#i'm good at supplying updates thankfully. or so i like to think

[vellichorom]

Maybe to avoid overload you can open slots? I see a lot of people do that.

i've HEARD of that but i don't even know HOW to do that. i mean i think i have an idea but the thought of getting all the slots filled & then having someone come up like may i have a drawing please wheem having missed the bus makes me so sad

of course i just have to give my balls a tug & get assertive with myself so that's just something i have to figure out

GOOD ADVICE NEVERTHELESS! THANK YOU

[omies-odd-writing-spot]

Lifeboat 12: SQUASH?!

“What did you want me to see if I could get seeds out of again?” Lana asked as she looked around inside of the newly placed crate.

Sesa looked up from working on the lid of the crate. Thinking about the question, the woman looked over at another crate set on a chair. There were a few crates that had been set around Sesa for sorting supplies. “Oh the vine berries. I got some from the store. It's a sweet-savory fruit. I think it's a fruit?”

The giant woman looked at another crate and poked at the wrapped things. Careful not to tear the paper as it had updated news. The lid to the crate was set aside, so Sesa could use both hands, opening a few containers and then set one beside where she was working on making a second doorway for Lana in the crate lid. Unwrapping and happy to see nothing broke, or oozed. 

“I like the savory berries, but I've never got one to sprout, just rot in the ground.” Sesa set the container down on the big table, then smoothed the paper out. Scanning for anything interesting in the news, but smiled at seeing a recipe, trying not to laugh at the text of, ‘Nutty pie! So good even Bitta will move into your home!’

“Do you like nuts?” Sesa blinked and looked up, spotting Lana sitting on the edge of the crate and kicking her legs. Sesa realized she needed to make some sort of stairs for the Bitta.

“Yes, well, nuts I'm used to. I thought I saw what looked like chestnut trees on the way here.” Lana tilted her head, unable to help thinking of a big nutshell about the size of her. Everything was so weirdly big in this place!

Sesa looked around and picked something up from in the massive pots that Lana had yet to really see inside of yet. The giant woman was alarmingly fast, but thankfully Sesa had learned to slow down around Lana. She was holding something tan and brown between two fingers and once more, Lana felt her inner thoughts grind to a halt. Staring at something she almost recognized, but the scale was… off.

“That looks like an acorn.” Lana blurted, “That's… the size of the jars.”

The nut inside was likely the side of her head. The nut had to be a few pounds at least as Lana rattled the shell to listen to the nut inside. Maybe five pounds? Did it have more tannins being so big? Or was what was in a normal nut all stretched out? 

Was that possible?

Lana’s brain was getting so much bafflement, she wondered how much more she would keep having. The young woman found herself grateful that Sesa was so patent with her and did not leave her in that giant's city. With how the ‘peaceful’ dinos all seemed to want to eat Lana too, she was not sure what animals would show up in a city.

“Not a…chestnut?” Sesa's voice asked, jarring Lana back to reality. So looked up, then down at the acorn, and shook her head. “Oh… not good then?”

“Nuu, this is still good,” Lana paused, making a face at her own confused words, “Wait. I mean, yes, good thing. Do you have more? Or different types of tree nuts?”

“I have a few nuts I've collected,” Sesa admitted, puzzled but was smiling a bit at Lana’s fascination. “I can dig them out once we finish getting you set up.”

The bigger woman grinned at the clear, tiny, pout. Sesa wanted to reach out, put her project down and cup her hands around Lana. It was almost an irresistible urge, the want to do, but Sesa took a breath and made herself not. She finished the cut into the wood, and hummed before setting the lid upright how it would sit in the crate. Just on the table. “Is this a good enough size door? Can you walk through?”

Lana looked down at the nut, carefully set it down before the Bitta hopped down. Sesa would definitely need to make some sort of steps for her. Not a lot, maybe just a few like four or five wide steps. Sesa should have something even like that around. She had not used up all the materials to make the Bitta home models. Not at all.

The giant woman felt awkward at the thought of her hobby and now had a real live Bitta here. Again. 

She focused back on track, watching as Lana came over and peeking through the opening. Sesa smiled watching Lana ease through, hands carefully touching the sides. “Needs to be fixed. I need to make it a bit taller, and wider. unless you want it narrow?”

“A little wider would be nice,” Lana looked up, eyeing the new door frame above her. “It should be tall enough though.”

“Almost,” Sesa dared to carefully touch a fingertip to Lana's leg, “The lip of the crate was most of the way up you shin when you were sitting on it. The door isn't big enough. Hop up in the crate so I can measure better?”

Lana looked back and forth, considering before she understood. “Oh! I get it, it's like a foot and change up...will be.”

A foot?

Sesa grinned as she looked at the, maybe inch or so space. Suddenly getting an interesting idea, was an inch a foot for the Bitta? Once Lana was safely inside the crate, Sesa lifted the lid and set it against the spot it would be on, the door space did shrink about a third of the space.

“...yeah, I see, not big enough to be comfortable.” Lana's voice called from inside, and Sesa chuckled.

The giant woman reached for her pencil, holding the lid with her right hand. Starting to make a better opening as Lana popped out. Leaning out to see what was going on, tracking the movement of the pencil. “How's that?” 

“I think? Is the knot going to be okay halfway through?” Lana pointed at something just to her right.

Sesa leaned down to look, where there was a slight color difference. “It should be alright, but I can cut the other way instead to avoid the spot. Or you can have a window?”

The giggle that came at once had Sesa smiling down at Lana. The Bitta extracted herself to go inside the crate and look around. “Maybe windows would be nice. Not sure where yet.” 

“We can always add some later,” Sesa assured as she lifted the lid, finding that Lana was sitting on the floor of the crate. “It might not be much to start with, but if you want more of a bed I think a few of the little… ‘Models’ of Bitta houses might have something inside. I still want to smooth that little cooker thing out.”

“I did kind of like the two levels,” Lana assured, “Unless it's a safety thing?”

“It is, that chip has to stay in a sand buffer, just like mine. Don't want your new home here to catch fire.” Sesa said, moving the lid and using a carving knife to make the door the right size. “My house is made of thick stone, but I really like this table. My grandfather made it when he made the house.”

“Safety first,” Lana smiled, for now happy to sit on her spot and watch Sesa world. “Nothing wrong with that. Can I ask some more things?”

“I don't mind.” Sesa said, smiling as she worked. Not wanting to admit how much she was enjoying the morning talking with the Bitta. Someone that was not demanding Sesa do something for them, but looking up at the bigger woman with weary hope. 

Sesa paused her carving for a moment, as it really sank in that this tiny person was going to be dependent on her. Mostly depending on her, for more than protection. The woman wanted Lana to be as set up as possible. Turning back to her task as the Bitta asked.

“What are we going to do for a door?” Lana asked, still peaceful in her spot. 

Sesa paused, realizing that was a good question. Doors were good things. “It’s not very impressive for now, but I did get a lot of the fabric scraps from the weavers. Maybe we can use a piece of that until I can make a hinge small enough.”

“That could work.” The bitta tilted her head, remembering how stiff some fabrics from the other day was, mostly Sesa’s vest. “Better than nothing, ya?”

“Yeah,” Sesa echoed, looking at some of the things on the table. Glanced down at what she had done before adding as she lifted the lid. “Here, let's try this.”

The lid was fitted back into place, and there was a happy sound from inside the crate. “Much better!” 

Sesa could not help smiling as the giant watched when Lana came back to the door, being careful of the edges still but there was a good space between her on all sides now. “Yes it is, I’ll sand the edges down for you too.”

“Thank you,” Lana backed up reflexively as the lid of the crate was moved and pulled off. She paused once sitting down at the edge of the crate, “And… um, Thank you Sesa.”

“For what?”

Lana looked up, finding golden eyes back on her, “For helping me, even if I was… am, scared. For not putting me in like a pet tank, or leaving me somewhere. Thank you for saving me from the dinosaurs that wanted to eat me.”

Sesa’s neutral, concentrating expression softened. Getting that more pleased, or happy look like when they were cooking together. “You’re welcome, but I couldn’t leave you. That dosen’t seem… right. You’ve been… are a person. Just….very oddly- erm.”

“Tiny?” Lana snorted softly, hopping down to the ground, tabletop. Walking around the crate lid to where Sesa hand set the containers of ‘vine berries.’ pausing as a large hand stopped just short of her, as if Sesa was moving on reflex but stopped herself.

Lana considered, then took a few steps over to pat the back of Sesa’s hand. 

Hearing the rumble back, “Very small. But you’re very cute.”

Lana flushed a bit, looking away and walked to the equivalent of berry containers, only, well. Crate sized…

Exactly like those big crates at fall of pumpkins at the stores because it was full of pumpkins! 

Vine berry.

Lana rested her hand on the edges of the container, leaning over it a bit. It felt like wood, but was thin enough to bend, yet thick enough that it almost looked expexive to Lana. not like particle board, but… it was one piece? Paper? paper -ish? Wait, Lana thought as she picked up a white pumpkin up off the stack in the container. Remembering some little boxes like this at a farmer’s market but with strawberries.

She felt a bit dizzy again as another facet of the size scale hit Lana, standing beside a giant’s berry container. That was a pumpkin. Whites and what Lana recognized as being marbled green and orange, a seed pumpkin?

How much stuff filtered over to this world?

Definitely not plastics as far as Lana could tell, but she turned the pumpkin around in her hands. She knocked her knuckles on it, hearring the hollow sound, and then tested the skin. Rine really. Definitely ripe and ready. 

“We can definitely grow some pumpkins.” Lana smiled, paused and then brightened up turning to see a surprised and happy Sesa. “OH! Hey, I just thought of something Sesa!”

The giant blinked, expression turning confused as she paused and had what looked like sandpaper in hand. Watching the human run back to the crate. Pumpkin set on the side of the crate, not completely forgotten but set aside. Lana had climbed up and was rummaging through her lifeboat, and her backpack left inside. 

“...what did you remember?” Sesa guessed, watching in some amusement as the Bitta pulled over a decently sized bag for her back by the vine berry. Plopping down to start pulling things out. A change of clothes and an assortment of other little things Sesa could not tell what they were. 

“Okay, you know how I told you I set up gardens and stuff to make money on the side?” Lana asked, pulling a thick bag out, envelope really but nice and protecting the smaller little clear bags, as well as some paper bags. It took a second for Sesa to realize there were patterns on the paper as well as miniscule writing.

The giant woman leaned over, folding her arms on the table and had to get close to try and see the details. The words seemed gibberish to Sesa, but she controlled her breathing and focused on the little bits, and saw the tiniest of little pictures of plants. Fruit? “...you have seeds with you?”

“Yeah,” Lana smiled, taking a few deep breaths with the giant woman’s head so close. She was fine, it was okay. “Including some pumpkins! I have the big ones, sugar pie, even some blues. Not to mention I have several other squashes. Some veggies and flowers too. Even have some strawberries! A lot… My Auntie’s wanted a lot of those.”

The bitta paused, tilting her head and picked something out that she had been hoarding while on the lifeboat. A packet of dehydrated fruit from a friend. “I might have some more too, I almost forgot I have some stuff that might sprout too.”

“All the things,” Sesa said softly, before moving back and straightening her back, smiling, “At least you can have some familiar things growing?”

“Is it safe to grow things outside for me?” Lana wondered, not really able to see outside well. Or just out the window of Sesa's cabin from where she was. “With the dinosaur lizard things?”

“... good point.” Sesa eyed her pots, and then shrugged, “We can find something inside for you, I was told the vine berries… pumpkin? Need to grow inside anyways.” 

“Do you have any more containers like that?” Lana asked, pointing to the container with the pumpkins.

“I do, some older ones too I haven't done anything with. Oh and the pots the miniature trees are in.” Sesa looked over to her right to point at the pots, “I do need to get those repotted, and the garden birds into something. They've probably laid a bunch of eggs and need water. Let's at least get you something to sleep on, Lana, and some basic supplies if you want to cook. Get the garden birds somewhere safe after. Maybe they're an animal you can use?”

“Maybe?” Lana paused, thinking about the mention of eggs. Could it be chickens? 

That seemed a little too good to be true.

“What do they eat?”

“...you know I'm not sure, I know they like the scraps of the cooking gourds. I normally let them go in one of the protected garden plots. They seem to eat bugs that try for those plants.” Sesa was shifting back and stretched again working a stiff muscle out. She was moving to look for something, paused and sighed. “I left it in the shed. I'll be back, Lana.”

“Okay?” Lana answered, puzzled as the only shed she was aware of was back at the cove. Then realized that she really did not have an idea of what it looked like outside other than having seen a barn-like building to the… east of the house’s main window. 

At least the left of the window when facing it. 

Lana almost asked to go with Sesa as she was getting boots on. Then changed her mind, not wanting to see the even bigger world outside right now. She gave a nervous giggle, and after getting glanced at blurted out, “Watch out for monsters?” 

Sesa grinned, “Don't worry, I can kill any monsters Lana. And if for some reason I can't, I'll get John to come down from his cabin.”

Sesa pointed to her bed still in the living space, and the fur blanket on it. “He hunted and made that for me after all.”

“That's one creature?” Lana squeaked. 

“Maybe two,” Sesa considered, “he had to use something to even it out.”

“I don't think I want to see what that came from. Or meet it.”

“You won't,” Sesa promised as she got up, “Not alive anyways. John keeps them away. I'll be right back.”

Lana waved, not sure if Sesa saw it, but that was okay. It was notably quieter with the giant gone as the door opened and closed, but not too much so. She could still hear whatever animals outside, and those chitters again. Lana walked over the table top, until coming to the ‘pots’ that held the trees. She could not see what was inside them, did not sound like a chicken but did sound like a bird of some sort.

Backing up, Lana tried to see what the tree was, it seemed like a plum, or cherry? 

“What is this place?” Lana wondered aloud, glancing around, not meaning her current… residence? The cabin was more like…several malls put together? At least cabin fever might not be that bad. Hopefully.

Hearing the distant footsteps coming back some fifteen minutes later, Lana looked up from where she had come back to. Currently setting all the pumpkins out in neat rows away from where all the work was going on. At least away from Sesa’s work area. The main door opened, the giant woman had what looked like a tray in one hand with a few assorted things on it. 

Definitely a different shed somewhere closer then the one at the cove.

“Welcome back?” Lana called, and got a smile back. “Goodies?”

“Goodies? Oh, heh, that’s cute. Yes, goodies.” Sesa was still smiling as she got her boots off again, paused as if considering something. “I need to find my other shoes. Might be in the storage room.”

Sesa came over, hesitated before getting to the table and made herself take a breath. Lana tilted her head but understood as the giant woman slowed her steps the last few paces before sitting down. That was kind, Lana realized, willing to come over as the tray was set down and the crate lid moved to the side. It was a few feet tall at least, the edges that was, and when Lana found it came up to her middle and peered in. 

There were some more of those bent wood containers, Sesa had grabbed them and they just looked a bit dry or dusty. There were also a few small her-sized things, like a table! A bench, and a few more things that were carved from wood and… and…

Well.

There was a boxy like room thing, and a car sized squash fruit.

Not like pickup size, but the size of a small compact car. ‘Just’ small car sized. It likely could fit on a flatbed truck?

Like the massive world record pumpkins, only it put those to shame and even held its shape. It looked like scallop squash, but was colored dark green with dark orange stripes and spots freckled over it.

Lana could fit in it!

“This is an eating gourd!” Sesa said cheerfully, then was leaning over to look at the vine barries. As if comparing again the difference between the two. Or what was alike?

Lana did not want to sit in the giant pumpkin... Well, no, there was still that intrusive thought to want to be a godsdamns fiery and sit in a hollowed out giant pumpkin. “What’s it taste like?” 

Sesa laughed at the confused question, “Tasty? Better with seasonings.”

“You could make so many pies, and soup and everything with that.” Lana wondered aloud. Paused, and then she climb over the edge of the tray and came closer. Almost running into a solid seeming table before getting distracted by that.

“....You can make pie out of gourds?!” Sesa demanded leaning back, startled. She looked around, even up at the recipe books she had, then to that paper with the nut pie recipe. “No one told me that! Why didn’t anyone tell me that?”

The demand was not aimed at Lana but the Bitta giggled as she looked up at the almost offended expression on the giant.

“...how do you make it?”

“Well,” Lana thought, remembering the days spent with her family cooking. “You have sugar, the squash, I saw a bunch of seasonings. Something has to be alike to what’s needed. Do you have milk or cream?”

“I’m about to, when the cows give birth.” Sesa brightened up. “I also froze some last fall!”

“Do you have a pie crust recipe?”

“I found one in my grandmother’s books I use!”

“Do you have edible eggs?” Lana asked, tilting her head.

Sesa stared out the window, blinked slowly before brightening up. “I don’t yet. But I’ve been meaning to trade a neighbor for egg layers!”

Lana giggled again, “Well, we can make some pie then when we have everything. Depending on that milk. You might like some whipped cream on top too!”

“....What now? That sounds odd…is it good? Whipped cream?”

“Very good, more so if you make it a little sweet.” “Sweet cream… like fancy tea in town? It can be whipped?”

[sl-vega]

✧Sticking to the Script✧-03

⋆｡°✩ 03-inspiration? more like desperation

Xingqiu had been staring at a blank document with an empty piece of lined paper right next to him. The empty void of white taunted him. He sighed as he closed his laptop and put it back into his backpack.

"You okay?" Xingqiu looked up, and he saw Chongyun standing next to him. "Yeah I'm just stressed..." Xingqiu replied as he gathered his stuff and placed it into his bag.

"Don't you have a few months to finish it?" Chongyun asked. "We do, but it's supposed to be twelve pages at the very least." Xingqiu said as he rubbed his temples. He sighed again, "Sorry, this has just been bothering me for a bit."

Xingqiu started placing all his supplies back into his bag. He quickly got up from his seat waiting for Chongyun to follow. "Where are you going?" Chongyun asked. "The drama room." Xingqiu replied without any further elaboration.

"Why? You aren't actually going to audition for the play are you?" Chongyun asked with a concerned tone. "Thankfully I'm not." Xingqiu said walking out of the school's library with his friend.

"I'm going there for inspiration, some of the actors who audition are phenomenal and Romeo and Juliet is this year's production so there must be something I can use." Xingqiu said, his eyes sparkling in anticipation.

"You're just saying that because our library has no good romance books, aren't you?" Chongyun asked seeing right through his friend.

"You know me so well Chongyun." he replied. Yes that was part of the reason, but Xingqiu was a fan of theatre and the live arts. He still preferred books and literature, but he could admit that actors and live performances had their own merits.

The two boys continued their way down the stairs passing by several teachers and formally greeting them, they made their way to the auditorium, it was state of the art, with a huge stage and hundreds of plush, velvet seats.

Xingqiu and Chongyun sat near the front, Xingqiu eyed the students all over the huge room. Many held scripts and seemed to be memorizing their lines last minute. His eyes continued to scan the room before landing on a familiar figure.

You, the girl he had given his umbrella to

The two of you made eye contact, and he could see you quickly dart your eyes away, even in the dim lighting of the seating area, he could see your face flush.

"Hey Chongyun." he whispered to his friend, not wanting to interrupt the current student auditioning.

"Who's that girl over there?" He asked, gesturing to where you were standing, the two of them saw you get up to the stage to audition.

"Name and part?" Furina, the director, asked.

"(Y/N) (L/N), auditioning for the part of Juliet." you said.

"There's your answer." Chongyun whispered responding to his friend's question from earlier. The baby-blue haired boy glanced over to his friend as you started your monologue. Xingqiu looked star-struck.

"Xingqiu, earth to Xingqiu." Chongyun said as he waved his hand in front of his friend's face. "You good?"

Still completely focused on you, he whispered something under his breath.

"She's perfect."

additional notes:

-QUADRUPLE UPDATE LET'S GOOOO

-golly gee i wonder what xingqiu means by that

-y'all get the potential double meaning?

-chongyun thinks that xingqiu is head over heels for this random girl

-he may as well be tbh

-next chapter will be this but from y/n's perspective

-yes y/n is blushing over a boy that she barely knows

-look, she just went through a break-up, her standards are very low now

-xingqiu would be a great boyfriend tho

-oop did i just spoil the endgame

-oh well

-ty to @freyao7 for being my proofreader again

masterlist

<prev ll next>

✧Sticking to the Script✧

Pairing: Xingqiu x FEM! Reader

Genre: fake dating, strangers to lovers, slow burn, fluff, angst (?), high school smau, modern smau

⋆｡°✩-Synopsis: Xingqiu just got entered into a special writing contest, the type that's invite only, the theme this year is love, the only problem is that he has zero romantic experience. but he really wants to prove himself as a writer. meanwhile, you just found out that your boyfriend cheated on you, and you need to show him that you're 100% over him, the only problem is that there's no way you can get an actual boyfriend that quickly. clearly, the solution to both of your issues is to fake date each other. it shouldn't be hard for an actor such as yourself, all you need to do is stick to the script.

(OPEN) Taglist: @freyao7, @thatoneswordgirl, @sn1perz, @latay7. @esmetrees, @nmriki0, @help-whatdoimakemyusername, @httpsrenren, @cupid-spams, @aixaingela, @kaitfae, @luvkvni, @danhenglovebot

[emxisms]

Hi I was just wondering if u could write a Glenn x reader with reader being hurt on a supply run? Maybe some hurt and comfort pls and thank you 🙏

"ℑ'𝔳𝔢 𝔤𝔬𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲."

Glenn Rhee x GN!reader (they/them)

Summary: Glenn and reader make their weekly supply runs. This time, reader is caught in a room full of zombies. They're cornered, with nowhere to go. Thankfully in time, Glenn is to their rescue.

Warnings: Mentions of guns, blood, violence, strong language.

You were in the middle of helping Carol sort out the crops, lining up and marking what each row will be growing. You had planted carrots, cabbage and a few other vegetables. It was hot outside, but it had to get done some time, right? You were exhausted, having stayed up all night watching out for walkers with Glenn. You and him were normally in charge of night watches, because the rest of the group was busy with whatever the hell else. You'd only gotten a couple hours of rest, you refused to let Glenn stay up alone no matter how much he protested against it. It was only a matter of time before the night rolled in, and you were back in the tower. You never really minded it much, it meant you got to spend more time with your boyfriend.

"Alright, I think everything is finished up. Thank you for all your help, sweetheart." Carol expressed her thanks, and walked away to alert Rick that the task is done. You give her a small smile before walking to the opposite side of the field, ending face-to-face with your favorite person.

"Hey, babe. Do you think you'd be up for a run today? We need some groceries, and meds. We ran out of almost everything yesterday. I totally understand if you're not up for it. I wish you'd have gotten more sleep last night." he frowned and pulled you closer to him. You smiled and came by his side.

"Yeah, I'm fine with that! As long as you're with me." you kissed his cheek, and walked away with a wave, him giving you one in return. You got to your shared cell with some other members, and gathered your things. You carried a bat, and a pistol on you. Even though it's the zombie apocalypse, you still weren't very good with guns, even after all this time. Rick wouldn't ever allow you to even hold anything bigger than a pistol, so you were normally stuck with a baseball bat, and Glenn guarding you with a rifle. You do a final pat down, making sure you had everything you needed, and make your way back to Glenn. You made sure to let Rick know on your way out, and he was okay with it.

"Hey. You ready? I've got everything I need. I cleared out my bag, so we should have enough room for everything." you announced, letting Glenn know all the updates. "Yeah, I'm as ready as you are!" he smiled and placed your stuff inside the red minivan. He entered the driver's seat, you accompanying him in the passenger's seat. He signaled to Daryl that you two were ready, and he opened up the gates.

On your way to the now abandoned shops, you wrote out a list of all the necessities. "You're so organized. If I were doing this alone, I would've just winged it, and hoped for the best." Glenn scoffed. He always adored how you did your best to keep things in their place, no matter what it took. How you tried to keep things humane, as if walkers never existed. "Well thank you! I like keeping everything in order. Plus, I would hate to miss something and for the group to not have everything we need." you suggested. Things have been super tough recently. Many people have been getting sick, and everyone is working as hard as they can to keep everybody safe. Especially Rick. He's been so stressed out with everything going on, the least you could do is cut him some slack.

Glenn pulled in to the parking lot of an old shop. The exterior walls red, with many broken windows, and automatic doors that no longer work. You grab your bag, and make sure you've still got your gun on your side. "You ready?" Glenn looks into your eyes, cocking up an eyebrow. "As ready as I'll ever be." you chuckled, and him as well. You two entered the commercial store, grabbing everything you needed as you made your way through each isle. You and Glenn had come across your fair share of walkers, but you made it through safely without a scratch to be seen. You'd turned the corner, and found a pharmacy. You whispered some 'perfects' to yourself, happy with the find. You made your way behind the counter, and claimed all the pills and medicines you needed. You were placing the last bottle in your bag, when your hand slipped. You dropped the bottle. "Fuck.." you mumbled. You were jolted aware as you heard growls coming from behind you. As you turned your head, becoming aware of your surroundings, you were met with a swarm of walkers. There had to have been at least ten or eleven. You pulled out your bat from the backside of your bag, and worked through the crowd. You managed to get through three or four until your bat started to crack, getting weaker with each hit. The walkers were getting closer, hungrier, stronger. More had come out from behind the shelves. Now, there were at most twenty. They kept coming and coming, and you ended up being backed into a corner. You kept on swinging, and screaming for help.

"Glenn!! Fuck, help! There's a swarm, hurry the fuck up!" you squealed. You pulled out your pistol, making shots into numerous heads. After three bullets were blown into the walkers' heads, you no longer heard a loud gunfire, but a faint click. You were out of ammo, and your bat had broken in half. You were helpless. Not a single sharp item by your side, and not a single sign of Glenn. "Come on, come on! What the hell?!" you were screaming at yourself. Why didn't you think to make sure you had a full gun? Where the hell is Glenn? You had too many thoughts running through your head at once, you were in a state of panic. You were kicking off walkers, them coming inches from biting your limbs. You didn't want to die, not yet. You stood up, and did your best to fight as many as possible off, breaking necks and smashing their brains into the wall. When there was only twelve to ten left, you heard shuffling and panic coming from your side. It was Glenn.

"Oh my- I'm so fucking sorry! I was stuck between two shelves and everything was piled on top of me, the ceiling collapsed- I didn't have a way out. I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, are you okay?" he was fumbling everywhere, shooting off the walkers and fighting his way to you. You were lightheaded, out of breath, sweat beads falling down your forehead. "I'm, yeah, I'm okay. It's okay Glenn." your chest was heavy, falling up and down with each breath.

"Fuck, babe. I'll never leave you again, I promise. I've got you." He cried, a tear falling from his right eye. "I'm so glad you're okay."

You kissed him, your lips pressed against his. He smiled into the affection, and picked you up. "Let's get our shit and let's leave." he carried you out of the room, holding your bag, and his. As he stepped outside, the sun beamed on your sweaty body. It was hot, but the air was refreshing. "I can walk, Glenn." you declared, but he refused. "Nope. You shouldn't have to when I'm capable of carrying you." he protested, wiping the sweat from your hairline. He put you down, and your bottom hit the cushion of the passenger seat. He placed down the supplies and now broken weapon, and turned the vehicle on. The cool air blowing against your face, drying and icing your heated, red face.

On the drive back, Glenn could not stop letting out numerous apologies, and many I Love You's. When you finally made it back to camp, Glenn immediately took you to the infirmary for your wounds. Your knuckles were bloody and red, your arms covered in scratches, and your lips bloody from biting them so hard. He made sure you were cleaned up and tended to with perfection. He never left your side, not since the incident. Not even for a moment. "Babe, I told you I'm okay. It wasn't your fault, you were in trouble too. We've learned our lesson. We won't go back." you assured him, but he was still so upset. He hated himself for leaving you alone, knowing the dangers. "I left you alone. It is my fault. If I had just stayed by your side, this wouldn't have happened." he vented. "That place was packed, I should've made sure it was safe before I let you go in." he cried into your shoulder, and you pulled him close to you, squeezing him tight, keeping him against your body. "Don't put this on yourself. We had no way of knowing for sure. It's okay, Glenn." you kissed his temple, then his cheek, and finally his lips. You pulled away, wiping his tears, and pressing your forehead against his.

"I love you, forever and always."

[shatter-song]

I think I'll just post just the 1st chs of my ongoing stories and that's it. like I'll post updates when I finish them but these will be my main examples for people at how I'm doing writing wise

so this ch 1 of my melodybeast centered fic!

Oh. This is bad.

 

Viney doesn't know why it took her this long to realize that but it did.

 

Ever since Hunter's second arrival to Hexside and telling everyone the truth about the Day of Unity, all the kids were thrown into hysteria.

 

And who could blame them? The former Golden Guard comes to their school, tells them that the Day of Unity is actually a planned out mass genocide of all living things on the Isles and only the mass believers of Belos would laugh in their face.

 

Thankfully, Viney has always been a nonbeliever.

 

She mentally thanks her parent for instilling that in her.

 

But then it was the Day of Unity. Those with sigils nearly died, her friends go missing (whenever someone is saying that they could be dead, she asks Skara to cast a silencing spell because she might end up fistfighting someone), her Nobi goes missing, and all the kids are left alone.

 

She recalls Matt saying he doesn't know whether or not Glandus is okay which led her to wonder if the kids from other schools got branded or not.

 

(Are they alone, too?)

 

Regardless, none of them are showing up.

 

A week into the apocalypse, with every adult at Hexside turned into a puppet (because of Boscha, the darker parts of her mind provides) and many more missing, the realization what's happened sets in for every kid.

 

Then came the tears.

 

Everyone not in kindergarten was in charge now for the kindergarten kids. Their parents were either missing or puppets. No one was coming to help them.

 

They're on their own.

 

Yeah. This is totally not good.

This year is going in the therapy books. If those will even continue to exist anymore.

 

They have to get supplies. The kids – Oh yeah, she's one, too – were in this for the long haul, Titan forbid anyone think otherwise.

 

Which leads to now.

 

Ordinarily, Viney would be one of the witches to stay because of her capability in healing. Kat is... not here, Emira is inexperienced with major injuries that are more common than ever and is also taking care of Edric, and Bo is good but far too tired from the past few days alone.

 

And that's just naming a few. Viney is sure she could make a whole book listing the problems healers alone have right now.

 

However, with Matt busy in staging a coup, and the healing homeroom not actually packed for once, Viney volunteered to look for supplies.

 

Like hell she would live on school lunch for the rest of her life.

 

"If I knew that the apocalypse would come last week, I would've dressed more comfortably." Skara says irritably.

 

"Yeah, scavenging around in school uniform does not bode well for days in a row." Jerbo replies with a low note of humor.

 

Herself, Barcus, Jerbo, and Skara are scavenging the hollowed out town that was Bonesborough.

 

Apparently, there's some kind of schedule with how the Collector acts – at least, that's the best way to put it.

 

The morning to the afternoon was "playtime". The night until morning was "bedtime". It's coming into conflict to what she thought the Collector to be. Regardless of those thoughts, one thing is for certain.

 

The Collector is dangerous. And very powerful but that goes without saying.

 

"What should we look for first?" Barcus woofs from the front of the group.

 

"Hang on," Skara halts. "I made a list." The bard takes out a folded sheet of paper. She unfolds it then reads outloud.

 

"Okay so, we need some clothes for the kindergarten kids after they tore theirs while hunting down lockers."

 

Jerbo groans while Viney pats his back in sympathy. "That's gonna be a common occurrence, isn't it?"

 

"Yeah... We also need food, seeds for the plant track students – any will do, and some extra sleeping bags."

 

"Okay," Viney starts, "Let's head for the marketplace then. We'll find what we need there."

 

The trek wasn't hard. They ran into little to no trouble because... well, there wasn't anything. The streets were empty and quiet. It was wrong. Everything about this was wrong but now isn't the time to have a crisis.

 

She can save that for later.

 

"We should split up." Skara suggests, "We shouldn't run into much trouble but I'd rather not risk anything. You guys got invisibility glyphs?"

 

The trio nods then Skara continues, "Alright. Viney, you're with me. We'll scour the Ceilingmart. Barcus, you and Jerbo check the stands."

 

Ah. Hm.

 

Viney doesn't mind at all going with Skara but that doesn't stop this bubbling feeling in her from rising.

 

It's not the first time either.

 

"I think Skara is poisoning me." Viney says, one day. The two of them are inside the room of shortcuts except for Barcus.

 

Jerbo looks away from the potted abomination he was crafting. "What?"

 

"I think Skara is poisoning me."

 

"Why do you think that?"

 

"So, you know how when you're slowly poisoned overtime, you would feel weird in your stomach?" Viney gestures to him like this is completely normal.

 

...

 

"No, Viney. I wouldn't know." Jerbo says with a completely blank face and straight lined mouth.

 

"Okay, good."

 

"Oh my Titan, Viney."

 

"Anyways, that's what happening to me for like... a week now. I would just feel sweaty and like, I would feel my heart pounding so much faster than it should." Viney said.

 

"And you're sure this is her poisoning you? " Jerbo questions. At this point, neither of them are paying attention to whatever task they're supposed to complete. This is clearly more important.

 

"Well... no. But those are the symptoms of being poisoned, so..."

 

"Alright, there has to be more to this."

 

There is. Thank Titan that Jerbo is a good listener.

 

Viney would sometimes stare for a little too long. Think about her at nearly anytime of the day. Remember the littlest of things that just seem important to her. All that.

 

Then, Jerbo manages to develop the answer. He narrows his eyes. "That's not her poisoning you, Viney. That means you have a crush on her."

 

Oh.

 

Yeah. Oh. In hindsight, it was probably stupid to think she was poisoning her.

 

Whatever, this is where the problem comes in. What does she do about this?

 

She's never had a crush before. On anyone. What if she ruins their friendship? What if Skara hated her for it?

 

What if this wasn't a crush and she's just panicing over nothing? What if Skara actually reciprocates her "feelings" only to break up later?

 

Viney doesn't want to hurt her. She's been through enough hurt by her own friends as it is.

 

"Viney?"

 

The beastkeeper blinks, her intrusive thoughts disappearing as she takes in the present. She sees Skara looking at her in concern. Her cricket palisman is on her shoulder mirroring her witch's look.

 

"Yeah, what's up?"

 

Skara points to where Viney was originally looking. "You were just, uh, staring down those pots like it had done something to you."

 

Viney looks to where the bard is pointing. Ah, right. Since they can't go outdoors, they'll have to grow crops from pots.

 

"Sorry, just thinking about which pots to get. I'm not in the plant track so I don't know which one to get."

 

Ugh. Thinking about school romance of all things when you're supposed to be getting supplies for an entire school body? Seriously?

 

Get it together, Vernal.

 

"I guess that makes sense." The bard purses her lips in consideration. "Maybe I should've sent Jerbo here instead."

 

Viney shrugs, "Eh, it's fine. We could just come back if we need to. Not like they're going anywhere. I think." She turns to Skara, "Are pots sentient?"

 

That earns her a chuckle which in turn makes the healer smile.

 

For a moment, everything's right. This one moment they can ignore the apocalyptic setting around them and just be kids.

 

So it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They weren't supposed to be here.

 

It was nighttime. Isn't that the Collector's bedtime? Do these things just have minds of their own?

 

Skara quickly plays a few notes on her lyre and the star is shoved into a nearby building by bard magic.

 

Jerbo uses a vine as some kind of lasso and drags another star down so Barcus could destroy it with a bite infused with oracle magic.

 

And Viney? Well, she's good at defense so defend is what she'll do. Puddles is... also not here so the best she could do is conjure shields whenever the time arises.

 

The shields are hands at least so she could swat them away like vampflies.

 

But this is getting too much.

 

"Barcus, look out!" Viney shouts.

 

Barcus yips and jumps up to dodge a spy's puppet-transforming magic before Jerbo catches him in his arms.

 

"We gotta fall back!" Jerbo yells and Barcus barks in agreement.

 

Viney makes a wide spell circle and the four are surrounded by a giant dark blue dome. It immediately cracks under the attacks recieved by their enemies.

 

Thankfully, quick thinking and improvisation are skills that you need if you were to be a delinquent a few months ago. And also a survivor in the apocalypse now.

 

"Grab hands and use an invisibility glyph then run like hell into the alleyways!" Viney commands.

 

Skara grabs Viney's hand – Oh Titan, calm down, it's literally just handholding for dear life – then she grabs Jerbo's. Barcus, who is still in the grip of his fellow delinquent, pulls out a glyph from his pouch.

 

"On three, hold your breaths!"

 

The group nods. Viney's shields are about to go down due to the force of the star spies.

 

Honestly, she's actually pretty surprised it lasted this long.

 

"Two!"

 

"Wh-?! What happened to one?!" Jerbo sputters.

 

"No time for one!"

 

The shields shatter into glistening light particles and spread across the baren street. Viney's proud of how long those lasted.

 

"Three!"

 

The group breathe in their share of air, hold it in, and run. They rush down the alleyways and out, dragging each other into a new street.

 

Pieces of Bonesborough watch as the spies fly past broken down husks of buildings of the place they called their town. The confusion is oddly clear on their faces.

 

The spies aren't giving up so neither are they. Well, in a sense they are, but this battle doesn't need to won in this war.

 

Jerbo drags them into a open building before shutting the door behind them. At that point, they all take in a large gulp of air, the invisibility taken off of them.

 

Skara, not stopping for a moment, covers the window with its blinds. Viney slumps against a wall while Jerbo puts down Barcus back on the floor.

 

"That..." Jerbo panted, "was close."

 

"Too close." Barcus huffs. "It's the middle of the night. I thought the Collector was asleep?"

 

"I guess those things must be capable of acting on their own." Viney said. "When we were running, I noticed how the spies looked confused. Like, really confused. That may not sound like much but you'd be surprised at how a lot of beasts are not capable of facial expressions."

 

It'd be fascinating if it weren't for the fact those things turn people into wooden puppets.

 

"They're quite the unique beast, no?"

 

"Regardless," Skara says, gathering the attention of everyone, "it's probably best if we hide for the meantime. Let's scour the building for any supplies."

 

"Aye aye, captain." Jerbo salutes. He leaves up a stairwell with Barcus in tow. The demon sends a side eye to Viney and before she could react, he's already gone.

 

Weird.

 

"Well," Skara begins and Viney turns to her. "where we should we start?" 

 

Ah. Right. Barcus knows because of couse he does.

 

Gay. Gay. Homosexual. Gay.

 

Shut up, Barcus.

 

She feels a chortle in her mind before it fades away. What was she doing again?

 

Oh! Right, a place to start.

 

"How about a kitchen?" Viney suggests. "I know I'm hungry after that ordeal."

 

"No kidding." Skara giggles. "I hope they have some cake in here."

 

Viney laughs. "Here's hoping."

 

Skara draws a circle and a ball of light is brought to life in the palm of her hand. She smiles at her which has the troublemaker darting her eyes, uncharacteristically shy-like.

 

Okay, Vernal. Just you and who is probably the prettiest girl you've ever met scouting a random building for supplies. You got this.

 

She doesn't expect the bard to hook her right arm with her left but hey, she doesn't mind.

 

Just don't look into her beautiful silver eyes and say something embarrassing. Easy.

 

She's so got this.

 

(No, she does not.)

[whimsicallyreading]

“I just realized I’m desperately in love with you-“

Prompt Day One for Rowaelin Month

~

"Rowan, take a picture of that one. It's so cute." Aelin fawns quietly.

Rowan gives a long-suffering sigh. "There are a thousand of them here. Do you have to pester me into taking a picture of every seal pup we come across?"

"Her name is Fleetfoot, and yes. Isn't that the whole reason we are here?" Aelin looks at him equally annoyed, a strand of gold spun hair freeing itself from beneath her parka.

"I'm here to study the behavioral patterns of tiger seals and orcas in a rapidly shifting environment. You are here to keep our equipment functioning. If you keep talking, neither of us will finish our jobs and escape from this wasteland." Rowan switches the lens of his camera to focus on two male seals who were squaring up with each other in the distance.

Rowan nearly threw his camera over the boat and jumped off into the coastal waters of Argentina when he realized who had been assigned to assist him on this expedition.

He'd insisted that only he and one other make the trek across the Antarctic. Insisting a large group could impede the quality of his research. When they agreed, Rowan thought they would send him with Lorcan or Brullo. Both were accomplished survivalists and scholars—valuable additions to any team.

Instead, it was Aelin Ashryvver who waited for him at the dock. The most annoying newbie on his floor. Dorian insisted that her knowledge of mechanical engineering would make her invaluable.

So far, she was just a verifiable pain in his ass.

She sat around bored as Rowan spent the day writing notes and snapping photos. Occasionally she helped him set up microphones. On one instance, she fixed their ATV. It was the first and only time he'd found her truly useful.

Rowan couldn't wait to go home.

"Alright, we have the cameras positioned. We should head back to the base. The temps are dropping. We need to warm up and eat."

Aelin nods quietly, she would never admit it, but the severe temperatures are taking a toll on her. It was amazing how important something like fat is in a frigid environment. Rowan is naturally covered in layers of dense muscle. While Aelin is fit herself, she's still small and the first to feel the effects of persistent cold.

Watching the seals, she occasionally found herself jealous of their thick layers of blubber that kept them comfortable. She should have carb-loaded before they set sail.

They hop on the snow ski and traverse quickly over the powderlike substance.

~~~

When they reach the Terresen South Pole station and ditch their coats, they fall to the floor in a cascade of flurries. Rowan's spine straightens for the first time that day. Their coats were dense. With the additional weight of all of the equipment he carried, there was a perpetual bend in his spine.

It was a huge relief to be inside a climate-controlled building—light layers, freedom movement, and feeling in all of his extremities. Tossing that coat off was the pinnacle of his daily routine on this mission.

That is until he realized it was freezing.

Walking over to a light switch with urgency, he flicks it a few times. Nothing happens. Anxiety wells in his gut, and he hits the wall a couple of times before flipping the switch again.

"Shit," Rowan hisses.

"The power is out," Aelin's eyes widen with the realization. "That's not good."

"I thought I was the scientist, but look at you stating the obvious," Rowan growls as he shrugs his jacket back on. It wasn't nearly as frigid inside the insulated building as it was outside, but it was still bitterly cold. Keeping warm would be their first step in survival. Without heat, shit could hit the fan for them very quickly. Thankfully their satellite phones should still be functioning; he'd charged the battery the day before. There should be enough juice in the phones to send out a mayday call even without power.

Aelin doesn't put on her jacket. Instead, she heads in the direction of the lockers with a look of determination plastered on her face. It was a look he'd slowly begun to grow familiar with, mainly when Rowan was holding a ration packet she wanted. It made him uneasy.

"Where are you going?" Rowan calls after her, picking up her jacket. He wouldn't be held responsible for his younger, female partner freezing to death. HR at the University would have his head on a stick if she died on his watch.

He follows Aelin to her locker, where she's already sliding a grey jumpsuit over her clothes.

"I can fix the engines," Aelin pulls her zipper up. The jumpsuit covered head-to-toe, but they weren't nearly as warm as their snow gear. He could already see a slight blue-ish tint to her lips. "They probably just stalled. All I need to do is go down, diagnose the problem, and fix it. Easy as pie."

Ignoring the massive oversimplification of their situation, knowing it was a lost cause, he focuses on the immediate problem. "You need to keep your jacket on," Rowan thrusts the article of clothing at her. Her color was concerning him, and the longer she went without the thermal garment, the higher his stress became.

Aelin gives him a long-suffering look, all too similar to the one he gives her. "And get my hood or a sleeve caught in one of those beasts? Those machines are massive. Getting snagged could rip my arm off or kill me. It's like you don't even have a master's in engineering and a spotless safety record," she smiles at Rowan's scowling face. "Oh wait, that's me. Let me do my job, Dr. Whitethorn."

Before Rowan could argue, Aelin was gone down the stairwell towards the engines.

Dragging a frustrated hand through his hair, he tosses her jacket on the floor. His time is probably better spent getting through to their mission handlers on the satellite phones anyway.

~~~

Two hours later, Rowan has long finished his call with Dorian.

Their expedition leader had asked if they wanted a recovery team sent out to them, but Rowan hesitated. He was on the mission of a lifetime. He'd spent years waiting for approval to research at the southernmost tip of the world. It would be a devastating blow to his career and his pride for it to be cut short. The selfish part of him wanted to stay. The rationale, reasonable part of him was aching to stay the full duration of the expedition.

"You know, Dr. Whitethorn," Dorian spoke carefully. "There is a reason we chose Aelin to accompany you. She may be green and lacking a doctorate, but she's a miracle worker at what she does."

"Are you asking me to put my life in the newbie's hands?" Rowan asked without his standard vitriol. The situation and the cold had left him with no energy to be spiteful. He'd heard talk of her capabilities amongst the guys, and he'd seen a fraction of it when their snowmobile broke down. Rowan thinks back to the look on her face when she'd gone down the stairs. The steely determination of a warrior marching off to do battle.

Dorian laughs as if there was something funny about two of his most stubborn colleagues getting stranded in the south pole by themselves. "I'm not asking you to do anything. It's your call."

Rowan closes his eyes and contemplates their options. His head told him they should call the extraction team before they were nothing but frozen corpses. Yet, his heart didn't want to leave so soon. There was still so much work left to do.

Could he rely on Aelin?

"We will stay for now. Expect a call in twenty-four hours with a progress update." Rowan disconnected the transmission without any of the standard formalities.

After the fruitless call, he checks their food supply. Rowan scans the shelves, comfortable they wouldn't go hungry any time soon. Their only concern would be keeping all their shit from freezing, including their water. Rowan triple checks that everything is insulated, sealed, and stored away before moving on to other essentials, like batteries.

Another hour passes as he takes inventory, and Rowan is starting to feel the cold more than before. His nailbeds slowly shift from blue to white beneath his thick gloves, and he can't control the slight quaking spreading up his limbs.

When Rowan hears the doorway to the stairwell creak, he goes to check in with Aelin on her progress.

What he finds when he opens the locker room door sends his heart to his throat.

Aelin's hands loosely grip the zipper of her jumpsuit as she weakly attempts to free herself. Her face is a ghostly white, and her movements sluggish.

If she weren't moving, he'd have thought she was already frozen.

"Aelin, are you good? Talk to me." Rowan rushes to her and helps Aelin step out from the jumpsuit.

"I fixed the engine," Aelin coughs into the crook of her arm, her voice scratchy from the cool air. "It will be a couple of hours before they can catch up and heat the building."

Rowan rips off a glove and holds a bare hand to her cheek. Aelin's skin is freezing to the touch, even to his own icy hands. He notes that she isn't trembling the same way he is. It's not a good sign, the biologist in him notes. He knows it's her body growing too weak to keep itself warm.

"Sit down. You're freezing," Rowan helps her slide to the floor and looks at the discarded jacket that's still lying there. It won't warm her quick enough.

"Rowan?" Aelin speaks from her slightly slumped position.

Rowan is pacing, trying to think. They don't have a means of warming water for a bath. Laying next to the generators is too risky.

"Rowan," Aelin murmurs, her eyes drooping. "I can't feel my feet."

Rowan looks at her, and for a moment, she looks like an ice princess. Her blond hair is slipping from its braid and coiling across her colorless face. The cerulean blue of her eyes was the brightest color he now saw regularly beside the southern lights. They stood out even more starkly now.

It was all wrong.

"It's going to be alright, Aelin. You said the power is back on?" Rowan lifts her into his arms, her freezing nose burrowing into the crook of his neck.

"Yeah," she rasps against his shoulder. "But it will take a while for the building to heat."

"We don't need the whole building to heat. Do you trust me?" Rowan trots down the hall, careful not to bump her against the narrow doorframes.

She mumbles something incoherent into his shirt. "I trust you."

Rowan is thankful that the cold keeps the flush from his face. He reaches the desired room and fiddles with the control panel on the wall. A wave of relief hits him as the room behind the heavy door audibly hums to life.

"Okay, here we go." He says more to himself than Aelin. Rowan ditches the jacket and pulls his long-sleeved tee over his head. The buttons of his pants are next, leaving him in only his boxers.

Turning around, Aelin looks weary but not surprised. "Nice abs."

"Thanks," He says and kneels next to her, eyes searching her face for permission.

Aelin dips her head, "I'm not shy, Whitethorn. Don't fret."

Rowan helps Aelin maneuver her stiff limbs out of her garments until she is left in nothing but her bra and panties. Her face is pained as even more of her is exposed to the cold.

"Hurts," Aelin grits through her teeth, and Rowan gathers her up again. The icy room is like barbs against his exposed skin, but he's not in a position to complain.

The minute he carries her into the balmy air of the sauna, Aelin flinches. "Oh, that smarts."

"I know. It's going to suck for a bit while your blood recirculates." Rowan consoles softly, knowing he would also feel the cramping as they got their blood moving.

Drastic temperatures changes weren't the ideal way to warm up, but they'd spent far too long in the cold. He needed to get Aelin shivering again. It was the body's natural defense against the cold, and when a person could no longer shiver, it meant they were dipping into the realm of hypothermia.

The sauna was an added addition for the comfort of the researchers who visited the Southern base. It was a great tool to warm people after spending hours in the harsh climate. He'd heard tales of it from colleagues who'd visited the base before but hadn't yet saught to use it himself. Rowan was too focused on the mission. It hadn't carried any appeal for him until this moment, and now he was beyond grateful for its existence.

Rowan sits on the floor instead of the bench so that Aelin can curl up comfortably in his lap. Skin-to-skin contact was one of the best ways to help a person regulate their body temperature. He soothes a calloused hand over the length of her arm, trying to spread what remained of his warmth to her skin.

Aelin's cheek rests against his chest, and Rowan uses one hand to free her hair from its braid. The curtain of gold fans across her back, and he has to resist the urge to run his fingers through its waves.

He'd noticed how beautiful she was the day they first met at the university. Out of respect, he'd immediately repressed those thoughts. They were professionals, and Rowan wasn't about to ruin his reputation fawning over the new, young blonde on their floor.

But with her laying half-naked in his lap, it was hard to disregard how pretty she was. It wasn't even just her appearance. The girl was magnetic in every way. People paid attention when she walked in, and she claimed the lion's share of air in the room.

Fenrys and Conall flirted with her remorselessly. It secretly irked him. Rowan had long since memorized the way she laughed and how she'd smile as she shoed them away. It was all good-natured fun for them, but it always made Rowan irrationally angry. The time she'd showed up at the annual Christmas party in a green velvet dress with an open back nearly left his brain on the floor. His eyes had raked the smooth plains of skin, only turning away when she'd tried to catch his eye.

If he'd been paying attention, he would have seen her look of disappointment.

Rowan had written it off as an infatuation—a natural response to seeing an attractive woman. The scientist in him wanted to boil it down to chemistry and hormones. Cold facts that could diagnose the way he felt every time he laid eyes on her. Yet, as Rowan laid there with a hurting Aelin in his arms, he began to wonder if there was something more.

Her pain was making his chest physically ache.

A pair of arms snaked around his waist, and his body jerked. Aelin looks up at him sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm just really comfortable."

Rowan relaxes, "It's fine."

The steam in the room is slowly building. Rowan can feel the cramping beginning in his legs. Aelin's weight on his thighs was not helping the slightest, but there was no way in hell he'd move her.  

"My body is aching," Aelin says lightly, but he can hear the strain in her voice and feel a slight tremble running through her.

"That's good. Can you feel your feet?" Rowan can no longer resist, and her hair parts between his fingers like strands of gold silk.

Aelin tightens her arms around him, "Yeah. A bit. I didn't realize how numb they got until I took off my boots."

There's a slight tickle at his back, Aelin's finger tracing a pattern against his skin. A flush of warmth rushes through him, not from the sauna.

He's in unending deep shit.

"Aelin," his voice wavers uncharacteristically. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

The fingers on his back continue making their delicate patterns. "No."

"Aelin?" He asks again, but she cuts him off with a groan.

"Stop asking me questions and just kiss me," Aelin grips the back of his head and pulls his lips down to her's.

An inferno blooms inside his soul.

Aelin could never be a winter queen. She was the raging embodiment of summer. A burning ember he'd carried from the north into this land of ice. As his lips move against hers, he swears his body is lit ablaze, and when Rowan opens his eyes, he's delighted at the flush he finds unfurling across her cheeks.

"It's suddenly a lot warmer." Aelin laughs, looking more lively even as her body starts to quake from the warmth finally reaching her.

He kisses her cheek and tilts her ear towards his lips, "Aelin?"

"Another question?" Aelin's smile curls into something feline. "Is this that scientific curiosity the university is always going on about?"

"I just realized I'm desperately in love with you,"

Rowan lets the truth fall from his lips. It was just the two of them. They were the only human souls in this far corner of the earth. There was no one to stop him as he finally lets the emotions he'd been repressing until the moment Aelin was in danger wash over him.

"That's not a question," Aelin responds after a moment, her tone light and jovial.

Rowan smiles. "It's not."

Aelin curls back up against Rowan, enjoying the feel of his skin against hers. An embarrassing sound of contentment escapes her, which worsens her blush.

Not forgetting their original purpose in the sauna, Rowan grips her hands and massages them between his. "You have no response?"

"Not one that HR is going to like." Aelin winces as her hand spasms, and Rowan methodically works to ease the ache.

"Say it anyway," Rowan implores. Screw the university. He was tired of living for his work alone. Nothing outshined this moment, holding this woman in his arms. He could find a new job, but if Aelin reciprocated his feelings, he couldn't find another one of her.

"Well, I thought it was pretty obvious when I wore that dress to the Christmas party and then found a reason to walk past your office every day." Aelin huffs and looks up at him, "Don't tell me you didn't know?"

Rowan was speechless.

Aelin's eyes twinkle with amusement. "Rowan, Dorian, and I are friends. Did you know that?"

"What?" Rowan blinks confusedly. That was common knowledge, but he didn't understand why she was bringing that up now.

"Dorian and I go way back. He knew I had a thing for you, and I told him sending me on this trip was unethical when I'm such a new hire-" Aelin trails off, waiting for him to grasp her point.

"Wait," Rowan looks down at her, bemused. "Dorian was trying to set us up?"

"Human recourses won't like that very much either," Aelin grins. "But Dorian would keep our secret. He owes me a lot of favors."

The sauna's temperature had slowly been rising, and Rowan could see that his skin was returning to its usual color. Aelin still looked a bit pale, but it was probably residuals from being so close to freezing.

She'd risked herself to save the expedition and successfully fixed the engines. Rowan didn't believe for one second that Dorian only sent her in an elaborate attempt to set her up. She was bright and cunning. He was lucky to have her along with him.

"You got here on your merit," Rowan presses a soft peck to her lips as he soothes her unvoiced concern. He refused to let her doubt her level of skill. "But if the feelings are mutual, I would love to take you on a date when we get back home?"

"I would love that," Aelin crawls off his lap and holds a hand out. "Come on, now. We need to eat and sleep. We have seals to observe."

Rowan accepted her hand. Forget the seals. He would have a difficult time keeping his attention on them. His eyes were glued to her bare legs as they moved and the way her hair swung free of its constraints.

She smirked over his shoulder. Aelin knew precisely what she was doing to him.

Rowan had traversed to the end of the world to understand the natural universe a little better. While he hadn't unlocked any great mysteries, he couldn't help but think what he did find was better.

[scoot-over-yonder]

4/15/2022 - On supermarkets

I apologize for not updating in such a long time. It's hard to try and bring myself around to covering all the big things that happen - but really, I'm starting to think it might be because I'm more affected by the little moments than all the "big" things that have happened. I've been to Lotte World, I've been to Olympic Park, I've even been to a club just to see what it's like, but while those were fun in the moment the feeling slips my mind and I'm left with just the stress of not being able to talk about it like I've just been there anymore. I'll get into those things I've done eventually, even if it's after I get home and settled and de-stressed, but for now I don't have many thoughts about those things, more about the smaller things that happen in my day-to-day life. And, well, maybe that'll be more interesting to read about than how I watched a mascot parade at a theme park two months ago.

There are no Walmarts here, for better or for worse. They tried to come here, but Koreans work hard and want their free time to be filled with high-quality things, not the dime-a-dozen plastic wares you'd find around every corner back home. There are equivalents, though; more like Target than Walmart, really. Emart is one, as well as Homeplus and Lotte Mart. I've been to the former two, but I find myself in Homeplus most of the time since it's closer and simpler to get to. It's essentially a small department store with a Target in the basement, except if a Target had a huge produce section, an equally huge meat section (you can purchase most anything you'd expect in a southeast Asian country, from bacon to a whole octopus), and absolutely no crafts section to speak of. There's stationery of course, a lot of it, and they curiously sold harmonicas, recorders, and an ocarina (the second of which I got and, thankfully, the walls are thick in this dorm) in one tiny portion of an aisle near the paper and puzzles.

I had come here the other day to look for embroidery floss. I've been missing a lot of my hobbies lately, whether it be piano or crochet or painting. I had the good sense to pack my art tablet and a couple spare sketchbooks, so I'm not without my art, but I never realized how much I've filled up my life until I had to set most of it aside.

You come to miss these things, after a time. It becomes a part of you, an itch that begs to be scratched. I never sing when I think people could hear me, but I've gone so long without being able to play an instrument that it's the only way I can vent the music building up in my soul. I got so desperate to create something I can hold in my hand that I took my art knife and carved part of an old disposable chopstick into a tiny sword. My drawing's only improved from this - it's really the only outlet I have left, so I've been doing it more and more and putting in the effort to get better at it. But as time goes on, I keep noticing all the little places in my soul that the mundane parts of life back home have rubbed calluses into have started to get tender and sensitive again. I guess that's homesickness, or at least how I've experienced it.

I want to go to Walmart.

This has been the curious thing on my mind the past few days, and it could have been spurred by my desperation to find art supplies. I'm not quite sure. But I don't really want to go there to *buy* anything, or even because I particularly like Walmart, but I keep thinking about the one near campus back home that my family and I would frequent, and the thought of it is oddly comforting. I'm not quite sure what it is about it. It's somewhere I go when I need or want to get something, it's reliable, it's consistent, it's familiar. I understand the layout, I know where everything is, I can pick something up and not have to pull out my phone and open a translator app to know what it is, what it does, what it contains. I don't mind these hurdles here, it's part of the experience, and I enjoy having to problem-solve. It's fun to me, and the novelty still hasn't worn off. But there's a comfort in the familiar, a balm in a little bit of indulgence in that sort of thing while you're treading water in the unfamiliar, and in that same vein I find myself just standing and listening when I hear an English pop song on a restaurant's radio while I'm walking down the street.

There's so much here that's a paradox of the familiar and unfamiliar as well; when I'm in a supermarket or a restaurant or a cinema and I see, say, families picking out meat for dinner, an older man enjoying a bowl of soup, a couple of teen boys waiting anxiously through credits to see the stinger of a movie, I somehow feel both like an observer and like a part of the whole. People are always going to be people, no matter where they are; across even the most vastly different cultures, the differences in manner and language and tradition, there's still really no fundamental difference between us. I think that's what's made it easy for me to feel comfortable here, despite a notable lack of Walmarts, boiled peanuts, or labels written in English.

I really do want to go to Walmart. Even if I have to drive myself there when I get home in a couple months, I'm going to Walmart. But that's then, this is now.

And for now, despite the fantasies of walking down the craft aisle and picking up embroidery floss, yarn, and the tiniest canvases they have to offer... I'm content to be here and do things like eat spicy calamari stir fry and take the clean, reliable public transport here wherever I desire.

(Except Walmart, of course.)

[rose-demica]

Heya, I also have ME/CFS and Fibro. (2016, and 2017 respectively, though it took till 2020 to diagnose fibro).

Some other hacks that help me:

- don't try and do all a cleaning chore at once. When I was healthy I'd tackle a whole room at once, which is just not possible anymore. But I found something on here, and its worked well. Just do little bits everyday. (Example is the bathroom. I moved the shower cleaner into the shower, and on shower days where I have a bit of energy I clean the shower to. Then another day I'll do the sink. (Also those thingyies you but in the toilet that cleans every flush are lifesavers. I only have to scrub it when the thing runs low and no one's replaced it).

- try figure out if your ME/CFS is physical or mental. Mine is primarily mental, so I get much more tired trying to learn new things/concentrate for long periods of time, than I do when I do physical things. Eg, Sitting and standing. (If you can invest in a few good chairs that lounge back a little and supports your head. Holding up your own head on a bad day is hard).

- try and not over do it on good days. I used to have a good day, so I'd do everything I was putting off. Only to suffer the rest of the week. If you can do only a little bit, you can stretch that good day out quite a bit. (I'm talking months, I often go so long without a 'crash' that I start wondering if I'm really even that sick. (So I push it, crash, and take a while to recover again... silly ableist propaganda).

- Laundry is the worst chore. You'd think it one of the 'easier' ones... but no. You have to load the machine, then wait roughly an hour... Remember you put washing on (my weak point) then hang it up/throw it in the dryer. Then wait for it to dry, (still without forgetting about it), then fold it, then put it away. (Honestly, the worst chore... I hate it with a passion).

- FIBRO TIP - hot baths/swimming pools/spa's. If you can manage it/ have a nice friend who wants to go to the pools often. My fibro pain sits in my hips for the most part, and being able to take the weight off my hip for a little bit is wonderful. So is a hot soak. I find it relly helps me take away a lot of my pain. (Provided I go once or twice a week).

- In the same vein, Chiropractors, if you can afford one, are also a great pain management technique.

- be prepared to doctor shop. Honestly, I had a great doctor at first. She went on holiday, her replacement refused to do me a proper medical certificate because 'I'd be back to normal in 6 months' (i like an optimist, but seriously doc, be real with me). Never saw the dude again. My doctor left last year. So I had to hunt for a new one. One didn't want to trust me with my medication, didn't go back to her. Thankfully found one that understood no one was going to understand my body, my needs, and my illness better than me. It was her job to support me the best she could with what I needed to get by. (Her words, but my mentality exactly. Doctor's don't have the time we have to research our illness. It is very important to me that people have a doctor that they can trust, and trusts them. (Mine will, when prescribing pain meds, tell me the minimum and maximum dosage, and tell me to start low, and figure out what worked for me. I just update her when I go in for new prescriptions. (I've also finally gone from going to the doctors every fortnight to every few months. It's taken me a few years).

I just realised you asked for chore help and I went off on a tangent.... (Hopefully still helpful though?)

- I've found that cooking is a really simple and easy chore for me. (As well as other miscellaneous kitchen chores. (I write the shopping list, and do the budget/bills for the flat. I'm also somehow the only one who can drive so.... I do that too. (Unless I'm not feeling up to it. In which case we postpone or someone busses/ walks to the nearest store for emergency supplies (I also have a small back stock, and a few backup meals in case of a crash and I need to make an easier meal, or we can't make it to the supermarket on shopping day).

-Highly recommend a dishwasher if possible. (Ours died for two months... and it got real bad).

- Energy wise, its recommmended that we have a 'grazing' diet, 6-8 small meals a day rather than 1-3 big ones. (I haven't succeeded at this diet yet, so I'm not sure if it's a good help. I just found it too hard to stay on top of it).

- Also we tend to run salt, magnesium and B vitamin deficient. If you can find a sports/electrolight drink you like... a lot do the little sachets so you can make your own at much cheaper prices. But also if you're out and about/need a boost for a big day/crashing, its good to grab one. (Even just everyday too. I used to drink 2-4 litres of them a day, gave me a huge boost).

A final thing I will say, not about chores, is please be prepared to lose friends and maybe even some family. I lost almost all of my friends that I had before falling ill because they couldn't cope with the 'new me' and my new normal. I often say that my partner and I would not still be together if he knew me pre-illness. And I have a (newly diagnosed/ill) friend going through the same, where her husband is struggling to understand that she can't do the things she used to be able to, and it's causing lots of fights.

Also, you never stop grieving your old life. It's really hard not to compare where you are now to: where you wanted to be / where old friends/co-workers are / Where people your age are. I recently went to a wedding of an old co-worker, and seeing all of them sent me into a minor depressive spiral for a few weeks. (The SO kept trying to cheer me up, but I told him to stop and just let me grieve. I needed to grieve before I could move forward.)

I hope this helps! Feel free to message me any time. This is a hella hard journey, and having people travelling the same path to rely on is so helpful. (Defs. Recommend support groups if there is one in your area/online you can join).

As someone who just joined the online spoonie community after getting diagnosed with ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and POTS after years of “symptom management”, I wanted to ask someone more experienced: do you have any advice on how to manage small things, like just daily chores, while conserving energy? Now that I understand what PEM is + the “push and crash” cycle I’ve invested in a Roomba and I plan to get a rolling laundry cart. Are there any other small life hacks that’ll help me contribute more to household chores without falling into a full blown crash?

Hi! Everyone is different, and I find myself still learning about small solutions that make my life way easier, but here are some things that have helped me: 

- try out a mobility aid! my cane does wonders for my fatigue & pots when i’m out for long-ish periods like walking around grocery stores 

- try a shower chair! (my cheapo one was like 30 bucks) the spoonie community raves about shower chairs and boy. are. they. right. i didn’t know how easy and enjoyable a shower could be.

- basically sit while doing any other activity as much as you can, and/or divide up chores so you do something for maybe 10-15 mins (or however long you can handle) then sit and rest for a while, then do the next small task. sitting is not lazy, it’s just going to save your spoons for other things you want to do!

- this isn’t really a hack but if you have people in your life that are willing to help, ask them. my boyfriend does a lot of up & down the stairs, doing laundry, doing the “standing” parts of cooking while I do the “sitting” prep parts, and it makes a big difference. 

- if you have pets, look into ways to make pet chores easier. I had such a hard time doing the cats’ litter box and could never keep up with it, and recently I bought a litter box with a tilting tray and a lever that pours the clumps into a bag-lined bin and keeps the clean litter. it was pretty pricey (like $100, and there’s much pricier ones I’m sure) but this in particular has made a dreaded chore way easier and more manageable. 

That’s all I can think of for now! The longer time goes on the more you will learn about your body and its limits, and hopefully be able to identify small things that could be made easier. But my main points are usually just sitting and asking for help, and not being stubborn by pushing through things when I know it will hurt me later on.

[adtwixt]

Adtwixt - News: August Diary: Promises I'm Making Myself

Regular news updates from Adtwixt Saturday:  It's late in Shabat, just two hours more to have the full extent of the day of rest.  Today began early.  I stepped out on the porch to feed the pets and looked at the sun rising and sang "Shema".   That I remember the Hebrew after all these years away from synagogue, that these words come easily still at the sight of daybreak, astounds me: Shema, Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad. Hear O Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One... It was a hurry up sort of morning, but the wonder of God was  there on the front porch this morning.  I felt reverent as I went about the rest of my morning preparations. Katie and I went to pick up Taylor.  Over the hills and through the woods and past meadows shining in the golden morning light and alongside fields of freshly mown hay with bales scattered here and there.  Over creeks flowing over rocks and rivers slowly moving along sandy beds.  And everywhere the golden rod standing high, the mallow stems heavy with buds, foxtail grass dancing in the air currents, and trees with autumn hues already tinging the leaves scattered amongst the pines.   My heart ached and swelled as each new sight came into view, singing a song of both joy and grief, as I see the signs of one season passing into another.  I have learned to find something lovely and beautiful in every season of the year rather than claim just one as my favorite.  And so I must grieve the loss of one and rejoice in the other. Bonus of this road trip today was being in near proximity to a well known peach shed which blissfully was packed with traffic, a sure sign they had peaches still.  I passed a little tent with a table laden with little yellow squash and red ripe tomatoes.  My mouth watered.   On our way back to the house, when time was not quite the premium thing it was on the trip up,  I stopped and bought a big basket of peaches. I didn't even ask the price.  I got heavy red ripe tomatoes big enough to fill my hand.  I filled a sack with tender little yellow summer squash.   I didn't care about my financial state just at that moment.  I cared about savoring the remaining days of summer and it's lovely fruitful state. And in the end, it's all part and parcel of the grocery budget which renews on Monday anyway.  I'll borrow now and cut back later. I asked how much longer they might have peaches.  "We hope we can stay open until next weekend."  One week...Just one week more and then we're done with peaches for the next 10 months.  I haven't eaten nearly enough of them.  I've made just one cobbler all summer long.  I promise that next year I shall eat my fill, I shall make cobblers galore, I will.... We came home and I cut up the squash with one of the last Vidalia onions into a frying pan and then added 1/4 cup of water, covered them and let them steam gently.  I made a salad with half a tomato diced finely over it.  "I've not even had a single fresh tomato sandwich..." I said, as I sprinkled those lovely red bits over the green lettuce.  "I promise I shall have at least one this week and next year..." Oh, next year! We had a lovely visit after dinner with Taylor and Katie.  Taylor wanted purple nails "with glitter...which we do NOT eat!"   Sometimes a child does hint at some corrected behavior don't they?  I imagined her with a mouth sparkled with glitter at her nursery school and a sparkling tongue and giggles before the teacher noticed... So I did her nails and then on a whim, I used the glittery polish to coat my own nails.  I'm too old for glitter...but I think it looks magical in the light.   Didn't I promise myself to do my fingernails more often?  Oh! one more promise I really need to keep! Taylor asked about the little cats on the bookshelf.  "One day," I told her, "they shall be yours...because my grandmother gave them to me and I would like to give them to you,  my granddaughter."   Not that Taylor's my only granddaughter, I have four more but somehow I know that Taylor is the one these cats belong to.   It feels odd to be thinking of little legacies such as this, but I told Katie and John, "Listen to me.  Be my witnesses. This is my promise:  these cats will be Taylor's and if I die before I gift them to her, be sure that she gets them...and the little girl with a book will be Hailey's." Taylor crawled into my lap and leaned on my shoulder.  "I love you..."  Oh my heart!  How blessed I am to know the very genuine love of these children of my children.  How very blessed! John took Katie and Taylor home to Katie's a little later.   I sat here in the quiet, with my thoughts whispering all about me.  Tired and happy and mindful of things I want to hold tight to and mindful that none of these endless days of housework, no matter how satisfying the work may be, will be the things I remember most.  It will indeed be the taste of a sun ripened peach grown in Georgia soil, the feel of a little girl's head on my shoulder, the way a good ripe tomato smells and summer squash tastes, and how lovely a meadow is in sunlight of a dewy morning.  It will be those things which I shall remember and it makes keeping these promises to myself imperative. John has stepped out on the 'verandah' as he chooses to call the front porch and the wind is blowing hot and heavy and ringing the old iron chimes.  Ting, ting, ting, ting...Deeper than most windchimes.   I confess I'm more fond of middle and deeper tones than the tinkly sorts of chimes.  These please me. It takes a real wind to stir those bells to life.  In the distance, coming ever nearer, thunder rumbles.   Summer's music...Please Lord, make me mindful of my promises to keep! Sunday:  There are sheets and towels on the line and peach cobbler cooling atop the stove.  Not for us that cobbler but for Taylor's daddy.  The house about me is clean and quiet just now.  Here in a little bit I shall head over to Katie's to visit with them for a little while before Taylor begins her journey home. I sent John off to work this morning and tackled housework right away though I was tired and thought longingly of going back to my bed.  But not today.  Today there are sheets to blow in the sunlight and a house to put to order and a child to spend time loving. I think John is feeling the pull of the seasonal change.  He's asked me to make a turkey pot pie this week and I've promised I shall.   He wants Roast beef hash, too...and he'll have that as well, but it amuses me that he's wanting these comforting cooler weather sorts of foods.  I've told you before that summer salads do pall for us after a bit.   We'll have a few more despite these longings of ours for cozy meals.   A chef salad will be a quick and easy meal after grocery shopping this week...and I find myself suddenly making up menus for the week ahead, something I'd let drop for a bit because I was just flat tired of planning.  However, between leftovers and requests I guess I've got this week pretty much covered...Now let's see how many of these meals I actually get to make.  The roast beef meal we had on Saturday and the enchiladas were thawed on Friday when John had said we'd skip the date then got that second wind in his sails and wanted to go out after all. The roast beef is in the fridge... Everything else is frozen at present or is fresh and ready to prepare. Roast Beef, Summer Squash and Onions, Tossed Salad, Matzoh Cracker Candy Chicken Verde Enchiladas, Yellow Rice and Peach Salsa Roast Beef Hash, Wedge Salads with Thousand Island Dressing on my own  out with Mama Chef's Salad, Homemade Croutons, Peach Cobbler (for us) Turkey Pot Pie, Cranberry Sauce, Pear Salads And there's my menu plan! Speaking of food: one of the frugal articles I read last week dealt with grocery spending.  She cited the USDA government site  where you can see what food costs were for the prior month and how much one following the thrifty or low cost plans might be spending.  And then she suggested that financial advisors suggest 6% of our annual income is what we ought to spend.  As nearly as I recall how to figure percentages our spending should be something like $61 a week for the two of us.  Now  that's only for food.  It does not include pet supplies, paper or cleaning products etc.   It is also a good deal less than the government's food plan figures for a thrifty diet.  According to their figures in June we would have been spending about $84/per week.  I actually think I came in right around there  with a few paper products and one or two pet items tossed in but those would not account for more than $11 so I'm still nowhere near the 6% mark.  It does give me food for thought.  I was so proud of trimming my budget to $300 a month...But could I possibly hit closer to $244?   I'm pretty sure my husband would rebel hard at that but I'm tempted to try it just the same.  And of course, once we do retire, our 6% would also be a good bit less than $244...so I feel I owe it to myself to try and trim things back a bit more.   I'll let you know! Now off I go to unload the dishwasher and finish my bit of housework. Monday:  More tired and weary than I'd thought I'd be today...I didn't plan a day of mostly rest, but there you are.  I realized this morning that I basically did the equivalent of a drive to Kingsland and back with a brief stay to visit...but 8 hours of driving!  I felt it this morning. Thankfully only light housework was needed and dinner was pretty much ready.  I am reheating Chicken Enchiladas and have a salad made.  I'd meant to have peach salsa  with this meal but it's more effort than I want to go to today. John and I have been watching an interesting series of videos where the YouTubers go to visit old graveyards along back roads here in Georgia, some of them which are severely neglected.  I think it's made us both aware of the graveyard back of our house.  It is not on my property but just over the fence line.  Granny and Granddaddy always maintained the graveyard and when my cousin bought the land, so did he.  However, when it fell into my brother's hands it was no longer kept up.  I'd asked to take it on with his permission and he agreed but then he wired all the entrances shut with barbed wire so that I couldn't get into the area.  Now that Sam owns the land, I think I can get to it once more, but ten years of neglect means that it's now snaky and heavily overgrown. It is my hope that we can reclaim the space and maintain it once more but both Sam and John feel the graveyard is just too far gone.  However, come cold weather I shall go there and begin to do what I might.  Another  of my 'small bites' projects.  I feel sure if I start it Sam and John will eventually have pity on me and join in... The graveyard was not a family ground.  It belonged to a huge old Federal house that sat on the hill before ours.  This land was likely part of that original land grant but I haven't yet researched it out to prove that fact.   Still, I do know the people buried near my home were once residents there.  I would like to do my part in preserving a little bit of history, especially since the house burned down 30 odd years ago. Another promise I shall make this week: reclaim the graveyard and give it it's proper care. Tuesday:  We didn't do much of anything at all yesterday.  I was just worn out.  Some days are just so.  John did a load of laundry and hung a few things to dry.  I made meals and kept those simple and easy. Today we played catch up.  Typically we'd drive down on payday to pick up John's check if he's not working  the Tuesday following.  Well he wasn't working today, but we didn't go down yesterday afternoon.  He wanted to cut Sam's grass since Sam's busy with renovations inside the house. John went over yesterday afternoon,  though why he waited until afternoon to do so is beyond me.  It was so terribly hot, with a heat index of 107f.  It's been that way all week long.  It's meant to end here this weekend, though. I lived without AC for years and years.  We had only window units we used occasionally.  The year Sam was born was one year when we used AC all summer long because it was miserably hot from May to September that year.  Real temperatures that year were near 110F.  Between the summer heat and the winter cold we spent much of the year living in just one or two rooms.  That's all we could heat or cool in those years. It was very expensive to run AC in the 1980's and '90s.  When John and I got together and were struggling so we simply could not afford to run the window units though they were brand new.  We ended up compromising.  We turned them on Friday evening when we came in from work and turned them off Sunday night when we went to bed (11pm). It cost us over $300 a month to run it 8 days.   We've never paid that much a month here in the worst of our summers.  We came near it this past autumn when it was freezing and we had to run the emergency heat after our motor went out on the unit.   But all in all, AC is much more affordable than it was 25 years ago and I am so grateful for that! Today we did the payday errands: banking, bills, and groceries.  Not as much work as it sounds  because I have the bills ready to go out days ahead and then I just take them to the mailbox as soon as we do the banking.   John had warned we'd have a shorter check.  We didn't.   It wasn't quite enough to meet all our needs this time around but I'd already planned ahead for that,  so it was easy enough to proceed as planned.  I'll be sure to tell him we're on a no spend from now until next pay period which should see us through this small slump. I did well enough on groceries.  I didn't buy any meat this time around.  I'd looked at chuck roasts but they were very fatty and the one I thought worth purchasing was over $20...Wowza!  I decided I'd just skip it.  I know we've plenty of meat on hand at present. As I put groceries away in the pantry, I suggested to John that we might skip a big grocery shop next pay period and get just dairy and produce as needed.  We have quite a deep pantry at the moment and I saw only two or three items that I wished to stock more heavily, like flour, cereal and coffee.   Again, good sales will  fill those needs. I was thinking this morning that over the years I've found lots of ways to save money. Our mobile phone service is quite reasonable. We pay roughly the same for two phones that we once paid for one landline and one prepaid phone.  At one point our mobile phone company bought out our satellite TV service.  We were able to combine bills and make a small savings.  However, I soon discovered the days of renegotiating our satellite service contract was an exercise in futility with the phone company as boss.  So much for twenty five years of good customer status! Our local phone service internet was abysmal.  It had gotten so that we had no internet service from Friday afternoon at 4pm until Monday morning at 9am.  No we didn't get any discounts for the lack of service.  The company denied there was any problem!  So we moved to a satellite service.  We paid a LOT for that service.  Double what we'd paid for the local service.  However,  it was reliable and we had service we could count on. When our current mobile phone service offered an unlimited data pan  we hopped right on, changed phone plans and got the newly available hot spot.  We dropped internet satellite and saved on new smart phones, buying older models that were heavily discounted, paying cash up front.  That kept our phone bills low.   Smart phones for the same price as a mobile/text service?  Please and thank you! When lightning ran in on our television last August, we bought a Fire TV and in January I finally convinced John to quit satellite.  We dropped the satellite TV service which meant we paid still less out of pocket.  I was already paying for Amazon Prime membership each month, well worth the savings in shipping alone.  We aren't big shoppers, but I guarantee I order something from Amazon every month that is cheaper than I can find it elsewhere and that is covered under the prime free shipping.  We watch pretty much all the television we want to watch with our hot spot.  We did subscribe to Netflix' basic plan.  I am still paying far less for the phone service with unlimited data, Amazon and Netflix than I previously paid for phones, internet and satellite tv services. But for all that some things change, others pretty much stay the same.  We've paid basically the same amount for gasoline each month for the past 20 years.  Some years we drive more and some we drive less.  Our average is always right around the same amount each month for costs though. Groceries is another area that remained fairly stable for a long number of years.  I stopped buying certain items and made more from scratch and yet it's only been in these past two years I've begun to see a significant savings in the grocery spending.   I might add that during this two year period of time I've fed more people and spent less, while previously we spent a good deal more and fed only two.   Now that we're basically feeding just the two of us once more, I've watched my budget amount drop to what is an all time low for us.   Still...I could perhaps save more and I am working on it! Being frugal is never a stagnant and finite thing.  As time goes on, some of those ways I saved are no longer valid.  Eating habits change, income changes, products and promotions leave the market or come on the market. Our needs change.  What is needed in this stage of life is not the same as what was needed previously and won't be the same in five years.  For every new thing that comes along there are new ways to save and manage. Being frugal has never been boring!  And for me, that's what keeps it fun. Thursday:  I had every intent of sharing with you all yesterday but by the time I was done with Mama, I was really and most sincerely done in every sense of the word.  Once Bess and the boys left (and what good medicine they were!), I hadn't even the energy to eat.  I drank a V8 and showered and went off to bed with a book on prayer and fell asleep and slept the bulk of all night long.  Wailing and gnashing of teeth might have occurred in moderation in between that V8 and the shower but it was in extreme moderation. Today is better.   Today I am mindful of my many blessings and mindful of my own ways and words.  As well I ought to be.  Difficult relationships sometimes never cease to be difficult.  But more on that another day and time, perhaps. This morning I greeted John with a proper big breakfast.  Funny thing, we are eating less these days.  I suppose it's partly due to the heat and partly due to the fact that so much of what we choose to eat is just good fresh foods and they fill us amply even when eaten in moderation.  Our 'big' breakfast consisted of Fried egg, grits, toast and turkey sausage.   It is a big breakfast but certainly not one of those mammoth restaurant 'big' sorts of breakfasts. After breakfast I started a loaf of bread.  I'd really meant to get one going yesterday morning when John left as I was sure it would be done by the time I was ready to leave for Mama's, but time slipped away from me as I got all out of routine and did things in far different time frames than usual...which all worked  lovely as I was practically dressed and fully made up by the time Bess and Isaac stopped in to start their laundry.  Quick prayers, everyone, that work on their utility room goes through this weekend and their washer and dryer are up and running once more.  It's hard work lugging loads and loads of clothes from there to here and back again... Mama, as I expected, wanted to go to the big peach packing shed just 20 minutes north of me.  It is a good hour or so from her house...But go we did and I bought a half peck of peaches.  For one thing I meant to share with Bess, and I did.   I will put some in the freezer.  And I want to savor the last of this seasonal fruit because I do love peaches! For some reason the morning flew past.  Quicker than usual.  I'm not real sure why.   Well I do too know why.  John and I had a lot to talk over this morning and to think about and come back to talk over one more time.  I was still finishing up Bible study while our dinner cooked today.  It was one of those lovely Bible study sessions in which each passage of scripture I read today was pertinent to my own thoughts about matters that we'd discussed.   Friday:  The end of another week...They do fly by these days, don't they?   John and I have a lot to consider these days.  There's a possibility that our plans for retirement will be pushed forward from next June to end of this year.  All my plans to save money and stash away all I might as far as non-perishable things will be more modest than I'd been shooting for.  I'm not worried, but it is a little disconcerting.   Still, nothing is yet set in stone and we are at the point where now is as good as later and we'll trust God's timing.  In the end, we must always let go of our plans and rely on Him anyway, as I've discovered more than once. My house is very nearly Shabat ready.   We've no plans for this weekend aside from going to church.  I will have turkey pot pie for tomorrow's dinner which I'll do my best to prep ahead.  I'm debating dessert options.  On the one hand, I think gelatin or pudding would be a nice counter to the hot pot pie, don't you?   I'd love to make a lemon meringue pie but not sure I really want to go to that much work this afternoon when the kitchen is pretty much cleaned for the weekend.  I'll have to think on this.   I  have a Chef Salad for our main meal today.   It was on my menu plan and I find between cheese, a few slivers of turkey and some hard boiled egg we've plenty of protein and fat to satisfy us all afternoon long.  And there's a lovely bit of leftover peach cobbler, though I did make a smaller one yesterday.    And that is my week, full of the expected, and the unexpected, full of the lovely and the difficult, full of promises to keep.   Frugal things: The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so nothing be lost  I mean fragments of time as well as materials...every member of a household should be employed either in earning or saving money. The American Frugal Housewife ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child It's quite hot and the AC is pretty much running non-stop until 10 pm every night and then coming on periodically all through the night and early mornings.  I turned the AC up to 78, not my favorite point as it tends to feel a bit more stuffy, but it at least is one way to save.  I've noted the AC cuts off earlier and stays off a wee bit longer. (This should end as of Tuesday evening this week...Milder temperatures are coming our way.  Hooray!) I'm also being very mindful of running water unnecessarily at present.   This is finally getting to be more and more a habit with me as I have always tended to be the sort who let the water run and run as I rinsed dishes for the dishwasher or brushed my teeth or washed my face.  However, electricity is money and so I am doing my best to be mindful that the pump must run if I must run water. Happily, all the heat keeps generating pop up rain showers so watering plants is not a chore I must attend to.  As for porch and house plants, it's easy enough to 'save' water from bits left in bottles or glasses or that is running while it's cold and I'm needing hot to catch up and use for those.  And if I'm quick, I can often pop a porch planter under the run off from the roof and water plants with rain water. I may be just longing to shop but I know my current season isn't going to be any less tight if I run up a credit card bill, so I'm deleting tempting emails full of sales and waiting a few days before even considering those few purchases that make it into a cart.  So far, nothing has made it from the cart to 'order' because I either forget it or I discover something I can use that I already have or I just make up my mind to go without. I ordered a new phone case and accessory ring  from eBay.  I bought the last case two years ago and it's falling apart.  I tried to remove the ring from the old case but it's a no go.  I even went to  YouTube and I discovered that they don't re-stick once removed.  The new ring  was pennies on the dollar  on eBay for the exact same one I bought for bigger bucks at the phone store last year.  I literally saved enough on the ring to cover the cost of the new case and keep change in my pocket.   In case you're wondering what a phone ring is, it's a ring that you stick to the back of your phone or phone case and  can slide a finger through and  allows you to hold the phone without dropping it.  Dropping my phone is an issue for me, so the ring isn't a vanity thing, it's purely a necessity.  Ditto for the phone case.  I get the shock absorbing sort of case.  Both items will be paid from my allowance. Sunday morning I did a full load of dishes right away after John left for work and then I ran a full load of laundry (sheets and towels).  Everything air dried. John and I combined errands when we went out to shop for groceries. I checked with John about how he liked the bread machine bread I've been making.  He thinks it's great...and so I suggested I make a couple loaves a week, and we supplement with the occasional loaf that we'll keep in the freezer.   Once at the store I decided to buy smaller sized loaves.  Same number of slices per loaf but just a smaller piece of bread overall.  The smaller sized loafs were about $1 cheaper.  With the homemade machine bread we've been eating  half slices. I've given in to buying cookies for John this summer.  It's not worth heating up the kitchen for any period of time to make them...but I told him as soon as it starts to cool off I mean to make more homemade cookies and forgo the bought ones until the Spekulaas cookies are in market once more.  In the meantime, Tammy has inspired me to make a batch of those yummy stovetop chocolate oatmeal cookies.  I'd forgotten those as an oven free option.  John loves those cookies. No meat purchased today, but only because I thought better of it when I priced the nicest chuck roast in the counter.  I had a fair idea of how much meat I had in the freezer at home (not to mention how much is in the fridge at present) and I felt we could by pass that purchase.  I'll watch for good sales on meat in the next few weeks and try to stock up then. I suggested to John it would be worthwhile to return to purchasing chicken breasts and ground beef on special at the organic market we used to visit.  I've noted that the price at the organic market is nearly $2/pound less so it's well worth driving there for the savings. Made a loaf of bread, a small peach cobbler and used up leftover roast beef and gravy to make hash. John hung most of a load of clothes to dry. I washed a full load of dishes in the dishwasher. I've downloaded a few free books for my Kindle.  Most are Christian non-fiction but one was a children's book (never know when that might come in handy!) and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen was free the other day.  I am not going nuts adding books.  I am trying to be thoughtful about what I might truly read and most will be deleted once I'm done but in time I will add books I really want to buy that are cheaper via Kindle and won't take up space on my filled bookcases...Not to say I am done buying hard cover books.  Some friends just deserve a full time home where I can hold them and love them as I read! I've started a 'stock up list'.   So far I've got tissues (for cold and flu season) and cold medicine (ditto from previous), pineapple juice (same), matches, toilet paper, flour, coffee (regular and decaf) and boxed cereal.   I may add more as time goes on but these are items I am very well aware we're very low or empty on.  Oh and candles!  We use them for our Shabats and typically two candles last us a couple or three months but they are awfully handy when power goes out as well so I like to stock up. I've started adding tissues and paper towels to our compost.  And this morning, I decided it was worth while to shred our weekly newspapers as well.  I've been adding shredded mail for quite a while but these are extra items I know I can compost.  I plan to 'grow my compost' so to speak, as I get more and more serious about my need for flowers and perhaps a few vegetables here and there. Meals: So I made my plans...how did that go?   Here's what we really ate this week Roast Beef, Squash, Tossed Salad McDonalds with Katie and Taylor Chicken Verde Enchiladas, Green Salad with Tomatoes and Green Onions Chicken Salad Sandwiches with fresh fruit (take out) Chicken Livers and Fries with Mama Roast Beef Hash, Sliced Tomato Salad with Basil, Peach Cobbler Chef's Salad, Oyster Crackers (something we often sub for croutons), Peach Cobbler (C) Terri Cheney For more information please click here

Adtwixt - News source https://adtwixt.com/blogs/news/august-diary-promises-im-making-myself

[mitjo-deactivated]

I'm honestly just here to supply mitjo til mars updates again

submitted by anon:

I was pretty sure Mitch Mueller was going to kill me. As I grew up it was for different reasons but they all led to my demise. In middle school I thought he would hang me up a flag pole during summer break and let the birds eat away at my carcass. In senior year of highschool I thought he’d burying me alive in a ditch somewhere in the woods, or maybe tie me to a really heavy rock and push my in the river. A few weeks later I figured my end was near when I was asked to take pictures for prom and Mitch offered to drive me. God I hope that cyclist was okay. And now a few years later I’m staring at the bright red letters on the front of the hospital building, standing like an idiot with legs that feel like both jell-o and lead knowing damn well Mitch Mueller was going to give me a heart attack I swear.

Reality shoved me hard enough to get me moving as I walked inside the building and up to the receptionist desk. The blonde smiled sweetly at me as I asked to see a patient who was just signed in an hour earlier. “Sure dear, what’s the name?” I tell her and the smile turns into mild disgust and fear. That happens more often than you think. She checks her computer and hands me a slip with the door number and points me in the right direction. I thank her and leave. Don’t you have to be family to check up on them? I’m pretty sure you do but chalk it up that she was taken by surprise when I asked to see Mitch. That jelly feeling starts to come back the farther I go down the hallway. By the time I reach the right door they’re visibly shaking. But hey so are my hands. I felt cold, numb, that weird feeling when the blood drains out of you but also rushes through every vein a mile a minute. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like being here. I didn’t like why I was here but well no a days I didn’t like a lot of those things. Those things including- I knocked on the door and a rough but familiar voice said to come in- making sure my dumb ass boyfriend didn’t get himself killed. I opened the door just enough to slide in before closing it behind me. Everything was either stark white or that god awful pattern you only saw on Dixie cups and Vaporwave albums. Mixed with the smell of harsh soap and weak immune systems it was an assault on the senses.

“Well look who it is. Hey spots, glad you can make it these nurses aren’t exactly the life of the party.” Mitch laughed at his own joke followed by a silent curse and he rubbed his leg. I nodded staring at my feet. “Aw come on spots I ain’t gonna bite. Pull up a chair, jesus fuck you look worse than I do.” I looked up and I kind of wish I hadn’t. There was still dried blood smeared under his nose and lip that stained a few teeth of that trademark smirk. There was a cut across the bridge of his nose and over one eyebrow both sealed with medical tape. His right leg was propped up with pillows in a cast and there was so many… things just attach to his arm and chest that thankfully were mostly covered by the hospital gown. “Hello? Earth to spots? Anybody in there?” he waves his hand in front of my face and I snap out of it.

“W-what happened?”

“He speaks! Had me worried there for a sec. Those kids getting to you again? I swear I don’t why you thought photography teacher was a decent career ch-”

“What happened?” he stopped and the smirk wavered a bit.

“I sorta hit a deer.” he ran a hand through his hair, he only did that when he was nervous, stressed, lying, or all three.

“Sorta?” I kept my hands at my side hoping he wouldn’t notice them, he did anyway.

“Yeah look it wasn’t all that bad like I moved out of the way, only clipped it, it ran off so it’ll be fine. Spots come on it’s not like I hit it straight on.”

~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~

“-Hit it straight on.” I argued but that didn’t seem to register with him. He keep looking at at my arm and the cast and the cuts and he just wasn’t listen. He stepped a little closer holding onto the railings, he looked back at the cast and started biting his lip. Green a blue lights started dancing in and out of existence around him. He was usually so keen on keeping them down in public but at this point that was that last thing he was thinking about. Fuck I think I had to tell him. Shit I didn’t want to tell him. But he kept looking at that damn cast and he knew clipping a deer didn’t do that kind of damage. Fuck I had to tell him. “Yeah I um… so I clipped a deer and-” I coughed and whispered under my breath that in an effort not to completely take out fucking bambi with my car I kinda jumped the railing and crashed into the river.

In hindsight maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.

For the next ten minutes I sat up the best I could trying to look a the puddled mess of my fucking boyfriend trying not to lose his shit (and failing miserably) in the corner. At least some part of his brain let him collapse in the chair instead of the floor these things were fucking nasty. His legs curled up to his chest and a hand over his mouth as he stared at an empty space of sanity between him and passing out. The blue lights mimicking the monitor on the side of the bed spiking around his shaking form. Christ was he gonna pass out? Shit I think he was. If anything he was gonna have an asthma attack. God dammit. I held out my hand and the chair screeched closer to the bed until the two touched. Painfully I turned to lay on my side and played with a curl in his hair. For the next couple of minutes we staid like that. Him panicking in his own little world as I idly mess with his hair. Eventually he’d come back to reality. He hated his hair being messed with, much more now that it’s pattern changed in the last few years making it even curlier than before. Sure enough when he composed himself (At least enough that he wasn’t shaking as much) he swatted my hand away automatically and tiny laugh escaped his lips as I reached for another curl. He grabbed my hand and I placed it against his cheek rubbing the soft skin. He started crying but at this point I think it was more relief than fear. At least for my heart’s sake I was going to tell myself it was out of relief. This kid I swear was going to be the death of me.

“You good now joey bean?” I leaned forward and kissed his head. My leg did not appreciate that shit but fuck have you seen my baby, my leg would just have to suck it the fuck up and deal with it. He laughed again and kissed me back.

“Okay-okay I’m good. You…” he stared at the cast and sighed. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Promise babe. Now be a doll and help me would ya moving this thing isn’t exactly easy.” he helped replace the pillows and I could lay back comfortably again. Well as comfortable as I could get, my leg felt like jell-o and the other just felt like pain. I was actually terrified when I went in the water, I did hit bambi straight on but spots didn’t need to know that. Spots also didn’t need to know that the river impact crumpled the car smashing out the bone s in my leg, and as far as I was concerned and I made painfully aware to ALL of the nurses before I let them call my joey bean, that none of these fuckers were going to let him know I had to be dragged out of said river because my heart stopped. That shit was going to my grave.

The doctor came in a while after and I was allowed to go home the next day. The next few weeks were… well…

“Oh my goodness just let me help you you stubborn bastard!”

“I can get up to take a piss by myself thank you”

“You walked where?!”

“Babe it’s half priced doughnut sunday. I wasn’t missing that”

“i’m not hurting you am I? I can move if-”

“Babe please just shut up and watch the movie.”

Well they were something. When I got the cast off it was such a damn relief for both of us. That night I could actually get up and grab a beer without him demanding he get it for me. I sat on the couch staring at the nearly mutes screen. I looked down and smiled. Jonas had fallen asleep about half way through the movie. I turned off the tv and stood up slowly, scooping him up in my arms and heading towards the bedroom. Honestly my leg still hurt like a bitch but any time I get to hold my squishy babe was pain well felt. I tucked him into bed and kissed him, he muttered and rolled over but otherwise remained still. “Night spots” as I turned out the light I swore I saw a small smile creep on his face. God this kid was going to be the death of me.

OHHHH MY GOSH DUDE!!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUBMITTING AGAIN AND I LOVED THIS,,, DANG MITCH GETTING HIMSELF HURT AUGUGHFD

[adtwixt]

Adtwixt - News: August Diary: Promises I'm Making Myself

Regular news updates from Adtwixt Saturday:  It's late in Shabat, just two hours more to have the full extent of the day of rest.  Today began early.  I stepped out on the porch to feed the pets and looked at the sun rising and sang "Shema".   That I remember the Hebrew after all these years away from synagogue, that these words come easily still at the sight of daybreak, astounds me: Shema, Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad. Hear O Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One... It was a hurry up sort of morning, but the wonder of God was  there on the front porch this morning.  I felt reverent as I went about the rest of my morning preparations. Katie and I went to pick up Taylor.  Over the hills and through the woods and past meadows shining in the golden morning light and alongside fields of freshly mown hay with bales scattered here and there.  Over creeks flowing over rocks and rivers slowly moving along sandy beds.  And everywhere the golden rod standing high, the mallow stems heavy with buds, foxtail grass dancing in the air currents, and trees with autumn hues already tinging the leaves scattered amongst the pines.   My heart ached and swelled as each new sight came into view, singing a song of both joy and grief, as I see the signs of one season passing into another.  I have learned to find something lovely and beautiful in every season of the year rather than claim just one as my favorite.  And so I must grieve the loss of one and rejoice in the other. Bonus of this road trip today was being in near proximity to a well known peach shed which blissfully was packed with traffic, a sure sign they had peaches still.  I passed a little tent with a table laden with little yellow squash and red ripe tomatoes.  My mouth watered.   On our way back to the house, when time was not quite the premium thing it was on the trip up,  I stopped and bought a big basket of peaches. I didn't even ask the price.  I got heavy red ripe tomatoes big enough to fill my hand.  I filled a sack with tender little yellow summer squash.   I didn't care about my financial state just at that moment.  I cared about savoring the remaining days of summer and it's lovely fruitful state. And in the end, it's all part and parcel of the grocery budget which renews on Monday anyway.  I'll borrow now and cut back later. I asked how much longer they might have peaches.  "We hope we can stay open until next weekend."  One week...Just one week more and then we're done with peaches for the next 10 months.  I haven't eaten nearly enough of them.  I've made just one cobbler all summer long.  I promise that next year I shall eat my fill, I shall make cobblers galore, I will.... We came home and I cut up the squash with one of the last Vidalia onions into a frying pan and then added 1/4 cup of water, covered them and let them steam gently.  I made a salad with half a tomato diced finely over it.  "I've not even had a single fresh tomato sandwich..." I said, as I sprinkled those lovely red bits over the green lettuce.  "I promise I shall have at least one this week and next year..." Oh, next year! We had a lovely visit after dinner with Taylor and Katie.  Taylor wanted purple nails "with glitter...which we do NOT eat!"   Sometimes a child does hint at some corrected behavior don't they?  I imagined her with a mouth sparkled with glitter at her nursery school and a sparkling tongue and giggles before the teacher noticed... So I did her nails and then on a whim, I used the glittery polish to coat my own nails.  I'm too old for glitter...but I think it looks magical in the light.   Didn't I promise myself to do my fingernails more often?  Oh! one more promise I really need to keep! Taylor asked about the little cats on the bookshelf.  "One day," I told her, "they shall be yours...because my grandmother gave them to me and I would like to give them to you,  my granddaughter."   Not that Taylor's my only granddaughter, I have four more but somehow I know that Taylor is the one these cats belong to.   It feels odd to be thinking of little legacies such as this, but I told Katie and John, "Listen to me.  Be my witnesses. This is my promise:  these cats will be Taylor's and if I die before I gift them to her, be sure that she gets them...and the little girl with a book will be Hailey's." Taylor crawled into my lap and leaned on my shoulder.  "I love you..."  Oh my heart!  How blessed I am to know the very genuine love of these children of my children.  How very blessed! John took Katie and Taylor home to Katie's a little later.   I sat here in the quiet, with my thoughts whispering all about me.  Tired and happy and mindful of things I want to hold tight to and mindful that none of these endless days of housework, no matter how satisfying the work may be, will be the things I remember most.  It will indeed be the taste of a sun ripened peach grown in Georgia soil, the feel of a little girl's head on my shoulder, the way a good ripe tomato smells and summer squash tastes, and how lovely a meadow is in sunlight of a dewy morning.  It will be those things which I shall remember and it makes keeping these promises to myself imperative. John has stepped out on the 'verandah' as he chooses to call the front porch and the wind is blowing hot and heavy and ringing the old iron chimes.  Ting, ting, ting, ting...Deeper than most windchimes.   I confess I'm more fond of middle and deeper tones than the tinkly sorts of chimes.  These please me. It takes a real wind to stir those bells to life.  In the distance, coming ever nearer, thunder rumbles.   Summer's music...Please Lord, make me mindful of my promises to keep! Sunday:  There are sheets and towels on the line and peach cobbler cooling atop the stove.  Not for us that cobbler but for Taylor's daddy.  The house about me is clean and quiet just now.  Here in a little bit I shall head over to Katie's to visit with them for a little while before Taylor begins her journey home. I sent John off to work this morning and tackled housework right away though I was tired and thought longingly of going back to my bed.  But not today.  Today there are sheets to blow in the sunlight and a house to put to order and a child to spend time loving. I think John is feeling the pull of the seasonal change.  He's asked me to make a turkey pot pie this week and I've promised I shall.   He wants Roast beef hash, too...and he'll have that as well, but it amuses me that he's wanting these comforting cooler weather sorts of foods.  I've told you before that summer salads do pall for us after a bit.   We'll have a few more despite these longings of ours for cozy meals.   A chef salad will be a quick and easy meal after grocery shopping this week...and I find myself suddenly making up menus for the week ahead, something I'd let drop for a bit because I was just flat tired of planning.  However, between leftovers and requests I guess I've got this week pretty much covered...Now let's see how many of these meals I actually get to make.  The roast beef meal we had on Saturday and the enchiladas were thawed on Friday when John had said we'd skip the date then got that second wind in his sails and wanted to go out after all. The roast beef is in the fridge... Everything else is frozen at present or is fresh and ready to prepare. Roast Beef, Summer Squash and Onions, Tossed Salad, Matzoh Cracker Candy Chicken Verde Enchiladas, Yellow Rice and Peach Salsa Roast Beef Hash, Wedge Salads with Thousand Island Dressing on my own  out with Mama Chef's Salad, Homemade Croutons, Peach Cobbler (for us) Turkey Pot Pie, Cranberry Sauce, Pear Salads And there's my menu plan! Speaking of food: one of the frugal articles I read last week dealt with grocery spending.  She cited the USDA government site  where you can see what food costs were for the prior month and how much one following the thrifty or low cost plans might be spending.  And then she suggested that financial advisors suggest 6% of our annual income is what we ought to spend.  As nearly as I recall how to figure percentages our spending should be something like $61 a week for the two of us.  Now  that's only for food.  It does not include pet supplies, paper or cleaning products etc.   It is also a good deal less than the government's food plan figures for a thrifty diet.  According to their figures in June we would have been spending about $84/per week.  I actually think I came in right around there  with a few paper products and one or two pet items tossed in but those would not account for more than $11 so I'm still nowhere near the 6% mark.  It does give me food for thought.  I was so proud of trimming my budget to $300 a month...But could I possibly hit closer to $244?   I'm pretty sure my husband would rebel hard at that but I'm tempted to try it just the same.  And of course, once we do retire, our 6% would also be a good bit less than $244...so I feel I owe it to myself to try and trim things back a bit more.   I'll let you know! Now off I go to unload the dishwasher and finish my bit of housework. Monday:  More tired and weary than I'd thought I'd be today...I didn't plan a day of mostly rest, but there you are.  I realized this morning that I basically did the equivalent of a drive to Kingsland and back with a brief stay to visit...but 8 hours of driving!  I felt it this morning. Thankfully only light housework was needed and dinner was pretty much ready.  I am reheating Chicken Enchiladas and have a salad made.  I'd meant to have peach salsa  with this meal but it's more effort than I want to go to today. John and I have been watching an interesting series of videos where the YouTubers go to visit old graveyards along back roads here in Georgia, some of them which are severely neglected.  I think it's made us both aware of the graveyard back of our house.  It is not on my property but just over the fence line.  Granny and Granddaddy always maintained the graveyard and when my cousin bought the land, so did he.  However, when it fell into my brother's hands it was no longer kept up.  I'd asked to take it on with his permission and he agreed but then he wired all the entrances shut with barbed wire so that I couldn't get into the area.  Now that Sam owns the land, I think I can get to it once more, but ten years of neglect means that it's now snaky and heavily overgrown. It is my hope that we can reclaim the space and maintain it once more but both Sam and John feel the graveyard is just too far gone.  However, come cold weather I shall go there and begin to do what I might.  Another  of my 'small bites' projects.  I feel sure if I start it Sam and John will eventually have pity on me and join in... The graveyard was not a family ground.  It belonged to a huge old Federal house that sat on the hill before ours.  This land was likely part of that original land grant but I haven't yet researched it out to prove that fact.   Still, I do know the people buried near my home were once residents there.  I would like to do my part in preserving a little bit of history, especially since the house burned down 30 odd years ago. Another promise I shall make this week: reclaim the graveyard and give it it's proper care. Tuesday:  We didn't do much of anything at all yesterday.  I was just worn out.  Some days are just so.  John did a load of laundry and hung a few things to dry.  I made meals and kept those simple and easy. Today we played catch up.  Typically we'd drive down on payday to pick up John's check if he's not working  the Tuesday following.  Well he wasn't working today, but we didn't go down yesterday afternoon.  He wanted to cut Sam's grass since Sam's busy with renovations inside the house. John went over yesterday afternoon,  though why he waited until afternoon to do so is beyond me.  It was so terribly hot, with a heat index of 107f.  It's been that way all week long.  It's meant to end here this weekend, though. I lived without AC for years and years.  We had only window units we used occasionally.  The year Sam was born was one year when we used AC all summer long because it was miserably hot from May to September that year.  Real temperatures that year were near 110F.  Between the summer heat and the winter cold we spent much of the year living in just one or two rooms.  That's all we could heat or cool in those years. It was very expensive to run AC in the 1980's and '90s.  When John and I got together and were struggling so we simply could not afford to run the window units though they were brand new.  We ended up compromising.  We turned them on Friday evening when we came in from work and turned them off Sunday night when we went to bed (11pm). It cost us over $300 a month to run it 8 days.   We've never paid that much a month here in the worst of our summers.  We came near it this past autumn when it was freezing and we had to run the emergency heat after our motor went out on the unit.   But all in all, AC is much more affordable than it was 25 years ago and I am so grateful for that! Today we did the payday errands: banking, bills, and groceries.  Not as much work as it sounds  because I have the bills ready to go out days ahead and then I just take them to the mailbox as soon as we do the banking.   John had warned we'd have a shorter check.  We didn't.   It wasn't quite enough to meet all our needs this time around but I'd already planned ahead for that,  so it was easy enough to proceed as planned.  I'll be sure to tell him we're on a no spend from now until next pay period which should see us through this small slump. I did well enough on groceries.  I didn't buy any meat this time around.  I'd looked at chuck roasts but they were very fatty and the one I thought worth purchasing was over $20...Wowza!  I decided I'd just skip it.  I know we've plenty of meat on hand at present. As I put groceries away in the pantry, I suggested to John that we might skip a big grocery shop next pay period and get just dairy and produce as needed.  We have quite a deep pantry at the moment and I saw only two or three items that I wished to stock more heavily, like flour, cereal and coffee.   Again, good sales will  fill those needs. I was thinking this morning that over the years I've found lots of ways to save money. Our mobile phone service is quite reasonable. We pay roughly the same for two phones that we once paid for one landline and one prepaid phone.  At one point our mobile phone company bought out our satellite TV service.  We were able to combine bills and make a small savings.  However, I soon discovered the days of renegotiating our satellite service contract was an exercise in futility with the phone company as boss.  So much for twenty five years of good customer status! Our local phone service internet was abysmal.  It had gotten so that we had no internet service from Friday afternoon at 4pm until Monday morning at 9am.  No we didn't get any discounts for the lack of service.  The company denied there was any problem!  So we moved to a satellite service.  We paid a LOT for that service.  Double what we'd paid for the local service.  However,  it was reliable and we had service we could count on. When our current mobile phone service offered an unlimited data pan  we hopped right on, changed phone plans and got the newly available hot spot.  We dropped internet satellite and saved on new smart phones, buying older models that were heavily discounted, paying cash up front.  That kept our phone bills low.   Smart phones for the same price as a mobile/text service?  Please and thank you! When lightning ran in on our television last August, we bought a Fire TV and in January I finally convinced John to quit satellite.  We dropped the satellite TV service which meant we paid still less out of pocket.  I was already paying for Amazon Prime membership each month, well worth the savings in shipping alone.  We aren't big shoppers, but I guarantee I order something from Amazon every month that is cheaper than I can find it elsewhere and that is covered under the prime free shipping.  We watch pretty much all the television we want to watch with our hot spot.  We did subscribe to Netflix' basic plan.  I am still paying far less for the phone service with unlimited data, Amazon and Netflix than I previously paid for phones, internet and satellite tv services. But for all that some things change, others pretty much stay the same.  We've paid basically the same amount for gasoline each month for the past 20 years.  Some years we drive more and some we drive less.  Our average is always right around the same amount each month for costs though. Groceries is another area that remained fairly stable for a long number of years.  I stopped buying certain items and made more from scratch and yet it's only been in these past two years I've begun to see a significant savings in the grocery spending.   I might add that during this two year period of time I've fed more people and spent less, while previously we spent a good deal more and fed only two.   Now that we're basically feeding just the two of us once more, I've watched my budget amount drop to what is an all time low for us.   Still...I could perhaps save more and I am working on it! Being frugal is never a stagnant and finite thing.  As time goes on, some of those ways I saved are no longer valid.  Eating habits change, income changes, products and promotions leave the market or come on the market. Our needs change.  What is needed in this stage of life is not the same as what was needed previously and won't be the same in five years.  For every new thing that comes along there are new ways to save and manage. Being frugal has never been boring!  And for me, that's what keeps it fun. Thursday:  I had every intent of sharing with you all yesterday but by the time I was done with Mama, I was really and most sincerely done in every sense of the word.  Once Bess and the boys left (and what good medicine they were!), I hadn't even the energy to eat.  I drank a V8 and showered and went off to bed with a book on prayer and fell asleep and slept the bulk of all night long.  Wailing and gnashing of teeth might have occurred in moderation in between that V8 and the shower but it was in extreme moderation. Today is better.   Today I am mindful of my many blessings and mindful of my own ways and words.  As well I ought to be.  Difficult relationships sometimes never cease to be difficult.  But more on that another day and time, perhaps. This morning I greeted John with a proper big breakfast.  Funny thing, we are eating less these days.  I suppose it's partly due to the heat and partly due to the fact that so much of what we choose to eat is just good fresh foods and they fill us amply even when eaten in moderation.  Our 'big' breakfast consisted of Fried egg, grits, toast and turkey sausage.   It is a big breakfast but certainly not one of those mammoth restaurant 'big' sorts of breakfasts. After breakfast I started a loaf of bread.  I'd really meant to get one going yesterday morning when John left as I was sure it would be done by the time I was ready to leave for Mama's, but time slipped away from me as I got all out of routine and did things in far different time frames than usual...which all worked  lovely as I was practically dressed and fully made up by the time Bess and Isaac stopped in to start their laundry.  Quick prayers, everyone, that work on their utility room goes through this weekend and their washer and dryer are up and running once more.  It's hard work lugging loads and loads of clothes from there to here and back again... Mama, as I expected, wanted to go to the big peach packing shed just 20 minutes north of me.  It is a good hour or so from her house...But go we did and I bought a half peck of peaches.  For one thing I meant to share with Bess, and I did.   I will put some in the freezer.  And I want to savor the last of this seasonal fruit because I do love peaches! For some reason the morning flew past.  Quicker than usual.  I'm not real sure why.   Well I do too know why.  John and I had a lot to talk over this morning and to think about and come back to talk over one more time.  I was still finishing up Bible study while our dinner cooked today.  It was one of those lovely Bible study sessions in which each passage of scripture I read today was pertinent to my own thoughts about matters that we'd discussed.   Friday:  The end of another week...They do fly by these days, don't they?   John and I have a lot to consider these days.  There's a possibility that our plans for retirement will be pushed forward from next June to end of this year.  All my plans to save money and stash away all I might as far as non-perishable things will be more modest than I'd been shooting for.  I'm not worried, but it is a little disconcerting.   Still, nothing is yet set in stone and we are at the point where now is as good as later and we'll trust God's timing.  In the end, we must always let go of our plans and rely on Him anyway, as I've discovered more than once. My house is very nearly Shabat ready.   We've no plans for this weekend aside from going to church.  I will have turkey pot pie for tomorrow's dinner which I'll do my best to prep ahead.  I'm debating dessert options.  On the one hand, I think gelatin or pudding would be a nice counter to the hot pot pie, don't you?   I'd love to make a lemon meringue pie but not sure I really want to go to that much work this afternoon when the kitchen is pretty much cleaned for the weekend.  I'll have to think on this.   I  have a Chef Salad for our main meal today.   It was on my menu plan and I find between cheese, a few slivers of turkey and some hard boiled egg we've plenty of protein and fat to satisfy us all afternoon long.  And there's a lovely bit of leftover peach cobbler, though I did make a smaller one yesterday.    And that is my week, full of the expected, and the unexpected, full of the lovely and the difficult, full of promises to keep.   Frugal things: The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so nothing be lost  I mean fragments of time as well as materials...every member of a household should be employed either in earning or saving money. The American Frugal Housewife ~ Lydia Maria Francis Child It's quite hot and the AC is pretty much running non-stop until 10 pm every night and then coming on periodically all through the night and early mornings.  I turned the AC up to 78, not my favorite point as it tends to feel a bit more stuffy, but it at least is one way to save.  I've noted the AC cuts off earlier and stays off a wee bit longer. (This should end as of Tuesday evening this week...Milder temperatures are coming our way.  Hooray!) I'm also being very mindful of running water unnecessarily at present.   This is finally getting to be more and more a habit with me as I have always tended to be the sort who let the water run and run as I rinsed dishes for the dishwasher or brushed my teeth or washed my face.  However, electricity is money and so I am doing my best to be mindful that the pump must run if I must run water. Happily, all the heat keeps generating pop up rain showers so watering plants is not a chore I must attend to.  As for porch and house plants, it's easy enough to 'save' water from bits left in bottles or glasses or that is running while it's cold and I'm needing hot to catch up and use for those.  And if I'm quick, I can often pop a porch planter under the run off from the roof and water plants with rain water. I may be just longing to shop but I know my current season isn't going to be any less tight if I run up a credit card bill, so I'm deleting tempting emails full of sales and waiting a few days before even considering those few purchases that make it into a cart.  So far, nothing has made it from the cart to 'order' because I either forget it or I discover something I can use that I already have or I just make up my mind to go without. I ordered a new phone case and accessory ring  from eBay.  I bought the last case two years ago and it's falling apart.  I tried to remove the ring from the old case but it's a no go.  I even went to  YouTube and I discovered that they don't re-stick once removed.  The new ring  was pennies on the dollar  on eBay for the exact same one I bought for bigger bucks at the phone store last year.  I literally saved enough on the ring to cover the cost of the new case and keep change in my pocket.   In case you're wondering what a phone ring is, it's a ring that you stick to the back of your phone or phone case and  can slide a finger through and  allows you to hold the phone without dropping it.  Dropping my phone is an issue for me, so the ring isn't a vanity thing, it's purely a necessity.  Ditto for the phone case.  I get the shock absorbing sort of case.  Both items will be paid from my allowance. Sunday morning I did a full load of dishes right away after John left for work and then I ran a full load of laundry (sheets and towels).  Everything air dried. John and I combined errands when we went out to shop for groceries. I checked with John about how he liked the bread machine bread I've been making.  He thinks it's great...and so I suggested I make a couple loaves a week, and we supplement with the occasional loaf that we'll keep in the freezer.   Once at the store I decided to buy smaller sized loaves.  Same number of slices per loaf but just a smaller piece of bread overall.  The smaller sized loafs were about $1 cheaper.  With the homemade machine bread we've been eating  half slices. I've given in to buying cookies for John this summer.  It's not worth heating up the kitchen for any period of time to make them...but I told him as soon as it starts to cool off I mean to make more homemade cookies and forgo the bought ones until the Spekulaas cookies are in market once more.  In the meantime, Tammy has inspired me to make a batch of those yummy stovetop chocolate oatmeal cookies.  I'd forgotten those as an oven free option.  John loves those cookies. No meat purchased today, but only because I thought better of it when I priced the nicest chuck roast in the counter.  I had a fair idea of how much meat I had in the freezer at home (not to mention how much is in the fridge at present) and I felt we could by pass that purchase.  I'll watch for good sales on meat in the next few weeks and try to stock up then. I suggested to John it would be worthwhile to return to purchasing chicken breasts and ground beef on special at the organic market we used to visit.  I've noted that the price at the organic market is nearly $2/pound less so it's well worth driving there for the savings. Made a loaf of bread, a small peach cobbler and used up leftover roast beef and gravy to make hash. John hung most of a load of clothes to dry. I washed a full load of dishes in the dishwasher. I've downloaded a few free books for my Kindle.  Most are Christian non-fiction but one was a children's book (never know when that might come in handy!) and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen was free the other day.  I am not going nuts adding books.  I am trying to be thoughtful about what I might truly read and most will be deleted once I'm done but in time I will add books I really want to buy that are cheaper via Kindle and won't take up space on my filled bookcases...Not to say I am done buying hard cover books.  Some friends just deserve a full time home where I can hold them and love them as I read! I've started a 'stock up list'.   So far I've got tissues (for cold and flu season) and cold medicine (ditto from previous), pineapple juice (same), matches, toilet paper, flour, coffee (regular and decaf) and boxed cereal.   I may add more as time goes on but these are items I am very well aware we're very low or empty on.  Oh and candles!  We use them for our Shabats and typically two candles last us a couple or three months but they are awfully handy when power goes out as well so I like to stock up. I've started adding tissues and paper towels to our compost.  And this morning, I decided it was worth while to shred our weekly newspapers as well.  I've been adding shredded mail for quite a while but these are extra items I know I can compost.  I plan to 'grow my compost' so to speak, as I get more and more serious about my need for flowers and perhaps a few vegetables here and there. Meals: So I made my plans...how did that go?   Here's what we really ate this week Roast Beef, Squash, Tossed Salad McDonalds with Katie and Taylor Chicken Verde Enchiladas, Green Salad with Tomatoes and Green Onions Chicken Salad Sandwiches with fresh fruit (take out) Chicken Livers and Fries with Mama Roast Beef Hash, Sliced Tomato Salad with Basil, Peach Cobbler Chef's Salad, Oyster Crackers (something we often sub for croutons), Peach Cobbler (C) Terri Cheney For more information please click here

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