This journal is kinda-sorta friends-only, just so that I can just kind of have an idea of who's reading. Most fictional writing or photo blog stuff is all public, the inner workings of my mind, ramblings, more personal stuff, that's what is contained in the friends-only posts. :) I'm pretty open to adding people, so just say hi!

It's been a week and 2 days and I am so in love with my little baby puppy. Here's a bunch of family pics, of Ashton, Petal, us with the doggies, and just us humans. A big mix of happy photos! (24 photos in all)



( click for picsCollapse )

PHOTOS!! Home haircut I gave myself!!

( Read more...Collapse )

The wet sand between her toes soothed her soul as she walked. “I guess it soothes my soles, too,” she mused as she continued down the beach and might have laughed if she hadn’t been in such a sour mood.

She and Ethan has had another stupid fight. All couple had fights like this, though. They were still solid, right? Of course. They always were. She loved him, he loved her. He was just being a dick right now.

She couldn’t believe Ethan had pulled this again, though. She told him weeks ago that she’d be taking more courses in nursing school this semester and would need the truck more often. And then he came home one night saying he took on more gigs. “Sorry babe, I really need the truck. And right now, that’s where the money comes from so... I need it more than you right now. You know how it is.”

“What happened to saving for another car? I thought you had like eight hundred dollars, and you were looking into a down payment in another six months or something?”

“Lauren says we'll earn more money with better amps. So I bought better amps. It’s an investment though, you know?”

“Lauren? So you bought brand new amps because the singer in your band said you should?"

"Well, yeah."

"How much of that do you have left?"

"Well, nothing, I told you, we needed good amps."

"And you didn't even ask me. I thought we were budgeting together, Ethan. Why are you taking financial advice from Lauren? What about me? I’m your fiancée!”

“I know you are, and I love you, and you know that,” he said. “But I mean, it’s the band. The music’s gotta come first, you know?”

“Yeah I know,” she had said. And then they'd kissed. And she came out here to take a walk. Why didn't she feel better though? And why was she always doing that? Always agreeing with him? Always being The Cool Girlfriend? She was so cool she’d even forgiven him for sleeping with Lauren three months ago, especially when he’d pointed out he’d already said sorry. And he had. And he was right, she couldn't just punish him forever, right? So she dropped it. Then he had proposed, so how could she stay mad?

And maybe if she saved up, canceled her Netflix and maybe tried to sell her old laptop or something, with enough things like that, she could get a down payment saved up for a car. That’s how they’d gotten the couch they needed. And the bed. And the truck, too, now that she thought about it. Well, ok, so if she did it before, she could absolutely do it again, and she’d be helping them both out. “I am a pretty cool girlfriend, he’s lucky to have me,” she said. “We’re lucky to have each other.” She tried to smile, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to.

Her legs ached. She’d walked a while trying to walk off her frustration. She sat down in the sand and dug her toes in as she watched the tide.

The waves rolled in and out, over and over. The white foam rolled and changed, dancing over the sand. It was hot out, but the ocean breeze made it less stifling than it was at the apartment. Everything felt less stifling out of their apartment.

She sighed.

With the next roll of the ocean, a wave deposited a tiny shell. Oh that’s cool, she said and reached out and picked it up. She looked inside. She screamed and dropped it in the sand. Something had looked back! It wasn’t just a shell. It was a hermit crab! She laughed at herself and picked it back up. “Aw I’m sorry buddy, you startled me,” she said to it gently. Two tiny eyes moved independently as it evaluated the level of threat she posed.

“Oh shit, I’m scaring you, aren’t I? Ok I’m not going to eat you, no worries, go back to your little crab life. Don’t mind me!” She set the crab down and as she did so, it clamped itself tightly inside the shell. After she laid it down and just watched for a bit, the crab re-emerged and began walking along the wet sand. It walked a few steps, then dug a bit with its pincers. Then it walked a few more steps and did it again. A big log was not far off to the left. She looked down the beach in the opposite direction, and saw a flock of seagulls on the sand close to the water, pecking every time the waves rolled out.

“Let me help you a bit, ok buddy?” she asked the little crab.

She picked it up and took it to the log, which was quite large. There was a big shady spot right next to it, and tucked almost under it were several shells and some dried seaweed. She placed the crab gently in the shadow of the log and sat back and watched.

It waited. Then out it came, walked, felt around, walked, felt around. It approached a shell, and turned it over. The shell was a bit bigger than itself. Then it backed up away from it a couple steps. And it crawled right out of its shell!

She gasped then covered her mouth. She didn’t want to scare it! She didn’t know hermit crabs did this! She thought to herself that maybe she should’ve known... somehow? Because of course they grow, but..? She’d never thought of what they did when they grew. And now she saw... It dragged its tiny body confidently closer to the new shell it saw, backed itself into it and then... voila.

“You have a whole new look now, don’t you?!” she asked with an excited smile. “You were just carrying this?" she asked, and picked up the old shell. Empty. "And you just laid it down, huh? Because you needed a new, bigger layer. Well, congrats! It suits you much better, I'd say.” She touched her heart and sighed, so glad she got to see this.

She stood, swept her hands over her legs to wipe off the sand. And headed back to her apartment.

“Ethan,” she said when she walked in the door.

“Hey babe, what’s up?” he asked.

She reached for his hand, and he reached out to her. She placed the ring in his palm. “I don’t think this is working,” she said.

I am a weird little multi-level house. Maybe like those houses in the Hollywood Hills. Hard to find. Around a curvy road. But the driveway is inviting, and roomy. Maybe, quite possibly, I am a house with a whole entire pretty-big lawn people could park next to, and even on. There is room for lots of friends and family. And there's an apple tree in the front yard.

The house itself has modern wood beams, loads of big wide windows, and some small decorative ones too, a few with stained glass. Some beams are metal. there are high ceilings, a tall roof, a green roof with solar panels, and next to those solar panels, a quaint patio with a small round table and two red chairs. On the table is a plant and two white candles in glass holders with rocks at the bottom of the holders.

The main door of the house is large, with a porthole sized round window at the top, but it's difficult to see inside. It is made of heavy wooden beams, with iron decorations. the key is metal, long, old-fashioned and curliqued, and it takes a series of locks to undo in order to get inside. The welcome mat has hedgehogs illustrated on it. The door only unlocks and opens when it wants to.

When you walk in the house, there is a large round mirror on the wall straight ahead, a wide staircase to an upper level that curls up and to the right, a large light-color-carpeted livingroom to the left that contains comfortable, soft couches, a few arm chairs, and a lovely dark brown piano. The kitchen is beyond the livingroom, lots of plants line the marble counter tops. Appliances are bright colors, blue, green, maybe orange or yellow. A coffee maker, a mixer, a kettle. There are hand made pottery dishes in open, door-less cabinets, and a black glass-top stove. An old clock hangs on the wall. There is a lovely countertop with some barstools that are rarely used, and just on the other side of that, a dining area with wooden floors, and a sliding glass door. The room is filled with light. On top of the dining area's wooden floors sits a deep red wooden picnic table, topped with a blue bowl filled with fresh fruit. The lamps on the wall look like old fashioned streetlamps. There's ample counter space, a big deep white sink and the walls are painted a friendly pale yellow.

There's a sitting room, too, with another comfy couch and a tv. Soft blankets and throw pillows adorn it. This room is darker. This room has a fireplace, a ship in a bottle, an old hand carved chess set, and a large tv. Bookshelves line the walls, floor to ceiling, and are filled with many interesting books, a few plants, a camera, and framed photos and art.

There's a bathroom on this floor, too, because of course there is. Who wants to walk up or downstairs for a bathroom? The bathroom has seashells, light blue walls, distressed-wood-framed photos of ocean waves and coral, and a soft white shower curtain. Or maybe no shower curtain. It's a stall, with many jets on the walls and one of those big round shower heads that pours on you like a rainforest deluge.

Next to the bathroom door is another door. This one leads to a stairwell that takes you down mildly creaky steps to a room a level below that smells musty, in a good way. Like old record albums and grandma's kindness. This room is filled with vinyl records, an old player, atop an old record stand. There are windows that let lots of light in here too, just not as much as upstairs. Knitted striped scarves hang over soft cushy green chairs. There's a music stand and flute in the corner. A large black lab will have followed you down here. Even through your socks, you can feel how soft and squishy the carpet is. There's a large antique writing desk almost in the corner, and in the actual corner is a plant stand with a leafy friend sitting, absorbing the natural light, photosynthesizing.

Go out of this room, across the short hall, which is not carpeted, into another room, and the dog will follow you here too. This is something completely different. Large walls are covered in blue background paint, with many clouds, balloons, and hot air balloons, and rainbows, all painted across them. There are framed artistic portraits, photos of me, Homer, and friends, on amusement park rides, framed printouts of excellent quotes in interesting fonts. There are at least 3 huge bean bag chairs on the carpet, and colorful cushions, and mats. The moment you walk in you want to laugh or do a somersault or both. There's a trampoline, and it's fun to bounce. There's a dressup corner with feather boas and goofy sunglasses on the wall. There's a mirror with orange swirly edges, so you can see yourself smile.

There's a door that you can't really see, you just have to know where the outline is in the blue, a bit camouflaged. If you press it, it opens, and the room you enter is dark. There are paintings of red lips and vampire teeth. You're pretty sure a vampire lives here, actually. Where's the coffin? The walls are dark lace patterns on a rich shiny amber colored background, and there are maroon curtains hanging in various places. But no windows. There's an aquarium with a tarantula. Bats hang from the ceiling. There is an arm chair, sleek, shiny leather. A few skeletons and skulls sit on floating shelves on the wall, and inside an old mahogany curio cabinet. There are bottles whose insides shimmer.

If you look closely, there's a black steel ladder against the back wall. Climb, and you may climb all the way to the roof, which has green moss growing over most of it, and a hot air balloon parked next to the chimney, as well as the aforementioned solar panels and tiny dining patio. If you climb back down, you'll come to a tower that is the shape and size and striped black-and-white coloring of a lighthouse. Inside the room (you climb in through the balcony, drift in through the wispy white curtains), you see many large circular windows, a very tall ceiling, a small wooden floor, and a quaint bed covered in white sheets, and a very soft thin blue blanket. There's a wooden green night stand next to it, a small lantern atop it, about 5 books on the shelf. Inside the small drawer is a notebook and pen.

If you tug on the rope tucked under the bed, you'll see it's attached to a trap door space next to the bed, and you can just pull that up, and start climbing down the spiraling wooden staircase. You'll be back on the ground floor in no time. Three well behaved cats and the black lab will happily curl up with you on the green velvet sofa with all your very soft blankets and books. So will a tiny chihuahua, and if you hold very still, an African Grey and flock of 3 caiques and 3 cockatiels will come on out and hang out for a bit too and will not poop on anything. Out back through the sliding glass door of the kitchen is a huge yard, green grass, a view of mountains, and a few horses and goats who love to roam and frolick when they're not in the big red barn. Farther back is a tropical forest, protected and safe, with many friendly monkeys of all kinds, and parrots too.

It's a house of peace, cozy, quiet, old fashioned, antique, cute, whimsical, fun, funny, dark, scary, amazing thoughts. A nature loving, craft and art loving, love-loving, book loving, story centric, photography focused, bizarre part of the world, with some twists and turns, and creaks, and oddities. And perhaps it is all just a little bit unexpected. Or maybe it seems exactly right.

Hello! Yep, definitely joining Second Chance Idol! :D

Saw this on Reddit today and enjoyed the summary:

=============



u/Very-Fishy
257 points
·

Originally the roman calendar had 10 months and (supposedly) some boring winter that wasn't named (because it was insignificant with regards to agriculture):

Month of Mars (the war god)/March

(Possibly) Month of Aphrodite (the love goddess)/April

(Possibly) Month of Maia (the spring goddess)/May

Month of Juno (the supreme goddess, sisterwife of Jupiter)/June

Month of Quintilis (the 5. month)/July

Month of Sextilis (the 6. month)/August

Month of September (the 7. month)/September

Month of October (the 8. month)/October

Month of Novembris (the 9. month)/November

Month of December (the 10. month)/December

Bonus: Boring winter until the calendar fits. Rinse. Repeat.

King Numa (700 BC) is credited with reforming the system and dividing "winter" into 2 months:

Month of Janus (the god of beginnings and time)/January

Month of "dies Februatus" (=Lupercalia, a festival)/February

He also

Added a "leap month" (Mercedonius/Intercalary month) that was (supposed to be) added after February every 2-3 years, to "recalibrate" the year and

Moved the new months to the start of the year, (screwing up the numbering inherent the names).

Julius Caesar reformed the system in 46 BC, removing the "leap month" between February and March (it was being misused for political shenanigans) by making some months longer than before.

To calibrate the calendar, a single "leap day" was inserted every 4 years where the "leap month" was before, which is why February still gets the "leap day".

To celebrate, he appropriated Quintilis and renamed it "Month of Julius"/July. (Not really though: it was Marc Anthony that had Julius Caesar's birth month Quintilis renamed in his honour, after the assassination).

Augustus had to make a minor leap year reform (because the romans counted inclusively, the priests had erroneously added a leap year every three years instead of every fourth). In 8 BC a referendum renamed Sextilis to "Month of Augustus"/August to honour Augustus.

Summa summarum, our months are named:

1 Beginnings

2 Obscure festival (sometimes with vestigial leap month)

3 War

4 Love (we think)

5 Spring (we think)

6 Supreme mother

7 Julius Caesar

8 Caesar Augustus

9 Seventh

10 Eight

11 Ninth

12 Tenth

Makes sense, right?

Sienna cradled the tinder in her cupped hands like a small bird. She held it near her lips and whispered: fieri. Her voice echoed inside her head in unison with 1000 other voices that whispered with her. A light breeze blew through the forest as tiny leaves trembled all around her. A small orange spark ignited in the center of the tinder, and her lips curled into a knowing smile. She laid the bundle of tinder on the ground within the circle of rocks she had laid out. She laid some kindling on top of it and blew a slow steady breath. A bright orange flame stood up and caught hold of the kindling, just as Sienna laid some logs on top. And they said it couldn’t be done. That no 12 yr old baby witchling could handle herself in the shaded wood on the road to Alimazier. But here she was, handling herself.

She would show all of them what she was made of.

The air rumbled in the distance. Vibrations rolled through the ground through the soles of her feet. She put out her hands to steady herself. The growing fire she’d just conjured went out in a flash. Black clouds swirled overhead blocking out the last of the dusk light, shifting the wooded region into pitch black night. Sienna thought she heard laughter and an icy shudder ran down her spine.

Something I wrote today:

= = = = = = =

Can you feel it?
The heft in the soft inky ebony
that has wrapped around us this season?
A fleece of comfort to block out the noise and bustle
of life,
the stillness
the silence
so we each can sit in soft comfort with ourselves.

Deep in the womb of the earth,
seeds and mammals sleep,
slowly, slowly,
life grows on.
In the Spring as the light shines, we cheer the arrival of blossoms
and don't always think of the itty, teensy, tiny,
imperceptible
growth
that brought us here,
the growth in the dark.

In the dark, we hear our dreams.
In the dark, we know our hearts.
In the light, we will dance as pink petals fall from cherry trees,
knowing that the sweet deep molasses of winter's night
held us in her grace
and made it all possible.

Lyla quickened her pace as she made her way to History class. She knew she shouldn't be late, especially today, the day of the pop quiz on the Great Gnome War of 1712. But something caught her attention in her periphery. Silas's hand left the board, right by a thumb tack, and she thought she heard him chuckling about something. Was that a new bulletin? She never got to see those when first posted! And she'd missed quite a few cool clubs or extracurricular classes. Like the time someone had posted about growing a pixie-attracting garden, and all the spots had been filled before she'd even gotten a chance to log online and sign up. No way was that happening again this time.

She edged her way in front of a tall boy who was probably on one of the sport teams, and squeezed through a couple of younger sprouts, also known as first-years. Sure enough, there was a new bulletin!

It read:

Attention Students, Years 7 & 8. We are announcing a special opportunity!
Dragon Internship Available
Must be earning top grades.
Prerequisite: Beginning Mythical Animal Husbandry
If interested, please see Professor Strumwidge by 13 December


Oh, that was definitely happening! She pulled out her amethyst disc and swiped it over the bulletin to save the info inside. It was so handy to have this newest magical technology. Her mom said they didn't even use discs when she was a kid! Too weird.

The halls of the school were nearly empty now. Better get to history before the bells!

* * *

"Hey Keeley," said Lyla as she approached Professor Strumwidge's room after school.

"Hey! Oh, hey, how was your Gnome quiz? I think I did ok, but I could not remember the general's name who lead his groups over to Beacon Hill."

"General Plumfoot?"

"Ahhh, that's it! Dang it. I wrote Petal... shoot. Anyway, hey are you going to ask about the Dragon Internship?"

"Absolutely!" Lyla said.

"Great, me too, ooh I hope we get to do it together!!"

"That would be the best!"

They took their seats and listened to Professor Strumwidge, a tall, lanky, handsome woman with a sharp angled nose and high cheek bones. Her hair was curled, and she looked sternly at the large group of interested students.

"I thought that bulletin board might pull in the lot of you," she said with a sigh. "Eeeeveryone wants to be with the dragons. I can't imagine why..." she said softly, as if to herself, though they could all hear her. Did she know they could hear her? Lyla wondered.

Professor Strumwidge continued. She outlined the necessary tasks, that there would be a great deal of mucking stalls, chopping fish heads and grinding them up into paste for the baby dragons. "Oh, right, did I mention? These dragons are just newly hatching this week."

Lyla and Keeley's eyes met. "Oh my god," mouthed Lyla.

"Right??" mouthed Keeley back.

"There will be two shifts. The first three months, the baby dragons mostly need socialization, some training, grooming, and wrangling. And feeding. Lots of feeding. The second three months they'll be training for the aerial competition. If you'd like the first shift, raise your hands now."

Lyla's and Keeley's hands shot up. Lyla looked around, and saw that Silas, Elliott, Ray, and Clark all had their arms crossed across their chests. Brennan was the only boy raising his hand among the group of 5 girls also with their hands up.

"Oh, that's about... half of you. That works, then. You six on the first shift, you 4 on the second shift."

She told them all when to come back and who to report to on their first day.

In the hall, Lyla and Keeley talked excitedly together, thrilled that they actually got it! As they passed by the boys, Lyla overheard them.

Silas snorted and said to Clark, "Ha! Awesome. We'll just let the girls handle all the baby stuff! Then we'll get to do the badass stuff."

"Totally," Clark said with a laugh and they bumped their fists together.

Lyla scowled. Oh, so that's how it was going to be, eh? "We'll see about that," she whispered.







This has been an entry for the writing competition, therealljidol. Prompt: Glass Cliff