeakable gave him a chance he never thought he would have to dedicate his life strictly to learning. With the dead coming back, Theodore hopes for his mother even though hope is something he has given up on a long time ago. Hope always leads to disappointment. Planning for the worst, however, leads to being pleasantly surprised by the results you receive. He doesn’t have many nightmares anymore. Any last trauma comes to him more in the form of a too quick touch or a raised voice sending his senses haywire. Lately, however, he swears he’s hearing his father’s voice in the midst of the Return’s camp. Seeing his face out of the corner of his eye. He knows the possibility of his father is high based on who has turned up so far. He does not wish for that day to ever come.

PERSONALITY

(+) Aware. Everyone had an opinion, a snap judgement they made based on your actions upon first interaction and rumors and gossip they had heard about you. Theodore is too aware of his own actions, his nature, and how he could be perceived due to his bloodline. He listens and watches while in the bowels of the Ministry.. He keeps an eye on the paper, aware of their sensationalized stories of the past. He stays aware when he locks himself in his and Draco’s two bedroom flat for the night, his house elf and cold ancestral home merely a thing of the past.

(+) Humble. It would be rare to hear Theodore speaking on his own accomplishments. When others bragged over NEWT results, family estates, or care packages while at school, Theodore stayed silent. In a post schooling life, he found he had nothing to brag over. His work is undiscussed, both by a willingness to keep to his own code of ethics and true inability to speak on it. Perhaps it is his conscience telling him karma was a tricky thing, the winds of fate often changed and were never certain. He is always aware that if he begins to celebrate his achievements, they could slip through his fingers before he had a chance to fully appreciate them.

(+) Skillful. When you spend most of the early years of your life hiding, there is no better place than a library and there is nowhere best to escape to than a book. At a young age, Theo’s mother Perdita exposed her son to learning. It became a joyous activity for the two of them. The dwindling vaults of the once great Nott family had no spare coin for a tutor for their only heir. Once it was just himself and his father in the house, Theo entertained himself with the curious collection of family heirlooms that littered the corridors of Nott Hall. He enjoys puzzles and figuring out just how magic is intertwined with a physical object. Nowadays, Theo spends his time pouring over books from Obscurus’ impressive collection while on his lunch break. He has enough puzzles to keep himself occupied for his lifetime.

(-) Cautious. It would be irresponsible to think the world was capable of change so quickly after the defeat of the Dark Lord. People didn’t change. Not unless they wanted to. Monetary repercussions, war reparations, were only likely to affect outward interest, not ideologies. Though perhaps that cautiousness had negatively affected Theo. He turned inward, the social progress he had made from fourteen to sixteen taking a turn when the Carrows took over the castle and his own father was broken out of Azkaban. He limited his social interactions severely, preferring to stick his nose in a book or have a quick intimate meeting over big social events and friendly gatherings and he still hasn’t grown out of that inclination. His social circle has been kept even as years passed and he enjoys a separation of the different areas of his life.

(-)Distractible. Wix alike were an issue. A pretty face, handsome smile, and a nice word easily swayed Theo’s attention. Always conscious, the tall boy doesn’t reveal or give much of himself. He does find he tolerates speaking to someone at length if they are intriguing when he would have otherwise ended a conversation. The same can be said for those with strong personalities. He finds himself getting caught up, steam rolled, instead of speaking up.

(-) Resentful. Theo often wondered how his life could have been different. What if his father had been captured after Voldemort’s first fall? What if some member of upper society took a moment to investigate the reservedness of Perdita or young Theodore? What if a professor questioned why young Theodore always stayed at the castle and never went home for the Yuletide holidays? So many things in his life could have been different if someone had looked closely, but they weren’t. The Malfoys, Narcissa specifically, were his only saving grace throughout childhood but they still didn’t overstep and remove him from his home. His resentment is something Theodore tries to tamper down when he can, choosing to look at life positively. No one demanded his quiet in his flat. The heat works with no need for an illegal heating charm here or there. He knows where everything is in his small space, even with Draco living alongside him. He doesn’t need to hide his things for fear of retribution. There are no nights worrying over going hungry.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY

Theodore Cantankerus Nott was born the only child and heir to Cantankerus Nott and Perdita Nott (nee Travers) on a warm summer night in early July. Theo spent little time under the careful (and stern) thumb of his father before his mother’s death. His mother was a much gentler figure, helping Theo grow sweet and strong. Perdita taught her son all the names of the flowers, their uses, and any star he asked the name of. She introduced him to music, showing him the piano and allowing him to pick up the violin. Theo was content to forget his father’s presence when he could, though he never dared voice that state of mind to Perdita. As Theo approached his eighth birthday, he began to see his childhood might not be as normal as his peers. He and his mother rarely left the grounds of Nott Hall. The once great stately home had slowly fallen to a near-ruinous state over the years. There was no shopping done by Perdita, all taken care of by their two remaining house elves. No tea time or meetings for the boards of any councils. The one time his mother seemed to be able to leave was when she was on the arm of his father at a required event. Theo wasn’t permitted to have friends over though visits to other sons of great houses were heavily encouraged the closer Hogwarts grew. He noticed the blatant way his peers’ parents showed affection. The boys his age never shied away from their father, some even spoke back with no fear of punishment.

Theo had stayed the sweet boy his mother had encouraged. Though his own father grew concerned about what was keeping the young boy soft. It didn’t help that Perdita’s health had begun to deteriorate ever since her birthday. Her walks around the garden with her son proving to be a bit too much for her. That duty had been given to the house elf, Dandy. Though she still wore the bracelet his father had gifted her every day. On the eve of his eighth birthday, his mother was trapped on the third floor of their home in her bedroom. There were no healers in and out of the grounds. Eight year old Theo took to hiding in the library, reading every book he could. He knew there must be something his parents were overlooking. They just weren’t trying hard enough. If healers could fix this, but weren’t allowed on the ground, he would. But his research proved naught and Perdita passed just before Christmas day, leaving Theo in his father’s sole care.

There were no kind words for the severe kind of man his father was. Piano lessons stopped as there was no one to teach him. Theo found himself with more alone time than he had ever had before as his father wasn’t a man you would like to find yourself around for any period of time. The exception was meals, when the youngest Nott and the eldest were forced to interact. His father often deemed these mealtimes lecture times as well, spouting off ideals Theodore never would have heard from his mother’s mouth.

HISTORY

When his first year arrived, Theodore understood the extent of what his mother had shielded him from. In the few years of them being the sole occupants of their home, his father’s once rare cases of corporal punishment had become a near daily occurrence. He had learned many times since gaining a wand that healing was an unacceptable action to take but his father had no issue with glamours. A word of what occurred at home wasn’t appropriate conversation. Familial business stayed such, without outside input or scorn.

It took Theo many years to come out of his proverbial shell. He thinks without Malfoy Manor as a place to escape to on school breaks and summer weekends, he may have not turned out the same. As his father’s attention turned away from his son and to the Dark Lord’s return, Theo felt almost free. That freedom didn’t occur until the Battle at the Department of Mysteries. The ministry had no issue arresting his father and not looking into whether young Theodore Nott would have any sort of adult supervision the summer before his sixth year. Why would they need to? Families like his never suffered.

Theodore didn’t participate in the Battle of Hogwarts, too fearful someone would take one look at him and make the sort of assumptions that ended with him being written about as another young death eater killed in the skirmish. He hoped to whatever ruled the skies and stars that his father didn’t survive, feeling guilty immediately that he had even had that sort of thought. It was safer than assuming his father was imprisoned. His father had escaped once before with no issue and there was no doubt in the youngest Nott’s mind that his old man could do it again. Fortunately, his wish came true.

Four years post Battle, Theodore has created a separate life for himself than the one originally laid out and it’s all thanks to the Department of Mysteries. The week after his father’s death, Theo returned home. He allowed himself only a week to mourn a man he knew in his heart he absolutely despised. Before the week was out, the long quiet house was filled with voices. Strangers were sitting in the abandoned sitting room. They had a proposition, a job offer, and no answers for how they had gotten through the wards of his home. Today, he has just about moved up to a fully-fledged unspeakable in the death division. The challenge of the Returned lays ahead.

His ancestral home of Nott Hall lays virtually abandoned. Only the blood wards stopped the acquisition of the property from anyone who strolled upon it. He still has some duties, as the remaining and only Nott, to attend to. Meager reparations paid to the Ministry dried up the last of the Nott vaults, leading Theo to have to acquire a small flat that he shares with Draco. It’s not fancy by any means, nothing like the tall ceiling rooms they both grew up in and without any house elves, but it’s theirs. His first purchases for himself, the sofa and his bed, are by far his favorite things in the whole flat.

OOC EXPLORATION

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Please you know. I hate it here.

ANYTHING ELSE?

https://www.pinterest.com/securemal/priori-reverte-theodore-theo-nott/

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS

CHARACTER CONTRIBUTION

I truly love the idea of bringing in an Unspeakable to this world. It’s curious how they are the ones who made, and possibly caused, the discovery of the Returned but know so very little. Their, and Theo’s, entire worth is built on knowledge but they’re diving into the utter unknown and there are so many factors to consider about how this could end up. We don’t even know if the Returned can sustain themselves indefinitely. You’ve built a lovely playground for us, Emmy, and I’m too excited to play in it. But also I love Theodore Nott. Cursed Child did him dirty okay.

PRESENT

It was another night of waiting. The wooden small chair the Unspeakables were given wasn’t comfortable despite the many cushioning charms Theo’s co-workers had applied to it. He supposed that was the point. Most of the death division were working double or triple shifts. They had allocated reserve Unspeakables from both the time and love divisions and, still, they were understaffed. Their stock of pepper up potions should have run dry some time ago but the healers had been called in as well. No amount of pepper ups made this task any easier.

The coffee in his hand was lukewarm and Theo’s eyes were drooping. Slowly closing as his head fell forward until he caught himself. The curtain was moving. He could see it and he could have sworn he heard the now familiar sounds of confusion and anger at how the next unfortunate soul had ended up in the windowless chamber but he was wrong. The curtain always moved and Theodore always heard the whispers. It had taken quite a lot of restraint the first time he had been granted access to this room years ago but he kept his distance as the object called out to him. It was no different than the cursed books and painting and vases in his own home and Theo learned long ago that anything calling out for you was not a good sign. It only led to death. All things did in the world but especially here. Purposefully here. He wasn’t going to end up like his mother, touching something that didn’t belong to him and paying the price for it.

[javistgs-ficlibrary]

Fics in May.

Hi, everyone!

It’s been ages since I did one of these, but I’m finally back!

Life was certainly busy last year and I didn’t read, or write, as much as I wanted to, but I still found a little time to enjoy some beautiful fics. 

Here they are, hope you find a new favourite among them. Happy reading!

Have suggestions or fic recs? Send them my way!

Multi-Chapters / WIPs

After the Fire by @otrascosasseries

Everything changed a day like today but three years ago. This exact day but three years back, I lost the two people in the world I cared most about, but I'm going to try to recover one.

Case of the Honeymoons by @katnissdoesnotfollowback

Newlywed Everlark smut.

The Christmas You Never Knew You Always Wanted by @mtk4fun

Haymitch Abernathy, a lonely, wealthy business owner, experiences a Christmas unlike any he's ever known when his secretary Effie Trinket plans his holiday.

Damaged, Broken, and Unhinged by @rosefyrefyre and fanficallergy

After her father dies of black lung disease, Katniss is forced to do the unthinkable in order to keep her younger siblings alive and all of them out of the community home. Now, with the unexpected help of the baker's youngest son, she has to figure out how to go from just surviving to thriving in poverty-stricken Twelve.

Epoch by TheAmazingJAJ

"Love has no distance, it hath no continent, its eyes are for the stars." Soulmates AU in which Peeta grew up in Two and both volunteer for the 74th Hunger Games.

Geometry by @dandeliononfire

Peeta finds himself married to Katniss as the result of a bargain struck between his father and her dying mother. The road forward is unclear, painful, but also Bittersweet. Can Peeta solve the Geometry of how their lives are meant to fit together? Canon-divergent; neither Prim nor Peeta were reaped for the 74th Games.

How Do You Know? by @notanislander

Just a simple growing back together story as told from the perspective of our five senses.

Inevitability by @xerxia31

For Prompts in Panem farewell tour Day 2: What if? What if Peeta and Prim hadn't been reaped? Inspired by the canon line ‘this would have happened anyway’.

Inmate by @badnovels

Everlark meeting in prison.

It Happens Eventually Anyway by Meyers1020

This is an Everlark time-travel fic that begins immediately before the epilogue of MJ, but finds Peeta inexplicably waking the next morning to find it is the day of the reaping for the 74th games. Everything is just how he remembered it, except for the changes he makes.

May 8 by @shesasurvivor

May 8th is Katniss Everdeen's birthday! To be updated every year with a fic in honor of this date.

My Fate is in Your Hands by @historywriter2007

The world changed overnight, now Katniss must take her place in this new reality. When a hidden family secret is revealed she must make a decision that will change her life while she learns who she can truely trust.

Peeta’s Honeymoon Survival Kit by Medea Smyke

What could Peeta possibly need for his honeymoon? Lord knows. Good thing he's got such good friends, like Gale and Finnick, to help him figure it all out

Play My Way by @booksrockmyface

Katniss discovered a way to take back a lot of the control she feels she loses with her chronic pain by controlling men for pay. But she is ready to have a more meaningful relationship by tying up the same man every day.

Secret Kisses, Secret Wishes by @katnissdoesnotfollowback

Katniss enters the Arena of the 74th Hunger Games with her best friend and hunting partner, but she’s really not sure what to make of one of her mentors -- the boy with the bread and victor of the 73rd Games.

See Right Through My Walls by @booksrockmyface

Peeta has a lot on his plate with a cake decorating business, a young son, and his son's drug addicted mother floating in and out of the picture. But when he meets Katniss through mutual friends, he decides to make a little room. All he has to do is show Katniss that friendship is fine, but romance is better.

Things Remembered by @marzgaperez

AU Everlark where Katniss and Peeta cross paths after nearly a decade. A kind gesture from the past leads to possibilities for the future.

Drabbles and One-Shots

100th Hunger Games by WildcatPacer

A Good Thing to Do by @historywriter2007

Apprehension and Anticipation by @rosefyrefyre and fanficallergy

Asdfghjkl - Inspired by my phone's worthless autocorrect by @everybirdfellsilent

The Communicator by Buttercupbadass

Drunken Truth by @booksrockmyface

Drabble by @mega-aulover

Eating In by @historywriter2007

Everlark grinding and under the influence by @shesasurvivor

Familial Relations by Court81981

For Love (And Money), an Everlark one shot by @booksrockmyface

Grandparents by @ellanainthetardis

Here for a reason by @bigstarkenergy

“Hey, you dropped this.” by @shesasurvivor

“I know you’d rather not answer the question, but I’ve really got to hear it to know you don’t have a concussion.” by @butrfac14 

“I may have overdone it.” by @shesasurvivor

Jealousy by @jlalafics

Just Dance by @rosefyrefyre and fanficallergy

Katniss has to put butter on Peeta’s bread, and he hates it by @sponsormusings

The Little Black Dress by @ellanainthetardis

The Little Things by @thegirlfromoverthepond

Mechanic!Peeta au by @katnissdoesnotfollowback

Morning Snuggles by @katnissdoesnotfollowback

My friend dragged me to this party... by @jlalafics

My Heart is Heavy by @dracoisalooker76

The Night Before by @historywriter2007

Of Trends, Jealousy & Lingerie Magazines by @ellanainthetardis

Office Romance by @mega-aulover

Office with a View by Buttercupbadass

One Night Stand/Unplanned Pregnancy prompt by @it-was-so-human

Paired at the Theme Park by @thegirlfromoverthepond

Person A is too small to put the top ornament on the three so Person B lift them up by @awkwardeverlark

Peeta the Friendly Ghost by @alliswell21

Peeta’s Pocket by Buttercupbadass

Post MJ: Katniss’s birthday drabble by @tobeverytender 

Prom Couple!Everlark by @ally147writes

Singles Will Be Paired by @mega-aulover

Someone Worth Melting For by @andthisisthewonder

Stranded by @pirateherokillian

Studying for finals. One is the tutor the other only pretends to need help by @alliswell21

Through the Wood by Buttercupbadass

Time after Time by Buttercupbadass

A Toast to Victory by @ghtlovesthg

Wanderlust by @muttpeeta

When Peeta met Katniss by @alliswell21

Whoa! by @notanislander

“You aren't serious... Are you?" by @booksrockmyface

Everlark Fic Exchange. Springtime Edition 2019.

Always You by @sunsetsrmydreams

Be In My Eye by @reachingforaspark

By the Book by @hutchhitched

Extended Office Hours by @hutchhitched

F-CATS by Buttercupisbrainless

Glitch b-y @booksrockmyface

I Just Can't Remember Why We Said Goodbye by @butrfac14

Incubus by @alliswell21

In From the Cold by @melacka

It’s Your Birthday (2) by @sunsetsrmydreams

Katniss the Baker? by @norbertsmom

Long Exposure by @alliswell21

Love the Sunrise by @hutchhitched

Reflections by @justajjfan

Singing Duets by @historywriter2007

Stranded Travellers by @historywriter2007

Tripping in Love by @neverstopwhileyoureahead

Unmasked by M

[hope-for-olicity]

Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - April 26th, 2019

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them. This and all previous Fabulous Olicity Fanfic posts can be found on my blog.

Tumblr Drabble - Bow by @dreamsofolicity -This takes place somewhere in 5x18, after Oliver disbands the team. It’s pretty angsty but my mind kind of wouldn’t leave me alone about it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11833266/chapters/26782701

Home To You multi-chapter Complete by @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl - Oliver Queen has never done what his family expected of him. He took a gap year after high school instead of going to college right away. He quit his fraternity sophomore year to join the student newspaper, switching his major from business to journalism. He became a photojournalist for a wire service instead of taking a place at Queen Consolidated. He went missing after six months instead of coming home for his sister’s twenty-first birthday. He survived five years of captivity in a war zone when everyone thought he was dead. He came home. But home didn’t have a place for him in it anymore. His parents were both dead, casualties of their own mistakes and a city they had turned against them. His sister was all grown up, the CEO of Queen Consolidated with a fiancé and a dog and a life of her own. Oliver didn’t belong in his old life, but there was nowhere else for him to go. He was a man without a home, without any way of finding one, until he stopped by the IT department of his sister’s company to get files off an old, battered memory card, and found a woman with curly blonde hair and bright, intelligent eyes chewing on a bright red pen and swearing at a computer screen. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613188/chapters/28734552

With the Speed of an Arrow multi-chapter WIP by @academyofshipping -Oliver Queen’s elite and silver-spoon life has taken some blows in the past few years, but he is still the carefree billionaire everyone knows of and loves. When his role in the family business is in jeopardy and he is introduced to a motley of new people, his status quo is threatened. With a changed perspective, Oliver realizes his feeling for his best friend and anchor-in-life, Felicity Smoak, may be more than just platonic. OR A modern adaption of Jane Austen’s Emma with a gender swap* and no island. *Knowing that gender is not binary https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559846/chapters/38799857

Overwatch multi-chapter Complete by @it-was-a-red-heeler - A burglary attempt convinces the Mayor of Starling City to hire Smoak Technologies to strengthen his security. But between the sassy AI watching him 24/7 and the personal trainer with his own reasons to kill him, Oliver may wish he’d stuck with his baseball bat for protection. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500640/chapters/41221793

A Soul Lost at Sea multi-chapter WIP by @tinaday3w - MAGNIFICENT regency romance where Oliver is a pirate who had returned to his previous life. http://archiveofourown.org/works/8181362/chapters/22297091

One Step Ahead multi-chapter WIP by @stephswims - Felicity Acerbi is married to esteemed Italian mob boss. Married after a failed business deal with her father, she is forced into a life decided for her. That is until a new bodyguard is hired. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16959333/chapters/39855036

| ONE | (Oliver the Footballer) multi-chapter WIP @someonesaidcake - Felicity Smoak had a plan; to save enough money to kick her monotonous job and start up the company of her dreams. She made good plans, solid plans, attainable plans. He was never part of her plan. His name was Oliver Queen, the reclusive Brazilian football star with a broken smile and a story to tell. He'd never planned on her either. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15005402/chapters/34779542

Will Fate Allow? multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Seeing her parent's marriage dissolve at a young age made Felicity yearn for a healthy marriage of her own. She thought she'd finally found what she was looking for when Billy Malone showed up offering her what her heart desired. She thought she was happy and had everything she could want, but things began to unravel. Slowly she turned to someone who had become an unparalleled constant in her life...Oliver Queen. Oliver and Felicity are the definition of polar opposites. He is the mob boss that strikes fear in the hearts many, while she is seen as the sweet girl next door, but there is more to both of them underneath the surface. Along the way, they become connected to one another leading to their lives being intertwined forever. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521596/chapters/38699951

The Voice on the Line multi-chapter WIP by @faegal04 -After his relationship ends, Oliver moves back to Starling to get his life back on track. He's not ready for a physical relationship so his best friend Tommy gives him the number for a local company, Quiver, a local phone sex business. Oliver calls one night and starts speaking with a girl whose voice just does things to him. When he falls for the voice on the line and finds himself calling all the time just to hear her, he knows he has to make a decision. Will they meet? Can each of them get over their pasts? https://archiveofourown.org/works/18511543/chapters/43870330

The Fan multi-chapter WIP by @leuska - For the past couple of months, Felicity Smoak, previous child star known to the world through her alter ego Lisy the Tech Whiz, who ended her career and her growing popularity at the age of thirteen rather abruptly, has sporadically received disturbing notes and gifts in her mail. Police believe the notes to be just little tokens of appreciation by a former fan. Despite having left the spotlight over a decade ago and living in anonymity since, the fan mail keeps coming, increasing in frequency as well as intensity. The last drop is when Felicity receives another letter with a love note. A scary, ominous note. A note written in human blood.FBI director Amanda Waller tasks her best Agent to the case. Oliver Queen, a criminal profiler, is currently working on a special task force formed between SCPD and FBI to catch a man dubbed the Start City Slasher, who has murdered at least three young women in the past nine months. Agent Queen is not thrilled with the prospect of holding a former princess’ hand through her problem with a simple stalker while a serial killer is still at large. However, once meeting her, Oliver finds there is nothing easy or simple about Felicity Smoak as their worlds start to intertwine. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726573/chapters/41820368

2 + 2 Equals a Family multi-chapter Complete by @mogirl97 - When Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak both reach for the last Lego Batman set on the shelf at the same time one December night while holiday present shopping for their kids, they have no idea that their chance encounter is going to change their lives. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11853030/chapters/26760468

Providence multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated - Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not. Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she'll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move... And her life. Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919056/chapters/42308753

Paging Dr. Smoak multi-chapter WIP by @laxit21 - When Oliver Queen gets into a car accident, he meets Dr. Felicity Smoak. He had no idea how much a chance meeting would change his life. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262497/chapters/40595483

Love By Contradiction multi-chapter WIP by @pimsiepim - When Felicity meets Oliver, it’s anything but romantic. Taking her best friend’s spot at a speed-dating event wasn’t exactly how she had pictured spending her Friday night. Meeting said best friend’s soulmate? Even less expected. And even though Felicity never really believed in that silly prediction a fortune teller made ten years ago, the occasion is just too good to pass up. Alena is stuck in a toxic relationship and maybe what she needs to finally get over her ex… is to get underneath someone else. Mission “Get-Alena-And-Oliver-Together” is on the way, and Felicity will stop at nothing to make sure her best friend gets her happily ever after. Nothing. Not even Alena’s lack of interest, or Oliver’s weird tendency to ask Felicity out on fake dates. The plan is perfect, the execution flawless... except for one small detail: it’s not Alena who’s starting to fall for the guy... https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550876/chapters/43969807

Time for a Story multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. YOU NEED THIS STORY IN YOUR LIFE. https://archiveofourown.org/works/3912157/chapters/8757172

seemingly impossible (but not untrue) multi-chapter WIP by @alexiablackbriar13 - Young genius historian Dr Felicity Smoak unknowingly and accidentally calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript within the Oxford Bodleian Libraries - a book that has been lost for centuries. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Felicity wants nothing to do with magic, despite her unruly and powerful abilities. But her discovery of Ashmole 782 sets the world of creatures stirring; with a mystery afoot and new, dangerous magical abilities manifesting for her to navigate, she is approached by the enigmatic vampire biochemist Professor Oliver Queen, who seems to have a deep interest in both the manuscript… and her. Based on A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16224353/chapters/37923743  

Twist of Fate by @wrldtravler for the Olicity Fan Art/Fanfic Appreciation Exchange - A lovely tumble through Arrow season 3 https://olicity-fanwork-exchange.tumblr.com/post/184295774082/twist-of-fate

Always by @icannotbelieveiamhere for the Olicity Fan Art/Fanfic Appreciation Exchange - My “Always” fic takes place right after episode 5.20 “Underneath”. It explores some of the issues Oliver and Felicity discovered while they were trapped under the bunker. Oliver and Felicity reflect on their time together and Oliver has a chance to thank his team and explain why he tried to disband the team after Adrian Chase tortured him. https://olicity-fanwork-exchange.tumblr.com/post/184298507947/always

Perfect Illusion by @jemmaacarters for the Olicity Fan Art/Fanfic Appreciation Exchange - In this version of season two, Felicity give Oliver a but more push back on her “promotion.” https://olicity-fanwork-exchange.tumblr.com/post/184299342269/perfect-illusion

Tumblr Drabbles multi-chapter WIP by @dreamsofolicity - This is a collection of small drabbles I posted on tumblr that come from prompts. http://archiveofourown.org/works/11833266/chapters/26708178

There Was Always Something There multi-chapter Complete by @mindramblingsfics - After having enough of Felicity's behavior, Malcolm sends his daughter to a London boarding school for some much needed structure. Years later, she finally returns home to Starling. She finds that some things are the same while some have changed. As she reacquaints herself with her hometown, one relationship stands out in particular: Oliver Queen. http://archiveofourown.org/works/11060544/chapters/24662730?view_adult=true

Love and Little Cupcakes multi-chapter WIP by @christinabeggs - Felicity loved sweets so much that she paid no attention to her lovelife. Until Thea Queen came into her store wanting fabulous cupcakes for her sixteenth birthday. SO ADORABLE! http://archiveofourown.org/works/12400539/chapters/28216053

Irresistible by @felicityollies - prompt: sleepless - Oliver has a cold, can’t sleep, and is trying to prove to Felicity that he can still be sexy with a snotty nose. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034534/chapters/26799885

Sawaariya (Beloved) multi-chapter WIP by @crazycrystal10 - CEO Queen? Check. Author Ms.Smoak? Check. Married Olicity? Triple check. Story of Mr.&Mrs. Queen in the 'happily ever after'. AU. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858814/chapters/26774514

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 // @laxit21 //

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero

Chapter One Owl Post

November 02, 1979

Dearest Cissy,

I’m afraid this may be the last letter I send. I’ve discovered that the things the Dark Lord plans to do are far worse than we ever imagined. I know Sirius always said I had a weak stomach, but I can’t keep pretending I’m okay with these things.

Get out while you can. Please, Cissy, I beg you to get out. Don’t tell Bella or your husband where you’re going, but just leave. Things will only get worse.

I won’t tell you what I’m about to do, for your sake. But I will tell you that the Dark Lord is not all that he claims to be and I will do everything I can to bring him down and protect the people and things that I love.

You’re truly the only family that I can trust with this. Please don’t let Mother know. It would break her heart, and Father’s health is weak enough as it is.

And if you do ever see Sirius, tell him I’m sorry.

Love,

Your dearest cousin Reggie

—————————— ✶✶✶——————————

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.

There were many things about Harry that were normal: He loved summer vacation. He loved sports. And most of all, he loved his family.

However, there were things about Harry that were not normal. For one, Harry was a wizard. Some might not find this strange. There are plenty of witches and wizards who would not be surprised at all by the fact that Harry Potter can do magic, or that he plays his favorite sport on a broomstick high in the air, chasing golden Snitches that fly on their own. But even within the community of wizards, Harry Potter was an odd boy.

For one thing, all witches and wizards knew the name Harry Potter. Everyone knew that as a baby, Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who. Everyone knew that Harry Potter was marked with a scar that night, and some witches and wizards whispered that Harry Potter was The Chosen One.

What that meant for a boy with a scar on his head didn’t matter just yet. On the night in question, Harry was doing normal twelve-year-old boy things, like being bored with his homework.

Harry Potter did not find the essay on “Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century” particularly interesting. He had just finished a year at his school, Hogwarts, where a threat to witches and wizards born of non-magical parents had been made. He was not feeling particularly sympathetic to witches and the fearful Muggles.

He could not seem to get much further than the first two paragraphs in his textbook, A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot.

The old grandfather clock chimed in the hallway — twelve gentle chimes. The clock was magic, like everything else in this house, so after sunset, the clock did not chime loudly. It had no interest in waking the residents of the house.

The residents of the Potter Estate were Harry Potter and his parents, Lily and James Potter. It was a large house for three people, but Harry filled it with a lot of energy, as twelve and thirteen-year-old boys often do.

Of course, at midnight, his parents were sleeping, and he was awake doing homework.

There was still a month before school, so he thought finishing his History of Magic essay ridiculous. He’d already completed his Potions homework, with a lot of help from his mother, and his Transfiguration essay, with help from his father. The only person who could help him with History of Magic was Uncle Remus, who was not feeling well. Harry could wait a week until Uncle Remus was better, but he desperately wanted to visit his godfather, Sirius Black, this summer.

At school, Harry had broken several school rules, risked his own life, and saved the school in the process. Harry thought he deserved a lot of praise, which he did get. He earned an award for Special Services to the School, and he and Ron had won the House Cup competition for Gryffindor. The only problem was that Harry had two parents who worried about his safety. So Harry was grounded from Quidditch practice and visits with Sirius until his homework was done.

It sounded reasonable at the beginning of summer. During his school year, Harry had dueled another student, snuck away from teachers while the school was under a threat, and gone into a dangerous place to rescue a friend without seeking help from an adult. As great as Harry’s success had been, he had put himself in a lot of danger, and though the medicine was bitter to swallow, he had understood why his parents had grounded him. Now, a month later, struggling to finish his history essay at midnight on his birthday, it felt like the worst punishment his parents could give him.

Harry managed to get an outline of his essay completed by one am. He felt better about the assignment when he learned that burning witches did no harm to witches, who only had to cast a Freezing Charm to protect themselves from the flames.

As the clock chimed again, he realized he ought to go to bed. But it was summer vacation, and a bedtime was the one punishment his parents had not inflicted on him, so he’d taken to enjoying late nights as his only real form of freedom. He’d considered sneaking out on his Nimbus 2000, but it was locked away in a trunk at the foot of his parents’ bed. He’d already tried Alohamora, but it didn’t budge.

Just as Harry was thinking about climbing the stairs to bed, three owls tumbled through the open kitchen window.

An old gray owl, which Harry knew was Ron Weasley’s family owl, was helped into the dining room by a tiny brown owl. Harry didn’t recognize the small owl, but it was carrying a letter with the Hogwarts seal on the parchment, so Harry was sure it was his school books list. The third owl was a snowy white barn owl, proud and beautiful.

“Hello, Hedwig,” Harry smiled.

She flitted up to the table and nipped his finger affectionately, as if she were wishing him a happy birthday.

“What’ve you got there?” he asked in a whisper and untied the letter attached to her leg.

It turned out to be a birthday card from Hermione.

Dear Harry,

I hope you’re doing well and your parents haven’t given you too much trouble.

I’m on holiday in France at the moment and I didn’t know how I was going to send this to you — what if they’d opened it up in customs? — but then Hedwig turned up! I bought your present by owl-order; there was an advertisement in the Daily Prophet. I’ve been getting it delivered. It’s so good to keep up with what’s going on in the wizarding world. Did you see that picture of Ron and his family a week ago? I bet he’s learning loads. I’m really jealous. The ancient Egyptian wizards were fascinating.

There’s some interesting local history of witchcraft here, too. I’ve rewritten my whole History of Magic essay to include some of the things I’ve found out. I hope it’s not too long — it’s two rolls of parchment more than Professor Binns asked for.

Ron says he’s going to be in London the last week of the holidays. Can you make it? I hope your parents don’t keep you grounded all summer. I really hope you can come. If not, I’ll see you on the Hogwarts Express on September first!

Love from, Hermione

Harry had seen the picture of Ron the Daily Prophet last week. His mum had shown him the picture of the Weasley family, all nine of them, standing in front of the pyramids waving. He’d found it pretty unfair that Ron got to explore Egypt and Hermione was off in France and Harry was stuck at home. It wasn’t like he’d gotten into anymore trouble than Ron had.

Before opening Ron’s letter, Harry got the owls snacks and water. While they refreshed themselves, Harry read the letter the Weasley family owl Errol had brought him.

Dear Harry,

Happy birthday!

I hope you’re doing alright. Mum’s just about forgotten my being in trouble, with this trip to Egypt and having all her children in one place. I expect the Special Award we got helped too. I hope yours aren’t being too hard on you.

It’s amazing here in Egypt, by the way. Bill’s taken us around all the tombs and you wouldn’t believe the curses those old Egyptian wizards put on them. Mum wouldn’t let Ginny come in the last one. There were all these mutant skeletons in there, of Muggles who’d broken in and grown extra heads and stuff. I couldn’t believe it when Dad won the Daily Prophet Draw. Seven hundred galleons! Most of it’s gone on this trip, but they’re going to buy me a new wand for next year.

We’ll be back about a week before term starts and we’ll be going up to London to get my wand and our new books. Any chance of meeting you there?

Ron

P.S. Percy’s Head Boy. He got the letter last week.

Harry could almost hear the irritation in Ron’s voice about Percy. Harry remembered when he was eleven and Percy had just gotten his Prefect badge. He’d been quite showy about it, and Harry didn’t think he’d be any better about being Head Boy.

Now that he’d read his friends’ letters, it was time for the presents.

Harry opened the package from Ron first, and out tumbled what looked like a spinning top, except it was made of glass. The ones Sirius had given him from the Muggle stores had been made of wood. Harry had never seen one made of glass before.

The attached note said:

Harry — this is a Pocket Sneakoscope. If there’s someone untrustworthy around, it’s supposed to light up and spin. Bill says it’s rubbish sold for wizard tourists and isn’t reliable, because it kept lighting up at dinner last night. But he didn’t realize Fred and George had put beetles in his soup.

Bye —

Ron

Harry spun the top, but nothing happened. Harry thought it odd he’d never seen a Pocket Sneakoscope before, because he and Sirius had probably found just about every kind of magical toy there was. Maybe this wasn’t a toy. Or maybe it really was a rubbish souvenier.

Next, he opened Hermione’s gift. It was heavy, and he was expecting a book from her, but it turned out to be a Broomstick Servicing Kit. He was grateful for it — he’d nearly run out of Fleetwood’s High-Finish Handle Polish at the end of last year — except it made him frustrated he wasn’t allowed to use his broom.

He was about to open the third parcel, that had come with the Hogwarts owl, when he heard a door creak.

Harry looked up and saw his father walk into the dining room, wearing a bathrobe over his pajamas. He looked blearily at the lit gas lamps and then at Harry.

“You’re still awake?” James asked.

“I wanted to finish this before my birthday,” Harry said, and tapped his parchment.

James took a step back into the hallway to check the grandfather clock. “Ah, I’m sorry you aren’t finished yet, but happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Your mum’s snoring, so I was just going to whip up a light sleeping potion. I see you already got some presents.” As James went into the kitchen, Harry followed.

“Yeah, Ron and Hermione. I think the last one’s from Hagrid. It came with my Hogwarts letter.”

“Wow, summer’s half over already.” James opened up the potions cupboard and pulled down a handful of bottles and jars. “We’ll have to get your school supplies soon.”

While James brewed the Sleeping Draught, Harry chatted about his presents from Ron and Hermione and the gifts they’d given him. When he’d finished telling his father about those, Harry started complaining about his essay. James had a few things to add to it, but not much.

“You should ask Remus on Thursday,” James said.

“But I want to be done with the essay now,” Harry sighed. “I want at least one weekend at Sirius’s.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to spend with Sirius,” James laughed. “I think your mother will agree that one month of grounding is enough. Besides, I miss playing Quidditch with you.”

Harry smiled. He had been suspecting for a while that his father was as gloomy about his grounding as he was. It was his mother who seemed terrified to let him out of the house. In her defense, she’d watched him fight an enormous basilisk at the end of May and nearly die from basilisk venom. She had earned some right to be over-protective.

For the hour that the Sleeping Draught simmered, James helped Harry finish his essay on witch burnings. That way they would have something to help argue to Lily that Harry’s grounding should be lifted.

Harry rolled up the parchment and sealed it. All summer homework was completed.

He went ahead and opened his present from Hagrid while James went to finish off the potion.

Inside the package was a book with scaly green binding, like a dragon’s hide. The title was printed in gold: Monster Book of Monsters. Harry didn’t get any further than that, because the book started snapping at his hands. Harry dropped it immediately. The book fell to the floor and started gnawing on the table leg. When Harry reached down to grab it, it bit his hand. He yelped, and his father came running.

James saw the book and dove to tackle it, but skittered away on its edge. James’s head hit the china cabinet. Thanks to some old Stabilizing Charms, nothing fell down. But the noise did wake Lily. The gas lamp in the hallway sprang to life and she walked into the kitchen with a robe over her pajamas.

“What is going on in — oh!” The book snapped at her bare feet and she quickly stomped on the cover, squishing the book closed. “Harry, James, what is this?”

James took the tie off of his own bathrobe and tied the book shut. “Harry’s birthday present from Hagrid. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.”

“He says I’ll find it useful next year,” Harry said as he read over the birthday card Hagrid had sent him. “I wonder why.”

“What are the two of you even doing up?” Lily asked as she looked at the letters and wrappings on the table. “James, we’re doing presents in the morning.”

“These are from my friends,” Harry said quickly. “I was up finishing my homework and Hedwig brought them.”

“Oh.” Lily rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It’s nearly three am. Both of you need to be in bed. Come on.” Lily turned off the gas lamp and the dining room went dark.

“Just got to clean up the potion, Lils,” James said. “Then I’ll be right —”

Before he could finish, a silver swan soared through the window. It passed through the glass, which surprised Harry. And then Harry realized it wasn’t a real swan at all, but some sort of silver projection of a swan.

The swan floated through the glass and came to rest on the table, where it vanished in a gentle burst of light.

“Alice?” Lily asked and turned the light back on.

“She never was good at the speaking part,” James said. “She’s probably just letting us know she’s Apparating —”

There was a loud knock at the door.

“Harry, can you put the cauldron away?” James asked, and followed Lily to the door.

Harry frowned, but did as his father asked. He had no interest in pressing the issue of being grounded.

He put the potion supplies back in the cupboard and washed out the cauldron, then replaced it under the sink. He was surprised he couldn’t hear his parents talking. The only Alice he knew of was Alice Longbottom, his friend Neville’s mother, and she was very loud. He turned the lights out in the kitchen, then the dining room, then poked his head into the hallway.

It was Alice Longbottom, still in the entryway. She was talking to his parents in hushed whispers. He only caught the end of it:

“We’ll both stay with you,” Lily said. “Harry’s been wanting to see Sirius anyway. Just give us a bit of time to pack.”

Harry didn’t understand at all. Alice left, and he heard the crack of her Apparating away once she crossed outside the Anti-Apparition line.

“What’s going on?” Harry asked.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” James said. “Your mother and I are going to stay with the Longbottoms for a few days. You know we wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important.”

Lily leaned over and kissed his forehead. “You’ll stay with Sirius while we’re there, okay? I’m sure you two will have a wonderful time.”

Harry was not very used to ruined birthdays. Last year had been the first disaster, visiting his Muggle cousin. This year, he’d expected to be ungrounded for his birthday, and to fly his broom again. But instead, he was being sent off to Sirius’s while his parents went to stay with someone else?

“I’m so sorry,” Lily said. “You know we love you, and we would never do this if it wasn’t an emergency. Go get your things you’ll want to take to Sirius’s. We’ll need to leave quickly.”

Harry grabbed the Sneakoscope and Broomstick Servicing Kit off the dining room table. He left behind the biting book.

[andrewmawby]

July 4, 2021 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

If you're a new subscriber and you speak Greek, I'd say "Teekanis" to you right now. You'd probably reply, "Cala!" Yes, yes, I know I butchered both words, but it's what my Greek bosses would say to me when I came to work each day at Skyline Chili in Cincinnati. Bottom Line: Hello! Bring more cheese out here to the steam table.

I'm actually writing about all my experiences at Skyline Chili in a book I'm producing for my youngest daughter. What we did with ice balls will make you roar with laughter. The restaurant had a Scotsman machine that made wonderful small cube ice that was perfect to make ice balls the size of baseballs. Use your imagination. But I digress!

That said, you may be a long-time subscriber who enjoys taking a stroll down memory lane with me each week. Years ago in the early days of Ask the Builder, I was in my office one morning thinking about a new column to write.

All of a sudden a memory of me sneaking into my Mom's bedroom while she was downstairs sloshed around in my tiny gray cells. I would slowly lift the lid to her lowboy cedar chest, bend over, and slowly inhale with my eyes closed. I loved that intoxicating aroma.

Not too many years after that, I'd also slowly inhale with some of my girlfriends, especially those that wore a perfume that smells like the current Indecent brand. I know, TMI! As for my Mom's cedar chest, it's now in my possession and I'd never give it up. It turns out I was in this minuscule minority of ten people in the USA who happened to like cedar chests and closets. That column turned out to be the biggest flop of Ask the Builder history!

CLICK or TAP HERE to read it and discover lots about aromatic cedar and how you can restore it! Aromatic cedar is a winner and it's still available.

Happy Birthday Lady Liberty!

Do you like being told what to do knowing that if you don't do it you'll be punished? I didn't think so. Our Founding Fathers here in the USA didn't much care for it either and they kicked tyrannical King George and his liege lord buddies to the curb 245 years ago.

July 4, 1776 - a day that truly will live in infamy.

How smart our Founders were! They understood that we have unalienable rights given to us by God, not some other man who happens to wear a crown and is surrounded by sellswords who pledge their fealty just because the powerful man (king) provides them food, shelter, and allows them to keep their heads on their shoulders.

Do you know what unalienable means? It means impossible to be taken away. Yet right now, there are quite a few people around you trying to tell you what to do, when you can do it, and doing their best to slowly strip you of your unalienable rights all while they distract you.

That's not a polite thing to do at a birthday party for goodness sake!

I suggest we take a big piece of birthday cake and smash it in their faces! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Or better yet, we can use a shaving cream pie so we don't waste the tasty birthday cake. Most definitely we do NOT want to throw mocha chip ice cream at these bad folk. That frozen delicacy needs to be in our stomachs!

Enjoy the day and try to reflect on what July 4th in the USA really means. It's not all about hot dogs, brats, and fireworks.

If you want to really grasp what's in play and happening each day right here in the USA, and your country too if you're not a US citizen, watch this short video clip and start to read the first book in the series.

"...There is no middle ground."

Gulp.

Really focus on the last two sentences Cersei says to Ned. Focus on the emotion and determination in her voice.

Cersei - you absolutely don't want to be on her bad side.

3D Printed Houses - Slooooow Down

My son has a 3D printer and has made some amazing things with it. If you can dream it, software can help you design it, and a precision printer can create your vision in hours.

But what about upping your game? Use a printer that oozes mortar and create a house. There's lots of gushing going on about these 3D printed houses, but as often is the case, you're hearing and seeing just half the truth.

And you know the old saying, right?

A half-truth is a whole lie.

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover the not-so-pleasant underbelly of 3D printed houses. Yes, the moniker my kids have given me continues to live on.

As they grew up, they affectionately labeled me as the Dream Crusher.

I would retort, "You know nothing. I'm the Truth Teller."

Bats in Your Belfry, er Your Attic

Bats have been given a pretty bad wrap by Hollywood wouldn't you say? You almost always see them in horror movies.

Think how many mosquito bites you'd have if they weren't flapping around each summer night.

I remember as a kid being fascinated by bats as they'd swoop around just above the heads of my neighborhood buddies and me on those sultry and steamy summer nights. We'd try to stay out after dark as long as we could soaking up all that was wonderful in our tiny world of blinking fireflies on Riddle View Lane.

Bats are like us and they do need to rest. If you're like most, you don't want them creating Zzzzzzs up in your attic.

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover an unorthodox and inexpensive way to make sure bats don't get their mail at your house!

That's quite enough for a holiday weekend.

I suggest you reflect on whether or not it's such a good idea to pledge your fealty to those that want to tell you what to do.

As George C. Scott said in the open of the famous movie Patton, "The thought of it is hateful."

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com Best Darn Cleaner - www.StainSolver.com 106 Record FD Contacts - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. How did you do last week in the fun Rechargeable Battery quiz? Were you in the vast majority that want a fantastic affordable charger that RESTORES to like-new condition worn-out rechargeable batteries? Who were the folks that said "No"? Crazy!

The post July 4, 2021 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

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[dailyaudiobible]

07/02/2021 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 18:13-19:37, Acts 21:1-17, Psalm 149:1-9, Proverbs 18:8

Today is the 2nd day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we move into this 7th month of the year and get settled in for the next few weeks. That's all we have right, that's how long these months are so by the time we get settled into one month we’re moving into a new one. But right now, were getting settled into the 7th month of the year and we’re continuing our journey through the Book of 2 Kings we’re reading from the New International Version this week, 2nd Kings chapter 20 verse 1 through 22 verse 2.

Commentary:

Okay, it could be noted that as we move our way through 2nd Kings that we are only dealing with the kings of Judah at this point, and that is because there are no more kings of Israel. There is no more Israel. They were carried off by the Assyrians into exile and so we’re dealing with the kingdom that remains the kingdom of Judah and its kings and we can see that it's the same kind of back-and-forth at the same slow decline. So, we have this kind of reforming King Hezekiah who follows the ways of the Lord and for his lifetime, that's how the people go, but then his son Manasseh who reigns for 55 years right, so a long time, he does more evil than any of his predecessors have done. And then his son Josiah comes to the forefront and we’ll get to know Josiah a little bit better tomorrow, but we see that he follows in the way of his ancestor David fully so we assume he's a good king. It’s just back and forth, back and forth over the generations in a steady slow decline.

Then we turn to the Book of Acts and we’ve been traveling with Paul now for a while on his missionary journeys and we saw his decision to go back to Jerusalem and we saw that he was counseled pretty stringently everywhere he went not to go back to Jerusalem, even prophetic words, telling him of, you know, of captivity and hardship, but he already knew that as he says he already knew that the Spirit had told him that there was hardship and suffering in his future and captivity and so, no matter what he had to return to Jerusalem because he felt like God was telling him. So, everybody along way is telling him not to do this and he’s finally like, you're breaking my heart. You know, why all this crying you're breaking my heart; I have to go. Like, I'm willing to die there if I have to die in Jerusalem for Jesus’ sake then that’s how it goes, but I have to go there and so we watch that happen and now today he has arrived, and he is come to the brothers and sisters that are in the Jerusalem church and they have welcomed him but certainly they're concerned they're concerned about his well-being. There are many many many many people in Jerusalem that have been hearing about Paul from all over the Empire he’s kind of enemy. He was once a Pharisee a leading zealot. He was very very very much on the radar and then he found a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus introduced himself and nothing was ever the same again. And so, now he's like enemy number one. To a certain degree and we’ll watch that because yeah, we just kind of scratched the surface here Paul was seen in the temple, people who had seen Paul out on his missionary journeys recognized him and we have another mob. It’s like there’s a lot of mobs happening in the early church centered around Jesus. So, there's a mob in there trying to kill Paul, Paul’s rescued by the Roman soldiers, but they gotta pick him up and carry him, to get him away from the people that were trying to assault him. So, this right here, basically what we see today is Paul's arrest. It’s not his first time, he's been in trouble before for the gospel of Jesus Christ. But this particular arrest is different because pretty much Paul's not going to experience freedom again. Briefly and he’ll have a little bit of freedom but he'll always be watched. He's always on the radar. He's pretty much in custody for the rest of his life. I point that out here just to say watch, watch what happens. It's really ironic. Paul has been all over the Roman Empire on these missionary journeys. But the kind of people that he is going to be able to share the good news of the gospel with are people that he would have never had access to on any of those missionary journeys. Oddly, it’s his captivity that gives him access to really powerful and important people and he shares the gospel. So, let's watch this as we continue our journey through the Book of Acts.

Prayer:

And so, Father, we thank You for Your word. Thank You for bringing us this far giving us the chance to settle into this 7th month and look back and you see six months of this year and You have been faithful. So, we acknowledge that we worship You, we adore You, we give our hearts to You completely, nothing withheld, nothing off-limits. Come Holy Spirit and lead us forward as we continue our journey. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com that’s home base, that’s the websites that’s where you find out what's happening around here. It's where the Prayer Wall is that can be found in the Community section. The Daily Audio Bible Shop is there resources are available there for the journey that we are on and not…our journeys is taking us toward our Daily Audio Bible holiday this coming Wednesday the 7th of July we’ve talking about it for, I guess, a little over a week now. But yeah, the Long Walk is a day to go for a Long Walk with God and I’ve been explaining how nature plays a role and even how the resource Heart a Contemplative Journey can play a role in starting the conversation allowing us to deeply immerse ourselves in our own emotions and invite God into the things we’ve been feeling and moving through in the first 6 months of this year. So, that resource is available for the Long Walk and you can get at the iTunes shop or Google, wherever you can buy music, just look for Heart or look for my name Brian Hardin and you should find it. So, that's all coming up just after the weekend. Of course, here in the United States it's a major holiday weekend Independence Day for us, which is my wife's birthday as well and so that’s coming up over the weekend. So yeah, we’re just gonna transitioning through here into the center of the month, make plans on 7th of July to go for a Long Walk with God. We’ll put a post on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page for the Long Walk and you can post in there, your pictures or little videos and it becomes a really beautiful mosaic. I love it. I love going on the Long Walk but I also love coming back and just looking through all the different pictures of all the different places in the world that happened today, all the little windows into each other's lives. It's a joy so make plans for that. That is coming up on this coming Wednesday, the 7th of July.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I can't thank you enough. We wouldn't be here if we were not a community in this together. So, I'm in awe and grateful that all these thousands of days we’ve been able to be here every single day without fail. And if that has mattered or matters in your life then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today I'm Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayers and Encouragements:

Hey siblings, it’s your little sis, His Little Sharie in Canada. Just wanting to share something that really impacted me on Sunday. I took my walker to church for the first time and it was weird and awkward for me and for everybody. I think everybody seemed to be very, I don’t even know how to describe it, but they know I have an MS diagnosis they’ve been praying for healing for me and to see me walking with a walker, I think, just made everyone sad and no one really said anything to me, no one…they tried to, I don't know, I just, I just felt like no one knew what to say or do and so they didn’t say or do anything except for our pastor. She didn’t really say much she just looked at me with this look you know that real authentic compassionate look and she gave me a hug and it was one of those long awkward I’m letting go of you hugs and I don’t know. The thing was she didn't say anything. But and she didn't know what to say like everybody else. But she saw me and she hugged me and it just felt so, humbling in that moment, but also nourishing and so it just taught me a lesson that when you don't know what to say when you don't know what to do on don't just walk away, don’t just default to not saying anything. Maybe just see the person and let them know that you see them and that you love them maybe just give them a hug.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible this is Amanda again in the Boston area. I’ve been an avid listener daily now for just over two weeks and this simple practice of doing this every day has completely transformed me and my family already and it’s just been such a blessing so I'll start off by saying thank you DAB family. I wanted to just briefly touch on the prayer that we heard from RJ today who was calling in response to Lonnie's prayer from a couple days ago about her son who is wayward and addicted to alcohol and all that and how RJ called in to pray for her and to remind her and the things that he said were exactly what I needed to hear, faint not. My sister, that I love dearly, her name is Dana is also an addict and whether she’s a wayward soul or a soul that needs to come face-to-face with Jesus for the first time I am unsure but I know her addiction is in the way so RJ’s words were so comforting, uplifting and the reminder and his testimony on his life has given me so much hope today. That I will see my sister addiction free, bondage free and in the arms of Jesus one day. So, please, oh, I praise Jesus for the news that RJ’s life was changed and I ask that you join me in prayer for praying for my sister Dana that her addiction will be no more and her life will be turned around as she surrenders to Jesus. Thank you all, love you.

Hello my dear DAB family this is Maria a missionary in Mexico. I have been a little bit absent because we are visiting the states for the summer. We’ll head back down in August but it’s been a little hard to keep up with everything. I wanted to give you an update and thank you all for praying for our coworkers they were in training to become missionaries down in Mexico. They had passion for the indigenous people down there and are going to begin working with them. She got COVID and she was 6 months pregnant and she and her baby died family so please pay for her husband. Renzo I want to say that brother your prayers encourage me. I want to give a shout out to you and just thank you for calling in. Thank you for your passion for Jesus and your love for people and to please keep doing that. Fred from Iowa, your prayer request aired on that community prayer quite a few months ago. I want you to know that you’ve been in my prayers ever since. Let’s pray family. Heavenly Father, Lord of the harvest send forth more laborers into this great harvest we pray as You’ve commanded us to do Lord. There’s so much need. I pray especially for this man who lost his wife, I can’t even imagine and also his firstborn child, it's just too difficult to even comprehend. I pray you would comfort him, the whole mission community, the church families, her family, his family, everyone involved Lord, it’s just, it’s so sad Father and it will be for so long. Give them special grace during this time of morning. Thank You for Renzo my brother, thank You that his first love for you is strong I pray it would continue to be and his love for people would continue to shine forth and draw more to Yourself Lord. I pray for Fred that You would give him strength to do the right thing even when it's hard. Thank you for my brother, encourage his heart today. In Jesus name. Amen.

Hey there. So, I just listened to Brian teaching on Paul’s leaving Ephesus and asking Him if there is anything people had against him. And it just kind of reminded me that as Christians we’re called to love but we always screw up. We always have beef with other believers; hatred and unforgiveness, non-communication. I know I’m hurtful to other people, I’ve been hurt by other, other believers and I’ve hurt others. And I have unforgiveness and they do as well. So, even though we are called to love one another and we’re made different in Christ we still have that sin and that horrible hatred, the unforgiveness and the blame others and the victim mentality nature. Instead of just fessing up to our responsibility and confessing our sins. The older I get actually, the more I’m seeing the way of the world is just to lie and to leave things out and to not confront issues but to kind of work around, make things politically correct but unresolved, unloving. So, it was just something that I observed and see in myself. I loathe it in myself and others, but it’s there and I don’t think it's going to go away. Just this sin cloud that keeps on consuming. Guess it won’t go away until we die. So, I guess pray for that. I’m Mike in New York. Pray for me, pray for my relationships and pray for yourselves. Alright, love you, bye.

Hello DAB family, I hope you're all doing well it’s Sarah from London. Hopefully I can say this all in two minutes. But it’s been a while and I just wanted to check in and say a massive hello to you all. I have been praying for you when I hear your requests but I just wanna give God all the glory. I really wanna give him all the glory all the praise cause He deserves everything. In January I sent a request for prayers to have a closer relationship with God and thank you for those that prayed for me and thank you for those that called in to encourage me as well. For so long I had allowed distractions to get in the way and I remember in particular a gentleman by the name of Darrell from Atlanta thank you so much and I hope you hear this you called in to give some encouragement and some advice and that really helped me you mentioned something on the lines of reading and praying, even when you don’t feel like it. I listened to that over and over and over again. And wow, it’s the 30th of June today and I have been reading the Bible non-stop. I never knew the Bible could be so transforming and today my relationship with God has done a 360. And I can’t do without it now, I can’t do without that relationship, I need it so much and I feel so much more peace in my life since January. I have given 100% of my time and God is actually revealing so much to me in many many ways. I don’t have the time to say it all today. But I'm just so amazed. I just want to encourage those that may feel that they don’t hear from God let me tell you, let me tell you He speaks in so many ways. You have to spend the time He will show you so much. Thank you so much the Hardin family for all you do. I love you all, God Bless you all.

[fai-marie-521]

An Unexpected Tagalong (P.1)

(Hello! I’m like super new to Tumblr, and kinda don’t know what I’m doing. But I wanted to post my fanfiction here soooo, here I am. This is just a little snipet but if you have constructive criticism or suggestions I would very much appreciate it. I hope you enjoy and join me on my reintroduction to the writing world. And hopefully I will grow with my writing. Thank you!)

An Unexpected Tagalong:

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. Estella Took loved the comfort of her home. The smell, the sounds. But something was always missing. She was a Took after all. She had the need for adventure in her blood. The stories she has read by her fireplace have twisted her mind and she often daydreamed of adventures of her own. Little did she know that on her 35th birthday, she would get exactly what she always dreamed of.

Main Characters: Estella Took, Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins 

TW: None, I don’t think

                                              My Dear Bilbo,

It has been a while, my dear. A very long while. And yes, I have gotten every letter you have sent my way. And yes, I am very happy in Rivendell with the elves. They've treated me with kindness and welcomed me with open arms. I'm a little surprised Lord Elrond remembered me and his offer. It has been 60 years after all. Oh Bilbo, just writing that makes my heart hurt. 60 years since our lives changed... I still dream of Erebor and it's emerald halls. I can still smell Bofur's stew. Weirdly, I miss sleeping on the cold rock ground. Most of all Bilbo, I miss going on adventures. The thrill. I haven't felt that since... Well, since all those years ago. I need to feel it again. If only for a moment. Oh yes! Bilbo, I have read your most recent letter and I regret to tell you I won't be able to make it to your 111th birthday. Unlike you, I have not aged well. Though, I know I can make one more holiday without crumbling into dust.  I cannot wait for you to join me here in Rivendell. I have missed you so much. Now we can go back to the Lonely Mountain just one last time like we have talked about for years. I do not think I can part with the world without seeing him once more. But of course, you know that. I know you cannot either. I will wait for you here, my cousin. Tell young Frodo I said hello!

                                                                                                                                                       With much love,

                                                Estella H. Took

[winnie-the-patton]

*Whispers softly* All 200

Jfc… ok lol 😂

I’m adding a “click to read more” cuz no one wants this lol. Also they’re all messed up for some reason but again i dont think anyone besides QPP is gonna read is soo whatever

200: My crush’s name is: heh im not gonna post that


199: I was born in: Illinois 


198: I am really: obnoxious lol
1

97: My cellphone company is: T-Mobile


196: My eye color is: green
195: My shoe size is: 6 1/2
194: My ring size is: no clue
193: My height is: 5'
192: I am allergic to: bees
191: My 1st car was: non existent
190: My 1st job was: running birthday parties at a local park
189: Last book you read: do fan fictions count?
188: My bed is: meh
187: My pet: BO I LOVE HIM
186: My best friend: I have several. Liz, Justin, Allison, Jayse
185: My favorite shampoo is: coconut with Shea Butter
184: Xbox or ps3: ps3 
183: Piggy banks are: cool?
182: In my pockets: a strange mixture of pennies and pounds 
181: On my calendar: Dodie Clark concert
180: Marriage is: good for some people
179: Spongebob can: DO ANYTHING HE WANTS
178: My mom: nice
177: The last three songs I bought were? “Look What You Made Me Do” “You” “Things We Used to Share"
176: Last YouTube video watched: Dil’s Bday
175: How many cousins do you have? Too many
174: Do you have any siblings? 1
173: Are your parents divorced? No
172: Are you taller than your mom? No
171: Do you play an instrument? Yes, ukulele and piano
170: What did you do yesterday? Went to a carnival. Slept.

[ I Believe In ]
169: Love at first sight: sure
168: Luck: sure
167: Fate: sure
166: Yourself: not at all
165: Aliens: definitely
164: Heaven: eh
163: Hell: eh
162: God: eh
161: Horoscopes: lol sometimes kinda
160: Soul mates: definitely
159: Ghosts: eh
158: Gay Marriage: of course???
157: War: no
156: Orbs: …I don’t know what this means?
155: Magic: sure :)

[ This or That ]
154: Hugs or Kisses: Depends on the person
153: Drunk or High: Depends on the night 😂 (but usually high)
152: Phone or Online: online
151: Red heads or Black haired: no preference
150: Blondes or Brunettes: no preference
149: Hot or cold: cold
148: Summer or winter: summer
147: Autumn or Spring: spring 
146: Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate 
145: Night or Day: day
144: Oranges or Apples: neither
143: Curly or Straight hair: curly
142: McDonalds or Burger King: McDonalds
141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: Milk Chocolate
140: Mac or PC: Mac
139: Flip flops or high heals: flip flops
138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: ugly and sweet… aren’t opposites? How about nice and rich? And I don’t care about looks
137: Coke or Pepsi: Diet Pepsi 
136: Hillary or Obama: Obama
135: Burried or cremated: Buried
134: Singing or Dancing: Singing
133: Coach or Chanel: No preference
132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: don’t know what these are
131: Small town or Big city: big city
130: Wal-Mart or Target: target
129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: ben stiller 
128: Manicure or Pedicure: manicure
127: East Coast or West Coast: west coats
126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Christmas
125: Chocolate or Flowers: flowers
124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney!
123: Yankees or Red Sox: Red Sox

[ Here’s What I Think About ]
122: War: bad and ineffective
121: George Bush: bad, stupid
120: Gay Marriage: it’s just… the right thing? Like idk? People should be allowed to love and marry whoever they want? That’s basic human rights?
119: The presidential election: TERRIFYING. HORRENDOUS. WHY.
118: Abortion: While I could never do it and I have moral issues with it, I believe it’s the woman’s choice what she does with her body. 
117: MySpace: don’t remember it
116: Reality TV: stupid but fun
115: Parents: frustrating, confusing, but they try…
114: Back stabbers: unforgivable. Damaging.
113: Ebay: sketchy but fun
112: Facebook: love it
111: Work: exhausting, but I do love my job
110: My Neighbors: lovely
109: Gas Prices: apparently too high?
108: Designer Clothes: ridiculous. I can buy your $80 shirt and Walmart for $5
107: College: expensive. Stressful.
106: Sports: like playing them, not watching them
105: My family: complicated. Confusing. Stressful. Trying their best?
104: The future: fucking terrifying

[ Last time I ]
103: Hugged someone: ….I actually don’t remember. Maybe a few weeks ago? Fuck…
102: Last time you ate: an hour ago
101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: a week ago
100: Cried in front of someone: no clue, few months ago?
99: Went to a movie theater: week ago
98: Took a vacation: a year ago
97: Swam in a pool: two months ago
96: Changed a diaper: HA a month ago
95: Got my nails done: 2 years ago?
94: Went to a wedding: I don’t remember 
93: Broke a bone: like 15 years ago
92: Got a peircing: never
91: Broke the law: a month ago
90: Texted: an hour ago

[ MISC ]
89: Who makes you laugh the most: Allison
88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: my sister and my dog
87: The last movie I saw: Mother!
86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: going to Disneyworld in France
85: The thing im not looking forward to: getting up early to go to the doctor
84: People call me: magz
83: The most difficult thing to do is: exist
82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope
81: My zodiac sign is: Capricorn 
80: The first person i talked to today was: my uber driver
79: First time you had a crush: ever? Like, preschool. Real crush? When I was like 8.
78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: Justin and Jayse.
77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: like 2 days ago
76: Right now I am talking to: Beth
75: What are you going to do when you grow up: hell if I know 
74: I have/will get a job: will. Had to leave my summer job when I moved.
73: Tomorrow: go to the doctor, visit friend, fix computer?
72: Today: apparently sleep and fail to go to the dr
71: Next Summer: *shrugs*
70: Next Weekend: uhhh
69: I have these pets: Bo!
68: The worst sound in the world: scratching nails on holographic material
67: The person that makes me cry the most is: idk
66: People that make you happy: Liz, Allison, Justin
65: Last time I cried: about an hour ago
64: My friends are: amazing 
63: My computer is: BROKEN
62: My School: awesome
61: My Car: don’t have one
60: I lose all respect for people who: voted for trump
59: The movie I cried at was: a lot of them lol 
58: Your hair color is: dark brown and blonde
57: TV shows you watch: Kimmy Schmidt, sometimes AHS, 
56: Favorite web site: tumblr
55: Your dream vacation: London
54: The worst pain I was ever in was: honestly rn is pretty close
53: How do you like your steak cooked: well done
52: My room is: messy
51: My favorite celebrity is: Thomas sanders
50: Where would you like to be: home
49: Do you want children: yes
48: Ever been in love: idk
47: Who’s your best friend: I have many
46: More guy friends or girl friends: girls
45: One thing that makes you feel great is: having my hair played with
44: One person that you wish you could see right now: a fucking doctor
43: Do you have a 5 year plan: no 
42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: kinda
41: Have you pre-named your children: yes
40: Last person I got mad at: probably my parents
39: I would like to move to: I like it here
38: I wish I was a professional: singer

[ My Favorites ]
37: Candy: buncha crunch 
36: Vehicle: boat
35: President: Obama
34: State visited: California 
33: Cellphone provider: T-Mobile I guess
32: Athlete: my sis
31: Actor: Thomas Sanders
30: Actress: Phillipa Soo
29: Singer: Lorde
28: Band: 21 Pilots
27: Clothing store: hot topic
26: Grocery store: priscos
25: TV show: Kimmy Schmidt
24: Movie: Singin’ in the Rain
23: Website: Tumblr
22: Animal: Koala
21: Theme park: Disney World
20: Holiday: Halloween
19: Sport to watch: I dont 
18: Sport to play: badminton
17: Magazine: no
16: Book: Aristotle and Dante
15: Day of the week: Friday 
14: Beach: the one with sand
13: Concert attended: 21 Pilots
12: Thing to cook: Alfredo
11: Food: Cookies
10: Restaurant: Luigis
9: Radio station: 101.9
8: Yankee candle scent: wood drift beach
7: Perfume: mango vanilla
6: Flower: daffodils
5: Color: dusty rose pink
4: Talk show host: jimmy Fallon
3: Comedian: jerry Seinfeld?
2: Dog breed: pug or a cavachon
1: Did you answer all these truthfully? Yeah

[crimvaiocipher8]

Day 3 &4: Species and Mental State

It was only a matter of time before I was fashonably late for this: Writing Day 3 on Day 4? Really, Crim?? Well, only one thing to do: Write 3 and 4 in one post and pray despite the length it’s interesting. 

Day 3 on my  30 day Challenge:

Talk about your OC’s species and demonym. A demonyn is the name for an inhabitant of a specific place, in this case their planet of birth, such as Tarisian (from Taris) or Mantellian (from Ord Mantell). How do they define their demonym? Do they have one? What influence does it have on their identity?

For Species: Do they have a sense of connection with others of their species? Were they raised with their own species or in a more diverse community? Do they follow any traditions or customs that are species-specific?

For Demonym: Do they feel a sense of connection to their planet of birth? Does the planet’s history and society effect them? Do they follow any traditions or holidays from their home planet?

My species and demonymn. Alrighty then.

My Species:

There is no nice way of saying this: I, a Sith Pureblood, am a mut between species. Yes, there is an oxymoron! A pureblood is a mut. Yet this is a true oxymoron, for a Sith Pureblood isn’t really a true Sith but a mix of Sith and human.

A long time ago, the Sith were a red skinned species native to Korriban. They had their own language, which is still spoken today, their own culture, and their own way of life. Then the fallen, dark Jedi came and subjugated the species. Thanks to Sith alchemy, the two interbred and Sith purebloods came out as a result.

In the Sith Empire, purebloods or tsis in my people’s language, are ones who have the obvious red markings and face tendrils of the Sith species. In many ways, we’re remnants of an ancient past with eyes straining towards the future. 

Now, do I have a sense of connection with any of them? 

This has evolved over the years. When i was a lad, I wanted nothing to do with the Sith part of me. Why would I want anything to do with a people who were abusive; never mind the Force, who seemed to condone the abusive behaviour? In truth, I think that’s why I let intelligence “turn me human” for all intents and purposes.

Yet, here I am writing this as a Force user, and quite content with. Proof the Force works in mysterious ways. I decided to train in the Force after Zakull came. I had to choose between being stubborn, or ensuring Kardeva had a family to come home to after getting out of carbonite. I chose the latter, and in that I feel connection to my people.

 I also feel that connection when I lived with my adopted family. They showed me there are many ways to be Sith. Many of them died when Zakuul, but my brother survived along with most of his fortress. Rebuilding it was hard, as was burying the dead, but we pulled through as a family. I think during that time I felt closest to my Sith ancestry than I ever had. Intense sorrow breeds intense unity and division at the same time. It’s a miracle.

Finally, I raised 3 children who are all tsis. Hard to not feel the connection when raising the next generation. They challenge my understanding of our people, challenge how I conduct myself, and force me to remember what it was like growing up tsis in a good way. And I think I challenge them to not solely stick with the status quo: Only Zeon, my daughter, is training to be a Sith. Ssra is following in my footsteps by spying on Sith Intelligence for the Alliance, and Nwit became a Mandalorian. Tied to a rich history, yet forging our own way ahead. I love my family.

I feel connection to my humanity when I’m with Kardeva and when I’m cooking. Kardeva is human, and I see my humanity reflecting back at me every time I look at him. It’s why I couldn’t rebuild my life, and move on, while he was locked in carbonite. To see such an important part of myself reflected back was too much to so easily walk away from, even if it meant I never get him back. So, Kardeva is my connection to my humanity.

The second one is my cooking. When I was doing infiltration, I found that people say many things while breaking bread. So, I found a way to get trained as a chef so I could eavesdrop while making and serving meals. Most of the dishes I learned to make are geared more toward a human palette, so there is the connection. Now that I’m a part of Alliance Intelligence I combine human and pureblood cooking together. Have to keep both pallets happy at my house.

My Demonym

I’m a Kaasian by birth: Born and raised in Kaas City. I lived there for the first 15 years of life, and off and on in between intelligence missions. It was where I first learned about life, who I am as a man, and where my place was in the Empire. I miss it when I’m away, and feel nostalgia when I return. It is my home.

I think everyone feels a sense of connection to their birthplace, regardless of if it’s a good or bad connection. While family wise, it was a bad connection, in terms of Kaas over all it’s a good connection: I know where all the hang out spots are, know how to get around the Sith Academy there, and I even know where the best place to get photos of the Citadel are!

Does the planet’s history and society affect people who live on Kaas? Short answer: Everything about its history affects everyone! No, that isn’t an exaggeration. Ever since Dromund Kaas was colonized, the focus has always been serving the Emperor and getting revenge on the Republic. 

At the Sith Academy, where all tsis go to learn their basic education and Sith training, I learned what the Republic did to our people at the end of the Great Hyperspace War. I then learned why we needed to train and prepare to go to war as soon as we were of age. Given the war was still going on when I was young, I knew I had little choice on where my destiny lied. My mother and father couldn’t be prouder to see their son  trained as a juggernaut and creating the next generation.

To that end, most of our holidays and celebrations revolved around the Emperor or defeating the Republic: Colonization Day, which used to be the Emperor’s birthday until Empress Acina took over; Kitok Kursas Diena (New Years Day); Katedij Pradzia (Korriban Rises Day), to celebrate the day the Empire took Korriban back from the Republic; birthdays of important Sith like Ajunta Pall, Naga Sadow, Marka Ragnos, and Darth Vitiate; and days where we remember our dead like Visa Virmsezi Arsiasiza (All Hallows Eve), and  Diena iv Liudesys, the Day of Sorrows.

I remember  Diena iv Liudesys the most, since it was one of the few days we had off from school. It was the day the Republic came to Korriban to destroy my people completely and utterly. It both remembers their fate, and strengthened our resolve to make the Jedi and Republic pay. The moment the Republic attacked, Dromund Kaas went silent for 5 min: Everyone simply froze with no sounds or movements. Even droids had to be quiet. If one was driving through the jungle, they had to stop and pray the jungle creatures didn’t notice them. 

I remember thinking about the Great Hyperspace War, and about how somewhere someone in the Republic is patting themselves on the back for being the good guys. The good guys build on the deaths of my people. It made me angry, and made me want to see them destroyed eventually. Now, though, Empress Acina changed the day into  Isatre Vunyi va «Eternal Resolve». Zakuul is the real enemy now, she said to the populace, and we need to focus on them over a battle that happened over 1000 years ago. Smart woman, the Empress, a worthy successor to Darth Marr.

Alright, that’s enough for Day 3. Now for Day 4:

Day 4: Mind Matters

Briefly describe your OC’s mental state. Are they neurotypical or neuroatypical? Do they have any mental illnesses or a history with mental illness? How do they handle stress? Are they Force-sensitive or Force-blind? Does this effect their mental state?

Briefly, hmm? I can understand briefly. One’s mental state can be an entire Master’s thesis if they’re not careful.  I would describe my mental state as...

No.

Caedusios? Why are you here writing?

Because one’s mental state is best assessed from the outside, not within. You would just say you’re mental state is neuro-typical and perfect.  I can give a more accurate assessment. 

And you’re late for your date with Kardeva.

You’re right, I am! Alright, you can write this. All I ask is don’t make me look insane. Wouldn’t want to scare off my new readers...

If you, the readers, haven’t determined he’s not entirely sane then I’m not sure whose blog you were reading. Anyways, I am Darth CAedusios. I am Crimsèn’s adopted older brother. Biologically we’re first cousins: his father and my father are brothers. Because we’re both only children, we grew up together on Kaas as brothers since our families had no where else to go but to one another’s house. 

I have seen Crimsèn grow from being a teenager trying to be who his parents pre-determined into a man relatively content with himself. I can’t say he has grown into a neurotypical man, anymore than I can say he was ever a purely cisgender person. No, his mental state has gone through many gymnastics.

I would say that Crimsèn has a condition called Asperger’s Syndrome, and some traits of borderline personality disorder. While he was a social butterfly, and still is in so many ways, he never intuitively understood social ques save mine and my mother and father’s.  Also, Crim is quite obsessive about specific things to the point where he almost refused to do anything but his interests.

This has lead to a double edged sword with the Force. Between ages 1 and 15, Crim was obsessed with becoming the Sith Lord his father wanted his only son to be. As a result, I remember him being so obsessed with learning the sabre combat of Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow, that he couldn’t be bothered to eat. 

At age 15 (by the way, I am using Imperial Standard years), for reasons I’m assuming Crimsèn will explain tomorrow, he stripped himself of the Force. For the next 15 years, he obsessively resisted any hint of being a pureblood outside of looks. It drove him to serve the EMpire under intelligence, suppress most of his pureblood characteristics, and in some ways quietly accept being brainwashed under intelligence. They used the CAstellan Mind control in order to ensure he would never go back to our people nor ruin any missions because he acted on emotions over logic.

Now, his obsessions are mostly on taking care of his family. To that end, he was trained in using his returned Force abilities at last. He couldn’t fight Zakuul without all the tools, and abilities he had, just like I couldn’t fight Zakuul by sticking with the narrow ways of Jedi and the Sith.

Now, where does borderline personality disorder fit into this? Well, Crimsèn only has two traits of it really: Abandonment fears and emotional swings. The emotional swings are thanks to him being a Sith and his connection to the darkside as a result. Not saying it is good or evil to have such swings; it is what it is. 

I believe his abandonment fears are from being abused. Abuse teaches people many things, including the belief that if they under perform by a fraction of a percent, they will be abandoned. For Crim, that abandonment meant his own father would murder his only son the moment he learned he was gay (I know was going to save that for Crim to explain tomorrow during the Gender/Sexuality topic, but I felt it was needed in context here). Then it was join intelligence, or his first love would abandon him via Intelligence executing his first love.

Now with his marriage to Kardeva... I know that the distance broke him and left Crim vulnerable to many influences. I chose, as his master, to step back and let him either stand strong in the storm or fall to it because that was his trial. As a master and mentor, it’s important to know when a person needs to face a trial on their own or face it with some guidance. 

I can say that while Crim’s abandonment fears are still there, he has learned how to live with them now in a way that he controls them instead of the other way around. I’m proud of my brother for facing them. 

[hesitanthero]

i guess ill post this then.....

1. Favourite colour: Green. But not like a shitty green. 2. Number of people you’ve slept with: 3.5 3. Cake or ice cream? cake 4. If you were a superhero what would your power be? Sarcasm. or something equally as useless. like being indecisive.  5. Ever been in a fist fight? with my brother.  and this one time i accidentally hit this girl in the head with my elbow..  6. Do you live in the country or the city? city. 7. Biggest kink? uhhhhhhhh 8. Favourite video-game? mario kart 64 9. Words you live by? “fuck bitchez; get money.”  jk. “I am the architect of my own destruction”  10. Best book you’ve ever read? Ender’s Game or Speaker for the Dead 11. Favourite film? i… can’t.. choose just one…. Fox&Hound, Blade Runner, Fight Club and probably like 12 more 12. Horror or romance? Horror 13. Biggest fear? Clowns. Or Indoor Spiders.  14. Best memory? I have a bunch. But driving up to my cottage with my dad is always a good time. Listening to all the music he hates and me terribly singing it all to him.  15. Worst memory? Aside from the obvious shitty things.. probably when Angela friend broke up with my on my birthday. OR when Andy wouldn’t let me come over to his backyard to play when I was 5 and i just cried at our backyard border line while him and his brothers sang “No Girls Allowed” . fuckin. rude.  16. Where are you from? not here nor there. 17. Ever done anal? mhm 18. Would you prefer to be Mary Berry’s grandchild or Paul Hollywood’s bitch? …..Pardon? 19. Favourite outfit? Black on Black on Black on Black. 20. Snapchat or Instagram? Instagram 21. If you could freeze time what would you do? probably pants a lot of people. But freezing time seems like a pretty lonely power.  22. Best LUSH product in your opinion? probably some sort of soap. 23. Should people wear red shirts or brown pants in your presence? red shirts i guess? wtf is this. 24. Favourite television character? Robin Scherbatsky. Spinelli. Octavia Blake. 25. Do you have a nemesis? not really 26. Are you a hard-worker? depends what im doing i guess 27. What’s the best holiday you’ve ever been on? Paris was dope AF. 28. What’s your dream? probably something weird that doesn’t make sense like the rest of my dreams. ;)  29. Where do you see your life ending up? dead. 30. Describe your last sexual encounter.  uhhh…. no sleep. pretty great. only 1 new bruise. she cute. 31. Cake by the ocean or sex on the beach? cake. 32. Ever done drugs? NEVER 33. Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings? LOTR 34. Are you a jock or a nerd? probably somewhere in the middle. 35. On a scale of 8 to 34.7, how gay are you? 18.6498475.  36. Do you live for Tumblr discourse or hate it? meh. 37. Favourite trashy television show? most things i watch.. the 100, Wynnona Earp, The OC, Shot at Love with Tila Tequila…  38. Last time you watched porn? does scrolling through tumblr count because like.. an hour ago..  39. Do you have a recurring sexual fantasy? not really 40. Weirdest dream you ever had? HA. They’re all weird. But this one time when i was really little I had a dream that my house was being attacked by acid monsters/ aliens and everything they touched melted. and one by one they melted all my family members until I was the only one left and i had a sword and then i woke up before i got melted.  41. Ever had mental health issues? plenty.  42. What’s the answer to the question you wish someone would ask you? 42 43. Do you wish people paid more attention to you? god no. 44. Do you have anyone who you’d happily slap right across their chops? yes. 45. Dog person or cat person? both 46. Sneakers or heels? Sneaks. 47. Favourite cocktail?  Negroni 48. Day or night? night 49. Pokémon or Digimon? DONT MAKE ME CHOOSE!!!! 50. How big is your dick? like. 8/10 on rotten tomatoes. 51. Favourite musical? Rocky Horror  52. Favourite song?  sunday candy atm.  53. Are you secretly a goblin/alien/android? android probably.  54. Why are you like this?  because my mom ruined my life when i was a dramatic teen. 55. What’s your guilty pleasure?  Shitty TV shows with terrible acting and scripts.  56. What would you say if I said ‘I love you’? i love you toooooooo 57. What’s the story behind your URL? i got bored of like 4 other ones. and i liked the alliteration.  58. Tell me something that worries you. Global Politics. and not being able to live comfortably because of the few opportunities for millennials with the rising costs of literally everything except my wage.  59. What have you been worrying about today? literally nothing. 60. I’m only sending you these questions because I have a crush on you and I’m too tragic to actually just say it.  ;) 61. Hot dogs or burgers? burgers 62. Nintendo or the other trash-consoles? N64 specifically..  63. Which fandom ruined a show that you used to like? Arrow. 64. What do you wish you could tell your best friend? u r a butt.  65. Tell us a deep dark secret.  who is us?  i dont have anymore deep dark secrets.  66. Are you curious about having a man in leather spank your botty ‘til it’s all red? no. no i am not.  67. Favourite Tumblr couple? what does this mean 68. Do you have any dietary quirks? probably. i don’t like dessert.. 69. Do you want to have someone pleasure your genitals orally while you do the same to theirs? k. 70. How old are you? 26 71. Which Buzzfeed listicle sums up your existence?   “Sorry” 72. Do you have any pets?  YES 73. What colour underwear are you wearing? maroon 74. Boxers or briefs? on who? briefs.  75. Fuck me, Ray Bradbury? no thank you? 76. Which television show do you want to last forever? Community. (its already over) 77. In a zombie apocalypse how long would you last? like 30 seconds.  78. Do you have good internet connection or do you want to punch your router every ten minutes? the latter. 79. Would you find it somewhat saucy if I sent bawdy nudes in your direction? wut 80. Which country has the best flag?  Tamil Eelam  81. Do you consider yourself *iconic*? never 82. Most overrated food? Ketchup 83. Most overrated film? Titanic or the notebook 84. Most overrated television show? Friends 85. Most overrated type of cheese? Brie 86. Which brand would you never shop at? LV 87. Wisdom, courage, or power? Courage 88. Would you prefer to travel in time and stay in the same spot, or travel in space with time elapsing as normal? time elapsing. unless you’re stopping time again the other option is kind of impossible… 89. What’s the best birthday present you ever got? Art from friends.  90. What present do you wish someone would give you? the secret formula to krabby patties.  91. Do you have an ex? Why did you break up? yes. and yes.  91. Why does 91 appear on this list twice now? because someone dun fucked up.  92. Spare a thought for the humble creator of this list, it’s difficult to think of this many questions. no. 93. Do you prefer anons or non-anons? i don’t get either sooooo 94. Who do you wish you could have sex with more than any other? i don’t need to have sex with anyone THAT badly to have this answer ready. Krista. 95. What is your spirit animal?  probably a fox. 96. Do you have one word that you really love the sound of? lederhosen.  97. Do you still have any of your stuffed toys from when you were a kid? yes 98. What makes you super nostalgic? 90s cartoons. 99. Give me an answer to a random one of these questions. (But don’t make it a shit answer like ‘yes’. Don’t be an asshole.) im not answering this.  100. What’s your favourite cocktail? you asked me this already 101. Sonic screwdriver or Ron’s shit broken wand from the second Potter book? sonic screwdriver.  102. Laptop or PC? laptop 103. What’s the sexiest accent in your opinion? Aussie. 104. Would you let Donald Trump tickle your nipples for an hour for £6,000,000? Only if he dies after.  105. You should check out a great little British website called Pretty52. no. 106. If you could dye your hair any colour, what colour would you change to? Hwhite. 107. What would you change about your body if you could?  too many to list.  108. Do you prefer to be hot or cold? cold 109. What’s your favourite way to orgasm? slowly. 110. Are you a mermaid or a unicorn? neither. i am an android as discussed above.  111. What’s the name of your favourite pet when you were a kid? Nermal. 112. What was your favourite class at school? Art 113. Are you superstitious? not really. 114. What do you think happens when we die? people forget.  115. Pie or pi? neither.. but pie i guess. 116. Your followers a question. no. 117. Lick my genitalia. k. 118. What’s your favourite number? 13&18 119. Do you ever look up at the stars and feel small? frequently. 120. Do you have a good relationship with your parents? occasionally. mostly?  121. Tell me about a quirky personality trait.  im the most normal what are you talking about.  122. What was your favourite story when you were younger? any Robert Munsch book probably. 123. Are you old before your time or young at heart? Y@H 124. Why do you do the things you do? Please. Tell me. I cant help it. 125. I hope you enjoyed these questions. 6/10 126. Which Tumblr blog would you recommend to all your fans? anything with cats.

[networkingdefinition]

Birthday Quotes

Official Website: Birthday Quotes

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• A birthday is just another day where you go to work and people give you love. Age is just a state of mind, and you are as old as you think you are. You have to count your blessings and be happy. – Abhishek Bachchan • A birthday:-and now a day that rose With much of hope, with meaning rife- A thoughtful day from dawn to close: The middle day of human life. – Jean Ingelow • A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age. – Robert Frost • A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday. – Erma Bombeck • All I want for my birthday is another birthday. – Ian Dury • All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheese making class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I’m into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I’d love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef. – Jesse McCartney • All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much. – George Harrison • And for the city’s birthday, we will host events in every neighborhood of the city, inviting all of our residents to share in the celebration of Boston’s great epic – the story of neighbors who support one another where it matters most. • Any time women come together with a collective intention, it’s a powerful thing. Whether it’s sitting down making a quilt, in a kitchen preparing a meal, in a club reading the same book, or around the table playing cards, or planning a birthday party, when women come together with a collective intention, magic happens. – Phylicia Rashad • At 50, don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get back up. Happy 50th birthday. – H. H. Asquith • At her birthday, my seven-year-old daughter will say that she wants these big cakes and certain expensive toys as presents, and I can’t say no to her. It would just break my heart. But when I was little, for birthdays we just played outside and we were happy if we got any cake. – Goran Ivanisevic • Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. – Christina Rossetti • Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year: The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again. – Menachem Mendel Schneerson • Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear… But yours gives most; for mine did only lend Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend. – Martial • Birthdays? yes, in a general way; For the most if not for the best of men: You were born (I suppose) on a certain day: So was I: or perhaps in the night: what then? – James Kenneth Stephen • Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake. – Walter Lord • Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. – Sammy Hagar • Everyday is a birthday; every moment of it is new to us; we are born again, renewed for fresh work and endeavor. – Isaac Watts • Except ye become as little children, except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, “ye cannot enter the kingdom of God.” One must not only die daily, but every day we must be born again. – Dorothy L. Sayers • Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we’ll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end. – Richard Bach • For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier… I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. – Steven Wright • For my birthday this year, my girlfriends – who knew I’d just inherited my dad’s turntable – gave me a carton of albums like “Blue Kentucky Girl,” by Emmylou Harris, and “Off the Wall,” by Michael Jackson. It’s all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can’t have a music collection without Prince’s “Purple Rain” – it just can’t be done! – Connie Britton • From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye. – William Butler Yeats • Happy birthday greetings and warmest wishes, too May today, tomorrow, everyday Be truly happy for you. – Margaret Brown • I binge when I’m happy. When everything is going really well, every day is like I’m at a birthday party. – Kirstie Alley • I crashed my boyfriend’s birthday when I was 12 years old. He didn’t invite me and so I showed up. – Isla Fisher • I had arranged a birthday party for him and my children, who are all Aquarians. Instead, we got married. I ran out of excuses. It was just us and my children. – Diane von Furstenberg • I love having my birthday at Australia Zoo. – Bindi Irwin • I love photography. My boyfriend’s got a great camera, which I bought for his birthday. – Sarah Sutton • I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over. – Kristin Armstrong • I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ – Steven Wright • I was fired by ‘America’s Next Top Model’ on my birthday. – Paulina Porizkova • If I have the power to post ‘Happy Birthday’ on someone’s Facebook page and make them feel really good, it feels really good to make other people feel really good. I love it. I’m a huge Facebook and Twitter person. And I love talking to my fans. It’s fun. – Rebecca Mader • If there’s one thing I really want for my birthday, that is for the mining company not to mine my daddy’s reserve. – Bindi Irwin • If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it. – David Horowitz • I’m a summer baby, so I usually have my birthday as a good summer memory. – Sloane Crosley • In 1993 my birthday present was a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. – Annette Funicello • In childhood, we yearn to be grown-ups. In old age, we yearn to be kids. It just seems that all would be wonderful if we didn’t have to celebrate our birthdays in chronological order. – Robert Breault • It does not seem a year Since last we sent to you Our wishes for your special day And all that you would do. And once again we wish you All joyous things and more A day that’s filled with happiness And memories to store. Then when you think in years to come Of Birthdays long ago You may remember fondly How much we love you so. So have a day of pleasure Do things that make you smile For ………….. you are treasured Today and all the while. – Janet Horne • It is lovely, when I forget all birthdays, including my own, to find that somebody remembers me. – Ellen Glasgow • It’s odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You’ll have a nice time, then two years later you’ll be like, ‘There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?’ – David Sedaris • Mattresses! Beautiful! Let’s go buy a couple of mattresses. Give ’em to people for their birthday. – Lawrence Tierney • May the moments of today become fond memories for tomorrow. Happy Birthday – Rob Jackson • Most of us can remember a time when a birthday – especially if it was one’s own – brightened the world as if a second sun has risen. – Robert – Staughton Lynd • My brother got a .22 for his 12th birthday; I got a .22. He got a hunting knife; I got a hunting knife. – Stephanie Cutter • My first recognition of age setting in was exactly on my 36th birthday. I have no idea why, on this day of all days, I looked in the mirror and realized my face no longer looked young. – Paulina Porizkova • Nicole will come up in conversations where it’s in a part of the conversation. Or we may be somewhere and I would tell some story about their mother and I. You know, we always honor her birthday. – O. J. Simpson • On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles. – Mary Antin • Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time. – Jean Paul • Pleas’d look forward, pleas’d to look behind,And count each birthday with a grateful mind. – Alexander Pope • Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same. – Audrey Hepburn • The best birthdays of all are those that haven’t arrived yet. – Robert Orben • The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once. – Herbert V. Prochnow • The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity. – Seneca the Younger • The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape. – Samuel Johnson • The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him. – Matthew Sweet • The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it’s time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book. – James Rollins • The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday. – Paris Hilton • Then when you think in years to come Of Birthdays long ago You may remember fondly How much we love you so. – Janet Horne • There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know. – Lewis Carroll • There is still no cure for the common birthday. – John Glenn

• We didn’t have a whole lot of money when I was growing up either. I would always ask for magic books or magic tricks for my birthday or for Christmas and the rest of the year I either had to mow lawns or find part time jobs to help supplement the cost of doing magic. – Lance Burton • Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we’ve grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it’s not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing. – Jerry Seinfeld • We’re sending you best wishes And hope your day goes well And that you’ll find some memories With stories you can tell Of how you had a marvelous time And those around you too With fun and lots of laughter And all this just for you.. Have a Very Happy Birthday – Janet Horne • When I was little I thought, isn’t it nice that everybody celebrates on my birthday? Because it’s July 4th. – Gloria Stuart • When I was young and it was someone’s birthday, I didn’t have the money to buy nice presents so I would take my mom’s camera and make a movie parody for whoever’s birthday it was. When I’d show it them, they’d die laughing. That reaction was a high for me, and I loved that feeling. – David Henrie • With a recent birthday, I’ve been acting now for twenty years. – Thayer David • You’re birthday reminds me of the old Chinese scholar….. Yung No Mo – Dana Rosemary Scallon [clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Birthday Quotes

Official Website: Birthday Quotes

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• A birthday is just another day where you go to work and people give you love. Age is just a state of mind, and you are as old as you think you are. You have to count your blessings and be happy. – Abhishek Bachchan • A birthday:-and now a day that rose With much of hope, with meaning rife- A thoughtful day from dawn to close: The middle day of human life. – Jean Ingelow • A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age. – Robert Frost • A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday. – Erma Bombeck • All I want for my birthday is another birthday. – Ian Dury • All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheese making class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I’m into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I’d love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef. – Jesse McCartney • All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much. – George Harrison • And for the city’s birthday, we will host events in every neighborhood of the city, inviting all of our residents to share in the celebration of Boston’s great epic – the story of neighbors who support one another where it matters most. • Any time women come together with a collective intention, it’s a powerful thing. Whether it’s sitting down making a quilt, in a kitchen preparing a meal, in a club reading the same book, or around the table playing cards, or planning a birthday party, when women come together with a collective intention, magic happens. – Phylicia Rashad • At 50, don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get back up. Happy 50th birthday. – H. H. Asquith • At her birthday, my seven-year-old daughter will say that she wants these big cakes and certain expensive toys as presents, and I can’t say no to her. It would just break my heart. But when I was little, for birthdays we just played outside and we were happy if we got any cake. – Goran Ivanisevic • Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. – Christina Rossetti • Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year: The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again. – Menachem Mendel Schneerson • Believing hear, what you deserve to hear: Your birthday as my own to me is dear… But yours gives most; for mine did only lend Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend. – Martial • Birthdays? yes, in a general way; For the most if not for the best of men: You were born (I suppose) on a certain day: So was I: or perhaps in the night: what then? – James Kenneth Stephen • Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake. – Walter Lord • Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. – Sammy Hagar • Everyday is a birthday; every moment of it is new to us; we are born again, renewed for fresh work and endeavor. – Isaac Watts • Except ye become as little children, except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, “ye cannot enter the kingdom of God.” One must not only die daily, but every day we must be born again. – Dorothy L. Sayers • Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we’ll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end. – Richard Bach • For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier… I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. – Steven Wright • For my birthday this year, my girlfriends – who knew I’d just inherited my dad’s turntable – gave me a carton of albums like “Blue Kentucky Girl,” by Emmylou Harris, and “Off the Wall,” by Michael Jackson. It’s all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can’t have a music collection without Prince’s “Purple Rain” – it just can’t be done! – Connie Britton • From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye. – William Butler Yeats • Happy birthday greetings and warmest wishes, too May today, tomorrow, everyday Be truly happy for you. – Margaret Brown • I binge when I’m happy. When everything is going really well, every day is like I’m at a birthday party. – Kirstie Alley • I crashed my boyfriend’s birthday when I was 12 years old. He didn’t invite me and so I showed up. – Isla Fisher • I had arranged a birthday party for him and my children, who are all Aquarians. Instead, we got married. I ran out of excuses. It was just us and my children. – Diane von Furstenberg • I love having my birthday at Australia Zoo. – Bindi Irwin • I love photography. My boyfriend’s got a great camera, which I bought for his birthday. – Sarah Sutton • I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over. – Kristin Armstrong • I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ – Steven Wright • I was fired by ‘America’s Next Top Model’ on my birthday. – Paulina Porizkova • If I have the power to post ‘Happy Birthday’ on someone’s Facebook page and make them feel really good, it feels really good to make other people feel really good. I love it. I’m a huge Facebook and Twitter person. And I love talking to my fans. It’s fun. – Rebecca Mader • If there’s one thing I really want for my birthday, that is for the mining company not to mine my daddy’s reserve. – Bindi Irwin • If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it. – David Horowitz • I’m a summer baby, so I usually have my birthday as a good summer memory. – Sloane Crosley • In 1993 my birthday present was a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. – Annette Funicello • In childhood, we yearn to be grown-ups. In old age, we yearn to be kids. It just seems that all would be wonderful if we didn’t have to celebrate our birthdays in chronological order. – Robert Breault • It does not seem a year Since last we sent to you Our wishes for your special day And all that you would do. And once again we wish you All joyous things and more A day that’s filled with happiness And memories to store. Then when you think in years to come Of Birthdays long ago You may remember fondly How much we love you so. So have a day of pleasure Do things that make you smile For ………….. you are treasured Today and all the while. – Janet Horne • It is lovely, when I forget all birthdays, including my own, to find that somebody remembers me. – Ellen Glasgow • It’s odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You’ll have a nice time, then two years later you’ll be like, ‘There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?’ – David Sedaris • Mattresses! Beautiful! Let’s go buy a couple of mattresses. Give ’em to people for their birthday. – Lawrence Tierney • May the moments of today become fond memories for tomorrow. Happy Birthday – Rob Jackson • Most of us can remember a time when a birthday – especially if it was one’s own – brightened the world as if a second sun has risen. – Robert – Staughton Lynd • My brother got a .22 for his 12th birthday; I got a .22. He got a hunting knife; I got a hunting knife. – Stephanie Cutter • My first recognition of age setting in was exactly on my 36th birthday. I have no idea why, on this day of all days, I looked in the mirror and realized my face no longer looked young. – Paulina Porizkova • Nicole will come up in conversations where it’s in a part of the conversation. Or we may be somewhere and I would tell some story about their mother and I. You know, we always honor her birthday. – O. J. Simpson • On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles. – Mary Antin • Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time. – Jean Paul • Pleas’d look forward, pleas’d to look behind,And count each birthday with a grateful mind. – Alexander Pope • Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same. – Audrey Hepburn • The best birthdays of all are those that haven’t arrived yet. – Robert Orben • The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once. – Herbert V. Prochnow • The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity. – Seneca the Younger • The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape. – Samuel Johnson • The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him. – Matthew Sweet • The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it’s time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book. – James Rollins • The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday. – Paris Hilton • Then when you think in years to come Of Birthdays long ago You may remember fondly How much we love you so. – Janet Horne • There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know. – Lewis Carroll • There is still no cure for the common birthday. – John Glenn

• We didn’t have a whole lot of money when I was growing up either. I would always ask for magic books or magic tricks for my birthday or for Christmas and the rest of the year I either had to mow lawns or find part time jobs to help supplement the cost of doing magic. – Lance Burton • Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we’ve grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it’s not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing. – Jerry Seinfeld • We’re sending you best wishes And hope your day goes well And that you’ll find some memories With stories you can tell Of how you had a marvelous time And those around you too With fun and lots of laughter And all this just for you.. Have a Very Happy Birthday – Janet Horne • When I was little I thought, isn’t it nice that everybody celebrates on my birthday? Because it’s July 4th. – Gloria Stuart • When I was young and it was someone’s birthday, I didn’t have the money to buy nice presents so I would take my mom’s camera and make a movie parody for whoever’s birthday it was. When I’d show it them, they’d die laughing. That reaction was a high for me, and I loved that feeling. – David Henrie • With a recent birthday, I’ve been acting now for twenty years. – Thayer David • You’re birthday reminds me of the old Chinese scholar….. Yung No Mo – Dana Rosemary Scallon [clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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[anneedmonds]

This Year’s Family Holiday: The Lake District

This post is what it says in the title: a post about my family holiday to the Lake District. We actually went in June and I meant to write it up then, but it takes me half a year to do anything these days. And it would have been completely forgotten had I not gone online to search for winter sun holidays and remembered that it needed editing and publishing!

It’s that time of year again: the time when I feel absolutely desperate to escape the UK and seek out warm weather. I say “that time of year again” but “that time”, when I have an almost sickening urge to find some sort of heat and sunshine, seems to stretch from around the second week of October until – I dunno – May. So in reality it’s over half the year. Maybe I should think about moving to warmer climes! I haven’t actually been on a winter sun holiday in about eight or nine years, so perhaps it needs more drastic measures? I could “home school” the kids from a beach bar for half of the year… Ha.

Anyway, my thoughts on taking holidays with small children are fairly well documented: it’s not a true holiday, in my opinion. Yes, there might be sun, yes there might be a beach, but can you really relax? Can you bury your feet into hot sand whilst sipping rosé and snacking on oversized olives stuffed with chilli? Can you let the wine go to your head and woozily read some trashy book on your Kindle before slipping off into a deep sleep, sun on your back, sound of the waves gently lapping the shore?

Can you rubber duck!

Maybe it gets better with every passing year – we haven’t been abroad as a family since April 2018, so can’t comment – but I wouldn’t say that I found our one trip en famille as restful as I had hoped.

Which was why for this year’s family holiday we went to – wait for it! – the Lake District. At the start of June we had a family birthday to go to and so we worked the trip around that, but I’m always quite nostalgic about Cumbria anyway because my mum is from there and there are loads of relatives to visit.

Practically speaking, it would probably have been much faster to go abroad. You have to spend a few hours on an aeroplane, frantically worried that your kids might scream and piss everyone off, but then at least after that you’re there. The hot walk over scorched tarmac, the tense passing through foreign passport control, the clunking of the luggage carousel as you nervously wait to see whether your suitcase has made it… At least you feel as though you’re on holiday.

Lake District? We drove for what seemed like about nine weeks. It rained the entire way. We got there in the dark – in the rain. When you go on holiday somewhere hot, they say that it’s the “same shit different scenery”. Getting out of the car in the cold and the rain in the arse end of nowhere wasn’t even different scenery; in fact, as the dog did a poo in front of me and the plastic bag of food I was hauling into the holiday cottage split open, it became abundantly clear that it was, one hundred percent, just the same shit.

We woke, however, to a glorious scene. I had rented a house a mile or so outside of Ambleside, at Loughrigg, and the house fronted the River Rothay. We opened the curtains to a beautiful June day and a view from a picture-book. The river rushed past, metres from the doorstep, providing a constant white noise that had the children sleeping so deeply we had to (for the first time ever) wake them up. Sheep and cows bumbled along in the surrounding pastures, a magnificent view towards Wansfell rose up in the distance. It was proper food for the soul.

Don’t get me wrong; a view doesn’t solve everything – I’m well aware that the attractions of the location were short-lived for toddlers – but it was at least a splendid setting to come back to for the short periods between trips to the toy shop (in the rain), trips to get snacks (in the rain) and trips to the ice cream parlour (in the rain). When it wasn’t raining, we were in the perfect position to go on walks straight from the front door – lots of holiday cottages boast “walks straight from the front door!” but few really deliver. There’s usually a walk, but you have to cross the M5 motorway first, or there’s a walk but only if you’re willing to climb over the farmer’s barbed wire fence and risk being shot at as you traverse the killing grounds to join the public footpath.

There were lots of walks.

In fact, we walked partway up Loughrigg, much to our own disbelief. It was quite steep for a two year-old and a four year-old and both ended up being carried for lots of it, but the sun was shining and the air was clear, we picked our way up the rocky slopes like sprightly little mountain goats.

We also walked to Ambleside a few times, on the most beautiful pathway. Very few cars, lots of walkers. I’d go so far to say that the holiday house was on a Walkers’ Highway. During civilised hours, there were probably two walkers that passed by every minute. (Worth noting if your dog’s barking is triggered by people walking close by!) I quite liked people walking past, actually – we’re so out of the way in Somerset that people rarely pass on foot, so it seemed rather convivial and lovely.

You never really know what you’re getting with a holiday home though, do you? Until you get there. The pictures either “don’t do it justice” and you rejoice at the fact you’ve landed a Farrow & Ball-pimped bargain complete with proper coffee machine and working Netflix, or you open the door to a damp-smelling hallway with laminated signs telling you not to flush tampons and to put the bins out on a Wednesday.

I booked the house through Lake Lovers because, after hours of tedious searching, they seemed to have the best selection of nice properties in the Lakes. I love the holiday houses on Unique Homestays but they were prohibitively expensive, the ones that were still available, because they slept about twenty people. The ones left when I was booking also didn’t take dogs. To be quite honest, I was almost about to bite the financial bullet and confirm an amazing one that looked out over a lake, but then reality did a check on me: would I really be spending my days looking out over the still water, book in hand, glass of wine on side table?

No, I would be spending my days trying to stop Ted from pulling plugs out of wall sockets and keeping Angelica supplied with a constant stream of snacks. (She likes “options”. I have to give her three options and she deliberates for a while, finger tucked under chin, eyes to ceiling, deep in thought, before giving me her choice. It was pretty cute when we started it, a year or so ago, and I could make up ridiculous options so that she chose the one thing I actually had in stock, but now she actually requires three solid options and it’s getting more and more difficult. Why do we start these crazy games?)

So the lake house that looked like something from an interiors shoot was out; a smaller, cuter cottage was needed. But nothing with very low ceilings, and it needed to be remote enough to be quiet but near enough to a nice town that we could go to cafes and see real life people, and so on. Being able to walk to a town was going to be the biggest novelty – I was incredibly excited about this. “I’ll take Angelica to shops when Ted is having his nap!” I said, excitedly, as I was searching the holiday websites. “We can just potter! And we won’t need a car!”

As it turned out, it rained pretty much constantly so we did need the car, but the thought was nice. The walk through beautiful scenery to get to Ambleside took about forty-five minutes but possibly would have taken twenty five had we been striding along as adults. Walking with small children is like walking through a giant vat of treacle, or it’s like having massive lead boots on that have been velcroed to the ground. It’s slow progress and you have to stop every ten seconds to look at a leaf that has fallen into a puddle.

It’s great fun, and I will treasure every single one of these slow-paced memories, but good lord it’s impossible to raise your heart rate above anything greater that “sedentary”. You’d get more exercise reading the paper in a rocking chair than walking with toddlers!

So anyway, we booked through Lake Lovers. The house was good – location great, house well-equipped, not much going on in the way of a garden because it was on a slope but no biggy. I didn’t fall over with interiors lust, but neither was I disappointed. The setting was idyllic, but once you were inside it wasn’t as though it enveloped you – there were large windows, but it wasn’t one of those houses where you sit in an Eames chair with a huge panoramic view rolling out in front of you. But as we know, holiday houses of that ilk cost the same as going to the bloody Seychelles!

We paid £1200 for a week – I’ve just looked at the same place and it’s currently £695, woe is the person who books at half term – plus a refundable deposit. I did look into hotels, thinking that if we found somewhere with a family room that took dogs, it’d work out to be around the same price but

it didn’t, it was about eight billion pounds and

I’m so glad that most places were fully booked anyway, because had we been in one room in a hotel, with a dog, relationships would have been seriously harmed. What an earth was I thinking? Imagine us all, stewing away in our kingsize+sofabed+travel cot+dog crate room, steam rising from our wet waterproof coats, rainwater dripping onto the bathroom floor. Nope, nope, nope.

There are pros and cons when it comes to holiday homes, but over the years I have come to the conclusion that the pros far outweigh the cons. Yes, I like to be waited on a bit if I’m on holiday – I don’t want to have to stack the dishwasher, pick the squashed peas out of the plughole, etc – but the joyous thing about a rented house is that if you decide you want to eat out every night, and budget allows, then you can. No problemo. You can also, though (and this is especially important when you’re with kids), stock up the fridge with kids’ Fruit Shoots and Innocent Smoothies, adults’ Prosecco and Beer and indulge them/yourself at any time you want without having to pay £3.80 for a small bottle of fizzy water or £16 for a miniature Prosecco. Crisps, nuts, all kinds of snacks can be at your immediate disposal – you can make a doorstep sandwich with local cheese and chutney whenever you want and the supply of tea and coffee can be endless.

I do love the cocooning, luxury feel of a good hotel but they come with a hefty price tag, don’t they? Great for a couple of nights, but once you tip into a week you could almost rent the James Bond lakeside abode for the same cost and invite eighteen friends. More space, the freedom to cook or eat out as you fancy and your own private outdoors areas.

What do you prefer for a longer holiday? The self-catered route or the fully-serviced hotel? Mr AMR prefers his own space and his own kitchen and has always been of this persuasion – I used to be a luxe hotel kind of person but now, with family, I think that I might be rented houses all the way…

I booked The Mews through Lake Lovers here. The crazy-nice place I’ve been banging on about on the lake is at Unique Homestays here – it costs from £1450 per week.

Things we did near Ambleside:

Crossed over the Stepping Stones at Loughrigg. Ted refused to be carried and then obviously got his feet wet! Obviously!

Hired a boat and chugged our way around Lake Windermere. My health and safety paranoia was in overdrive, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have, but when I had both kids firmly in my arms I loved it!

We used to have a little seventies’ motorboat when we lived on a river, so it brought back nice memories. Even if it was raining for most of the time!

We also went on the steam train that runs from Haverthwaite, but really more to give the kids something interesting to do. They weren’t too fussed by it really, which surprised me – I thought that all kids loved trains! – but they sat and ate their tangerines and looked at the rain whilst I spent half of the journey trying to take a completely symmetrical photo of the inside of the train carriage…

Results:

By far my favourite outing was to Hill Top, which was Beatrix Potter’s cottage up in the middle of nowhere in a tiny village with the most incredible views. I have a strange affinity with Beatrix Potter (don’t bloody laugh, I see you!) but I think I need to write a separate post about it. I don’t even like the books that much (sacrilege!) but I like her story and I like her cottage and I think I might have actually been her in a past life. I’ll come back to you on this particular revelation.

Anyway, I really enjoyed poking about the cottage, so much so that I bought the book about it in the gift shop. I’m usually allergic to gift shops! Although now I’m a fully-fledged National Trust member, I like to be supportive and buy the apron/fudge/fridge magnet, etc. It all helps. You can read about Hill Top here – if you’re an NT member then you get in for free.

Right, I’m off to look at winter sun holidays I’ll never book. Tell me, people, where is good to go in December with two small children that won’t be too hot but will also be guaranteed warmth, with a flight time that won’t make me want to eat my own hands with anxiety?

Jumping back to the Lake District; I would definitely go again, when the kids are slightly older. I mean I will definitely go again, because half of my extended family are up there, but I would actively choose there too. It’s so beautiful. So dramatic. I love walking, I love heartstoppingly beautiful scenery (who doesn’t) and I bloody love tea rooms. There are so many tea rooms…

The post This Year’s Family Holiday: The Lake District appeared first on A Model Recommends.

This Year’s Family Holiday: The Lake District was first posted on November 10, 2019 at 9:21 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com This Year’s Family Holiday: The Lake District published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[kcsfalloutshelter]

Happy?… Thanksgiving

The crying continues. One minute I am decorating and feeling the spirit of the holidays and yearning for the joys of the past. The next…I am longing for my grandmother and my dad and all that I feel I have lost over the last few years.

This year feels more painful than last year. Maybe, I was in shock for a year. I don’t remember feeling so heart-broken last year. It was brand new, fresh last year. Grandma has been gone almost two years. Yet, it feels like yesterday when they left me.

I spent most of the 2017 taking care of dad and trying to avoid inhaling the ever rising floor waters around me. I let myself fall apart for my birthday. I stayed in bed and cried like I had not cried in a very long time.

Just when I thought I couldn’t stand the pain another minute, Warren’s grandma called me. All I wanted was a call from my grandma and my prayers were answered. We often don’t get exactly what we ask. We get what we need.

After my birthday, I wiped myself off, put on my big-girl panties, and got on with the daily schedule.

This denial…which I didn’t even realize I was in until right now… was easily hidden because dad was getting so much sicker.

Dad and I had a conversation in last September. The cancer had used the chemo and radiation as fertilizer.

I love my dad. I could not have asked for a better dad. He had faults. Lots. But, he was my dad. He was there for me no matter what, always.

Why I felt the need to justify that statement is beyond my knowledge at the moment. Further investigation may need to happen.

The conversation lead to dad’s last gift for Beth and I.  Thanksgiving and Christmas have been the big holidays in our family all our lives. Slight changes over the years but the foundation stayed. Grandma died in the middle of December. I basically begged my dad to either die before December or wait until after January.

Sounds harsh but the conversation wasn’t. Dad understood.

This conversation was another where dad said he was ready to go home. He didn’t want the pain his body was being tortured with every second of every day. But, he didn’t want to leave us either.

I promise to take care of my sister.

Another revelation…more tears too. I didn’t feel the real weight of this promise until now.

The last real conversation grandma and I had consisted of a similar promise.

I promise to keep our family traditions alive.

These promises came almost 10 months apart. Thanksgiving was a no show.

I have been increasingly anxious about decorating the house. Creating lasting holiday memories for my grandsons. Crushed by traditions that are being changed or lost. Brainstorming how to keep our family together and help shape our traditions to honor the past while being flexible to the current family schedules, and locations.

I have felt like it was up to me alone to determine, or plan to keep, family traditions alive. It is not up to me alone. I am one of thirteen grandchildren. Several of us have adult children. Although, I believe I am the only grandma.

Is that why I feel like I am the head of this insane pack?

Maybe…

While letting this post write itself, like ink flowing from the quills of Lord Tennyson’s mind, I am continually amazed by the connections my mind makes.

Critical thinking is obviously a blessed companion to wandering.

I am trying to plan and be joyful.

I want to smile and laugh.

I want to be free of the aching pain that fills my chest and threatens to drown me.

I do not want to bite at my husband. I do not want to avoid family and friends.

So, I take it minute by minute.

In an effort to feel better, Wednesday night,  I drug all the Christmas decoration storage boxes from the basement. The idea was to have the boxes ready for decorating after the Macy’s Parade.

Hit the music, Please.

A little Lauren Daigle and friends.

Some of the boxes are damp. I knew I should have changed to all plastic bins. 100 year old house comes with some challenges. In the end, all are well worth the work. I love my house, even the rooms we haven’t fixed yet.

See? Do you already have emotional whiplash? My husband says he does…

The music played. I sorted and tossed items that were damp or falling apart from age.

  Bringing up the bins.

After sorting a bit…

  The orange bin…Some pieces from my grandma’s village live in the orange bin for 10 months a year. After grandma passed away, we got to split up the village between all the grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was her pride and joy. She loved her village. We all would help her add to her collection over the years. Most of us went on to start our own villages.

In 2013, my cousin and her family helped grandma put up a large portion of grandma’s village. The love and memories that are attached to each building, tree, person, pathway and light are irreplaceable.

What did grandma’s 2013 village really look like? Glad you asked…

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So, happiness fulled the air. Warren commented that he felt grandma and dad in the room with us. As we chatted, I kept moving boxes and trying to decide why I was just moving the items into another box or bin, when we were just going to take them back out Thursday.

Let the decorating begin.

Five hours later, Warren begs me to take my tired self to bed. I am tired. I am that tired that seeps in you bones and makes your muscles ache. My eyes burn and are a delightfully puffy shade of rouge.

But, will this happiness leave if I rest?

1 AM – I finally submit to trying to sleep.

Toss. Turn. TOSS. TURN.

Have you played this fun game? Delightful.

2 AM – Not going to happen.

Insomnia sucks!

Back downstairs to the bins. No radio. Fix what is bugging me and go back to bed. That is the plan. Stick to the plan.

Sure.

Not going to happen.

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That’s it. Five pictures.

What time did I fall asleep?

3:30 AM.

I was not working on just these. No, that would make sense. I was still sorting bags and bins. The orange bin has returned to the safety of the basement as it is only full of packing paper.

I have also decided to go through all three drawers under the window seat in the dining room.

Why?

Well, I found a glue gun. No glue. I thought I saw some glue in one of the drawers. I throw things in two of the drawers all the time. You know that quick clean up of random items that mysteriously appear, through the help of no one living, and Never leave.

Not there. At least, the drawers are clean and organized again.

I slept through my 8:45 AM alarm. Of course.

Way to go, wacky sleep pattern and racing mind for the win.

I missed the beginning of the Macy’s parade. At least we decided no turkey…or ham…or gathering of any sort days ago. So, no food is ruined. I am Blessed.

I have to look at the silver lining, the blessings, the miracles above the pain. Above the Anger. I feel it simmering below the surface.

I want to lash out. I want everyone to hurt as much as I do. I never want anyone to ever feel as much pain as I do now.

Poor, Warren. Some one really should get him a helmet and shoulder pads.

I am sure you are bursting with interest in what we did eat. Sorry, had to poke fun at our desire to share our meals with each other via virtual images. I have been the poster of many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Not to mention, additional posts of ice cream and cake. Warren and I love sweets, almost as much as we love each other.

Constant blessings are in my life. I just have to remember to look . Warren talks me down when the anger threatens to spill out the door and down the highway. I thankfully know the tricks to anchor him when similar events arise.

Food Choice: Breakfast – Chocolate chip waffles.  When? Still pending.

Current time: 5:58 PM Thursday, November 22, 2018.

Oh great! Another day where eating wasn’t a priority. Too bad eating one meal a day doesn’t make you thinner. But, we also know how picky I am…You missed that post? Oh, take a look back over past posts. I know I have mentioned it. 🙂

I have cried. I have laughed. I have been thankful. I have been angry. I have been blessed.

I need to keep reminding myself that dad and grandma, and everyone else we have lost over the past 8 years, are right here with us. I just need to stop. Breathe. Listen. They are there. A wise person told me today that I know exactly what they would say to me if I was talking to them . Listen. You can hear them with you.

Death is not the end. We will see each other again.

Each time depression bares down, pulling me down a dark path, I remember that I am not alone. Even when I cannot see, I am being carried. I am Loved.

So, let the anger pass. Cry every tear that wants to fall. Whether you are in denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, or acceptance, let your grief run it’s own race. Don’t expect to one day wake up and never feel sad again.

I am grateful for every emotion. These emotions hold precious memories linked to the most important people and events in my life. Without these moments, I would not be who I am.

Life sucks. Grief sucks.

Smile through the pain. Remember we are never truly along. We just need to stop. Breathe. Listen. …and don’t forget to go eat something.

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  Happy? Thanksgiving... Can we be thankful when we are in pain? Can grief over-shadow joy? Happy?... Thanksgiving The crying continues. One minute I am decorating and feeling the spirit of the holidays and yearning for the joys of the past.