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spooniechef · 1 year

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March Sneak Preview

I’ve made a point to actually plan out my meals for the month in more than an abstract way. Part of that is down to you guys, because it’s encouraged me to try recipes I’d been pondering but having executive dysfunction about, so thank you. I thought I’d give a quick overview of what recipes I’m going to be trying this month, and talk a bit about ways of cutting costs for recipes in general.

First, March content - these are the recipes I’m trying this month, or just plain keeping in the rotation because variety is a good thing.

Curry (specifically lamb dopiaza and aloo gobi, my absolute favourites)

Beef stew (I recently bought a slow cooker; more on that later)

Roast pork shoulder (not only how to initially roast it, but three or four ways to use the leftovers that’ll make one roast last the best part of a week)

Chicken broccoli pasta bake (with notes about how gluten-free and lactose-free substitutions will affect things)

Treats (specifically three-ingredient peanut butter cookies, home-made shelf-stable instant hot chocolate, and for those with a dehydrator, cinnamon caramel apple chips)

Given that a few people following this blog have come up with some great variations on the recipes I’ve already posted, I really look forward to seeing what you do with these!

A couple of those recipes above are kind of tricky when it comes to their base ingredients. Mostly the stew and the curry. The meat’s expensive, yes, but oddly, the spices are worse. Herbs and spices are one of those things that can really make or break a dish but also start getting expensive when you buy them all at once. I noticed this a lot with the curry, honestly; it’s a great one to have in the personal recipe book for a spoonie because it’s literally just “throw everything into a pot for a couple of hours”, but the number of spices it needs can be really intimidating, price-wise. So I thought about it and came up with a couple of ways that the sticker shock can be at least minimised when it comes ot herbs.

Grow your own. I know how that sounds, I really do. I will say this, though - it’s not as hard as some people seem to think. I live in a north-facing apartment that really does not get a lot of light and last year was an absolute bonanza of fresh herbs to use in cooking. Plus combine that with a dehydrator and you’ll be more likely to give away cooking herbs than to have to go buy them from the supermarket. Hell, my Scarborough Fair Collection (literally parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme) has been surviving outdoors in a pretty horrific cold snap, as has some mint and my strawberry plants (though they’re obviously not bearing fruit right now). I was also growing marjoram, oregano, dill, cilantro, and basil, plus cayenne peppers, peas, and tomatoes - most of which I’ll have to replant this year. Even if all you’ve got is a windowsill, these plants are hardier than you’d think. Just requires doing the rounds with a watering can. If that’s a route you decide to take, get one of the little 1 litre watering cans; something small and easy to lift. If you’re short on space, priority for planting should be basil (lots of basil - pesto sauce is super easy to make), oregano, cilantro, dill, thyme, rosemary. ...You know what? I’ll just stick with “this gets its own post later”.

Buy in bulk ... a bit at a time. The good thing about dried herbs and spices is that they take a very long time to go 'bad’, and you don’t normally need a whole lot of each in a recipe, so you don’t run out quickly. Still, stuff like green cardamom pods tends towards the costly, and the cornucopia of spices you need for a good curry ... it adds up. So buy the spices a piece at a time - turmeric and cumin one big shopping day, garam masala and clove on another big shop, green cardamom pods on their on the next time, and so on. It takes some organisation, but it helps in two ways - spreads the cost, and gives you time to arrange some space for your sudden bounty of spices. Don’t buy in bulk the first time, just in case you don’t like the recipes you can use this stuff with, or if it’s too much spoon expenditure. But if you do find something you like, usually you’re using a teaspoon or less of these things, so you’ve got a lot of time to buy a bulk package of those items over the course of a lot of shopping trips, and just refill the original spice jar from that when it’s empty.

Honestly, that’s about it. There are ways to spread the cost and to do away with it entirely in some cases, but at the end of the day, stuff costs too much money and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it at this point. I’ll keep adding money-saving tips to these recipes, since I know it’s incredibly tricky to manage a budget when maybe you’re not up to working full time, or when more money than is reasonable needs to go on medication etc. I find it helps to remind myself that yeah, that pork roast was expensive but that’s five-six days’ worth of meals right there, so a lot less I need to buy; doesn’t make the pain of sticker shock go away, but it soothes the burn a little.

#The Spoonie Chef #Spoonie essentials #Monthly Preview

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hiddenworldofmary · 3 months

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C P R V Y for brutaly honest hour ☠️

I dug this out of my drafts last night and now it's time to face the consequences and overshare on main 💃🏻 (It got terribly long because I can't form a concise thought so grab snacks I guess and keep reading)

C - How long it's been since I've [been] kissed? As sad as the truth is, it's been over a year. It was a very memorable beginning of October 2022. While the conversation was interesting there was zero chemistry whatsoever but at the end the dude still got a kiss because why the hell not. 36 hours later I was awfully sick with covid (courtesy of my roommate) and I really hope I didn't give him that 💀 Never spoke to him after the date.

P - What kind of music I like I will listen to pretty much anything if I like it, except for hiphop, rap and our lovely polish disco polo. I do tend to lean towards pop, I gave a piece of my heart to lady gaga at age 11 and it stayed with her to this day. I've always enjoyed classical music as well (and I used to play the piano) but other than that anything goes.

R - 10 of my curiosities (which I understand as curious things about me, or as curious as they can be - I'm not particularly interesting) - I absolutely suck at video games that require fighting or driving. - I hate cottage cheese with a burning passion. - As a teenager (and younger than now adult) I would make tables or documents with advantages of things I wanted my parents to buy for me (such as: gaming console (in early covid times) is good for me because I will be able to socialize with people safely and good for parents because I will stop being a pain in the ass). It worked every time 😎 - I can't eat gluten and I shouldn't eat dairy because it gives me acne and it often makes life pretty sad because -> - I love love love bread and pastries and ice cream and cakes - Over the years I unknowingly established a sort of capsule wardrobe and it's wonderful but it annoys me whenever I see things like "buy less clothes! how? BUY THESE THINGS to have a capsule wardrobe FOR THIS SEASON" because I feel like that's missing the point 🤦🏻‍♀️ - My favourite colour is pink but I almost never wear pink clothes - I am terribly afraid of all flying bugs, especially those that bite or buzz, which makes late spring, all of summer and early autumn my personal hell. - I don't like cooked fish with the exception of baked salmon but I really like sushi 🍣 - (last one and my personal favourite) I have a freckle on my lips :)

V - 3 big dreams As much as I daydream it wasn't easy to think of three things that I really do want to happen. For as long as I can remember I've always wanted to travel to Alaska, it still remains my biggest dream. Second one is pretty silly, but I'm really looking forward to the day when my skin stops acting like a teenager and I no longer have acne anywhere. Last one is an umbrella dream of sorts and it is to be happy - that happiness for me includes (among other things) good health but also a hopeful and determined attitude whenever health goes to shit, enough money to be able to live comfortably but also staying positive whenever I may not be able to get myself what I want or need, great relationships with family and other people but also being comfortable alone and enjoying my own company.

Y - If I like my town and why I love the city I live in! It's by the seaside (which I used to dislike prior to moving here) and the temperatures here are usually colder than in other places in the country. I like that it's a very people focused city, there are many free (!!!) opportunities to relax, socialize or learn (yoga in the summer, cinema, museum tours, concerts, workshops). Public transport is also free if you have a residence card. It's also quite on the left side when it comes to politics and most people here and very accepting and kind. There is greenery pretty much everywhere, many parks and bike lanes and a lot of good food.

Dziękiiii 🥰🌸🌊

#perfect example of how when someone lets me talk I WILL and i will talk a lot #oversharing on main #typical tuesday on here #mine #ask game

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Why do people get hung up on whether a gay person in media is a good or bad representation of them? I'm gay and I can tell you we aren't all the same? Being gay is our 1 common trait. So as long as they're gay then you've done it. Gay people can be kind, mean, racist, open, kinky, reserved, shy, outgoing, sexist, and literally anything else under the human experience.

Because I am perpetually hungry, let's tell a story about cookies.

You are a bright-eyed, optimistic, baker in the making. Your goal is to wow the world with your culinary skills, so of course you head to The Best Baking School for your degree. Over the course of your studies you learn how to perfect a thousand different cakes, an equal number of pies, and more versions of brownies than most would even assume exist. But cookies... oh, cookies are your passion! You can't wait to learn about the wealth of cookies you can make too. Then, sure enough, that part of your education finally arrives.

Funny thing is though, it's just chocolate chip.

Surely there's been some mistake? The cookie experience is vast and nuanced! Why in the world are your instructors — supposedly the best in the world — reducing cookies to a single class about baking chocolate chip and chocolate chip alone? Hell, why are cookies so sparse in the curriculum as a whole? You're never asked to bake them as a demonstration, or practice with them, and they're definitely not a given across everyone else's baking experience. Cakes, pies, and brownies... they're the default. Cookies are comparatively rare and when you do get to study them, everyone is super focused on the chocolate chip.

Then you graduate and head out into the world, only to find that pretty much everyone is as cookie-blind as your school. A few years back you never would have found cookies in the average grocery store and yeah, the fact that there's a cookie section now is great, but it's, uh... all chocolate chip! Many bakeries still don't carry cookies at all, but when they do it's - again - chocolate chip. Chocolate chip out in restaurants. Chocolate chip at the bake sale. Your friend invites you over and proudly presents a massive sweets tray that includes a single, sad looking, chocolate chip cookie. They beam at you in pride. Isn't it so great?

"Uh..." you say. "Well..."

Every once in a while someone will switch out milk chocolate for dark chocolate, or add nuts alongside chocolate chips. One bakery was even crazy enough to exclude chocolate chips entirely! Crazy according to the press, anyway. Because for years now you've been shaking your head, wondering what exactly is so progressive about realizing that sugar cookies exist. You've found other bakers interested in cookies and, by god, there are thousands. So many flavors! Gluten free and allergy conscious! Someone even made a sweets tray that was predominantly cookies, can you believe it? The problem is, almost none of them are mainstream. Your friend baking cookies out of their personal kitchen is doing fantastic work, but their baking doesn't have the impact that those grocery chains and established bakeries do. Their work isn't going to fix your school's curriculum. Too many people still think that cookies are exotic somehow. They're not the default. And when they do acknowledge their existence, it's chocolate chip over and over. Until one of them adds those nuts and suddenly the whole country is losing its mind about how inspired, creative, progressive their baking is. Meanwhile, you're ready to scream because that baker doesn't even know that something as "exotic" as a gingersnaps exist!

The worst part? Most of these cookies are... bad. Like they exist, yeah, but good god most don't taste good. And that's the whole point of a cookie?? What is the point of buying cookies if the cookies themselves are awful? You go to these bakeries, these restaurants, your friend's house, and you try the very limited cookies on offer, only to find that they've been sloppily baked. Doesn't anyone care that the baker burned their cookies to a crisp? That another straight up forgot to add sugar? This one dropped his on the floor and still tried to serve it to you! But the overall sense is that you should be grateful for getting any cookies at all. "That cookie is an offense to my taste buds," you say and people shake their head at you, disappointed. "I liked the taste of it," one says. "If you don't like it, go buy a different cookie!" Well... easier said than done. "It's not that bad," another says, shrugging in defeat. "I mean yeah, I don't really like it, and the baker stopped making them two years ago... but I'm just happy to have had any cookie at all, you know?" You do know, but that doesn't mean it's any less frustrating. You look at the hundreds of cakes available, these bakers spending decades perfecting their recipes, and wish cookies had even a fraction of that work put into them. You find people who agree with you, absolutely, but there's this this prevailing sense that a cookie is a cookie. Any cookie will do. Supposedly.

Except go long enough and you feel like you're ready to lose your mind. You take some poor person by the shoulders and go, "Doesn't this bother you? Doesn't this make you furious? There is more to the cookie world than these three flavors, 90% of which is chocolate chip! And we deserve well-made cookies, not the crap they've been upholding as the next culinary masterpiece!"

But this person just shakes their head. "Well of course there's more to cookies than three flavors. There's a huge variety of cookies! I know that."

"Yes, but the world isn't selling that variety."

"Of course they are! Just last week I had an oatmeal raisin. That's amazing!"

"Yeah and how many years did it take you to find that?"

"Well..."

"And how did that oatmeal raisin cookie taste?"

Your prisoner pulls a face. "Ugh, not good. Oatmeal raisin is definitely not for me. It's hard as a rock! I really don't understand why someone would want to eat that on a regular basis."

"But it's not supposed to be hard as a rock!" you cry, waving your arms. "That's the problem! Oatmeal raisin is so goddamn rare and then the one time we get it, it was badly baked. Of course people are turned off by it. Everyone who already loves oatmeal raisin is getting pissed because their favorite cookie is misrepresented, they're unlikely to see more of them now, and everyone is still serving the most tasteless chocolate chip cookies I've ever had, acting like this is the pinnacle of cookie baking! Do you even know that a macron exists?"

The person pats your hand consolingly. "Of course I do. My roommate's sister's boyfriend used to bake macrons, you know. I don't know why you're so hung up on this. Cookies can be whatever the baker wants them to be. Provided they're a flat-ish sweet cake, they're still a cookie!"

You hang your head, giving up. "Yes, they can be so many things, but they're not. Let me know if you ever find a bakery actually making the variety you keep acknowledging exists. Bonus points if those cookies are edible. My soul if they're delicious, as a cookie should be."

"You know," they say, still patting your hand. "There's a bakery making chocolate chip with dark chocolate next year. Everyone is talking about it. You should think about buying one before they take it off the menu!"

You contemplate just walking into the ocean.

Now, incredibly long metaphor concluded... switch out "cookies" for "queer rep"! The representation matters because no, just making them gay isn't enough right now. You're right that queer people can be anything under the sun, but right now media isn't providing us with that variety. It's not enough to acknowledge that such variety exists, it actually has to make it into our books and onto our screen. Taking just characters who identify as gay and putting aside the HUGE variety of other identities for a moment (of which we are mostly lacking in terms of rep), where are the gay asexuals? The gay people of color? The disabled gays? Trans gays? Did your gay character appear for just a handful of episodes? Were they killed off? Are they nothing more than a stereotype or comic relief? Is this the only gay character in your entire story? We need to ask questions like this because though gay people can be anything under the sun, our media landscape has only shown a miniscule portion of that variety.

Today, even in 2021, our representation of gay people is still pretty limited to:

You are only coded as gay and evil

You are only coded as gay and queerbaited

You are canonically gay, but a cis, ablebodied, white person

You are canonically gay, but were written terribly/killed off/punished by the narrative/generally making the real gay people watching you feel awful about their identity

You are canonically gay, but you're not human. Gotta other the queerness by making you an alien/robot/fantasy being

You are canonically gay and that's your entire existence. There is one (1) narrative of how you knew by the time you were four, never questioned your identity after that, suffered through a family that rejected you, and now all your major arcs revolve around being gay. You are gay and that is it.

Despite being a list of six, that's still incredibly limiting. Are there exceptions to such a list? Always, but that doesn't mean the list isn't still dominating. We can look at any individual gay character and say, "Of course they can be evil/white/killed off/a joke/etc. because gay people can be anything at all," but when we look at the trends, when we look at ALL the media together, we see that gay people aren't actually depicted as being anything... they're depicted as being these handful of things, severely limiting how gayness is represented. Bad rep. If you hit up the bakery and question why there's only versions of chocolate chip available yeah, the baker can go, "But cookies can be any flavor! Including chocolate chip!" They are not, technically, wrong. The problem is not that chocolate chip exists, but that chocolate chip dominates and other flavors are rare, ignored entirely, or baked so badly it's actively damaging to that flavor as a whole. Yeah, your gay character can be mean. Or kinky. Or murdered by the story. But when so many gay characters are mean and kinky and murdered by their stories — when you're not getting other versions to balance that out and gay characters are still rare enough that it's just 1-2 characters trying to carry representation for an entire franchise — you start realizing that the claim of "Gay people can be anything else under the human experience" is an easy way to shut down the conversation of whether that variety actually exists in our storytelling yet.

It's not enough for the baker to acknowledge that yeah, of course there are hundreds of cookie flavors and of course cookies taste great! They've actually got to learn how to bake them properly and fill up their store with them.

#queer #mymetas

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junewild · 3 years

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may we have your cupcake recipe? <3

HELL YEAH, thank u anon. i’ll give you vanilla, citrus, spice, and chocolate cupcakes & if you want anything else let me know! this is going to be stream-of-consciousness rather than linear recipe, because unfortunately that is how i bake. if you want a linear recipe, let me know which particular set of pieces you want and i can write it up for you. i’ll even guesstimate times and such.

BEFORE YOU READ FURTHER: this is very long. if you are not into cupcakes, bookmark this for later when you suddenly decide to make cupcakes and keep scrolling. now with new added read more for additional readability <3

making cupcakes takes me about two hours if i’m doing two batches or an hour and a half if i’m doing one. it might take you a little longer the first time because you don’t quite know what order to do things in or how long everything takes. i like to start my fillings first because they take longer to be ready, then turn on my oven, then mix my batter, then make the frosting while cupcakes are baking.

SUPPLIES

you will need: a cupcake tin, cupcake wrappers, at least one large mixing bowl (2 is recommended to avoid a lot of washing dishes between steps), a hand mixer or a lot of elbow grease, spatula, whisk, small bowl, a small grater or microplaner, a piping tip + bag (or just a plastic bag with a hole cut in one corner) and at least one saucepan or small frying pan. measuring spoons/cups are useful but i’ve tried to include thicknesses and alternatives so you can eyeball it if you have to (i usually do, just because i know what i’m looking for lol)

you will also need some of the following (check your specific cupcake type to find out which): a box of cake mix or ingredients to make your own cake mix, cream cheese, condensed milk, butter, powdered sugar, lemons/limes/oranges, chocolate, vanilla extract (real is recommended; i know it’s more expensive but the increase in quality is worth it if you can), lemon extract, heavy cream, pumpkin pie spice (or at least nutmeg + cinnamon), and fruit of your choice.

CUPCAKE

okay so: box mix is fine. it’s good. great, even. as long as you do this: replace the oil with butter. add an extra egg. i don’t care how many eggs it calls for. i know it feels like a lot of eggs. add an egg anyway. add a sprinkle of extra salt. a tsp or so. you’ve already made a good cupcake!

vanilla:

add a tablespoon (about three capfuls, if you don’t have measuring spoons) of REAL vanilla extract if you can afford it (or i really like the vanilla paste that has specks of bean in it. 10/10)

citrus:

one teaspoon (one capful) vanilla extract. two-ish teaspoons of lemon extract. zest of one lemon. zest of one orange (i like blood orange particularly much) or lime. replace 1/2 cup of the water with lemon and lime or orange juice. add about a tbsp of extra sugar.

spice:

two teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (you can see the spice in the batter without it discoloring the batter) + one tablespoon vanilla extract.

chocolate:

it’s already perfect xoxo. JUST KIDDING. add a tablespoon of vanilla extract.

instructions:

these ratios are for 24 cupcakes. take your cupcake pan and line it with cupcake papers. you can grease the top of the pan if you’re anxious, but it shouldn’t be necessary, especially if you have a nonstick pan. then just mix your batter until it’s not particularly lumpy and fill your cupcake papers about a third of the way full. a quarter cup measure is easiest for me to use bc the amount that easily comes out of it is about the right amount & it drips less than a spoon does. then i like to use a spoon to push the batter up the sides a little so it holds the fillings better.

FILLINGS

you can mix and match the hell out of these, honestly. i typically do cheesecake in everything & then fruit in vanilla or citrus cupcakes, specifically apple or cranberry in spice cupcakes, & chocolate in vanilla or chocolate cupcakes.

cheesecake:

one package softened cream cheese + 10 oz (2/3 a 14 oz can) condensed milk. stir on low heat until smooth, then add 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. DON’T add sugar. it’s not supposed to be very sweet.

fruit compote:

literally just half a cup or so of frozen or fresh fruit. i’ve done this with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, apples (fresh and cubed is best), and peaches. anything is fair game, honestly. i want to try stewed kumquats and plums at some point. if frozen, add a tiny bit of water. if fresh, add about as much water as you have fruit. squeeze some lemon and lime in there. add sugar to taste. for the apple spice mix, add another teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

IMPORTANT: you do NOT want this to be sweet. this is NOT jam. it should be a little tart when you taste it. if it’s not thick enough, slurry a tbsp of cornstarch in a little bit of cold water and stir it in. it should be thick enough to not drip off of a spoon when you turn it upside down.

ganache:

heat a cup of heavy cream on very low heat. i like to do a double boiler: saucepan half-full of water, bowl full of cream in the saucepan. when the cream is warm, stir in most of a package of dark chocolate chips. stir HARD—whisk the shit out of it. DO NOT let any of the water get into the bowl!! you want the ganache to be gloppy when you lift it with a spoon—it has to not soak into the cupcake mix.

instructions:

so you have your 1/3 full cupcake wrappers with the batter spooned a little bit up the sides. using a small kitchen spoon, drop a spoonful of cheesecake into each cupcake. then top that with a spoonful of ganache or a spoonful of fruit compote (or both! it’s your kitchen!). spoon batter over the top and down the sides. fully covered, it should come to just under the top of the cupcake wrapper—i usually have 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch grace.

pop that in the oven according to the box instructions. i usually find that cupcakes with fillings take the longer time listed, rather than the shortest one. when your time goes off, touch the top of a cupcake. if it feels firm (think: ripe plum; you can push on it and it’s soft but it doesn’t cave in), it’s probably done. you can also put a toothpick down one of the sides, rather than the middle. pull your cupcakes out of the oven, put in your second batch, and set these aside to cool.

FROSTINGS

there are two frostings that go well here. i tend to like buttercream for vanilla and citrus and cream cheese for apple spice and chocolate. your mileage may vary. this is where the sweetness comes from, without overwhelming the cupcake!

buttercream:

let two sticks of butter (one unsalted and one salted) soften on your countertop. DON’T melt them. when they’re room temperature and you could mold them with your fingers, put them in a bowl. a mixer is best for this stage, but you can do it with a whisk and spatula if you’re determined, have patience, or can switch out with someone else. whip the butter a little. add five cups of powdered sugar, a cup at a time.

for a vanilla cupcake, add a tablespoon of vanilla extract (or vanilla paste! the specks are SO cool looking!) and use heavy cream to even out the texture until you think it’s pipeable (you’re looking for “holds its shape without being Chunky”). for a citrus cupcake, add a teaspoon of citrus extract and lime juice until it’s pipeable. two sticks of butter is too much, but one stick usually isn’t quite enough, and i prefer to have extra to practice piping with.

cream cheese frosting:

let one package (8oz) of cream cheese soften on your countertop. mix it in a bowl until smooth. add about four cups (3/4 a regular water cup, i think) of powdered sugar—again, we’re looking for “pipeable without being inflexible”. add a tablespoon of vanilla extract/paste and use heavy cream if you need to soften the texture at all.

both of these frostings take coloring very well. something that i personally love is doing a sort of gradient, where i’ll add red to one side and mix it well, yellow to another side and mix it well, make some orange in the middle, and leave some white here and there. then spoon from each section into a piping bag and voila, free beautiful swirls. you can also use a knife to frost your cupcakes, but i think piping is fairly easy to pick up on if you try it a few times, and it makes your cupcakes look that much more professional.

instructions:

make SURE your cupcakes are COOL TO THE TOUCH before you frost them! pop them in the fridge if you’re in a hurry! a single layer of piping should be enough, but decorate if you want. icing sugar is pretty. don’t go too overboard with sprinkles—they make it hard to eat.

voila! cupcakes.

SUBSTITUTIONS

i have made these gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free, vegan, etc etc. gluten free box mix is fine. your own powdered sugar (powdered sugar + tapioca starch) is great. you can do a coconut milk pudding instead of cheesecake or ganache. you can do baking soda + vinegar instead of baking powder (1/4 tsp bs + 1/2 tsp vinegar per tsp baking powder). if you’re allergic to fruit, i am SO SORRY for you but please try the chocolate ones. you can substitute any extract, any flavor profile, any combination of ingredients. if you’re using a commercial egg substitute, just add an extra 1/4 cup of it. if you’re using flaxseed, just add an extra tablespoon of flaxseed + 3 tablespoons water.

it may not come out exactly the same as the standard ones, but my friends with dietary restrictions still swear by them. i have never brought cupcakes home from a party. i don’t think anyone who’s ever tried one has not gotten a second helping. people who swear they aren’t cupcake people love these cupcakes. (it’s because they aren’t overly sweet or moist or dry and they aren’t one-note, because the fillings add complexity of texture and flavor. there you go, now you know how to describe your new cupcakes to people).

congrats! you’re about to be everyone’s favorite party guest!

#personal #askposting #i apologize in advance for how much is in here ❤️#i’ll try to put a read more on this when i get on a laptop #most of these recipes are not Mine in that i did not solely invent them. however i have altered them & mixed & matched them & etc etc #so they’re yours now

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ladytemeraire · 2 years

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Warp 31

Today is my birthday! It's been a very quiet and peaceable one overall; I spent most of the morning snuggling with Sadie while it rained, went on a long walk with her around lunchtime, did some shopping and errands, and made myself a nice dinner to have with wine (a housewarming gift from a friend) and had a decadent slice of cake I picked up with my groceries. Presents and more cake will come this weekend when I travel to visit my family for Thanksgiving, but I still felt I should mark the actual day in some way.

It's very difficult in some ways to be reflective on the past year, because the past year has been so abnormal. The past year has been hard for me; I turned thirty in the middle of a global pandemic (I'm turning thirty-one while it's still going), and while I was used to spending my actual birthday away from my family (we just celebrate together when I go home for Thanksgiving), it was the first year I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas without seeing them in person. But as much as I hate to admit it, that separation was honestly good. It gave me a breather from family drama, let me establish boundaries, and it gave me a chance to start some traditions of my own with friends and chosen family. One of my closest friends had never decorated sugar cookies before; when she came for Christmas with our little bubble of four people, I baked two dozen gluten free sugar cookies and made a stupid amount of icing and she and her boyfriend/my best friend and I had a cookie decorating party at his apartment before exchanging gifts, and it's one of my fondest memories. I made duck breast for Thanksgiving and Cornish hen for Christmas and tried a bunch of other things I would never have considered. (Turns out pretty much every vegetable you hated growing up tastes delicious when roasted at 400 degrees with some olive oil and salt and pepper.)

Even the parts beyond 2020 have still been hard, I am not going to lie or sugarcoat that at all - but the last few months have been a redemption arc coming in clutch. I moved from my shoebox apartment of eight years into my first house, I adopted an absolutely darling GSD mix from a local shelter, I got my knitting and writing mojo back with a vengeance, and I should be up for a promotion at my day job very soon. It finally, finally feels like I'm starting to get somewhere in my life, rather than just being in survival mode, and it's equal parts exhilarating and terrifying . Exhilarating because hell yeah, I'm finally hitting milestones I kind of always thought were pipe dreams, my hard work and planning and preparation is actually starting to pay off; terrifying because shit, I never thought I'd get this far, so what do I do now and where do I go from here?

I guess those are my thoughts: your thirties are not the end of your life. They're when your life is just really kicking off. If you're in your twenties and you feel like you have no idea where your life is going or what the hell you're doing: that's fine. I'd even argue that's normal. You've got plenty of time and good things ahead of you, so hang in there. I can't wait to see what happens next.

#life with ladytemeraire #every day above ground a good day #give us bread give us salt give us wine #birthday posts

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simsadventures · 5 years

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Better Like This: Chapter 3: Tactics

Chapter Summary: You try to get closer to Bucky via his friends. What happens when your plan works out all too well?

Warnings: jealous Bucky (maybe, what do I know), a/b/o dynamics, Alpha!Bucky, Omega!Reader, swearing, Sam being a smart-ass, slow-burn fic, fist fight, blood, hurt Omega

Word Count: 3229

A/N: Once again, thank you so much for the feedback on the previous chapter, you guys are amazing. This story is kinda slow-burn, so I hope all of you are ok with that. Again, if you would like to see this story take a certain direction, let me know and I’ll see what I can do with it xx

Series Masterlist __ Masterlist

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It’s been almost two weeks since your first day at the unit. After trying a few more times to actually get Bucky to talk to you (unsuccessfully, of course, his growling would get the room quiet every time) you decided to ease off. You weren’t about to give up on your true mate. Not even close. His scent was intoxicating, and you loved spending your time in the office just so you could catch some lingering smell left after him.

You decided to give him space and to let him come to you when he would feel like it. And you knew he would eventually have to feel like it, he couldn’t be immune, for christ’s sake.

Meanwhile, you tried to get to know the team better. You and Scott became almost inseparable during those days, you’d spent a few nights at his house, dining there and getting to know Hope. She was the most intelligent person you’ve probably ever met and her beauty? Wow! You would always tell Scott how lucky he was to get a mate like her. He knew it, of course, but his ego grew whenever people saw his amazing mate by his side, always looking up to him proudly and lovingly.

You even went for a beer with Tony, Bruce, and Natasha, having one hell of a good time. Tony and Bruce were so cute, you thought your teeth might rot from all the fluff around you. You were happy for them; definitely, it was just that you wanted what they had, and were kinda jealous. But only a little bit.

You loved to bake and so every time you baked some cookies or muffins, you brought them to work, to make your colleagues happy and giddy like little kids. The first time you brought something with you, they all hugged you so tightly and pronounced love so loudly that you could just laugh and with the same breath promise them that you’d bake more.

The only reserved people were Bucky, Sam, and your Captain. You knew they were all friends and shit, but you couldn’t understand why they didn’t talk to you when it wasn’t necessary. You got that Steve was your captain and that you probably shouldn’t be too familiar with him, but Sam? That was another story. And you had plans for that also.

The case you were working on went cold after about a week, as there were no new leads, no witnesses and worst of all, the victim died during a surgery. You were still trying to figure some stuff out, but without sufficient evidence, there wasn’t much you could do.

You were sitting at your table, discussing possible motives for the Omega’s murder with Scott, your baked goods on the table with only a few chocolate chip cookies left. You could see Sam entering the door, without Bucky, and you took your chance.

You stood up quickly, grabbed the plate and marched towards Sam, with something as a piece offering cookies. “Hey, I saved you some, I didn’t know if you liked chocolate chips, but I took my chance. I swear I’m not trying to poison you, Sam,” you giggled and stretched your hand with the plate on it towards Sam. He smirked and shook his head but took one cookie nevertheless. Win! “Well, I must try some, Stark wouldn’t shut up about your blueberry muffin, so I guess you’re real good at this, huh?” And he is making small talk, you thought, yes!

“They almost tore my arm from my body just to get to those muffins quicker, they are monsters, I’m telling you.”

Sam laughed a little and then moaned. Kinda. “Oh my God, Y/L/N, these are perfect, I mean, they taste like heaven! What the… I’m one of the monsters now! You got me addicted!”

“Uhm, thank you, I guess,” you giggled at the look in front of you. Sam was stuffing his mouth with your cookies with one hand, while the other was trying to pick as many crumbs, he could reach, to have a little more taste.

“So chocolate chip ok with you, Wilson?” “Hell, anything’s good with me as long as it comes from those heavenly hands. And by the way, who doesn’t like chocolate chip, huh?” You’d laugh with him, but a vicious growl stopped you.

“Me,” Bucky said, chest heaving, jaw set and eyes almost glowing. With anger? Who knew, but you weren’t about to speak up, he looked like he’d kill you if you even took a breath. You didn’t know if Sam was oblivious to his partner’s posture and look, or if he actually wanted to sport a black eye, but he didn’t shut up.

“C’mon, Buck. If you tried Y/N’s cookies, you would’ ve-“ he was interrupted by another low growl. “I don’t need to try anything to see that it just doesn’t suit me. That I wouldn’t like it, even if I’ve never tried it. But I’m telling you, Sam, back off.”

Never tried? Who has never tried a freaking chocolate chip cookie? Is he some gluten-free, sugar-free raw freak? (no offense here, guys) What the hell? You looked at him dumbfounded not really understanding what he was talking about.

There was probably going on a silent conversation between Bucky and Sam because they were staring each other down, you somehow in the middle of them, still looking at Bucky questionably.

What you didn’t know was that the previous weekend, Steve and Sam ambushed Bucky at his apartment, with some cold beers and a take out. They desperately needed to find out what was really happening (or not happening, in this case) between the two of you, and because they are such nosy little shits, they needed to know it like yesterday.

Bucky was desperately trying to throw them out, really wasn’t in the mood to sit with tow assholes, no matter that they were his best friends. He knew what kind of questions would come up, and he was doing everything in his power to not succumb.

Needless to say, he didn’t succeed.

“SHE IS YOUR WHAT?” Sam yelled in the most high-pitched voice Bucky’s ever heard. “She is your fucking mate- no, no, no, she is your fucking TRUE mate, and you just what, ignore her? Growl at her? Have you lost your goddamn mind, Barnes?”

While Sam was having his little, although very loud meltdown, Steve was just shaking his head. He nudged Sam, who looked at him mid-sentence and immediately shut up when he saw Steve’s face.

“So, you are telling us, that you were so lucky to have found your true mate, the one person who was literally made to be with you, made FOR you, and you decided not to act on it? That’s what you’re telling us, Buck?”

Bucky stared into his best friend’s eyes, trying to get him to understand without actually having to talk about it. Steve felt it, he always did, but he wasn’t willing to let go. Not this time.

“I know you’ve been hurt and stuff, but, why do you think Y/N must necessarily be the same as-“

“Don’t even say her name. Why do I need to explain myself to you two? I’m a grown-ass Alpha, who decided to forever live a bachelor life and you should understand that. Or don’t, I don’t give a shit, just don’t tell me what to do or what not to do.”

“Sure thing, buddy. Just one question, doesn’t her smell like, drives you nuts?” Sam asked him incredulously. “Her smell? Pff, no way, don’t even know what she smells like, told ya, not interested.” Everyone in the room knew it wasn’t true, and Bucky knew they knew. He was just glad they didn’t press him even more.

The truth was, he knew precisely what she smelt like, and if he closed his eyes, he could even feel you on the tip of his tongue. She smelt like freshly cut grass, with a hint of vanilla and coconut- the perfect mix of fresh and sweet at the same time. But he couldn’t think about it about you!

Sam wanted to push his buttons a little more“So, you cool working with your true mate, not being able to touch her? Seeing other Alphas being all over her?” Bucky growled involuntarily. His Alpha side wanted to jump out of his skin, find you, and claim you so that no other Alpha would even lay their eyes on you. His logical side shook all those thoughts away. Nothing good ever came from an Omega, he reminded himself, trying to chase images of you with another man from his mind.

“Pf, you’re totally cool and not interested, my man.” This earned Sam a punch into a shoulder, which Sam knew would bruise, as it did many times before. He really admired his own shoulder for never giving up on him and actually not shattering after so many years of these hard-ass punches by his partner.

Steve was watching them with a smirk. All he wanted was for his best friend to be happy, to let his walls down and let you in. He knew at that moment he would not let Bucky ruin his own life. Not on Steve’s watch.

So when you came towards Sam with those damn-good cookies, he knew he wanted to push Bucky to some action. Sam saw in Bucky’s eyes, damn, his whole posture, that he wasn’t having fun. Sam just couldn’t see if it was Bucky’s anger that Sam was actually bringing it up again, or if he was jealous.

Your plan was simple: get Sam to like so that Bucky could see that you get along with one of his best friends and would get through his thick skull that he could get along with you too. The first part of the plan worked out all too well. Sam loved those cookies, and you two were having fun, well, until Mr Growling-All-the-Time came.

Sam’s voice got you back to reality. “Well, if you aren’t willing to try, then trust me, someone will. For a start, I think these smell delicious and the taste? Wow, even better, ain’t it true, Y/N? What do you put in ‘em.”

You frowned but answered him nevertheless. “Uhm, sure, I guess, it’s my grandma’s recipe, the secret-not-so-secret ingredient is vanilla.”

“Aaah, vanilla, that’s it. I love me some vanilla, let me tell you, girl!”

You were looking at Sam, not really getting where he was going, so what you couldn’t quite see was Bucky’s whole body going rigid, before he lunged at Sam from across the room.

What Bucky didn’t seem to realize, was the closeness between you and Sam, so when he jumped at Sam, he inevitably had to go through you. He didn’t even seem to see you, the venom in his eyes was blinding him momentarily. And because you didn’t see him coming, you couldn’t duck, you couldn’t step away, nothing. You had only time to turn your head to see Bucky being almost on you and brace yourself for the impact.

The crush of three bodies was stronger than you would’ve anticipated. Bucky’s body collided mainly with yours, only his hands grabbing Sam and pulling him closer to him so he could get a good punch. Sam was as shocked as you were. He knew he was getting under Bucky’s skin, but didn’t think it would have such effect.

You fell down like a sack of potatoes. You tried to stop the fall by extending your arms (which must’ve looked great, like a little bird learning to fly but failing miserably) but failed mainly because your left arm caught the corner of one of the tables and you could only feel the searing pain shooting through your lower arm.

You landed with a thud, accompanied by a louder thud, that when your head hit the ground after your body. You laid there, splayed like a starfish, all of your limbs facing different directions. You tried to blink away the black dots, but the more you tried to blink, the more dots you saw. You couldn’t hear any voices, the high-pitched ringing in your ears preventing you from hearing the whole team running towards you and the guys, who didn’t realize what was happening until Steve and Tony separated them.

They were both able to throw about two good punches, knowing they would both be sporting matching black eyes. “Enough!” Steve’s voice boomed through the room. “Are you two so childish you have to fight at the unit? Can’t you take it to the ring after the shift, huh? Not only are you disrupting the piece of the team and the work being actually done, but you also hurt one of our own too.”

With that, both men’s eyes shifted towards where you were standing before the fight occurred, but could only see Scott, Bruce, and Natasha being crouched above someone on the ground.

Bucky nudged Tony to his ribs so that he could get away from him and closer to you. He jumped to your side and tried to touch you, but someone’s hand stopped him in his movement. He looked up and saw it was Scott, with a threatening look in his eyes, holding him back.

“Haven’t you done enough? You don’t need to pretend that you care about her well-being when we both know that you don’t.”

Bucky growled. Again. “Get your hands off of me, Lang.” Scott wanted to say something else, but you groaned audibly from underneath them.

The ringing in your ears stopped, and the black dots weren’t occupying your whole vision, so you tried to blink the rest of them away, only to see Bucky and Scott above your head, Scott gripping tightly on Bucky’s hand, preventing him from touching you.

At one hand, you were super thankful to Scott, he knew how much you were hurting, and when you admitted that Bucky was indeed your true mate, you had your hands full with stopping Scott from marching into Bucky’s apartment and kicking him into his shin.

On the other hand, you wanted to feel what Bucky’s touch was like. You wanted to engulf yourself in his smell and just stay in that safe cocoon.

You realized soon enough that Bucky wasn’t your safe place because he never once allowed you to come close to you and the side thankful to Scott was suddenly stronger.

“Ouch, my head! And why does my arm hurt so fucking much?” you rasped, avoiding Bucky’s searching eyes. Everyone’s heads turned toward your arm, and a hiss escaped Bruce’s mouth. “Well, that’s a nasty gash, Y/N. I think you’ll need some stitches.”

You groaned again, now totally annoyed. “Awesome, that’s just… perfect, really, thanks, guys. What was that even about, Barnes? Jumping at us like that, because of what, goddamn cookies?” Your annoyance transformed itself into being totally pissed. You tried to sit up and suddenly felt a tingling sensation on your back from someone’s touch. Bucky.

You really wanted to let him do anything to you as long as he was not growling and actually being there with you, but, at the same time, you were on the ground, bleeding and possibly with a concussion because of him.

You smacked his hand away. “Don’t,” was the only thing you said to him. “C’mon, Omega, let me-“

Now it was your time to growl. “Omega? Really? So suddenly, I’m an Omega to you? Till about 30 seconds ago, you didn’t want to see me, let alone speak to me and god forbid that I would try to touch you. You said you never wanted an Omega, so how about you let me alone here, with people who actually give a shit about me? Let’s not pretend like you’re one of them.”

You knew your words were laced with venom, but the two frustrating weeks, trying to catch his scent, trying to catch a glimpse of him, those two weeks took a toll on you. You didn’t want to admit it, but you were deeply hurt by Bucky’s behaviour. And you weren’t about to be a good submissive Omega. You didn’t want to be one of those girls who are being hurt continuously but are still fishing for attention, and when they get, they get all cuddly and wet.

Nope. You wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

He looked hurt, but you tried to ignore him, as Scott and Bruce helped you sit on the nearest chair. What you, therefore, couldn’t see, was Bucky’s face contorting into a pained expression, when you preferred another Alpha touching you, helping you. Bucky knew he had no right to be jealous, and if he were in his right mind, he wouldn’t even try to touch you, let alone call you an Omega.

That was one of the most intimate or insulting ways to address a person one could imagine, depending on the person uttering those words. He knew he had no right for the level of intimacy it required and he definitely didn’t mean to insult you at that moment, it just slipped.

Those two weeks, he tried to do everything in his power to stay away from you, but seeing you helpless and hurt on the ground? Hurt by him? That clouded his judgment, and he didn’t really care about anything but your safety and well-being at the moment. He didn’t get a grip on himself. He wasn’t about to let you hurt him the way Amber did.

He swore once that he would never let anyone that close and he truly wanted to keep his own promise to himself. The only problem was that you were starting to get under his skin, despite him preventing you in every possible way he could think of.

He was sure he wouldn’t survive another heartbreak, not from his true mate anyway. But he was drawn to you in ways he never thought possible. His heart secretly cherished every second he could spend somewhere near you and your intoxicating smell and your adorable laugh. Ugh, he was growing soft!

His heart jumped when he heard you hiss because Bruce began the work of stitching up your arm and his head snapped towards the Omega helping you to get better, actually thinking he could stop Bruce from getting you into more pain.

He was stopped mid-way by Steve’s voice. “Wilson, Barnes, my office, NOW!” Shit, Steve was pissed, and he knew there was no way he would talk his way out of this one.

Scott was holding your other hand, letting you squeeze the life out of it because the stitching was not as painless as you hoped it would be. He leaned in and whispered to your ear: “Well, he didn’t have to hurt you and he’s so up for some ass-kicking but one thing we know for sure, he’s not immune to you, and we have to use it against him.” You looked over at Scott, who was now smirking devilishly and had to laugh a little, before Bruce’s needle went through your skin again, followed by a very silent “sorry” by Bruce.

“So, what do you propose I do, Scott?”

/ Next Chapter >

Tags: @kneel-begyourpardon @starkrobb @crazybutconfidentaf @waiting4inspiration @carlya65 @boxofteenageideas @hiken-no-stark @get0verit @taylorsmakingfuckingmacandcheese @mywinterwolf @cat-of-your-eye @iheartsebastianstan @slender--spirit @this-is-serenaa @henderwhore4life @owlyannah @rohaintahquil @libbymouse @chubby-dumplin @dumblani @laughsandlivia @kiki5283 @rippedpiece @barbar126 @atomicfandombomb @p8tn0lish @marvellover1819

If you’d like to be tagged comment/message/send an ask. Or if you’d like to be removed from the tags because you don’t like where the story’s headed, message me ;)

If you like the story, please reblog :) any comments are appreciated, even the critical ones. Always a space to get better, so let me know what you guys think. xx

#policeau #detective bucky #a/b/o #a/b/o dynamics #avengers a/b/o #alpha bucky barnes #alpha bucky #alpha bucky omega reader #alpha beta omega #omega!reader #omegaverse #slow burn #avengers fanfiction #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #avengers

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msmoonfire · 5 years

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How to prep for Lammas ❂

I know witchy fellas, it’s boiling hot & sunny out there. But we gotta put it in the effort. All together. Till the end. Till Lammas.

Briefly explained, Lammas or ‎Lughnasadh opens the harvest season around August 1st and our ancestors would know the perfect timing of it by watching the rise of the star Sirius at the dawn after a long while not showing. This sabbat originated by the Celts whom used to propitiate Lugh to ensure sunny weather and a fruitful harvest. He was their god of Light, excellently proficient in all arts & protector of thieves, travelers and merchants. Moving to the southern areas, this celebration was still existing in a more earthy practical variant: mother Earth, plants, fresh produce, seeds and grains were the actual focus. These other people couldn’t care less about Lugh. They only cared about showing gratitude to Nature as a whole, often by baking the first LOAF MASS of the season (Lammas, a bread loaf) after months of summer break - we should stop baking at home from Beltane day till Lammas day, unless we’re home-based bakers and do that for a living;)

So, as usual, in this post I’m going to give you tips & ideas to prep for august 1st. Which means these are not things you should do on the very day, but BEFORE. Don’t rush last minute darlings. We can do this.

Let’s get readayyyy. ✽

1. Local farmers’ markets should become a routine. Ok, hands down we all need the supermarket to survive on a daily basis but you can surely minimize your shopping list, so you can go buy fresh produce at some farmers’ market. Buy organic stuff there, not at the mall. This is a good easy way to re-establish a direct contact with Earth and welcome earthy energies into your life. Plus, it’s going to be a refreshing walk every time.

2. Improve the lighting in your house/room. Besides Samhain, this is by far the best time of the year to purchase new lamps, led lights, lanterns; fix bulbs that are out, remove useless/broken curtains, buy candles, add fairy lights everywhere etc... Being a metaphor of the sunny weather, daylight and artificial lighting in general must be of primary importance in your environment. Enhance natural lighting during the day, set up a nice and diffused lowlight illumination system at night. Don’t forget your backyard ‘cause...

3. You should take good care of your garden. I don’t care how busy you are, we all have at least 5 spare minutes to trim out dead leaves from our plants. If you own a piece of land or have a rather big veg garden, please don’t forget about it. Pay special attention to your plants/trees, do a little bit of cleaning every day, pick what’s ripe, cut out dead leaves, get creative with your lawn mower, water the vases, work the ground... The goal is to have a beautiful, curated garden by august 1st. But if you don’t have a garden or similar...

3.2. Buy your fav aromatic plant & look after it. Choose herbs that you prefer adding to your meals (if you’re a diy pro or make your own soaps etc.. feel free to use that fragrant plant in your products), so that you’ll be able to use it quite often without forcing yourself. I personally do it with basil. Basil is my daily go-to, I love its smell and taste. Again, the goal is to buy a plant in July and prove to Mother Nature that you can nurture it properly until at least august 1st. Get in touch with the “green world” and upgrade your basic skills. In other words...

4. Try to excel in every project/activity you start. Remember what you read earlier? Blame Lugh for this one. Lammas day is like a test: if you want Nature to be by your side during harvest time, you must earn its trust through proving that you’re able to achieve great results - because you’re a hard worker. July is about learning, attending classes, practicing, studying. My advice would be to not start a bunch of random projects now: be picky and commit to only one or a few. Be honest with yourself, modest with timing and consistent in everyday practice so that in august you’ll be skilled enough to unleash your best potential. This is your time to shine!

5. Do your research on baking bread. Yes, exactly. Read recipes, articles, books etc... On Lammas day you want to have fun baking your first bread loaf of the season, so you’d better be prepared. It’s a fun experience even if you’re not a pro baker, at least you can try a new hobby to fill your free morning/evening. But baking a beautifully decorated, tasty, fragrant bread loaf would take Lammas to the next level though.

If you don’t own an oven, purchase a small electric one for less than 50$. It’ll be useful to cook other foods in the future without stressing the hell out of your microwave.

*for our celiac fellas*: grains and gluten are clearly off-limits for you. However, Lammas’ celebration involves CORN as well. Try to make your gluten-free dough with corn flour, rice flour or other ingredients that are suitable for you. Focaccia, polenta and pizza doughs are also suitable for the occasion.

6. Include apples, grapes and corn in you cosmetics or in your diet. Since these fruits are in season, why not take heed of their benefits? Simply buy things like apple shampoo, grape lip balm, apple snacks, grape masks... A BAG OF CRISPY POP CORN...These are valid examples. You have a wide range of choice, you’ve got the powahhh.

7. Grab a book and a glass of Albariño/Pinot Noir/Rosé. That’s how you pamper yourself before Lammas. A rocking chair in the garden, proper lighting for reading, a cushion, your fav book and a glass of fine wine.

Alternatively, you can elegantly snack on grapes or sip some super refreshing apple juice from a chic crystal goblet!

8. Develop a grounding routine. For those who are new to the grounding concept, I’ll break it down real quick. We’re always moving, on the go, running, rushing, driving, working out, traveling, walking, cleaning, fidgeting, passively entertained, distracted by screens or social media etc... The practice of grounding promotes the exact opposite to reach inner balance and fulfillment. Basically, it’s very good to be swift and active, but being incapable of sitting still while quietly dealing with ourselves is a huge, major problem. Imagine rooting yourself into the soil: you can lay down or sit comfortably on the ground without a mat and really feel the Earth underneath. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, choose a meditation method that you like, visualize yourself being as static and peaceful as a tree... Or simply be. You’ll find a way to contemplate these OFFLINE moments away from photos, screens, sounds, people... This routine should take 10-20 minutes of your day. Make sure it takes place in nature, or alternatively in places where there’s actual grass, ground or nearby your (aromatic) plants so you can touch them if you need to.

9. Get creative with corn magic and corn art. Lammas has a solid tradition of corn use for various purposes. As you’re prepping for the big day, start featuring corn kernel/cobs in your magic. If you don’t practice - which is totally fine - carry a small amulet bag with corn inside with you. If you’re an artist or crafter, paint the kornel or use cobs for artwork!

10. Be out in the sunlight, sun bathe or simply breathe fresh air, get outside, enjoy all things outdoors :)

Hope this was helpful and inspirational fo you all, good luck and happy Lammas darlings.

Floods of love, msmoonfire (IG: @msmoonfire)

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ajokeformur-ray · 4 years

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Self Shipping Ask Game

I’m feeling self-indulgent as all hell so I did another one, with Patrick Verona this time!! 💙 I’m starting to lose track of my F/Os...

Tagging @jokershyena so she can see!

Word count: 2, 253 (lmao woops?)

Date you got together? April 24th 2020. We are... a very new couple and we’re still finding our way with what we have together. It feels like stepping into shoes you’ve worn a thousand times before, but the soles are different; there’s new marks left behind and we’re finding out what they mean slowly but surely. We have lots of love between us and we’re letting it guide us.

Favorite personality trait? I love Pat for all that he is, but if I have to pick just one thing then it’s his nature. He feels like... you know when you lay down outside on the grass or the beach and there’s a gentle breeze in your hair and the sun is warm on your face and your eyes are shut and you feel yourself smiling because this is why you’re alive, for moments like this? That’s how Pat feels to me, all the time.

Favorite physical trait? His smile. I almost said his eyes but, oh... that smile makes flowers bloom in my heart. I would die to keep that smile on his face. He’s so beautiful and those dimples and his eyes, I... he’s so beautiful. 🥺

Couple song We don’t have one yet. I’m still looking for the perfect one. I often listen to I want you to want me from the soundtrack when I want to feel him close by, just because it makes me think of him, so maybe that one?

Pet peeves... He likes to leave his switchblade open and lying in random places and it freaks me out. I don’t even like kitchen knives near me and there he is, leaving it stabbed into the coffee table pinning a note for me to the surface. Sure, it’s convenient to just grab his knife out of his pocket and it’s a good way to get my attention, the silver glinting of the blade in the light of the room, but still.

Favorite outfit on them? As much as I adore those leather trousers, it has to be the dark grey shirt with the chain poking out... just him putting it on in the morning and the cold metal against his skin contrasted with the heat on my tongue... *ahem*

Favorite meal? Pat and I eat separately; I have coeliacs disease and Pat’s lucky enough to not have any food allergies so I always make us separate meals. I make his first, scrub down the kitchen and then I do my own food. Pat likes the tuna pasta bake I make; the golden crust of cheese on the top is his favourite and I always give him the corner bits; he likes the cronch. He always says I can just make one meal which is gluten free but I don’t feel right doing that to someone who doesn’t share my dietary requirements.

Early bird or night owl? Pat’s definitely a night owl, so long late night conversations where the two of us lay down in bed together are very common. I stay up every night for him to come home from the pub and then he showers (no dirty sweaty bodies in my bed, thank you) and we cuddle up in bed and just... talk. Sometimes we just lay there listening to music. Neither of us especially like mornings and it’s not unusual to wake up at noon or afterwards 😂

Snorer or sleep talker? Pat snores very lightly most of the time but when he’s deeply, deeply asleep, he sounds like a chainsaw lmao. I like that, though, because even though it makes the bed shake a bit, I know that he’s there with me and it eases my fears of the dark. I have my nightlights but I don’t need music because I know he’s there for me and he’ll keep me safe. Sometimes he’ll mutter unintelligibly as he rolls over and it’s always right in my ear and I have to try not to jump 😂

Do you have any pets together? Not yet! 💕 I wanna get some cats with him in the future; they’re such precious creatures. Pat wants a dog but between him and a dog I’d never get any free or alone time 😂 and I’m protective of both of those things.

Pet names! (Both from them and yours for them) I call him Pat mostly, but other times it’s “sunshine”, “baby boy” for when he needs comforting, “angel”, “darling”, “love” and he knows I’m angry/mad if I call him Patrick ksksksk it gets his attention so quickly.

Pat calls me “sweetheart”, “angel”, “love” (saved for when he’s being sarcastic, it’s like a hint I need to Do Something Soon) “honey”, “girlie” and by my name when he thinks he has to.

How often do you fight? Not... very often. We have playful banter more than anything. We do fight, that’s normal and healthy, but we try to talk things out calmly rather than go at it and risk saying something we can’t take back. Words have greater power than people know, and where the sword cuts and forgets does the tree fall and remember.

What starts fights? For me, Pat gets angry at my blatant lack of self-care and it angers him to see me treat myself as I do (or don’t, more accurately) but to shower others in love. He doesn’t understand why and it frustrates him. I struggle to explain myself properly so then I get frustrated and it can lead into a whole thing lmao the tears start when he raises his voice so he usually calms down pretty quickly. And as I said, we prefer to speak it through calmly so we’ll go calm down separately and meet in the middle later on. He knows he’s forgiven when I throw myself at him and smother him in kisses.

For Pat, I don’t get angry very often or very easily but when I do, it’s because he was out for so long that I started thinking he’d died or was injured or something and he didn’t text me to let me know and though I don’t want to control him I also don’t enjoy staying up worrying he’s dying in an alley somewhere. So when he gets home I’m a bit... colder in how I greet him and then Pat gets defensive and eesh 😬 In the end, he’ll sigh and I’ll apologise and he’ll get irritated and we cuddle and talk it out. I’ll know I’m forgiven when he kisses my forehead.

Who apologizes first? Me. I will always apologise first, even if I was right. I cannot handle any kind of conflict or confrontation and due to things which have occured in the past I will always just... take it. I’ll just apologise, and get it over with, and hope it all smooths over quickly. Pat gently tells me off when I do this, “No, Erika. I’m the one apologising, not you.” and I usually get upset so we have some cuddle therapy - our touches speak louder and more concisely than we ever could.

Big spoon or little spoon? asdfghjkl; we switch depending on who needs or wants what! Whomever needs comforting, the other is the big spoon and on the times we both need comforting or we just can’t decide who is either spoon, we lay facing each other so that we’re both the little and the big spoon at the same time! Problem solved! <3

Dom or sub? Pat’s a switch; it depends on what either of us needs the most in any given moment. For the most part he’s dominant; I can be really shy sometimes and I have no idea what I’m doing with anything, so he tends to take the lead... before we realise that we’d rather walk into undiscovered territory together, hand in hand the way it should be.

What are their kisses like? They’re somehow comforting but intense. He kisses me so tenderly it can make me cry but it’s so passionate that it leaves me breathless. He commands my lips against his and he both takes and gives in equal measure. Pat is a passionate, compassionate soul and it comes through every time he kisses me; like he, too, is coming home. He never kisses just once - just one sentence can hold a multitude of kisses. And the ghost of his lips against my skin lingers for hours after he’s gone home. He’s always with me, in one or another.

What do they smell like? Apples, leather, whiskey, stale cigarette smoke... and something spicy but so Patrick. If I concentrate, I can find it when I nuzzle into his neck.

What are their hugs like? Coming home. He always hugs me so tightly that I can feel those lost parts of me click back into place. I’m a known squeezer and he playfully grunts in my ear and it makes me smile and he squeezes back and it makes me giggle. Pat sighs happily and drops his head down into the crook of my neck and he rocks me from side to side... I’ve been known to fall asleep standing up in the safety of his embrace. He’s my home, nothing and no one make me feel as safe as he does.

Who is more protective? I think we’re both as protective as each other. I have a mean streak when my loved ones are threatened or in any kind of danger and I’m not afraid to stand up for Pat against rumours, even if he’s not with me at the time. I hate confrontation but for my loved ones, I’d walk straight through fire if I had to. Similarly, Pat gets easily defensive and seems to have a bit of a temper as well so if anything happened to me, he’d get protective. I also... feel like we protect each other from our own selves, sometimes. I have some Bad Habits and so does Pat and neither of us are afraid to tell the other when we’re hurting ourselves and need to stop... like right now, it’s way past midnight and I’m yawning every few minutes but I’m pushing through to write this. Pat’s frowning and wanting to take my laptop away.

Interested in children? Pat might be... when he’s older. But he knows my stance on this topic and we never talk about it.

Who needs the most TLC when sick? Pat. OMG he tries to work through it, to walk it off, but I can see. I do the same thing, I always pretend I’m not sick until it’s so obvious that I just can’t hide it. Pat’s a natural caregiver, he’s so used to taking care of others and that’s exactly why I deliberately go overboard when I take care of him. I buy every kind of medicine specific to his illness (and I dip into my savings but shush, don’t tell!), and I make him soup and I’m there for him and I make it known that I love him. I’m usually squeamish with sickness, even when it’s my own, but for Pat I push through and I try because he deserves nothing less than the best of everything I can give him.

Who says ‘I love you’ first? Mmm.... I think Pat said it first. He has more confidence in what we share together than I do and one day when I came through with his favourite meal and I had my own one, I sat down and he said, “I love you, d’you know that?” I just blinked at him a few times in shock and he said it again... and again... and again until I just had to put my food down so that I could grab that beautiful face and swallow his next words; he is... ethereal and I’ll never understand why he loves me but I’m so, so glad that he does! I said it back, of course I did, and his smile was brighter than the sun.

Which of you is more accident prone? Meeeee ~ omg lmao I always have bruises I don’t even remember getting. Pat gets frowny because I sit there poking them hoping the slight pain will trigger a memory of how I got the bruise, but I rarely remember. I’m forever bouncing off door frames, walking into tables, tripping over my own feet while I’m stood still... Pat finds it funny and sometimes when I actually trip he’ll say something like, “I know you fell for me, but, ah - did you have to show me, too?” or “How’s the world from down there?” and once... once, he laughed and laid down next to me on the floor and we just stared up at the ceiling and we just... were for a time. It’s a memory I cherish.

Bed hog? OMG me, hands down. Pat tends to lay on his back and I put my head on his chest so that I can listen to his heartbeat or I nuzzle into the crook of his neck, but it’s not unusual for me to wake up with my duvet on the floor and the sheets all over the place. I’ve been known to actually kick in my sleep and sometimes I wake up with bruises I don’t recall getting. Pat wraps himself around me like a koala when I move around too much because a) shitty mattress and b) I drink 18 coffees a day and in this way, I’m able to fall asleep quicker and in a more relaxed way. If I fall asleep relaxed, I move around far less when I’m asleep. I don’t know how Pat figured that out and he won’t tell me, either.

Who loves the other the most? We’re a very new couple and we’re finding our way with each other and our relationship, but I do think that I love Pat a little bit more than he loves me. But that’s okay; statistically, one is always loved a bit more than the other. I have trouble believing we’re even compatible because ??? look at him ??? and then look at me ??? and it drives Pat insane.

#self-shipping #erika x patrick #patrick verona #10 things i hate about you

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bmwiid · 4 years

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The Diet Plan

So I’ve been reading a lot about working out as I have a gym membership I don’t use that my job pays for.

However, the one thing that I see a LOT is that working out is like, a tiny part of weightloss. I keep seeing “you can’t outrun your fork” which... damn. I never had to diet before, and I really think that this is going to be hard for me - I have a super addictive personality and I binge eat. I don’t cook, I have very little time to prep meals and even less money for ‘healthy’ foods.

The gym is an easy option for me because it’s free. Time will be a fucker, but at least I don’t need to spend money.

However, if it’s true that diet is 90% of weightloss, then... I gotta change my eating habits. I’ve also been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism which I’m getting treatment for, but this has caused a big weight gain for me. It also means I’ll need to cut out / back on some things that I didn’t expect (broccoli?! cauliflower?! GLUTEN??!)

So today I made a couple of pages in my bullet journal. I did a weightloss tracker, a meal diary and a meal ideas page. Because gotta plan, baybeeeee!

But I need some help and feedback here. Money is 100% an issue here - I need to be able to pay the bills more than I need to lose weight. So these meal ideas are more LOW PRICE 1st and LOW FAT 2nd?

1: Coleslaw! This is a great recommendation for me, because I LOOOOOVE ‘slaw so much. I could eat it forever. So the recipe I will be trying is:

cabbage (green and red), carrots, red onion or sweet onions and a homemade dressing. I’ll be using what some shops here call ‘ugly’ veg, so it’s not gonna be organic, but it’ll be cheap as hell. The dressings I’ll be making will be a ‘creamy’ one with low fat Greek yogurt, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. The other one will be a ‘asian’ one I saw with soy sauce, cider vinegar and chili powder. Also I will be using a store bought honey mustard dressing but the low fat option. I also plan on actually measuring these out, because I fucking suuuuuck at portion control.

2: Salads! See above. I’ll be using the same recipe as above but will add lettuce, spinach and peppers. I’ll use the same dressings, although I will try a balsamic one too.

3: Soups! Real basic veg soup - turnip, carrots, parsnips, onion and stock. Adding lentils for protein - I read that those are good for bulking up soups and also a good way of getting protein. I’m not a vegetarian but I don’t eat a lot of meat - it can be a little expensive and I am super picky. I’ll also be making a potato and leek soup but I read that potatoes aren’t probably aren’t that great for weightloss.

4: Pasta! Going to try either wholegrain or gluten free options here. I’m not super sure which would be best for me - I don’t NEED to go for the gluten free option but it might help with the thyroid? I dunno. Topping options will be tuna with greek yogurt, lemon, salt and pepper. I think I’ll also have a low fat tomato sauce. I’ll also use the coleslaw I made too.

5: Baked Potatoes! I think I’ll have this as a ‘cheat meal’ because I have been reading that potatoes are either considered super bad or not too bad, and I just don’t know what is right at this point. I’ll top this with the tuna, coleslaw or a measured portion of cheese and butter.

SNACKS: This will murder me. I am a snack fiend. I don’t eat meals normally, I’ll just snack all night. However, healthy options I plan on using are:

Tortilla Chips - apparently these are less fattening that regular crisps. I’ll try the plain option. This should knock the cravings out.

Fruit Ice Poles - I don’t eat a lot of ice cream, but having this as an option will be nice.

Pretzels - another apparently healthier option. Note - I don’t think these are HEALTHY, I think they are the best of a bad lot. I don’t want to cut snacks out completely as I think I would crash so hard.

Popcorn - I love popcorn! Also, I think that you can add so much to it to make it taste amazing. I really want to try wasabi powder on popcorn!

I use sweetener? Is this worse than sugar? I don’t know. I use it in my fruit teas. I drink diet sodas already so thats okay I guess.

Can anyone suggest other cheap healthy options? I also HATE TOMATOES.

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ilovemygaydad · 5 years

Text

part 5/? of punk!patton gets adopted by single parent logan

part one - part two - part three - part four - ao3 version - masterlist (includes asks and art!)

pairings: moxiety, eventual logince, background pining remceit, mentions of past thomas/female oc

warnings--these are very important this chapter: food mentions, stress, anxiety, kissing, flirting, divorce mentions, making out, mentions of murder (i’ll mark it out), attempted murder, guns, gunshots, gun wounds, head trauma, homophobic parents mention, homophobia, there’s so much swearing i am so sorry, maybe something else

a/n: no joke i’ve had this planned out since before the last part came out, but i literally just couldn’t write it all at once, and i’ve been having a really emotionally weird week. next chapter should start out pretty funny. idk. please enjoy this.

a/n 2: sorry that this took so long to get out. i don’t think it’s that great, but... yeah. whatever.

it’s friday night babey which means that it’s dinner time with the sanders, and logan and patton are freaking out

logan has been cooking/prepping food for the past day, and he immediately started finishing up as soon as he got home from work

patton, on the other hand, was feverishly cleaning the entire house

it isn’t even messy, but he’s worried that virgil and/or roman are going to be upset

(which they aren’t????? but whatever)

and patton even cleaned himself up! he tried (and failed) to tame his wild curls into some sort of neat anything, and he wore his nicest pair of black jeans and a black sweater with floral designs that he’d bought at the mall with virgil a while back

it was a little out of his comfort zone, but virgil insisted that he get it because it looks very good on him

and, god damn it, you can’t say no to virgil’s puppy eyes

the doorbell rang just before five, and logan ran out of the kitchen to get it

patton literally vaulted over the couch, skidding to the door just behind logan

virgil is like

literally the cutest person on the planet

he’s wearing a white lace dress that has a flowy skirt, and he’s got a white flower crown on, and he looks like an angel

during the time that patton’s being a gay disaster, virgil holds out a bouquet of blue flowers and says, “dad made me get them for you”

patton smiles gently and takes them, pulling virgil in for a quick kiss before leading him inside

roman has, like, eight giant tupperware containers full of cookies and brownies and stuff in his arms, and logan’s like

what???? the fuck?????

“you didn’t need to bring desserts, roman. i have ice cream...”

and roman gives this cocky smile and says “my best friend, emi, loves to bake for us, but he doesn’t really know how to limit himself, so we have tons of baked goods lying around that we can’t eat. not to mention that i can’t keep up this fabulous figure if i only eat sweets!” wink wonk

and logan can feel his face heating up after that wink, but he pretends that it’s just the heat from inside

roman really does have a good figure...

logan chooses to not respond to roman, instead saying, “let’s go inside so you can put those containers down”

they turn to go, and they catch a glimpse of patton and virgil from down the hall

the kids are sitting on the couch, laughing and talking and exchanging the occasional kiss

the adults watch for a second because aw, but quickly move on to the kitchen

“you can set the containers down on the counter over there. i made a a couple of different things for dinner just in case you two didn’t like something that i made, so there’s spaghetti, pizza, and hamburgers. everything is absolutely gluten-free; i know because i triple checked with a list online and bought new utensils to reduce contamination. you’re free to have as much or as little as you like--i won’t be offended either way.”

roman kind of freezes because holy shit that’s so thoughtful and kind

“that’s... logan, that’s too much. you didn’t have to do all that for virgil.”

“what are you talking about? it’s only common courtesy to assure that your guest is able to eat without getting sick, especially when they have a disease that can cause irreparable damage to their body.”

“yeah, but a lot of people don’t care enough to ask or remember, so virgil often has to find something else to eat last minute... i brought an extra dinner just in case, which is very unfair to your person, but virgil has suffered too much for me to not be careful.”

“that’s...” logan starts, trying to express what he feels. “that’s just shitty.”

roman smiles and laughs a bit, replying, “yeah, it is, but at least you aren’t, you know, shitty”

and they have this little moment where they smile at each other, and both of them are like wow this man is... good looking but they snap out of it because

dumb gays

everyone in this au is a dumb gay

including yours truly but that is noT important

logan’s like “hey we should get the kids for dinner” and roman obvi agrees

but when they go to get them, they see the kiddos being all adorable and gay and logan turns to roman with this very serious expression like

we must spy on them. this is the cutest shit i’ve ever seen.

so they shuffle over to the edge of the doorway, just out of sight, and logan peeks his head in every now and then for visuals, and he’s repeating what he hears so that roman can understand what’s happening

logan’s in the middle of telling roman something when

dun dun dunnnn

a voice suddenly appears from behind them like

(the voice is virgil)

“what... are you two doing...?”

fucking busted

logan is like

aHa i can lie to these children!

and he says, “we were talking about work--”

but patton just cuts him off with this deadpan look and “you two are horrible liars”

cut to: roman gasping in offense that this emo nightmare of a child just called him a liar when he didn’t even say anything

so he says, “i didn’t even say anything”

patton, being... well, being the asshole that he is, says, “my point still stands”

roman splutters for a while longer, trying to look at virgil and logan for help, but virgil just shrugs and walks with patton to the table, and logan is still very embarrassed about getting caught

it takes a few seconds, but both adults recuperate and move on to what’s important

which is, obviously, dinner

logan walks virgil through what’s available and offers to cook something else if he isn’t feeling particularly happy with anything

virgil damn near cries at how nice logan is

dinner gets served, and they all start eating the (delicious--who would guess that calculator watch knew how to cook something that tasted like it was served in a fancy restaurant) food

after a few minutes of idle chatter and slight pda between the kids, logan offhandedly comments, “you know, i am extremely happy for the both of you that you didn’t cycle through numerous girlfriends before finding out that you’re queer like many of us do.”

and everyone at the table freezes because

logan’s gay????

“hold up,” roman says with a shocked expression. “you’re gay?”

and virgil sighs and shakes his head because “dad, you’re an idiot. he literally has a pride phone case, and there are multiple pictures of him at pride around the house--including one right behind you.”

he also elbows patton when the punk mutters out a very soft “what the fuck”

“i applaud your observational skills--”

“i assume neither of you knew that he was jewish, either”

and now it’s logan’s turn to be surprised because... who the hell is this kid

“you have a dreidel on the mantle that i assumed you forgot to put away after Hanukkah last year.” everyone stared at him. “oh, i’m sorry that i’m not as much of a dumb gay as my father.”

cue roman getting offended again

“excuse you! the role of ‘dumb gay’ is exclusively reserved for thomas f. sanders!”

poor patton hasn’t stopped being confused this whole time, but roman luckily jumps right back into his explanation

“my twin brother, thomas, didn’t realize that he was gay until he had been with a woman for six years and had a child with her. they amicably parted ways because, like him, she was also gay. i am not nearly as stupid as my brother, and i take great offense to virgil calling me a ‘dumb gay!’” he said matter-of-factly

virgil opens his mouth to say something, but roman cuts him off with a swift “if you so much as think about saying what you’re going to say, i will throw you into the ocean without a moment’s hesitation.” roman then very calmly turns to patton and says sweetly, “so, only good child at this table, tell me a bit about yourself so that i know what my devil child is getting himself into.”

unbeknownst to roman, virgil mutters “dumb gay,” under his breath, causing logan to crack a smile across the table

patton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “my birthday is february nineteenth, my favorite color is blue, and i’m homoromantic asexual.”

roman waited for patton to say more, but the teen averted his gaze back on his food and took another bite

logan decided to pick up the slack after the few seconds of awkward silence “what about you, virgil?”

unlike patton’s less than enthusiastic reply, virgil perked up at the chance to speak

“oh, well, my birthday is june second, and i really like purple! i’m pretty sure that i’m pan, but i have a preference for guys. oooh! and i really want to be an elementary school teacher.”

that made logan perk up. “really? i currently teach first graders across town.”

“no way!” virgil gasped. “that’s awesome! i love little kids so much. they’ve got so much energy.”

“and their intelligence is unrivaled!”

“yes!”

roman and patton watched as the two excitedly conversed about kids and teaching

patton admired virgil’s enthusiasm, and was happy that he was getting along with logan.

and virgil looked really cute with his happy smile and the little glimmer in his eyes

patton may or may not have zoned out in favor of staring at his beautiful boyfriend

roman couldn’t really tell what logan and virgil were talking about (they were speaking far too quickly for him to follow), but he admired how excited logan looked when he was speaking

oh no

roman was falling for logan

time to not follow his own advice and pretend that his feelings don’t exist

after another half hour or so of chatting, the adults and kids split ways for a while

patton and virgil went up to patton’s room, and logan and roman stayed in the living room

the boys settled together at the end of patton’s bed, holding hands and leaning on each other

“you look paw-sitively purrfect, virgil” patton giggled

“is... are you saying that because i have cat-eye eyeliner on?”

“...maybe”

virgil smiled and pulled patton in for a kiss

they kissed for a little, but patton eventually pulled away

he looked worried, and he fidgeted with his hands as he said, “do you think that your dad likes me?”

“well...” virgil started. “he didn’t like you for a long time. after the first day of school, he kind of held a grudge on you.” patton winced, but he didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. “i think he’s forgiven you now.”

“really?”

“i promise. he just wanted to protect me because he’s my dad, but i think he’s realized that you’re not actively trying to hurt me, and you’re just a bit dumb at times”

“hEY”

virgil smiled and nudged patton “you know i love you”

“hnnnnnn i love you too”

“heLL YEAH!”

meaNwhiLE downstairs

logan led roman into the the living room and roman was

stunned

because logan had at least a thousand books meticulously organized around the room

“how many books do you have in here...?” roman asked, running his hand over an entire collection of encyclopedias

“about one thousand two hundred on the shelves, but i have some children’s books in those baskets at the bottom as well as the books that are starting to fall apart like my copy of hamlet”

“how did you even get so many books? i’ve been collecting novels my whole life, and i only have a few bookshelves full”

“my mom is a librarian, and whenever they would get newer copies of books or get rid of unwanted books, she’d give them to me. i’ve bought a fair few of these myself, but there are only so many that i can buy on a teacher’s salary”

and roman’s like

????? hot

and logan keeps rambling on about books, and roman’s just having a gay crisis but it’s fine

but then logan looks at roman expectantly, and roman hadn’t exactly been paying enough attention to read logan’s lips, so he played the “can you repeat yourself? i didn’t catch it” card

“sorry. i asked how you came to adopt virgil”

and roman obviously is like hey how about we spill a lot of sad life things with this almost stranger because he’s cute

~this is where the murder is mentioned~

“his mom was my best friend in high school. although we went our separate ways for college, she stayed supportive of me after i came out. she was... the only one from my old life who would even think to talk to me. even thomas hesitated to talk to me for fear of crossing our parents and their ridiculously catholic ideas.” roman sighed. “eventually, though, she got mixed up in some bad stuff, and she got with this drug addict who got her pregnant with virgil. when virgil was about a year old, the guy thought that my friend was cheating on him, and he shot her. the shot, luckily, didn’t kill her right away, and she was able to push him into the corner of a table and kill him before he could get to virgil. she called the police, but she died before they could get there. as soon as i found out, I went and started the adoption process. i had only been a year out of college at that point.”

~end of the murder mention~

logan was stunned. “that is... horrible, roman. i am so sorry for your loss.”

“it’s alright,” roman said with a shrug. “it was over a decade ago, and it led to me getting the best thing in my life. the circumstances were shit, but virgil has made me a better person, and i wouldn’t know what i’d do without him keeping my head on gay.”

“you mean straight...?”

“nothing about me is straight, logan. don’t be absurd”

eventually, it’s time for roman and virgil to leave

virgil and patton walk out to the car and leave the adults at the door because they wanna kiss each other goodbye without being spied on

on their way to the car, virgil whispers “how much do you want to bet that they’ll be flirting with each other by the time we leave”

“ten dollars. i mean, didn’t you see how your dad looked at logan? it was gross!”

meanwhile, at the door...

roman leans back on the doorframe and smiles. “this was a nice night, logan. virgil definitely had a lot of fun”

“that’s great; i’m glad”

“here--give me your phone. i’ll put my number in, and we can get together some other time to get to know each other better”

logan obliged, and roman sent himself a text using logan’s phone and set his contact name as “prince of your dreams”

they chatted for a minute or so longer, just to give the boys enough time to say their goodbyes, before parting ways

logan didn’t spend the rest of the night texting roman

don’t be ridiculous

to be continued

asks are loved and encouraged, and make sure to check out the amazing art people have made on the masterlist! 💖💖💖

tag list: @residentanchor @eeveeawesome @xionical@absolutesandersidestrash @stormcrawler75 @musikasworld @ironwoman359@a-weirdo-with-a-computer @thegaypotatoroyalty707 @darkrainbow333@ravenclawunicorn1 @noahlovescoffee @whymustibedraggedintofandomhell@romansleftshoulderpad @still-waiting-for-cookies @emounicorn2006 @lana–22 @angels-ofthe-sea @demonickittykat @lonelysoul43 @the-virgil-mary @five-second-cookies @noisywolfbatbakery @band-be-boss-blog @heck-im-lost@lamp-calm-sanders @patton-e @knightofbloodcancer @cloudchaser7@really-sleep-deprived-nerd @era-eclipsed @khadij-al-kubra @anxiousmorality@are-you-really-sure-about-that @today-only-happens-once@notalwaysthevillian @backatthebein @sunshineandteddybears @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn @dodos-in-damnation@some-lost-meme-boi @dead4sevenyears @spookyingarbageisland @the-poison-apple-of-art@radioactivehelena @the-melody-of-eliza @im-a-mess-aaaaaa @whycantihavemorethan32characters @broadwaytheanimatedseries@veryvirginvirgil @llamaavocado @unisaurioamorfo @caterpiller-tea@cornycornfriendo @simon-at-3am @calico-kiri

#sanders sides #moxiety #logince #m writes things #remceit #ts deceit #roman sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #punk!patton au

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cassiopeiassky · 6 years

Text

The Potato of Mass Destruction

Hello, everyone! Here is a little something to make up for all the angst I’ve been writing lately. This is my submission for @ruckystarnes Rae’s Summer of Satire Challenge, the prompt is “If I’m dying, let me eat cake.”/“You’re not dying.”/“Let me eat cake anyway.” The prompt is in bold.

Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2745

Summary: It’s your kids’ birthday party today, and everything is going well until some of your family arrives with an early birthday present for the boys. Chaos ensues. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt; Bucky, to be exact, when he is the victim of an extraordinarily random freak accident.

Warnings: There’s not much here, kids. Some mild profanity (but seriously, you should expect that from me by now), mentions of guns, Bucky gets hurt.

Also - I used some characters from one of my other fics (WEMtbB), so this story *could* be viewed as kind of a spoiler, however it can also be read as a complete story by itself. I hope you all enjoy it!

Oh! And the pic at the bottom - yes, I did that. I am that extra.

The clock reads shortly after eleven in the morning as you hum along with the radio. Despite the fact that you’re currently operating under a time crunch, you’re in your happy place. Zen mode. Relaxed and at ease in creative bliss. As the smell of vanilla wafts through the kitchen, you painstakingly create a one eyed minion on top of a cupcake.

Your twin boys are turning eight next week, and you had suggested a private birthday party for their friends. The boys had no problems with their friends coming to the family party, but you did. Your extended family happens to include Captain America and Iron Man, among others, and their dad is the infamous Winter Soldier. Your boys’ friends know this and are perfectly capable of acting like decent human beings when surrounded by people who save the world as their full-time job, but their parents tend to get a little…intense…especially two of the single moms and one of the single dads.

To get around the inevitable secondhand embarrassment – and to keep the attention on the kids, where it’s supposed to be – you’d proposed two separate parties on consecutive weekends. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it to make sure they get the birthday they deserve.

The goggles on the current minion finally meet your standards, so you carefully place it on the platter with the completed cupcakes and…wait…weren’t you finished with 11 cupcakes? Instinct has you whirling around, fears immediately confirmed.

“Bucky, no! You can’t eat that!” You snatch it back, inspecting it for any smudges in the icing.

Your husband stares at you, eyebrows drawn together, empty hand still held up to his wide-open mouth. “I can’t have even one? You always let me taste test.”

“No, Love, I’m sorry. These are for the boys’ ‘friends only’ birthday party this afternoon. The first batch failed miserably – it’s a new recipe and I had to play with the temp and timing – so now I have exactly the number of cupcakes needed for the number of guests. It’s a good thing I decided to make the boys a small layer cake to blow out their candles or I’d have to uninvite two kids.”

“So…just make more?” he suggests hopefully. “I like cupcakes.”

You pick up another cupcake and begin to decorate it. “Buck, I promise you can have all the cake you want next weekend when we have the family party. And honestly, next week’s cake will be better cake.”

“But it smells so good, Doll, please? You love baking,” he steps behind you and wraps his arms around your waist as he nuzzles into your neck, “and I love when you bake. See? Win – win.”

You snicker at his antics as you lean into his embrace. “I would if I could, Buck, but I can’t. The party is in less than two hours. Besides, I’m out of rice flour and can’t use regular flour until after the party because I can’t risk any cross contamination in the kitchen. So many of the kids have allergies that I had to make these gluten, dairy, egg, and nut free.”

“Gluten, dairy, egg, and nut free – what the hell is holding these things together?”

“Xanthan gum and flax seed.” You shake your head as you laugh, “One of the little girls that’s coming is allergic to all of those, plus citrus. I was so surprised when her mom told me that, I asked if her daughter survived on rainbows and unicorn farts. I mean, what else can she eat?”

Bucky chuckles as he stealthily reaches for the bowl of icing, but you catch him in your peripheral and bring a wooden spoon down on his knuckles.

Every now and then you manage to impress yourself with your reflexes.

“Ow!”

“Bucky! I took me six tries to get decent tasting dairy free icing and I don’t have any to spare, so if you can’t keep your hands to yourself, get out of my kitchen!”

“I just wanted some cake,” he grumbles as he pouts.

You turn to him and take his face gently in your hands. “Bucky, my love, I know and I’m sorry. I promise you’ll have all the cake you want next weekend. I’ll even make some with extra frosting – I’ll pile on the old lady flowers so it’s an inch and a half thick, just like you like. I just don’t have any to spare right now.”

“But next weekend is so far away,” he whines.

Your fingers slide back and tangle in his hair, and you press your lips to his before whispering, “I’ll make it up to you later tonight, okay?”

He pretends to think about it for a few seconds. “Deal,” he smirks before pulling you close and kissing you deeply.

Who knows how long you were wrapped in each other’s embrace before you hear the door open and close – could be thirty seconds, could be ten minutes – you can never tell when you’re like this with Bucky because time stands still.

“Aw man, they’re at it again.” Jimmy tries to sound disgusted, but you happen to know that he secretly loves that his mom and dad are affectionate. It makes him feel secure.

You giggle at your son’s observation, but Bucky doesn’t break form. He takes kissing his wife very seriously.

“Do you really have to do that here? We have people coming over.” Artie does a better job at sounding irritated, but when Bucky finally breaks the kiss and you turn to him, you can see the small smile on your son’s lips.

“Yes, I do,” Bucky replies before you can shoo them away. “I will have you know that, as your father, it is my solemn duty to show you how a man should treat his partner.” Bucky’s hands rise to cradle your face as he speaks, “If you don’t see me treat your mom with love,” he pauses to press a sweet kiss to your lips, “adoration,” another tender kiss to your forehead, “and respect,” a gentle thumb glides over your cheek as he kisses the other, “then how are you supposed to know how to treat the person you love? You can think it’s gross, but I’m doing my best to raise my boys to be loving, respectful men.” He gets a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Besides, your mom’s hot.”

“Oh, gross,” Artie makes gagging noises while Jimmy rolls his eyes.

The conversation is interrupted by a brief knock on the front door. “Hello! Everyone decent?”

“Grandpa!! Uncle Eddie!!” The boys run to the door and into the arms of the two men standing there. Technically it’s your grandpa and uncle, but Great Grandpa and Great Uncle Eddie is just too much.

“Hey boys, guess what?”

Your uncle has an impish glint in his eye…you know this look. You don’t know what he’s holding behind his back, but whatever it is isn’t good. “Uncle Eddie, no.”

“Uncle Eddie, yes,” he declares, presenting what he was holding behind him. “Happy birthday kiddos!”

“What the hell is that?”

You speak at the same time Bucky does, but louder. “No! You are absolutely NOT giving my seven year olds a potato gun!”

“We’re practically eight, Mom!”

“Wait, it’s a what?” Bucky looks both confused and delighted.

Your uncle smirks at the chaos he’s sown. “It’s fun!”

“It’s a weapon of mass destruction!” you shoot back.

Uncle Eddie shoots you an unimpressed look. “You’re being a little dramatic here.”

You march over to your uncle and lift the white plastic barrel of the gun. It still has its old Scooby Doo sticker on the side of it – the one you’d put there as a little girl. “It’s your old gun?? The one you souped up to make it even more powerful?! No. NO. And I’m not being dramatic – it’s works by combustion and the barrel is wider than two inches – it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction.”

“She’s not wrong,” Bucky interjects, sounding slightly impressed that you knew that.

“Aw, come on, peanut, you know we’re safe! You let Bucky teach them gun safety and you’ve let us take them deer hunting for the past two years. You trust us, you already know they’re in good hands!”

“Okay, first of all, the reason Bucky taught them gun safety is because there are guns in the house. They’re inaccessible to the kids, but he did it as a precautionary measure. Second, I am a grown ass woman. I officially outgrew the nickname peanut years ago. Finally –“

“No,” your grandpa interrupts gently, “You were my first grandbaby. You’ll always be my peanut.”

“I – okay, fine. But finally, your gun safety isn’t in question, the potato gun is. It doesn’t even have a safety!”

Uncle Eddie grins as he pulls the can of Aqua Net out of its chamber. “There, satisfied?”

You fold your arms and glare at your uncle.

“Please, Mom? Pleeeeeeeease?” Twin sets of beseeching eyes turn your way. “Just until the party?”

You can feel Bucky’s stare boring into the side of your head. He’d never contradict you in front of the boys – the two of you always back each other’s plays, and if ever there’s an issue it’s discussed later – but you can practically hear his curiosity begging for permission.

It’s pretty clear you’re outnumbered. And, truth be told, it’s practically a right of passage in your family. There was a time when it was you and your uncle begging your mom…

“Fine,” you relent, “but it needs to disappear before any of the kids get here for the party.”

Five beaming smiles are your reward as your boys, grandpa, and uncle race to the back door to get to the back yard.

“You know they’re gonna be fine, right?” Bucky holds in his excitement to pull you into a reassuring embrace; even now, your well-being is his priority. “Your family is really good about firearm safety, even by my standards.”

“You do realize that I just agreed to let my uncle – who drove through town last Saturday night with his bare ass smushed against the back window of his car while my aunt drove – take our boys out back to fire a homemade device that has enough power to shoot a potato over 200 yards?”

Bucky grasps you by the shoulders as he pulls back, eyes wide. “When you put it that way…”

All you can do is nod when you see his curiosity overtaken by common sense.

“I’m gonna go…supervise…” He doesn’t even have the sentence fully out before he’s speeding toward the door.

“They’re gonna be fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine,” you mutter to yourself as you return to the cupcakes.

* * *

It’s about a quarter past one, and the cupcakes are finally done. The boys’ friends will probably start arriving within the next 40 minutes or so, so you take the platter of cupcakes and the boys’ small cake for the candles and head out to the back yard to set up the cake table.

When you step into the afternoon sunlight, the sounds of giggles and shrieks meet your ears. They’ve been busy – all of the folding tables that had been placed are now decorated for the party. The potato gun is sitting on top of one of the tables, abandoned for a game of chicken. Jimmy is on Uncle Eddie’s shoulders, and Artie is on Bucky’s as they race around the yard.

As you lay out the cakes, everyone comes over to see what you’ve done, including the squirrel that lives in the tree providing the shade.

“Mom, those are so cool!” Jimmy’s practically jumping up and down.

Artie wraps his arms around your waist, “You’re the best momma ever,” he whispers, and your heart promptly melts.

Unbeknownst to any of you, the squirrel had shifted to get a better look at the brightly colored confections, not catching anyone’s attention until it let out a loud squeak as it fell out of the tree. This wouldn’t have been exactly catastrophic except that it landed just right on the potato gun, somehow managing to fire a potato straight into Bucky’s crotch from 20 feet away.

The former assassin drops to the ground like a sack of apples. His mouth opens in a silent scream as the blood drains from his face and he curls into the fetal position.

“Bucky, are you okay? Bucky?” You rush to kneel next to him, trying to offer whatever comfort you can. You’re reasonably sure that this can’t kill him, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.

“Oh my God, I think this is the end of the line for me,” he groans, trying unsuccessfully to roll to his knees. “I can see flashing lights.” He gives up his efforts to move and curls into a ball in the grass. “This isn’t how I thought I would go.”

“Buck, you’re going to be okay.” Recognizing by his tone and actions that he isn’t in any actual danger, you have to swallow back the laughter that’s suddenly threatening to bubble out of you.

“No, I’m not. I really think I’m dying, and if I’m dying, let me eat cake.”

Yep, he’s fine. In pain, but fine. “You’re not dying.”

“Let me eat cake anyway.” He grins up at you with watery eyes.

You sit back on your heels, unable to fully hide your relief as you mutter, “You’re a shameless little shit.”

The boys approach slowly. “Dad?” There’s a hint of fear in their voices, and this is enough for Bucky to pull himself together.

“I’m okay,” he whimpers as you help him sit up. “I’m okay.”

They both kneel in front of him. “Are you sure?” Jimmy whispers.

Bucky nods while grimacing. “It’s just your standard potato to the balls, not much worse than Auntie Nat’s cheap shot in a fight. I’ll be fine, just gotta walk it off. Now help me up.”

As the boys help their dad, your eyes turn to your uncle, who is trying unsuccessfully to hide behind your grandpa. “Seriously? You forgot to pull out the hairspray and the potato?”

Uncle Eddie stares at you in mild terror. “I’m, uh, I should probably take that thing and leave because you have guests coming soon. See you next weekend, guys!” You’ve never seen your uncle walk so fast in your entire life.

You turn to your grandpa, and he starts chuckling. The laugh you’d managed to hold back earlier comes out in a snort, and the boys, understanding now exactly what happened, begin giggling uncontrollably.

“I can’t believe I still don’t get cake.” The disappointment in his hoarse voice is crystal clear. Shaking your head and completely unsuccessful at stopping your laughter, you pull his arm over your shoulders and help him limp back to the house. When you pass the fridge, you pause to grab a bag of frozen peas for him to ice his tender junk.

* * *

Later that night, after the party is done and the boys are all tucked in, you do what you can to make up for Bucky’s ordeal. He’ll be fully healed by tomorrow – the bruises are already beginning to fade – but you still feel bad for him.

Giggling to yourself as you put on the final touches, you listen carefully for any sign of your husband. Not that it really matters – if he doesn’t want to be heard, he’s as silent as night. Satisfied that he’s still upstairs in your bedroom either reading or writing in his journal, you snap the lid onto the dish, grab a fork, and make your way to him.

When you enter your bedroom, you realize why you were able to get away with preparing your little surprise. He’s outside on the balcony with the doors closed.

Bucky turns his blue eyes your way when you join him, smiling softly as he reaches for you before noticing the thing in your hand. Immediately recognizing the cake carrier, his eyes grow wide with delight. “Is that for me?”

You smile as you gently place the dish in his lap. “Mmm hmm.”

He removes the cover and bursts out laughing at what he finds.

A chocolate cake, decorated with an abundance of flowers and frosting at least an inch thick all the way around, with a message that leaves no room for misunderstanding as to whom this cake is for.

“Here’s your damn cake, you little shit.”

Tags: @hellomissmabel @howdoesoneadult @nykitass @danimuhle @iwillbeinmynest @shifutheshihtzu @passiononfire @learisa @widowvinter @kaaatniss @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @denialanderror @k-nighttt @givemethatgold @manders2487 @afangirlrambles @polkadottedpillowcase @msshadowboxer @bluebrrn @saysay125 @aikibriarrose @saharzek @mmauricee @imhereforbvcky @whenallsaidanddone @supernatural508 @scarlettsoldier @natalie-nightcourt @im-beautifully-sewn @lovemarvelousfics @feistytravel @tbetz0341 @nearly-whitches @jamie-leah @shliic @dessinemoiunehistoire @lucywinchester2000 @solarbarnes @a-proper-chicken @movingonto-betterthings

#SummerofSatire2018 #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #my work #the potato of mass destruction

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jasonblossomsghost · 5 years

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1-64 and 65: If you were a bird, what kind of bird would you be?

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?mm no more my own? i dissociate Constantly

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?4 unless i’m w someone else then 1

3. The person you would never want to meet?drumpf

4. What is your favorite word?hmm idk iridocyclitis is fun, a meme, and i work for an eye doctor so relevant to my occupation

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?i like weeping willows and i cry a lot so

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?we’re really doing this again huh

7. What shirt are you wearing?a long sleeved red and navy striped shirt that my mommy gave me

8. What do you label yourself as?a disaster

9. Bright room or dark room?bright room. fun fact: when i was ab 13 i could not sleep unless my overhead light was on. sometimes if im doing really badly i still need it lmao

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?uhh iirc i was talking to my boyfriend and playing wordscapes

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?idk 19 is going ok so far

12. Who told you they loved you last?my boyfriend

13. Your worst enemy?either myself or this one coworker of mine who i genuinely hate

14. What is your current desktop picture?just the preset one,,, idc that much lmao

15. Do you like someone?i mean my s/o is pretty cool sometimes

16. The last song you listened to?Outside - The Early November

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?me bitch tf

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?that one coworker... this one patient at my job who degrades me and my coworkers constantly

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?no one and nothing... i like to do things myself

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)idk tbh

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?don’t really like this question or the phrase opposite sex in general so pass /:

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?nah i’m Talentless

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?you know overflow drains in like bathtubs? until i was like 10 i had to have my back against them bc i was scared people could watch me through it

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.i live off popcorn so i dont eat or like sandwiches really

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?put it in savings. i’m tryna move out in 6 months

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?hmm idk. i have a friend in san francisco i havent seen in forever so that would be lit

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?smirnoff 100%

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? no geminis

29. What is your favorite expletive?fuck

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?i was gonna say my fire safe box that has my social security card, birth certificate, etc then i was like wait a minute... but tbh idk maybe my laptop? or my purse?

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?my childhood was like 98% trauma but like.. it made me not suck that bad so i’ll keep it

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!i wanna move to seattle but thats in country so.. no idea. sweden? i like ikea

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?don’t fuck w the dead. no one is coming back

34. What was your last dream about?last sunday night i dreamt i woke up monday (christmas eve) and didnt go to work even though i was supposed to (paranoia. i had the day off lmao)

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?i am very good at loving dogs

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?yeah lots of times lmao

37. Have you ever built a snowman?yep. shitty but a snowman

38. What is the color of your socks?black

39. What type of music do you like?depends. sad boi music lately

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?sunrises 100%

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?i can’t drink milk /: but maybe strawberry

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)i am gay idk sports

43. Do you have any scars?quite a few! i’m a clumsy clusterfuck

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?i’m currently in college for poli sci and after i graduate w my BA, i wanna go to law school

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?idk?? like i hate myself but i also dont really wanna change anything

46. Are you reliable?generally yes. but i am known to cancel plans bc i’m depressed lol

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?hows life dude

48. Do you hold grudges?oh hell yeah not gonna play like i dont

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?nope dont like that At All

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?nothing really stands out... probably something from work but i take 100 calls a day so? they all blur together

51. Are you a good liar?really good. i don’t lie though. i’m actually brutally honest bordering on asshole

52. How long could you go without talking?dayssss i love not speaking

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?uhh freshman year i had an awful side part... next

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?yeah! i’m really great at cooking and baking!

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?not really? i took 2 years french and 4 years spanish and to pronounce properly i have to talk differently so i guess i kinda take on an accent then? but not actually

56. What do you like on your toast?i have celiac and gluten free bread is like $5 i dont eat toast lmao

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?i had to do a portrait in the style of francis bacon for my art final

58. What would be you dream car?ideally something that uses clean energy other than that idc

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.no and no.. i just shower what y’all doing in the shower

60. Do you believe in aliens?1000000%

61. Do you often read your horoscope?not often.. like if i happen across it i’ll read it

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?i’m not sure. m is a nice letter

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?dinosaurs bc they were real

64. What do you think about babies?honestly? terrified of them

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.if i were a bird maybe a magpie? or a crow or raven? or one of those really annoying parakeets

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kriskebob-blog · 6 years

Text

Day 1, Part 1: Me vs. the grocery store

Hi again. It was really nice to hear from some of my friends and family in response to my post last night! I’m really excited to know that some people are down to read my long-ass posts about plants. I’ve also had several people offer me cookbook suggestions or even offer to have me plunder their own stash. Thanks for being my enablers, guys! (No seriously, thank you, I love you all sm.) Also, I can now reveal that my grandma texted me this morning to confirm she did indeed read my first post to its end. She’s the best!!!! This blog is rapidly evolving into a dual-purpose food/my grandma fan page and I can’t be sorry for it.

So it’s Friday afternoon as I write this but the day I’ll be writing about is actually Wednesday. Can you tell it took me a little while to get going with the actual blogging part of this project? Anywho, I woke up Wednesday and after taking some time to wake up with a coffee, I flipped open my shiny new How Not to Die cookbook to the pages with the 2-week meal plan. I scanned the lists of recipes, already nervous. There were so many listed for every single day. I’m used to preparing dinner each night and eating leftovers for my lunches. For years my tried-and-true breakfast almost every single day has been two hard-boiled eggs and a piece of toast. So I’m really only used to having to prepare a fully involved meal once a day. You wanted to do this, I reminded myself. You have the summer off. You have the time! Trying to calm my nerves, I opened up the notes app on my laptop and began typing the names of the suggested recipes. There are no page numbers referenced on the meal plan pages, which would have made things a lot easier, just sayin’, Dr. Greger! I found the recipes and opened the grocery list Google Doc I’ve shared with my husband since we moved in together. I started typing up a shopping list.

This was more than 48 hours ago at this point, but luckily I did stop to write down some initial thoughts. I shall share them with you now, verbatim:

How the f@#! am I going to buy everything we need for all this? How will it fit in my fridge? Will I spend literally all day prepping all of this? Am I even going to be able to find everything I need for these recipes?

...

16 recipes compared to my normal 4, MAYBE 5. Eating this way is obviously the vanity project of the wealthy wtf

...

It’s only two weeks. I can spend 2374623645 dollars on food for just half a month right? right?? It’s normal to spend money on hobbies? Gah

...

What the hell is date sugar?

...

I am definitely using vanilla extract instead of buying a giant vanilla bean Fresh turmeric? Where would even sell that? Ground sounds just fine to me

I noted that I began this process at 8:55. At 9:21 I wrote:

I give up… because I can already tell I’m going to be buying WAY too much produce to fit into my crisper drawer. The original plan had been to stock up enough stuff to carry me through until Monday but I can see now that’s just not going to be realistic at all. I’ll stock up on enough stuff to get me through to Friday night. I don’t want to grocery shop on the weekend if I can help it. I’ll just go again on Friday. Then I’ll probably have to go again on Monday, maybe Tuesday if I’m lucky. That’ll be three grocery store stock-ups in one week. I wanted a hobby, didn’t I?? Time to go back and redo my list to only reflect recipes for the next three days then.

I put a break in my recipes list. Alright. That brings me from 16 recipes to 8. Feels much more manageable. I look at the huge list of ingredients I amassed on my Google doc and decide it’d be easier to just delete it and restart from scratch than go through and try to remember what I now do and don’t need. 9:30.

9:45 - done. Still a LONG list. This is only for 2 days plus a dinner. But to be fair I did include stuff for a couple of desserts.

I’m a tad concerned by how none of these recipes call for ANY salt.

I was more than a tad concerned, actually. But I had my mission lined out. It was time to head to Big Y.

Of the common local grocery store chains in Connecticut, Big Y is probably the nicest one. My husband and I used to frequent Stop & Shop but we stopped because the produce kind of sucked and anyhow the set-up of Big Y is a lot more appealing. I drove on over to the Ellington Big Y, hopeful that I’d be able to find the majority of the items I needed, but also aware that I’d probably end up at Whole Foods later that day.

I’d been so focused on getting together my massive shopping list and hustling out to the store that I hadn’t attended to my basic personal needs with as much care as usual. I realized two things almost immediately as I crossed the parking lot: I kinda had to pee, and I was also sort of thirsty/hungry. Should I get a lemonade or something from the cafe? I wondered briefly then decided against it. I’d be fine til I got home, surely.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the produce section. I bagged up two heads of lettuce and an even bigger head of red kale. I bought the biggest container of baby spinach they had and then also the biggest bag of regular spinach. Cilantro and parsley. Scallions. And that was just from the greens section! I was already tired by the time I got to the natural foods section, and I had only shopped for stuff whose location I already knew.

I spent some time figuring out which seeds/nuts I needed that Big Y sold by the weight. It’s a really convenient and cool system, except the stupid sticker-printing machine is sort of finicky. I must have spent a solid ten minutes before I had the correct amount of almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, etc. Okay. Now I needed to look for some stuff that I genuinely had no idea where exactly it might be. I knew they likely were somewhere in this natural foods section, I just didn’t know where. Stuff like hemp hearts and nutritional yeast (sounded gross but it was called for in quite a few recipes). I found them eventually. Cool. Now I needed canned tomatoes and beans, but Dr. Gregor really wanted me to be sure I bought cans without a BPA liner. Seriously? Was that really going to be the thing that would make or break if I lived to see 100? But I didn’t want to half-ass the Dr. Gregor lifestyle. It was only for two weeks, after all. After way too much time studying the shelves of tomatoes and beans, I ended up with two cans of diced tomato that cost twice as much as the brand I normally purchased... and the same exact generic brand of beans I normally went for, because none of the beans at Big Y seemed to be BPA free. Whatever. I was hungrier and grumpier by the minute. I wanted to stuff something into my mouth full of sugar and gluten and whatever other chemicals were out to kill me, stat. Almost done. Just had to find frozen okra (vegan gumbo, y’all! Stay tuned), and also miso. I wasn’t too worried about the miso. Big Y has a decent Asian foods aisle... one that I paced up and down at least four times before accepting that they didn’t seem to have miso. They also didn’t have date sugar, a key ingredient to a no-bake brownies recipe I wanted to try. I have a major sweet tooth (can you tell?) and the idea of two weeks without chocolate bars or ice cream was something I refused to entertain without some sort of chocolate dessert option. Okay. No miso, no date sugar. I also hadn’t been able to find “whole wheat tortillas - no salt added” anywhere in the store. So, I’d be going to Whole Foods. I had figured as much.

I checked out with a whopper of a bill and tried not to die too much inside at the fact that this was only two and a half day’s worth of groceries. After all, I had needed to stock up on several crunchy hippie type pantry items I hadn’t already owned. Thank god I already had a pretty sizable spice collection or my bill would have been even higher. I tried not to think of how this wasn’t even everything on my list. Not only did I still need to go to Whole Foods, but I needed to go to the farm stand.

Shout-out to Johnny Appleseed’s Farm in Ellington. Sam and I love them, and they love us back! Okay, they love Sam back because he told them once that he had gone onto Google and fixed an incorrect listing stating they were permanently closed. They really love Sam for that. They have no idea who I am unless I walk in with him. But that’s okay. Every late July through October, Sam and I buy as much of our produce as possible from Johnny Appleseed’s. I stopped over there to load up on tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, and an ungodly amount of zucchini. The woman ringing me out seemed amused. “Lots of squash,” she commented. “What’re you cooking?” I stared at her, trying to remember. The recipe planning I’d done only a couple hours ago already seemed such a blur. “Zoodles,” I managed finally. “You know, like when you try to pretend you’re eating pasta but it’s actually vegetables?” She chuckled and nodded. “You make your own sauce from scratch too?” “Usually,” I told her, feeling a sudden pang of longing for a nice meaty bolognese. Wow, I really wasn’t going to be cut out for this meatless life for long. I told her goodbye and got into my car. It was sweltering outside and 10x worse inside my black interior car. I now definitely needed to pee and I was starving. Home couldn’t come fast enough.

Of course, before I could eat my lunch I had to go through the battle of trying to fit all of this produce into my refrigerator. Even with the clearing out of the usual cartons of eggs and older produce that I’d tossed earlier that morning, it was definitely a game of Tetris trying to fit all of the extremely perishable items I’d just purchased into my fridge. I didn’t even entertain the thought of trying to fit all the vegetables in the crisper. Just to fit them in the fridge itself was an accomplishment. Thank god I hadn’t been quite stupid enough to try to buy enough groceries to last us through Monday. Dear lord, I was really going to have to go back in two days and do this again? You chose this, you chose this I sang to myself repeatedly in my head as I grabbed the container of my last non-vegan meal for two weeks: zucchini turkey meatballs, romano cheese, and marinara sauce over spaghetti. It was damned good. This is still healthy, isn’t it? Do I definitely have to give up cheese, Dr. Gregor?

Now came the time for my final real dessert of the next two weeks. Something I end up binging on far too often when Sam leaves me at home unsupervised for too long: Aurora honey nut granola with chocolate chips mixed in. It’s so good!!! And I definitely went especially overboard that day knowing it was my last sugar binge for awhile.

Alright. It was time to head to Whole Foods. The closest one to me is in Glastonbury and a solid 25 minute drive away. The air felt heavy and oppressive as I headed out into the heat. Ominous dark clouds hung low in the sky. I could feel the nasty air pressure in the depths of my sinuses. Blah. Almost done, I told myself. The parking lot at Whole Foods was mobbed. Why are so many people out on a random Wednesday afternoon, I grumped to myself as I narrowly avoided running over a perfectly nice young family (sorry, strangers!!) and found myself a spot. I walked inside and immediately started rubbing my arms up and down. It was freezing. One thing I love about Big Y is that they keep a lot of their refrigerated items behind doors. I forget how cold other grocery stores are.

I don’t go to Whole Foods very often. I knew where the ethnic condiments were but had no clue where I might find “whole wheat tortillas, no salt added.” I wandered the entire length of the store twice over and finally found a small selection. They really didn’t have much to offer in the way of wraps. Too many carbs for the Whole Foods shopping crowd, I guess? I settled for normal whole wheat tortillas that did indeed have salt as an ingredient. What do you want me to do, Dr. Gregor? I’m only one person. I at least then found the date sugar no problem. Okay. Cool. Only the miso left.

I wandered into the Asian condiments aisle... and essentially repeated the same pacing act I’d done at Big Y, except I went back and forth even more times because I had a hard time processing that Whole Foods wouldn’t have what I needed. I mean, they’ve got some weird stuff there! They have like 5 different brands of ghee! Miso sounded like such a basic Asian condiment to me. We’ve all heard of miso soup, no? But it was nowhere to be found. Ugh. Fine. I’ll go to the Asian market in East Hartford. It’s not that far from here anyways, I tried to reassure myself. I could feel a sugar crash hitting my bloodstream. I wanted a juicebox and a nap.

I checked out and made my way to Je Mart. I wandered up and down their aisles and couldn’t seem to find miso there either. It finally occurred to me that I was obviously missing something here. Like I really should have done at Big Y in the first place, I pulled out my phone and Googled “Where do I buy miso in the store?” Within 5 seconds I realized I’d been looking in the wrong spots of the stores the entire time. Miso isn’t a bottled or jarred condiment like Sriracha or curry paste. It’s actually sold in plastic tubs in the refrigerated section. Look near the tofu, the infinite wisdom of the Internet advised. I turned around and what do you know, literally right behind me was the refrigerated section with the tofu. And within five seconds I spotted it: a tub of miso!!! I grabbed at it ecstatically and scanned the label. Was this the white miso that Dr. Gregor had specifically demanded? It didn’t specify, but it looked pale enough for me. And it was only $5 for a pretty decent sized tub. I handed my money gleefully to the cashier and went on my way. Finally.

I got home and put away my new purchases. It was about 2:20pm and I was beyond exhausted. I really shouldn’t have eaten that much granola, I thought morosely as I flopped onto the couch. I wanted to rewatch Forks Over Knives (it’s on Netflix!). If I started now it would end right around 4, a good time to start trying to actually prepare some of the meals I’d worked so hard all the day just to shop for.

I’m not saying that I napped for the entire documentary because I definitely didn’t. I remember some parts of it. But can I guarantee I didn’t nap at all? No, no I cannot.

This was another long post, so obviously I’m going to need to give us all a break and stop here before going on to Part 2, in which I’ll finally talk about cooking and eating these recipes. These first couple of posts have really just been a lot of exposition, I promise I’m going to get to the meat of the plot soon! (pun intended)

For now, here’s a picture of the miso I drove all over the state searching for before finally acquiring for the very reasonable price of $5 (fyi - Big Y does have miso but it’s red miso and it’s $7 so I guess all’s well that ends well):

#food blog #food writing #veganism #healthy cooking #plant based #whole foods #still bad at tags

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