#so i am hunting for craft supplies today i guess

[satans-knitwear]

leaving the house 😮🫣✨

Treat me ~ Tip me (buy me a cold beverage as positive reinforcement)~ More of me

[officialleehadan]

Yelp Rating

Hello darlings! I hope your week is going well. Right now I'm admiring a lovely sunset out my window and thinking how lovely this October has been so far.

Today's story was brought to you by Mae! Thank you for all your support, darling. Here are some spooky October ghosts for you!

Prompt: This Old House, historians come to the house and love the ghosts.

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“I don’t know what everyone is talking about,” Kevin read aloud to his living room full of eager ghosts. “While the beds were great, the showers were frankly decadent, and the breakfast was delicious, we didn’t see a single ghost during our whole visit. 10/10 for comfort and service, but 0/10 for ghosts.”

“Oh, I remember her,” Henry spoke up when Kevin finished reading the review. “She was rude. Kept saying how trashy she thought the decorations were.”

“We agreed it would be the best for her not to see any of us,” Franklin agreed cheerfully. “You always tell us that supply and demand makes for a better marketing scheme.”

So far, renting out a room here and there in Mallory House had been shockingly lucrative, and surprisingly satisfying. Kevin had been dubious about letting the ghost hunting team into his house, but it turned out to be more than worth the trouble. With a cook, one who specialized in interesting historic food, hired on full-time, the house had a guest almost every weekend. Kevin worried that he and his ghosts would get tired of the constant company, but so far, all of their guests had either been easily scared off after a single night, or thrilled to get to chat with the ghosts.

There had been no less than four historians come to talk to the ghosts. Mostly to Elizabeth and William, but also to Franklin, and even shy Prudence, who rarely came out of the attic where her spinning wheel still sat.

Speaking of Pru…

“Prudence, this is one from that lady who wanted to talk fibers with you. The one with all the questions about historical wool suppyand handling,” Kevin told the shy young woman, no older than twenty, who fell victim to the Spanish Flue only a few short years after Franklin’s suicide. “I was nervous about meeting with a ghost of all people, but Miss Prudence Connal was one of the sweetest young ladies I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. Her spinning wheel, lovingly restored by the house’s owner and only living resident, is a work of art. Wonderful service! If I could give more than five stars, I would. My next visit is already booked!”

“She was nice,” prudence murmured. She couldn’t embroider, not anymore, but her spinning wheel still had enough of her essence and love in it to function for her, provided that someone else assured a good supply of wool, carded and ready for her. If Kevin had to guess, that job wouldn’t be his for very much longer. Not if Pru made friends with the local fiber-crafts people. “I’m glad she’s coming back for a visit. She promised to bring me some of that lovely alpaca wool she was working when she was here.”

“Sounds like she liked you as much as you liked her,” Kevin assured Prudence. She still needed some encouragement now and again. “Okay, next review- ah crap. Elizabeth, it’s that guy from last week. Told you we hadn’t heard the last of him.”

“I didn’t touch a hair on his head,” Elizabeth protested, although they both knew exactly who the guest in question was. “And I caught him trying to steal three of the silver forks.”

Elizabeth might be willing to have guests, but she would never tolerate thieves.

“I don’t’ know if it’s good special effects or drugged coffee,” Kevin read the review for Elizabeth, who was smiling and not at al repentant. “But the walls of my room started bleeding. When I got up for the bathroom around two-am, I looked in the mirror, there was someone behind me. When I turned around, there was nobody there. That’s when the lightbulb in my bathroom exploded- is that why there was glass everywhere when I went in to check on him?”

“The lightbulb was me,” Franklin admitted with an also-not-very-repentant smile of apology. “We saw it in that ghost movie we watched two weeks ago.”

“Seems to have worked. Anyway, ‘about that time I realized that there’s a reason why kids hide under the bed when they’re scared. Went back to bed, but kept waking up as blood dripped onto my face from the ceiling. When I woke up the next morning, the sheets were pristine. Guess I believe in ghosts now, but there’s not enough money in the world to make me go back to Mallory House ever again.”

“Oh good,” William said, no doubt the one the man saw in the mirror. He was usually the one who did for the male visitors that Elizabeth wanted to scare off. “Even if he did try to come back, we would have to decline. It’s no good when the guests try to pocket the silver.”

“I’ll make sure to put it in the disclaimer,” Kevin sighed. The disclaimer about the house, which now included waving the right to sue for ‘nightmares, mental trauma, or injury sustained in fleeing the premises’ was growing longer for every objectional visitor who came through looking to prove that the ghosts weren’t real.

They were real.

They didn’t like being doubted.

Kevin was making a fortune.

So really, pretty much everyone was happy. Okay, the skeptics weren’t so happy, but they all paid the nonrefundable fee for their stay and breakfast, so Kevin really didn’t care what else they did. The bad reviews were almost as good as the good ones. At least most of them screamed about the ghosts, which were Mallory House’s big draw.

“That’s all the new ones,” Kevin said and set his tablet aside. “Now, who has ideas for what to do for Halloween?”

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This Old House:

A haunted house isn’t the usual first choice for a fixer-upper, but Keven likes horror movies, and doesn’t mind when his ghost throw things, as long as they don’t damage the new paint.

Experienced Home-Buying

Living Negotiation (Subscriber-Only!)

White Roses and Deck Railings

Bats at Twilight

Difference of Opinion

Art Treasures of Old

Malicious Smile (Subscriber-Only!)

Family Night (Free on Patreon!)

Stay Creepy

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More Stories!

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[nancypullen]

New Normal

We had a grocery pick up scheduled for 8am this morning.  I’m not sure if we’re doing this right.  To ensure that we’re not hoarding, and that there’s enough available for everyone else, we don’t do huge hauls.  The flip side of that is having to pick up every couple of weeks rather than say, once a month.  Which is the right choice?  I feel better about not being a hoarder, but is going twice a month something that in the long run will make us sick? None of the Kroger employees that were loading cars were masked or taking any precautions. I go out looking like this.

Mickey found that mask and I feel like the world’s worst ninja in it. 

There were just four of us in the pick up area, but the regular parking lot was packed.  That means the store was packed, That means that all of those employees without protection are vulnerable.  Come on, people - do better!  Take care of the people who are taking care of us! We’ve been locked down here on the Pullen spread since the first week of March.  We were supposed to go to a wedding on the 7th and chose not to go. We really hadn’t gone anywhere since late February.  I have forbidden Mickey to go anywhere - he’s over 60 and has high blood pressure (I mean, it’s normal with meds).  Those are two of the red flags that the CDC warned us about.  It’s my job to keep him safe so I’m the food ninja.  I bring everything in and sanitize it as much as possible.  Still, the parking lot was full, the employees aren’t wearing any protection, and I’m out there without a cootie shot.  We’re well stocked for at least another two weeks, probably closer to three, but this is getting really old. Can everyone please just follow a few very simple rules?  Stay home.  When you have to get groceries, do a pick up if at all possible - minimize everyone’s exposure.  I wish we had grocery delivery in our area, I’d sure as heck use it! I don’t get bored at home, I can keep myself happily busy for weeks on end.  I’d never leave if I didn’t have to.   I have friends who are more extroverted than I am and I think they’re getting cabin fever.  I made a few postcards to send out to my Rat Patrol gals.  I just wrote an encouraging note on them and popped them in this morning’s mail.

I wrote that I can’t wait to see them this summer.  Gosh, I hope I get to see them this summer. I also slapped some paint on the birdhouse that is my Ode to Ethel.  I didn’t do a great job.  I got carried away.  I  think I was trying to make the project last longer than it should have - I should have quit about halfway through.

Proof that more isn’t always better.  Pretty sure the birds won’t mind.  The part that does make me happy is that I managed to find treasure while digging through craft supplies and came up with Grandma Ethel’s house number from the pink house!

I don’t have any acrylic spray or topcoat type stuff to put on it, so we’ll see how long it lasts in the elements.  I may be sanding and repainting in a month, which will just be a second chance to get it right.  No complaints from me. Today’s agenda includes pulling a few weeds, maybe FaceTiming with the cutest toddler in the world, making meals, and unfortunately, a few chores. The bathrooms need a good wipe down,  The laundry room is looking cluttered ( I hate that!!), and I have to hunt down dry cat food.  No one seems to be able to keep that in stock.  I may have to order the 30 pound bag. Where the hell am I going to store a 30 pound bag of cat food?  If there are mice in the garage they’ll have a buffet.  They’ll end up looking like that fat mouse from Cinderella, Gus!

I guess there are worse things in life than chubby, content mice. Maybe they’ll be helpful. I mean, they made Cinderella a dress.  The least they could do is fold some laundry around here. See?  I’m fine. Perfectly fine.  Everything is fine. I haven’t gone full Gray Gardens yet.

[sunkissis]

Bonjour mes amis,

It has already been two months since our arrival in Paris! I cannot tell you how fast this time has flown by. We exchanged our house in LA with a sweet French couple in Nation (12th arrondissement) for the first two months so we could have time to apartment hunt. I am so happy we were able to live in Nation mostly because we were able to experience a new part of the city we have never seen before.

I feel like I have finally mastered taking Liv to school on the Metro. I used to be confused about which direction the train would go and call myself out as an obvious tourist during the ride by watching for every stop. Now, we know all the lines and have the cool, I can’t be bothered look while on the train. Although once on a crowded train I got my skirt caught in the door.

    My hair is huge here. I spend hours flat ironing it and yet the second I go outside it turns into an instant pouf. Must be the humidity, there is so much moisture in the air.

Liv and I usually discuss our plans for the week and how we are adjusting to life in France during the ride. I ask her about the differences between LA and Paris. She makes statements like France is so much more cultural and historic than California. She told me, “In Paris everyone takes public transportation but hardly anyone in LA does. Most people at the grocery store are grumpy but here they care about helping you.” She also said the food here is much better than LA. She’s doing well in school. I have met some of the parents of her classmates (although very few speak English). Her curriculum is very similar to her French school in LA but they go off the campus for PE (which is called sports) and I feel terrible because I can’t help her with most of her homework (only math and English).

After I drop her off, I usually take the bus home because the Metro is very crowded and grab my luggy to pick up the day’s groceries. I still can’t get over how frequently I have to shop here. We go through groceries like crazy!

So far we absolutely love living in Paris. I still cannot believe we are here after dreaming of this for so many years. However, there are some downsides to life in France. Please don’t think I’m some entitled brat complaining about my great life, I just want to keep it real and show both sides of our life.

It is very expensive! So far we have plunked down quite a bit of euros for household items (new towels, shopping at Ikea for our new apartment, basic toiletries). It’s harder to stick to a budget because we had to stock up on basic items. Our first week here I bought Liv a scooter, new clothes and had to replace a pair of shoes she outgrew. This month Antz and I needed some new clothes because we (happily) lost weight! I spend €225 every month on our Metro/bus passes but sometimes in a pinch, we need to use Uber and depending on how far we are from home, it can be expensive. We needed to rush home from Versailles to make it to a birthday party on time and it ended up costing €65 for a 30 minute ride.

Liv really enjoyed her €9 smoothie.

Then Monoprix had to come out with this rad limited-time collab with Maison Chateau Rouge. Just take all my money!

The romper was for Liv but if they had my size I would totally rock it. I pretty much cleared out their home decor display.

However, groceries seem less expensive here than in LA. Like cheese, meat and beverages are super cheap. But let me tell you about the most magical, delicious item in all of France… la beurre!

Back home I buy insignificant Land of Lakes salted butter for like $3.99 on sale. Here, I only buy Sel de Mer de Noirmoutier and it is so delicious. I use it on everything, you could tell me it has crystal meth in it and I would still be like “Pass the butter.” I must say, America is missing out on this fucking amazing butter. It costs €2.35!

However dining out is still costing a fortune. We stopped ordering cocktails and are sticking to drinking water but we can’t seem to keep our bill under €75. Recently, while out on a stroll around the neighborhood we found the famous rue Montorgueil. The heavens parted and angels sang as we discovered the most intoxicating smells of baked bread, meats and fresh fruit. The oldest bakery in Paris is located here. It’s now my favorite place to buy fruit and we fell in love with all the restaurants.

We brought home the best BBQ ribs and a half a kilo of cherries for lunch. Liv gobbled them the whole tray in five minutes! Oh, and I am now a basket lady. I have bought three baskets since I got here. This is who I am now. Note: The fluffy hair.

We found this incredible living wall called L’oasis d’Aboukir. It rains almost once a week so I guess that is why this garden is so insanely green.

There are a few other annoyances here that I can’t seem to figure out. Like getting mail delivered. It seemed to be easier to get our mail when we were staying in Nation but that could be due to our sweet neighbors helping us out by accepting our packages. In our new apartment, we have a mailbox that we put our names on but nothing has been delivered so far. It took many attempts to find which of the local post offices our address belonged to. My French is not as great as I thought it was. I was able to pick up one package (I ordered five weeks ago!) yet three more are in mail limbo because we were told if our building has a locked gate, they can’t deliver packages. Uh, like every single building in Paris has a passcode door so why wouldn’t they at least email me or leave a note so I know where to pick up my stuff? Today I am going to Fed Ex for the third time to pick up a package that was delivered nine days ago! My Mom sent me a huge care package and it took me two weeks to figure out how to track it down.

  Another thing I will never get used to is the military presence here. I mean, they all seem like nice soldiers but it’s jarring to walk down the street and then boom, there’s five or six fully uniformed army folks casually carrying guns that look like they belong in a video game. I don’t dare take photos of them but they do say bonjour without a smile as I walk by. Oh, and they wear berets. I suppose I am lucky to live in a relatively safe neighborhood because there have been random knife attacks since we have arrived and sadly, I am always cautious when we are in large crowds.

I also seemed to have a hyper-sensitive aversion to noise. I was equally annoyed by the nonsense noise caused by our hillbilly neighbors (they had the world’s lamest garage band) in LA. Here, the sounds are subtle but torturous. For example, we noticed the first night while in bed, the upstairs neighbor’s toilet must be directly above our heads. Imagine the sounds we heard. They also had some type of saloon door that swings shut. This door produced a boom, bump, bump, bump sound all day long, just about every 30 seconds. I was very close to paying them a friendly visit to offer some felt pads but we moved into a new apartment. Just as we arrived at our new home we were welcomed by the constant cooing of les pigeons. They nest outside of our kitchen window and their incessant cooing sounds make me want to murder.

My final (first-World) problem is our new apartment doesn’t have a separate dryer. They consider this country sophisticated? I was warned about the hard, scratchy towels of Paris so I’ve always traveled with my own towel. The night before we left LA, I took a shower and used my soft, brand new bath towel that I packed in my carry-on. Then as we were re-packing our stuff I realized I only had enough room for either my winter coat or my towel. I was already wearing my camel year-round coat on the plane so I had to make a Sophie’s Choice. I decided it won’t be so terrible to buy new towels in Paris once we arrived. Guess what? Soft, plush towels do not exist here! I was stuck using my face towel for the first week. Monoprix does sell towels but they have a scratchy texture and cost $32.99 each. So, lesson learned, travel with your own pillowcases and towels. I did bring my allergy-free pillowcase covers with me. So, I’m living in 1925 y’all!

I adore freshly dried linen sheets or hand-washed pajamas but putting on stiff as cardboard undies sucks! Now I understand why everyone has to iron clothes here.

In other fun news, it’s peony season! My favorite flower is in bloom and you can buy four stems for 20 euros. Well, that’s how much they were at the marche however Antz found a sweet bouquet for me for Mother’s day for just ten euros.

  This is how they look three days later, swoon.

May 1st is May Day. According to Wikipedia, on 1 May 1561, King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm. He decided to offer a lily of the valley each year to the ladies of the court. At the beginning of the 20th century, it became custom to give a sprig of lily of the valley, a symbol of springtime, on 1 May. Nowadays, people may present loved ones either with bunches of lily of the valley.

Liv has been a crafting machine since most of her toys couldn’t fit in her suitcase. She has decided she needs a handmade sword and shield.

  I took her to La Droguerie to buy a pom pom making kit. This colorful place is located on

9-11 Rue du Jour, 75001 Paris, France

She was able to customize her own glitter! This kid and I were in rainbow craft supplies heaven.

We try to go to visit a new arrondissement every weekend. The parks here are absolutely gorgeous. Just don’t ever step on the grass. When the sky turns blue here, you grab a picnic basket and run outside!

Jardin de Luxembourg Rue de Vaugirard, Boulevard St. Michel, Rue Auguste-Comte and Rue Guynemer 75006 Paris, France

The boat rentals are €4 for 30 minutes. Liv chose Mexico to rep her Grandma Maria.

I think the pony ride was €8. Sweetest pony but our seven year old child is a giant.

Parc Floral 4 route de la Pyramide | Bois de Vincennes, 12th, 75012 Paris, France

We also love strolling our new neighborhood to hunt for Invaders.

Liv pointed out the heart shapes in the window panes.

One evening we took a stroll and ended up on Île de la Cité just at sunset. I swear I am never going back to the US!! Life here is tres beau.

Ask me anything about living in Paris.

Life in Paris: Month Deux Bonjour mes amis, It has already been two months since our arrival in Paris! I cannot tell you how fast this time has flown by.

[decaffeinateddefendorduck]

crazy is as crazy does, part 5

THE NEXT DAY

Happy enters the garage to find Deputy Director Cooper already there with a mission for Scorpion.

“Finally! Happy, we’re going on a mission for Homeland, Toby is staying here to keep an eye on his Mother, but we’ll need you in the field.  Ready?” asked Walter.

The team filed out, leaving Toby sitting at his desk staring over at the elevator section of the garage, where his mother emerges with a pair of scissors.  

“And what are you doing with those?” he asked her.

“Obviously opening a vein,” she says sarcastically.  Seeing his terrified look makes her explain. “I’m breaking down the boxes, they aren’t very pretty. I’m sure you would rather I not use a box cutter, hence the scissors. I should probably save them for the next move, where would you like them?”  Jane turned an innocent smile up at him waiting for his reply.

“You’re right, no box cutters.  I’ll help you put them in storage.  So you’re almost done?  Less than twenty-four hours, that’s pretty amazing.”

Jane approaches Toby and puts a hand on his face.  “Where did all of your friends go, Sonny?  Don’t they want to play with you today?  Am I hindering your” she hunts for a hip sounding word “mojo? Do the kids still say mojo?  It’s been awhile since I’ve been around kids.”

Ignoring this last part Toby replies, “They wanted me to go and play with them but we don’t exactly trust you to be here alone.”

“I am a grown woman Tobias.  You can go and play if you want to.  I have a project to complete. Top Secret! I’ll be good. I promise.”  Her promise was made deviantly and with her fingers crossed and help out in front of Toby’s face.

“A project already, huh?  Care to share the details, after all I am family.”

“No, I said Top Secret!  Didn’t you hear the capital letters in my inflection?  It’s an enigma you’ll have to solve.  Like me.” And with that she went and started breaking down the boxes.  Toby took her first load to the storage area and on his way to get a second one Walter called, needing help on the mission. Walter asked Toby if he could leave his mother for a short time to go to a local office where they needed some of his behaviorist skills.  He agreed and warned his mother to be good, then left her in the garage alone.

Jane finished with the boxes and looked around at the silence, then went on a little tour, looking through the entire garage and collecting materials for her project.  She took 15 of Sylvester’s pencils, twine from Happy’s shelves, glue from Toby’s chemistry and medical supplies, markers and ribbons from her own supplies.  When she first made it to the doll house she froze in complete euphoria, wondering how she could be so lucky. After gathering the rest of the materials, she piled them around on the floor by the doll house, making herself invisible from the garage’s various openings.  Jane set to work making dolls out of the pencils and arranging them in various tableaux in the doll house.

On finishing his errand for the team, Toby made his way back to the garage. He didn’t see or hear his mother, so he started to look for her, but Walter called again just then asking for computer support.  While on the phone, Walter asked why Toby was playing music when he should be focused on the case.   Toby hadn’t noticed it until Walter pointed it out, but he recognized it at once. Toby looked around from his spot at the monitors and found his mother sitting on the floor behind the doll house. Terror instantly arose through him. he knows how Happy hates people touching her things and messing with her doll house, but that was second only to the fright of seeing his mother creating something.  He needed to finish with Walter, so he told Walter he couldn’t stop the music but that it wasn’t interfering with his work, “it’s a radio I have yet to learn which button to push to turn it off.”

“What?” Walter demanded.

“It’s my mother singing.” Toby admitted.  Since she had sung to herself his whole life, he didn’t automatically hear it anymore, but could recognize it when it was pointed out to him.

After finishing with this particular crisis in the case, Toby started to approach his mother, who jumped up to hide her work when she noticed him.

“Don’t you come any closer.  You can’t see this just yet!  If’n you need some lovin’ you just let me know and I’ll come to you.”  She adopted an awful Southern accent to sweeten up her scolding, but she really just wanted him to leave her alone so she could work.

“Cordelia, are you feeling alright?”  Toby asked hesitantly.

The garage door opened right then with a special delivery from Brooklyn. Toby left his mother, who was smiling innocently up at him, to get the package, once he was gone she went back to her craft.  Toby took the package to his desk and stared in disbelief at the sheer volume of pills with his mother’s name on them.  He started making a list of the doctors on the labels and calling them to get her diagnoses.  While he was finishing up on the phone, yelling at several East Coast doctors and their nurses, Jane started arranging things in the doll house.  Then she simply stated “it’s coming” and went on with her work.

Toby heard his mother say something, and then the words registered.  They reminded him of when he was young. His mother would let his father and him know that she was changing from high to low, and this was her saying that the low was on its way.  He hung up with the doctor he was just yelling at and approached his mother gingerly and asked if she would like to go and lay down.  She declined.

“I have to finish this.  I’m almost done, then I’ll go to my pretty place for awhile, I think.”

Toby took this to mean the elevator, which she had taken the entire night beautifying. He wasn’t able to get her to leave. He walked away from her unsure if it was safe to do so at the same moment that the rest of the team came in for a problem solving session. Once the problem was solved it was determined that Toby needed to go with team this time, but that Happy could stay behind to watch Jane.  Unhappy about this, Happy asked Toby, “Do I need to know anything special about how to deal with her?  Do I need anything other than your number on speed dial?”

Smiling down at her, Toby answered “Her mania is ending, so once she’s done with her project she should just go into the elevator and sleep.” Using air quotes he added, “her pretty place. She may try to find a drinky-poo.  Try to keep her from the booze, but if she insists I’d rather her drink then hurt you, or herself.”

The team left and Happy kept her distance from Toby’s mother, her future mother-in-law.  Not long after the team was gone, Jane got up and danced across the floor, asked the room in general where the little girl’s room was and exited.  Since she was going in the right direction, Happy left her to it.

Happy took a deep breath and settled down at her computer.  After ten minutes without any sound from the direction of the restrooms, she decided that she should go over to see if Jane was okay.  Not having been told what to call her, Happy called out “Mrs. Curtis? Jane?  Toby’s mom?”  She didn’t get an answer so she pushed in the door and ran into Jane on her way out. Jane winced a bit, but stood up to her full height and said, “I guess it’s time that we had ourselves a little pow-wow.”

Happy’s shocked face was ignored by Jane who grabbed Happy by the hand and led her to the elevator which was completely transformed.  There was a curtain of ribbons hanging over the door that opened onto a new-looking space with fabric covering every wall. There were cushions and blankets covering the floor, books stacked against the back wall, and what looked like a nest in the middle of the small room.  Jane sat down in the center of the nest and patted the ground in front of her.  Happy cringed at the girlyness of everything in the room and sat down slowly across from the woman who gave Toby life.

Jan started talking and Happy just listened.

“I’m sure Toby has told you of my mental state. He is fond of finding alternative ways to tell the world that I am” she pauses a little “crazy. That isn’t entirely accurate. Especially at moments like this, the Twilight Time, I call it. The mania is receding and the Depression hasn’t yet nestled in, but it is on its way, I can feel it seeping in around the corners of my mind.” Here she shakes her head, like she may be able to shake it out.  “I haven’t always been like this, you know. I had a lucid childhood and teenage experience. I met Toby’s father and we had a normal wedding and the beginning of our life together was good. After I had Toby I had pretty bad postpartum depression (he doesn’t know this) and I self-medicated, which didn’t help. The first time my soon-to-be-ex-husband took me to get evaluated, the crackpot, discount shrink put me on high doses of Lithium which messed with the natural metals and chemicals in my brain, switching on an inherited genetic marker that I had successfully avoided until then.  The first time I tried to stop taking the Lithium, the mania hit.  My poor Sonny boy was five, already working through the top levels of the elementary school curriculum and we went on a bender through the education system that had him testing out of anything I could find to test him on.  Pre-internet, the tests were a little harder to find than I’m sure they are today, but it gave him the rush that probably started his gambling addiction (also fed by his father’s gambling) and fueled my disease.

“That first episode lasted a week, which was the most fun Tobias and I have ever had together. When the depression returned, I could see it hurting him, since he thought he was to blame. I did find some medical journals and books for him to read that told that story of other women who had gone through mental disorders, so he would understand that it wasn’t his fault. Mistakenly he thought it was his responsibility to fix me. He finished high school at 12 and started pre-med classes at local colleges. He worked his way into Harvard and then tried to diagnose and medicate me. He’s always been too close to be able to see what’s really wrong, and he blames himself, like kids do. So the gambling was a retreat for him, which led him to be chased across the country by all of the people be was better than at cards.  He did get into trouble a lot while he was growing up, but he was just looking for attention. Attention my drug and alcohol addled brain wouldn’t allow me to give him and that his father couldn’t give him. Toby reminds his father, more than I do, of how he ended up with Bertha, the first Mrs. Rochester, and that I prevented him from finding his Jane Eyre.”

As Jane talked, her speech became slower and quieter, the depression sinking in, Happy thought.  When it seemed she had finished her story she slid down onto her side and fell asleep. Happy wasn’t sure what exactly had just happened, or how to feel about all of this information, so she just covered Jane with a blanket and started to leave.  As she got to the door Jane jerked awake, she looked up and around.  When she spotted Happy at the door she weakly said, “I think you should call me Millie.  I can’t stand the thought of being called someone’s mother-in-law, but the acronym lends itself to Millie.  Love him.” she looked deep into Happy’s eyes as she said her last words and then dropped her head and fell asleep again.

[dungeoneerspack]

Merry Morning guys and gals (and everything in between)

I am the Dungeoneer's Pack, a humble and new DM looking to make the world a better place. Today I'm going to be testing a world building process many of you may already have heard of. The 5x5 method.

Now, this method is usually used to create adventures. I want to use it to make a city that my players can explore. So, without further adieu, lets get to it.

1. The City To start off I already have an idea in mind for this session. A city where hunters gather to sell, trade, craft and drink after a long hunting session. This initial idea gives me a fair number of questions I can ask.

Who runs the city?

Where is the city located?

If they are hunters would they not move to where the game is?

From those simple questions I get:

An elite group of hunters known as the Pothunter Lodge run Dragopse. There are five members of the Pothunter Lodge each with a focused set of skills. Built within the corpse of a long dead and massive dragon Dragopse sits on the coast. This is so that the city has ample access to trade and new recruits. The city stays where it is so that there is a governing body overseeing the hunts. Nomadic hunting bands head out and form temporary villages around successful hunts. People have come to know these villages as slaughters. 

As you can tell each question answered raises a few more. With this you can build up a more believable world. So, that's our new city. Dragopse (a smashing of Dragon and Corpse... Yeah, I'm not crazy creative with names.)

2. A Tavern!

Now, lets flesh out the city with some locations. First, this is a hunting city and hunter like to... you guessed it... drink! A tavern is a hot bed for adventure hooks (albeit a little tropeish). Lets give our players a place to relax and spend their hard earned coin.

I heard of a term for a butchers boning knife was "Six Inch Boner" and fell for it! It plays into the rough attitudes I want from the city. Who runs it though? I see a portly, but still strong, gentleman, scarred and missing an eye. Blue work shirt stained with age. He smells of smoke and has the loudest laugh in the tavern. His name? Oh gosh, Athelwik Sundermann. Built of wood and stone, The Six Inch Boner has two floors with a beer garden out back. The tables are old a scarred with graffiti. Adorning the walls are paintings of key hunters from the area. Next to those are taxidermy heads of Athewik's prized hunts.

There we go, a nice sounding tavern with some nice flavor to get your players in the mood for booze.

3. The General Store

Ok, your players have gone out on a hunt or are getting ready to. They want to get some supplies for the road, but wait, where are they going to do that?! The Tavern?! I think not!

They will need a general store. Here they can pick up any and all of their needs. So, who runs this fine establishment? I think... A halfling, Brightwater Suremann. He is disheveled, bags under his eyes stressed. He has taken over the shop from his ailing father, Goldeye Suremann. The shop is in some disarray. Deliveries are still waiting to be shelved. It's not a large shop ether, so the players will need to scoot around the boxes to get to the counter.

Excellent, an awesome shop for the players to visit! Wait! What's it called?! Err... Goldeye's General Goods (Some sick alliteration!)

4. The Huntsman's Guild

This is the most important addition to the city. Located at the docks (The Dragons Maw Pass) the Huntsman's guild gives the players their quest. Owned by an elf called Ilthern Illiad, a hard working stickler for the rules. Here the players can get information about their quarry. They can also claim rewards for hunting particular creatures. 

5. Their HomeI added this one on because it's something I want to play around with. Giving the player a home to come back to. Letting them have mundane moments to contrast the wild adventures. This is a space that both the dm and the players should talk about and build together. There we go. A lightly fleshed out city. Next time I will build upon this and add more to it but for now this is a great starting point. Thanks for reading,The Dungeoneer's Pack