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Twelve Hexennacht reviews. Overly long.
Hello! I've never posted a review here, but I've been gathering hex scents for a while now, and figured why not review them! I love browsing this sub just to see peoples creative descriptions (mine are not that) and what other people like and dislike :] About me: I think i have dull senses (or maybe my skin eats perfume), because i can't seem to smell perfume after a while. If i end up with something that really lasts on me, i love it more. I like wood smells, sweet smells, some florals, incense smells, forest smells, etc. I don't really HATE anything (well, i didn't think i did..... ) Eight of these are full sizes that i mostly blind bought on description, two were free samples, and six were from ajevie. Here goes! I am going to start with my full sizes Leopardite: ( Mysore sandalwood, golden sandalwood powder, vanilla husk, chamois accord, Alaskan cedarwood, tobacco leaf, black oak, cardamom, saffron threads, miel blanc. ) For me, this is such a beautiful scent! It is woody and somewhat spicy, dry, and very comforting. When it dries it gets a twinge of sweetness that is nice, and it lasts a long time. I had some of this on my wrists still the next morning which is a huge bonus for me! All in all, i'm so glad i ended up getting this one. I was considering Santal or Santal vanilla instead (which i got as samples), and i honestly prefer this one as it has way more depth. Hygge:(stroopwafels, cardamom-infused custard, oatmeal porridge, pink peppercorn, smoked vanilla, myrrh, fir balsam. ) This is my favorite perfume from Hex, and possibly of all time. I love cardamom and warm, sweet smells. This evokes a cozy snow day, inside your house where it's warm, and your cat is sitting near you in your favorite blanket with fuzzy socks and warm tea. And you just baked something delicious. I dont think it's an atmospheric or anything, it's clearly very food smelling, but it's beautiful. It's strong for an oil too, i can smell it all day, into the next day, and everyone else will smell it too. It's sweet, spicy, has depth, and is ideal for me. I do not smell any Fir. Moon:(smoked vanilla, frankincense, Peru balsam, labdanum, amber, vetiver, Atlas cedarwood, patchouli, and night musk. ) So, i was very much looking forward to this one, and on first sniff i was almost horrified by it lol. It was sharp and almost astringent smelling. However, once it dries, i seriously love it too (that's going to get annoying to hear probably, but i love most of the scents i got.) The tree smells go so well with the smoked vanilla, and the frankincense and patchouli give it sort of a sexy smell. It's slightly sweet when it dries, but very incensey and sexy. I am not great at describing smells it turns out lol. Aziraphale:(marshmallow-topped hot cocoa, rice, wool, crêpes, leather-bound antique books, and old, wooden bookcases. ) This is going to be my least positive review, and im very sorry for that. Opening it just now to re-sniff it to jog my memory gave me in instant headache. I only smell the leather in this. Heavy, strong, overbearing leather. When i first got this i wore it and i had to shower and take off all my clothes, and showering didn't even fully get rid of the smell. It made me so nauseous. It's stuck in my computer wrist rests (it's mostly gone now). It's OVERWHELMING. i don't get any notes other than leather , other than maybe burning. If you're into that, go for this. My eyes are watering right now in a bad way. Gold Skulltulla:(golden amber, cardamom, vanilla orchid, vanilla bean, tonka, myrrh. ) Well, this has every note i love lol. This is a lighter, sweeter version of Leopardite to my nose. I love it, but i don't think i needed both. It disappears on me quickly, unfortunately. It's so beautiful, and it does have some things that make it unique however, like the slight slight floral smell. It certainly brings a brightness. I realized i will love any perfume with cardamom , vanilla, myrrh, or amber. Morphine:(steamed milk, lavender buds, honeyed apricots, chamomile tea, honey, white amber.) I love this one so much, especially for sleeping. It's sweet from the amber and honey, herbal from the chamomile and lavender, and has body from the amber. This really is a beautiful scent. If anyone is disappointed about lavender london fog getting the 86, they should try a sample of this. I might try to craft a drink that tastes like how this smells lol. I wish i had a room/linen smell of this. Moonstone:(argent ambre, night-blooming jasmine, evening air accord, lunar musk. ) I really like jasmine a lot, so of course i had to have this. It isn't particularly exciting, but it's very nice. It's very cool smelling. It is clean, fresh and a lot more "mainstream" smelling than a lot of what i normally pick. I can't wait for the weather to start warming up some, because i think i'll be wearing this very frequently. Rose Quartz:(rose bud, pink grapefruit, passionfruit, cream soda, pink bubblegum, raspberry mimosa accord, pink pepper. ) This pulls very heavy grapefruit on me, and for that i am thankful for. I love grapefruit! It reminds me of my best friend in high school. I get the rose on dry down, and perhaps some raspberry mimosa, but my rookie nose doesn't get much else. I honestly thing this perfume screams "pink". Okay, so i got two free samples (i had two orders), and they were Sucre Bleu(A veritable sweet-shop explosion: pink gumballs, Juicy Fruit gum, gummy bears, Pop Rocks, rainbow candy-coated popcorn, Skittles, caramel chews, Twinkies, marshmallow Peeps, red licorice whips, Sour Patch Kids, caramel corn, Smarties, cotton candy, waffle cone, peachy gummy rings, jawbreakers, candy corn, gummy cola bottles. ), and Red Musk(Eastern temple resins and spices, rose, pepper, sandalwood. Simultaneously clean AND sexy/dirty. ). Sucre bleu reminds me of un-vaped vape juice, the kind you get in a big squirt bottle for a mod. I don't vape anymore, but i actually really like this smell lol. It just smells like candy! slighty creamy, VERY sweet. Not sure i'd wear it much, but im not mad about getting it lol. Weirdly comforting. Red musk is kind of the opposite, it is very sexy. They were right to describe it as dirty and clean at the same time. It's so cool how that works. It smells like incense, spices and wood. I might get a big one of this. If sucre bleu is a kid going HAM in a sweet shop, then Red Musk is whatever you view as a hot person, picking out incense in a hippie shop, for a date later where they know theyre gonna be fucking. My ajevie samples were as follows: Old Scratch - blackstrap molasses, bourbon, pumpkin pie, candied ginger. This is ginger molasses on me! also smells like.. butterscotch? I do get a hint of bourbon, but i wouldn't call this boozy. more like cooked bourbon frosting. Butterbeer - sweet, golden, drippy butterscotch, rich vanilla ice cream, hot buttered rum. THIS is butterscotch lol! Very sweet and heavy. I also get the rum, but again more like a rum butterscotch sauce for the ice cream. This smells the way the melted stuff at the bottom of an ice cream bowl with hot butterscotch sauce would smell. Lavender London Fog - earl grey tea, steamed milk, vanilla, lavender simple syrup. I prefer morphine to this. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but morphine has way more body and is a little more interesting. For some reason something smells a little sour here. Blue Moon- blue musk, grapefruit, neroli, night air accord, lime peel. I haven't given this one a fair shot, because the citrus is kind of overwhelming for me. The lime in particular i guess. It isn't bad, but i am not sure i'm ready for such a bright fragrance right now. If you love citrus, this is for you. Santal- sandalwood incense, golden sandalwood, Mysore wood accord, vanilla sandalwood. I like this, It's sandalwood, what's not to like lol. It's kind of faint on me sadly, and my skin eats it quickly. Maybe better to layer with. Santal Vanille- sandalwood incense, golden sandalwood, Mysore wood accord, vanilla sandalwood, marshmallow fluff, vanilla bean extract. This is a very creamy, pretty scent. I prefer this to the Santal, because the marshmallow and vanilla bring out the sandalwood and compliment it very nicely. If i had to choose between the two, i would most certainly choose this one. However, Leaporadite was my favorite sandalwood scent from them out of the ones i got. I am glad i didn't blindly FS this one tbh. So, if you read that, thank you lol. I really like Hex scents for the most part. I will likely not buy any with leather notes however, because it seems it gives me a massive headache. If anyone has any questions let me know, lol.
It’s been a rough year for a lot of people and who knows what 2021 will bring. I’m no professional, but I’ve learned a thing or two over the years from practice and from working in a bakery that might help some of you that are considering gifting baked goods next year, so here we go. The only thing I buy on sale after Christmas would be Christmas themed dessert/treat bags since now I just bake cookies for everyone since in the long run it's much cheaper than spending $50+ per person. Last year I got some on sale for 0.50 as opposed to $1-$2. If you decide to bake cookies and have a lot of family members... find out what cookies they like and buy butter whenever there's a good sale and keep in the freezer. To not overwhelm yourself by making all the cookies on the same day, make 1-2 cookie doughs throughout the week of that month and then freeze till you need to bake them. If you didn't shape the dough into balls beforehand let the dough thaw just enough to pull apart and shape into balls, place on a baking sheet and bake for the required time. Waaay less stressful than spending all day making a bunch of different cookies from start to finish. I prefer baking also because I know they'll enjoy it/possibly get excited for it. Buying gifts for people you never know if they'll actually use it or just donate/regift to someone, which would make me upset tbh since I thought of them when buying it and I wasted money on them and they didn’t appreciate it. So you wanna bake cookies for multiple people but don’t have much time... Cookie dough can be made ahead of time and frozen till needed. The two methods I do are either to wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and freeze it as a brick. When I need to bake cookies I take the cookie dough out and let it thaw for a few mins on the counter till I can pull it apart and shape into balls, then arrange them on a baking sheet and bake for the amount of time needed. The second method is to measure out the dough into balls, and freeze them on a parchment paper lined plate or a tray lined with parchment paper. Once frozen you can store them in a ziplock bag, box or in in Tupperware, and then place on a baking sheet and bake for the amount of time needed. There is no need to let the dough completely thaw. By freezing the dough balls beforehand it keeps them from sticking to each other, which can then lead to them breaking unevenly when trying to pull them apart. It’s a headache and a waste of time that you might not have. If a recipe calls for sour cream and you only have plain Greek yogurt then you can substitute it for the Greek yogurt, and vice versa. This will change the moisture level/texture of your baked good so do so at your own risk...you'll still end up with a yummy cookie or bread but it won't be the same as the original recipe end result. Greek yogurt, sour cream or vegetable oil can make for a more moist muffin/cake. If a recipe calls for brown sugar but you only have white sugar, you can substitute it for white sugar, and vice versa. (There's a bit of discourse about this in the comments. I only do this if I run out of a certain sugar without realizing. You'll still end up with a yummy cookie or muffin, but the texture and moisture will be different compared to the original recipe. My argument would be to experiment and if it works, it works. Research yourself if you can replace certain sugars for your cakes, muffins, etc). Some essential accessories you should have if you’re planning to bake and you're a beginner: -Baking sheets -Parchment paper or if you can splurge a bit, silicone baking mats (so you don’t have to waste money on parchment paper) -An ice cream scooper (with the little lever). So much easier to measure out your cookie dough with one of these and the lever makes it easier to get the dough out of the scoop. -Silicone spatula (can be bought at dollar tree—Betty Crocker brand). Great for scraping cake batter completely from the bowl -Measuring cups/ Measuring spoons. Just make sure that the measurements can’t be rubbed off the utensils because then it’ll be difficult to tell which is which (This tends to happen with dollar tree brand measuring spoons—get them elsewhere). I frequent Dollar Tree whenever I’m near one and there are 4 things I buy there when I don’t need it in bulk because I don’t use it too much, or have since bought at Costco because I use it so much now. If you have a dollar store near you, you should not be paying more than $1 for these items: -powdered sugar Only worth it if you don’t use it much. If you’re planning to make a lot of cakes, then just buy in bulk from Costco or buy the bigger bag from the supermarket. -canned pineapple I use canned pineapple for carrot cake and even pour in some of the juice into the batter. The leftover pineapple juice I use to make a drink. -brown sugar **store in an airtight glass jar. Have any glass pasta sauce jars you’re tossing? Wash it very well and let it dry. Smell the jar. Still smells like sauce? Wash it again and the smell should be gone unless you had a garlic/pickle infused jar...then don’t use that jar. You don’t need mason jars to store dry ingredients. You already paid for the tomato sauce jar. Use it. -parchment paper: ***NOT WAX PAPER. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Putting wax paper in the oven will cause the paper to catch fire. No one wants to deal with the fire dept so close to the holidays. If you plan to bake a lot of cookies through next year then either get some parchment paper (which can be reused a few times) or splurge and get a silicone baking mat. Reusable and lasts literal years. There are affordable ones on Amazon, but I got mine from HomeGoods 5 years ago and sometimes use them for roasting vegetables in the oven as well. Usually when it comes to baking the two most expensive ingredients to buy for the first time are extracts (usually vanilla) or additives like nuts or dried berries. I personally find vanilla extract to be a must for baking, but it is pretty pricey, especially depending on where you live. It’s ok to start using cheap vanilla or even fake vanilla (which is the cheapest). Most people can’t really tell the difference in taste between real and fake. I started off with using a bottle of Mexican vanilla I found at Walmart for 0.99 (Molina Mexican Vanilla Blend) and have found it at the ethnic grocery store for 2.99 and at the time it worked just fine for me as I learned. Vanilla never goes bad (even with the ‘best by’ date, so you can keep it for literal years. I have since upgraded to a 8.99 vanilla from Trader Joe’s that I’m happy with and now use the Molina Mexican Vanilla for my French toast batter. If you don’t want to bake cookies, you can bake loaves of bread or even make your own jam! During the summer if you find strawberries or blueberries at a really good price, buy a few containers, wash them well and then freeze them for a few months till needed. Jam can be made with fresh or frozen fruit. As long as you somewhat sterilize the jar, jam should keep in the fridge for up to a year. Banana jam is the cheapest in my opinion because I can get a large amount of bananas from Costco for less than $2. If you know anyone that has kids I’m sure they wouldn’t be opposed to receiving homemade jam to use for a PB&J sandwich or to use on some toast (it can even be used for linzer cookies). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62iSrXQHhUA&ab_channel=OnePotChefShow Challah bread goes from $4-$6 in the supermarket, but you can bake your own loaf for less than $1 if you already have the ingredients. My family loves when I make Hokkaido milk bread (similar to challah—but fluffier and a bit sweeter) because on Sundays I use the whole loaf to make French toast for my family. You think challah French toast is yummy? You need to try Hokkaido milk bread French toast! Here is the video I used as reference, and if you make more than one loaf, you can either slice the whole thing before freezing so the person you’re gifting it to can keep it in the freezer and grab a slice when needed, or just freeze the entire loaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvmHqkvhzuA&t=440s&ab_channel=emmymadeinjapan Another recipe that’s cheap to make is Italian biscotti (nuts and dried fruit are pricey, but buying chocolate chips in bulk or just making anise biscotti are the cheaper options) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2odwIl34Q_I&t=418s&ab_channel=FoodWishes If you have rolled oats in your pantry for when you make oatmeal, then you might have everything to make my favorite oatmeal raisin cookies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdUCcdu7iUs&t=2s&ab_channel=BiggerBolderBaking And here is a dairy free chocolate cake (no eggs, butter or milk) that even someone with allergies can most likely enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86o4gUPqVKU&t=43s&ab_channel=JennyCanCook If you want to keep it dairy free for the frosting then just sift together some powdered sugar and cocoa powder and add a tsp of water or alternative milk at a time till the desired consistency. And here are copycat Starbucks blueberry muffins that are cheaper and yummier (they freeze well if you can’t eat a whole batch within a few days) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiVrLY6OkOc&ab_channel=SimplyYummy If you have any baking questions or any questions in general I am more than happy to answer them to the best of my knowledge!
Hi all,I decided to do this on Monday morning, so Sunday is re-created from memory. Background info Me: 30s, F, married, child-free, work remotely (even before COVID) as an accounting consultant, spouse is substantially disabled so I am primary "responsible party" at home My health/fitness: I have been overweight my whole adult life, obese the vast majority of it. Currently a little over 15 lbs down from my highest-ever weight, need to lose another 85 lbs at least, maybe more. I built a lot of muscle through my teen years (lived on a farm, not much beats farm work for building a body!) and would love to build on that to increase muscle mass and decrease fat mass! However, I haven't worked out regularly in over a year, so need to take "baby steps" before I get to big ones. You'll see a couple references to my workout DVDs that are lost in the mail. They were supposed to deliver Monday of this diary, so I thought I'd have those workouts to talk about, but as of Sunday morning when I'm posting this, they're still "In Transit, Arriving Late" according to USPS tracking. So, workouts are lacking since I really wanted to do this program instead of pick up something random. Meal prep: Prior to starting this diary, I had prepped in the fridge:
10 sausages (each 180 cal/12g protein, so would expect this to be 5 meals)
4 thin/small chicken breasts (small enough to again be 2 for a meal most likely)
roasted brussel sprouts
roasted sweet potatoes
boiled eggs (7 or 8)
baby carrots
Note, I meal prep, I do not meal plan. This works better for us. Our days are too varied for a plan to be easy to follow; I might not feel like cooking a big dinner on the day that has a big dinner listed. However, versatile meal prep items are always helpful! Also I usually have more meal prepped before a week starts, this is a weird week in many ways. Format Since standard format is still TBD, I've included a summary at the start of each day, with a quick synopsis of the areas I'm trying to focus on (logging food/overall calorie intake, exercising, and weight). If you're looking for the synopsis, just scan those parts and feel free to ignore the rest! Also, I've borrowed some of the Money Diaries style, so have bolded calories and workout notes (like the people who bold any monetary transactions). Last but not least, I really struggling with writing in the present tense (too many school assignments that required past tense!), so this may not flow like most diaries. Sorry! Sunday
Morning Weight: 254.4
Calories: ~1950 (not logged, re-created with estimates)
Workout: None
6:15 am: Woke up super rested (went to bed a little after 6 pm!), chatted with spouse in bed, then got up to play some video games. 8 am: Couple games later, I decided it was time to be productive. Goal for the day was to take care of my side business and to clean out the downstairs (part of a major organizational project we're in the middle of); I was tackling one area a day over the weekend, and was down to one area! 8:30 am: Every time I bent over to grab something, my head got dizzy and I felt generally unwell (muscles fatiguing easily etc.). Decided to eat breakfast (usually don't eat till lunch), grabbed a sausage and boiled egg (from "meal prep" supplies), logged both in Cronometer and planned out some ideas for the rest of the day's meals to stay in guidelines. That meal of fat/protein didn't help with the head/muscle issues, so decided I needed some quick sugar, and grabbed a cup of OJ. That didn't help, either, so from here, I kinda went crazy. I didn't feel well and was ravenously hungry. I didn't eat much on Saturday (planned to eat a big dinner, then fell asleep, so was just at 800 cal total for Saturday), so thought maybe my muscles needed more energy? I ate a couple more sausages, a few bites of ice cream, some brussel sprouts, and probably some other things I've forgotten. This food was not logged; it felt too primal of an urge to eat to take the time to log, but that's no excuse. 9:30 or 10: Food didn't help, but the light-headedness impeded my ability to be productive, so decided to put off the house projects. Twisted my back, too, so combined with the general unwell feeling, decided to just take it easy for the day! 10:30 or 11: Spouse was ready for a meal, and I was still super hungry, so I decided to make a light chicken soup to eat while my spouse ate something heartier. While my pre-cooked chicken breast heated with some frozen corn and a bit of water, I decided that cheesy chicken broccoli soup sounded good, and my planned light chicken/veggie soup turned into a heavy pot of cheese with a couple additives. Oops. My rough mental calculations showed it more than filled my calories, so I decided to be done eating for the day. Spouse and I picked the video games back up, my hope was my back would chill after a couple hours. 3 pm: Put away the games and pulled out my client work for my side business. I have a couple clients who I owe work back to this weekend (my clients know I have a full-time primary job and work on my business only on weekends) due to calendar year-end and tax prep. 6 pm: Work finished, time to relax before bed! Spouse started a fire in our fireplace while I was working, so we sat in front of the fire for a couple hours, listening to music and chilling. These quiet times together are something I really enjoy! 8 pm: Super tired, so I head to bed. My life is way too exciting, I know! Monday
Morning Weight: 257.4
Calories: 1,227
Workout: Yoga approx. 25 minutes
6 am: Wake up; restroom, weigh myself, and plop in front of my computer. Weight is up almost 4 lbs from yesterday (originally weighed as 258; bowel movement later brought it down to 257.4) and it doesn't feel justified. Struggling to wake up, so browsing the internet for a bit... Came across the Fit Diaries sign up list, decided to sign up, and saw this week was open! So signed up, hopefully this will help me stay on task this week! My workout DVD's (program I streamed before, decided to buy) are supposed to arrive today (though I later found out they're delayed, delivery TBD), hopefully I'll keep up with the workouts too! 7 am: Started yesterday's diary; showered; made coffee (instant cause it's a struggle morning), and decided to grab a sausage to reduce the risk of a repeat of yesterday's weird issues Meal total: 180 (Side note: I don't log my coffee creamer. I've found that small concessions improve my consistency and *not* trying to weigh creamer first thing in the morning is one that works for me! I just know I have 50-100 calories of creamer not accounted for. I think if you're honest with yourself, and know where your limits are, concessions are OK. I know the color my coffee should be, pretty confident I'm not over-eating too much on the creamer side of things.) 8 am: Time for work! Log in, check out emails/Teams notifications/etc. from Friday, and try to get my head in gear for the week. It's a rare day without meetings, so planning to be productive on my to-do list! 12:30 noon: Struggled to focus this morning (it's been a recurring issue), but...it's lunch time! I bought some fresh salmon the other day (rare treat for me!), decided to roast it up with some asparagus (also not something I buy often). Once that was cooked, I added some roasted sweet potato and other items from my "meal prep" stock (sweet potato, mushrooms, baby carrots, and some vinaigrette). Since the oven was hot from lunch, I put the rest of the asparagus and a bag of frozen broccoli on a sheet pan then into the oven to roast while I eat ("mini meal prep"?). Then back to work! Meal total: 522 calories 2 pm: One of my coworkers offers a virtual yoga class a couple times a week. My PiYo workout DVD's are delayed in the mail, so I made a point to join yoga so I get a workout in while waiting for my PiYo! (I know there's YouTube etc. available, but "live" yoga is better for accountability!) Once yoga was finished, back to work! 6:15 pm: Worn out from the work day, really don't care about dinner at this point. Not sure why today was so exhausting, it just was "one of those days". These are the moments that my meal prep helps a lot; there's no way I'd cook a decent dinner right now (not even my easy salmon/asparagus from lunch), but with my meal prep items ready, I can just pick, weigh, and make a plate! Tonight's plate has chicken breast, sweet potato, brussel sprouts, broccoli, boiled egg, sliced onion, and applesauce. All except the apple sauce and boiled egg were heated up in the microwave (often I just eat it cold, but wanted hot food tonight...). Last-minute I decided to mix some cinnamon and a single packet of sweetener into the apple sauce and treat it like dessert! (Then ate part of my dinner, got a phone call, got distracted, and didn't come back for the sweet potato or brussel sprouts; both are removed from the calorie total below.) Meal total: 525 calories 7 pm: Spouse went to bed early and my back was better, so I decided to spend an hour or two on the organizational project that I wasn't able to do on Sunday 2 am: I spent longer than I should've on my project, then was hyped up and couldn't sleep, so it was about 2 am before I fell asleep. I'm way too much of a sleep addict for this schedule! Tuesday
Morning Weight: 255.7
Calories: 1457
Workout: None
7:30 am: I slept as late as possible to still be ready for work. Video meetings today, so shower and basic makeup were mandatory! I wasn't feeling like coffee this morning, so instead made some hot cocoa (plus a few instant coffee crystals to make it mocha), then sat down to start the work day. Meal total: 50 calories 12:30 noon: Meetings ran into lunch time a bit, so no cooking today. Instead grabbed several items from my meal prep and made a plate: sausage, boiled egg, bread and butter pickles, baby carrots, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted broccoli, raw mushrooms, and ranch dressing. While eating, I answered some questions from staff and updated this diary, then back to work! Meal total: 690 calories 4:45 pm: Mail call! My mom loves to bake for the holidays, and I just received a holiday box from her. In prior years, I've usually eaten all the goodies she sends within 24 hours of receiving the box and just considered it a holiday splurge. Today, I took a minute before opening to think things through and commit to myself to *not* eat it all at once. Eat some, but keep it reasonable. 5:30 pm: It's intriguing to witness the pull of bad food. Every 5-10 minutes, I'm almost successful at convincing myself to go downstairs and get just one cookie. Any other day, I wouldn't even be thinking about food at this time of day (even though it's near dinner, my focus is usually on trying desperately to get work finished for the day). Something to reflect on later when I get some time for introspection! 7 pm: Work complete! I bought a pork roast over the weekend which is near expiration, so need to cook it, but waiting ~45 minutes for dinner doesn't sound good. So, cookies and protein shake for dinner, while pork roasts with some carrots, apples, and cucumbers, to be eaten another day. Cronometer has a "sugar cookies homemade" option that I'm going to use to estimate the calories from my mom's homemade cookies. Meal total: 716 calories 9 pm: Time for bed! Stopped by the kitchen to put the roast in the fridge, couldn't help grabbing a couple shortbread cookies. Meal total: 176 calories Wednesday
Morning Weight: 256.3
Calories: 841
Workout: Yoga approx. 25 minutes
6 am: Rise and shine! Weight is up 0.6 lbs today, which doesn't make sense, especially since Sunday morning I was 2 lbs less than today. My weight fluctuates like crazy and it drives me bonkers! Oh well, not worth obsessing over. Think I'm going to make real coffee today instead of instant! Meetings (on video) start promptly at 8 am today, but I woke up early enough that I still have time for coffee. Of course, Christmas cookies are great dunked in coffee, so "had" to grab a couple cookies, then added a sausage to include some protein & fat in my breakfast. Meal total: 359 calories 11 am: Just a brief break between meetings today (quick rant: I hate when people schedule meetings over lunch time!), so portioned out some of the pork roast and veggies that I cooked last night then threw in the microwave to heat. Meal total: 482 calories 2 pm: Virtual yoga with the work group again! I regularly did yoga a year or so ago, then stopped for awhile, and I lost sooo much flexibility. Enjoying doing yoga again and getting some back!7:30 pm: Work done, finally. I really want to eat some things I shouldn't be eating (like ice cream), but have no appetite for healthy food, so suppose that means I don't need to eat. Instead, I'll get some water, and probably head to bed. 8:30 pm: Heading to bed, time to get some sleep to help out tomorrow! Thursday
Morning Weight: 255.2
Calories: 1622
Workout: None
6 am: Start of another day! Slept well last night and woke up before my alarm, always a good start. Grabbed some coffee and sat down for a round of Reddit and internet in general before work starts.8 am: Work time! Not too many meetings today, but enough to keep me bouncing. 11:30 am: Lunch time! More of the pork pot roast from the other day (pork loin, cucumber, carrots, apples). I'm loving these pot roasted cucumbers, never knew how good they could be! I included the broth from cooking on my plate today, so once it heats up, I can soak a couple pieces of bread in it. Mmmm. Meal total: 540 calories 2 pm: FedEx delivery; I can use my bread maker again! Of course I had to pop in a loaf to cook really quickly. I love fresh homemade bread, but have always made it manually, which takes a lot of time. Got a bread maker for Christmas and I'm loving the ability to have fresh hot homemade bread with minimal effort! 5 pm: Still working, but the bread is done, so quick break to slice off a big thick slice and slather it in butter. Diet friendly? No, but if it's tracked, it's OK, right? Meal total: 503 calories 7 pm: Work is done, time for dinner, but that bread "snack" has me pretty full! Short on protein, though, so I'll grab one of those sausages and a boiled egg. [Then my spouse had some extra fries from his dinner, and who can resist extra fries? I didn't weigh/measure these, so estimated generously instead.] Meal total: 578 calories 8 pm: Bedtime Friday
Morning Weight: 256.1
Calories: 3,066
Workout: None
7:15 am: I'm quite un-amused at my weight this week. I have been under-eating, and not even really hungry, and my weight has gone up. That's simply not fair. :| I have before, though, had times that I was eating too little, and eating a bit more has reset and caused a "woosh", so maybe this is a good day to try loosening up a bit and eating what I want, fewer reservations. 8 am: Grocery run! I end up stopping at a couple stores locally and spending about $150 total, which is right on budget for us. I buy supplies for meal prep for next week (no more sausages; they were tasty, but a little too fatty and processed for my normal routine!) as well as some snacks for the weekend, some take-n-bake pizza, etc. 9:30 am: While putting away groceries, I eat a nonfat blueberry yogurt that I bought today, and also the last 2 boiled eggs. Before looking at the nutrition facts, I thought the yogurt would be pretty balanced between carbs and protein, which I have found works best for my breakfasts (I know, you couldn't tell from reading the rest of this diary, but it does!), but once I started eating it and looked, it's way higher in carbs than protein. Guess I've been using plain yogurt so long I forgot how bad flavored was! So added the eggs to boost protein a bit, which boosts fats too, and ended up with pretty even grams of each of the 3 macro's in this quick breakfast. Meal total: 230 calories 10:30 am: Doing some housework, which means still hanging around the kitchen/living room/dining room area, which is dangerous. That combined with my original plan to increase calories a bit today leads to snacking. Over the next couple hours, I eat some summer sausage, the last of my meal prepped sausages, a fortune cookie, and a donut (Entenmann's Devil's Food donuts; they're delicious!). Meal total: 661 calories 1:00 pm: We light a fire in our fireplace and sit down to relax for a bit. I love these times; such great mental health time, to just veg for a bit. We turn on some music and stare into the flames, maybe chat a bit, maybe just enjoy the silence. I realize my eating is on a rough path today, so try to make one last "real meal" to offset the snacking and make an end to the day: I mix up a quick 3-bean salad (canned wax beans, canned green beans, canned great northern beans, with a simple EVOO/vinegasalt/pepper dressing). Once mixed up, I eat this sitting in front of the fire; very filling for the amount of calories! Full of nutrients, too. Meal total: 578 calories 3:00 pm: If that was the end of the day's food diary, we'd be good, but it's not. After a couple hours of fire time, my spouse is ready to eat, and has had his eye on one of those take-n-bake pizzas. While I get that cooking, I decide to have a bologna sandwich with the bread maker bread and some bologna I picked up at the store. Then my spouse has extra pizza, and I eat some of that too. Human garbage disposal is NOT the way to get fit, but that excuse of "I'm trying to increase my calories some today" is all I need to justify it to myself. Meal total: 1,597 (yes, this "extra" meal alone is more than most other days on this diary) 6:30 pm: Ready to call it a night. I think we switched to playing video games around 4 pm, so got a solid couple hours in, but I'm tired, so might as well catch up on some sleep! Saturday
Morning Weight: 259.4
Calories: About 1700+
Workout: None
5:30 am: Early to bed makes early to rise! No reason to be awake this early, except for that I went to bed so early. Too early to really get up and do much yet, though, so good time for ebooks on my phone while I enjoy snuggling in the covers. 7 am: I decide to get up and spouse wakes up about the same time, too. Our shower has been having an issue, so I try a suggestion that a plumber gave me (he didn't have time to fix it, was booked up for awhile, but suggested something to try in the meantime). While I try it out, my spouse heads down to water our indoor plants, and then hollers up to me to turn off the water, it's causing a leak downstairs. Uh-oh.... (At some point during this, I grabbed the other yogurt I'd bought - Yoplait Mixed Berry - and then a quick sandwich with the last of the roasted pork loin.) Meal total: 537 calories 10 am: Three hours later, we've cut a couple plumbing access holes in the drywall, tinkered around a bit, and everything seems to be working. What's unnerving though is that we didn't actually do anything that should've fixed it, but we're thinking there was some sort of blockage that cleared out from something we did. Still though it's weird to be leaking through a floor to the downstairs, then after 3 hours of monkeying around, have no more issues. Not sure I trust it, but we'll see.11 am: Finally showered and ready for the real day! Time to start some laundry and some gaming. (I promise if this wasn't middle of winter, you'd see us do more than just game!) I didn't keep up with times and details, but after the frustrating weight vs. calories earlier in the week, I'm really struggling to stay dedicating to logging my food and to "eating right". Instead I eat 2 packages of graham crackers (2/3 of a box) over the course of the next several hours, as well as...[TBD - trying to remember what else I ate, guess I'll update this if I remember. :D ] Did you know, though, that 2 packages of graham crackers has 17g of protein in it? I never would've guessed! Meal total: at least 1130 calories, more is TBD 9 pm: I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, so off to bed! It's been a great day just spending time with my spouse. I can't pretend that spending 3 hours playing with plumbing was really planned for the day, but was still good time together, and the rest of the day was nearly perfect, too. Overall Reflections This week, I realized that there's many times I'm "hungry" but not for healthy food. This has been gaining notice as I've had a variety of "meal prep" items ready for characturie style board at any time. I used to think sometimes I got tired of my meal prepped food (I'd do something like 2 pots of soup for the week, so easy to get tired of those 2 flavors!), but now that I see it with a wide range of flavors, I'm realizing it's not about being tired of the meal prepped food, but simply wanting something "bad". I feel more able to say "If I don't want my prepped food, I must not be hungry", now that I recognize variety isn't the problem. I'm ashamed of how minimal my workouts were this week. I kept blaming it on expecting my DVD's to arrive any day, but I have YouTube and other DVDs, that's really no excuse.As always, my problem is consistency, and that's where I need to focus! On the bright side, though, it was a great week for mental and emotional health, just not too stellar for physical health.
I don't know if this idea has ever been proposed before, but here's a simple idea for a mini-game for alchemy labs : you have different ingredients (the more alchemy labs you have, the more ingredients you have) and a brewing stand or something like that and you would make potions that you could use for giving golden cookie effect (with a chance for a wrath cookie effect). You can put one to three ingredients at a time in the alchemy lab, and you have multiple otions : cooking, fermenting, or other actions. You can put three ingredients max, and do only 3 actions, it makes a lot of possibilities. On the side would be a guide for a few possible recipes for starter. So for example, you could put cocoa and milk, and ferment that, then you could add butter and cook it, so you have used three ingredients, so you can only do a single last action with all that, like cook it another time and it would give a potion that would multiply base cps by two for 15 seconds. You would have 3 slots where potions would go (you could buy more slots with sugar lumps) and use it whenever you want. Because I've heard orteil likes more mini-games which are passive, or on the long term. So we could make that fermentation/cooking would last a long time. You can guess this is inspired by minecraft, it's only a suggestion, so I'm open to criticism.
Strategic Dirty Bulking: How To Phase "Dirt" Into The Diet
Hello once again Gainers, INTRO: WHAT IS A REAL DIRTY BULK I’m going to hate myself for using terms I can’t stand, but in the context of today, it works. When discussing “dirty bulking”, it needs to be understood that we’re going to use that phase in the way that actually makes sense: eating “dirty food”. Dirty food would be food that isn’t considered clean. If you don’t know what clean food is, you’re being a petulant child, because the rest of us get it: clean food is food we understand to be healthful. When you think “bodybuilder in the last 6 weeks of prep”, you’re thinking clean foods. Chicken breasts, lean fish, green veggies, plain white rice, sweet potatoes, etc. Dirty foods are those things we understand to be NOT healthful: fast food, pizza, high fat meats, refined carbs, etc etc. The idea that a dirty bulk is a bulk where you get fat and a clean bulk is one where you don’t is just stupid: the latter is a lean bulk, the former is just getting fat. Ok, all that established, often times, one starts out a weight gain phase (god I hate the word “bulk”/”bulking”) with the best of intentions as far as maintaining a healthful approach goes, but, eventually, they hit a stall. You can only stomach so much food at a pop, and healthful food tends to be healthful BECAUSE it’s low in calories as a result of being low in superfluous macronutrients. A chicken breast is almost pure protein compared to a ribeye steak, which is almost equal parts fat and protein. An apple, though “heavy” in sugar, also has lots of fiber that can counteract if you’re a net-carb kinda guy: apple pie filling, not so much. You get the point. Sometimes, in the pursuit of weight gain, it becomes necessary to loosen up on the clean aspect of the diet and allow some dirt in for the sake of fostering weight gain. HOWEVER, eating dirty is way too easy. The majority of Americans do that (other countries too I’m sure). It’s too easy to get down a rabbit hole on this and end up wallowing in candy bar rappers and empty ice cream tubs. A smart lifter is going to understand that there are phases to adding dirt to the diet, and that strategy must be employed in order to have a successful weight gain phase without getting stupid with it. That having been understood, I’m going to outline the ways I’ll sneak dirt into my diet as I gain weight, and my thought process behind it. This is going to focus primarily on nutrition around the time of training, as I find that to be the most critical window to manipulate. It’s pretty easy to add dirt to the rest of your diet, but here we’re going to employ some strategy. Keep in mind once again that my default approach to nutrition is low-carb, so some of the things I consider to be dirt may just be the way you eat already. IN PRACTICE POST WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 1
There are enough nutritional studies out there that say you can pretty much eat as many simple carbs as you want post workout that it’s definitely something worth taking advantage of when your goal is weight gain. If you’re coming out this super clean, you could add some dried fruit and honey post workout and easily ratchet up an extra few hundred carbs. However, many in the bodybuilding scene sing the praises of processed breakfast cereals instead, and I find rice based ones in particular go down VERY smoothly post workout. Rice crispies, cocoa crispies, fruity pebbles and cocoa pebbles all make fine choices. You can put them in a shake and drink them, OR you can pour cereal in a bowl, put protein powder on top, pour milk on it, mix it all together and eat it with a spoon. Start out with just a cup of breakfast cereal for phase 1.
POST WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 2
Ok, the cereal is a given now. Add the fruit to the mix as well. I liked frozen blueberries myself, but raisins and bananas are a classic staple. Now we can up the dose of the cereal to 1.5 cups if we like. I also like to add fat free greek yogurt into the mix at this point OR you could forego the milk entirely and just make it into a parfait with the greek yogurt. However, if you do that, you need a lot of greek yogurt, because now you’ve taken away from the mixture, and the goal here is calories. Mixing honey with it never worked for me, so I just take a spoonful or 2 of the stuff with the meal.
POST WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 3
I know we started off wanting simple carbs, but at one point you’re going through boxes of cereal, so I mix things up at this point and add in a packet of flavored oatmeal into the mix. Most companies still pack a lot of sugar into their flavored oatmeal, so you still get that, and then the carbs from the oatmeal too. I don’t cook it: I just let it settle into the milk/greek yogurt mixture. Also: whipped cream. Yeah, I just violated the low fat aspect of this too, but whipped cream is delicious, calorie packed, and really makes the whole mixture very palatable. The breakfast cereal is at 2 cups at this point, and you still have the fruit and protein powder. PBFit is a great addition at any point in this process, but now it should DEFINITELY be included, as it’s yet another way to get in some calories. At this point, your post workout meal is like a real meal. That’s when you know you’ve arrived.
PRE-WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 1
I genuinely don’t tend to eat a pre-workout meal unless I’m training first thin in the morning, so simply the inclusion of one is already getting things “dirty” for me. If I’m training first thing in the morning, I keep things very light, as I don’t like to train with a heavy gut. This morning, I had 2 hardboiled eggs (cage free/organic) and a quarter of a pumpkin spice sour cream donut from Crispie Cream. I’m in the VERY early phases of a weight gain cycle right now. Other times, I’ve done 2 girl scout thin mint cookies, two pieces of toast with a light smear of honey, wild blueberries with honey drizzled on them, etc. Already, some of that food is in the realm of dirty, but the portion sizes are so small I don’t swear them. I just don’t want to be totally fasted when I lift weights, but I have done it before and didn’t really suffer.
Other classics include a protein shake, protein bar, Finibars from Biotest (read my recent entry on Strongman on the Road to see my review on them as a product), or other similar, light items with some protein in them.
PRE-WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 2
Alright, we’ve knuckled down and the pre-workout meal is now a foregone conclusion: let’s make it an actual meal. You can’t get more classic than a PBJ: a Dan John favorite, and honestly, just a solid choice. You can go all out and make sure to get the natural peanut butter, Ezekiel bread and sugar free jelly to keep things on the healthier side. If you prefer to be like me and do the “no fats and carbs together” approach, this is another fine opportunity for stealing from the post workout nutrition. Cereal and protein powder, greek yogurt and protein powder, a protein shake with some honey toast, etc. I’ve also been experimenting with a high fat pre-workout meal, typically just heavy servings of nuts/nut betters, to include nut butter sandwiches on low/zero carb bread. Results have been solid so far.
PRE-WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 3
Say hello to your friend: the pop-tart. Now, technically, I’d be willing to say that ONE pop-tart pre-workout could be skirting the edge of phase 2, but come on: no one eats one pop-tart. They come in packages of 2: what’re you supposed to do with the other one? Put it in a ziplock so it doesn’t go bad before you get to it again? We’re eating both right now. 400 calories put down in seconds. Tons of sugar and carbs, minimal fat (you can even buy low fat pop-tarts), just the thing to spike your insulin before hitting the weights. If you want, you can combine pop-tarts with your other pre-workout meal ideas above to REALLY jack up the calories. Candy bars would work here too, depending on the composition, but I’d again go for stuff that is mostly carbs rather than heavy in fats. You’d skittles would be a good choice, but I find they require a LOT of chewing, and at this point in your bulk, you’re eating SO much that you wanna keep chewing to a minimum.
PRE-PRE WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 1
Let’s cop to this now: when you’re having pre-pre workout meals, you’re already pretty deep into the bulk. But if you’re trying to evolve from clean to fully dirty, you might implement this after phase 1 of the pre and post workout meals, but you could also wait until you reach phase 3 of those to do this. Adding extra meals is always a viable way to bump up calories.
In phase 1 of the pre-pre workout, we’re going to have a regular meal. I like to just make this leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. For me, that ends up being meat and veggies. For you, maybe that’s pasta, or some meat with rice and potatoes. You could also make this a second breakfast, and get some eggs, oatmeal, toast, etc. Just finding an opportunity to get in a whole other meal is going to go far toward helping gain weight, and those extra calories before a training session are also going to mean you’ll be able to REALLY push training hard. I’ve observed a direct correlation between how many meals are in me and how hard I can train, even if the time of day remains the same.
PRE-PRE WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 2
Time for a country breakfast. Get some pancakes, grits/hashbrowns, eggs, bacon, and toast. Still “good” food, but a lot of it. At this point in the diet, I’m so sick of cooking and cleaning I typically go out for this. Alternatively, bump up the portions of what you were eating in phase 1. This is a pretty easy intermediately phase.
PRE-PRE WORKOUT MEAL: PHASE 3
Frozen pizza time. I was eating the Quest brand frozen pizzas at the time because they were “healthier”. Make no mistake: you’re eating frozen pizza. It’s not good for you. But they’re stupidly easy to make and a Quest one packs around 700+ calories with a fair amount of protein. While it cooks, you can watch training videos and get excited for your next session. Eating one of these a day can get pricey, but that’s the cost of getting huge, which, at this point in your bulk, is your goal. I suppose you could also order a real pizza and eat half of it, but frozen was just more convenient for me. I’ve also made use of fast food drivethroughs at this point (Taco Bell has a fantastic breakfast spread) for a similar end. Some days, when I was feeling a bit less lazy, I'd do a 1lb+ ribeye steak. That's anabolic as hell.
Once again, it’s worth noting that this is about getting big and strong: not health. Please do not confuse this as advice for longevity. But this is what I did when I hit my best press ever, so it works for something.
Two Nerds Answer Your Questions: December Mailbox Edition
Hoi, it's TT and MA no one knows who MA is, just go with Meec dammit. It's TT and Meec this month answering the mailbox questions for the month of December may 2020 rest in pieces. For the sake of brevity, some prompts have been abbreviated. Let's dive right in. 1) This is Merc testing the mailbox, does it work? This is Meec, it does not. Yes. 2) Woo mailbox! -saint There, now it works. 3) hot cocoa recipe So, we got a few recipes in the mailbox? An unexpected surprise, but we got TT on it. The first recipe for a mug of hot cocoa read as follows:
2 tablespoons of cocoa
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/3 teaspoon maple syrup
dash salt
a cup and a half of hot milk
add marshmallows to taste
TT: I was a little worried this was going to be too sweet for me with so much sugar, but you know, this is a really nice, rich drink. With so much cocoa powder it’s even a little thick, which gave a nice mouthfeel. ...Didn’t really taste the maple syrup, unfortunately, so I’d recommend more of that. Or instead, a few drops of vanilla or a pinch of instant coffee powder in its place to enhance the chocolateyness. All in all, a lovely way to make yourself a quick mug of quality homemade hot cocoa! As an extra note: if you make this, pour a little of your hot milk into the mug at first, and tiny whisk it with the other ingredients thoroughly so you’ve got a slurry. It makes it easier to avoid lumps of powder when you stir the rest in. oh and I used oat milk. Probably should mention that. Drink oat milk. It’s so fucking good you guys. 4) peanut butter cookie recipe (it’s really good) (from ezra!!)
preheat oven to 350F
mix three tablespoons of peanut butter with two tablespoons of softened butter
add four tablespoons of white sugar
add one large egg yolk
add about a 1/2 teaspoon of maple syrup
mix well
SLOWLY add 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons flour. make sure not to get too much in there. you can do a little more or a little less.
mix in 1/4 teaspoon/a pinch baking soda
add a VERY SMALL dash of salt
mix well
scoop out batter balls about 2 inches in diameter and lay them on the baking tray. press them down with fork to make cool patters.
OPTIONAL: paint on some cocoa powder as a nice little finish
bake for 9-10 minutes. i recommend pulling them out whenever they look super soft so that you can let them finish cooking from the leftover heat outside of the oven. let sit for a few minutes, scoop onto a plate, get some milk and chocolates, and enjoy :)
TT: Next, there was this recipe for a mini-batch of peanut butter cookies. Presumably both submissions came from Ezra (thank you!). And might I add, I mean a mini batch when I say it: thanks to having mixed this up in my larger measuring cup, I can say with confidence that this made about a cup’s worth of cookie dough. Which I then divided into four to get the recommended cookie size (quite large), appropriately forked, then sprinkled two with cocoa powder because hey that’s something I’ve never tried before, and I like peanut butter and chocolate. It was a nice, easy to work cookie dough-not sticky at all, though maybe the slightest bit crumbly while I was pressing the balls down. I may be a horrible judge of size, but those big ol’ cookies did not want to bake in just ten minutes! I held out until about the 15 minute mark, when there were just the sliiightest hints of browning around the base to indicate doneness, then left the still soft cookies to finish on the hot tray. But once they had set, they were a lovely, soft and crumbly texture that dunked beautifully in oat milk! A good solid cookie, and two were more than enough for me (split them with the SO). The ones that were cocoa dusted didn’t quite taste chocolatey, but the powder toasted, and the toastiness is what was added in flavor. Not bad, but not the prime way to get some choco-peanut action going. However, we both agreed that while tasty cookies, they didn’t feel very potent in the peanut butter department. My guess is the lack of enhancing agents like vanilla or cinnamon (the maple just didn’t really shine through, sadly). I would try this recipe again with a dash of vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon. And if that still wasn’t enough (we.. we really like peanut butter), I’d experiment with subbing out one of the tablespoons of butter for another one of peanut butter. Or even playing with brown sugar in place of white, but that might upset the consistency of the dough.. Hmm. 5) Love you guys <3 Awwww! Warms the cold, dead depths of our hearts that this is the first proper thing out of the mailbox. We love you bastards, too. <3 6) Request for grass walking pass Huh. I’m looking around in all these drawers and forms… Not seeing one for grass walking permissions… I’d recommend walking on the bodies of those culled for trying to walk on the grass. As they hover above the grass once slain (in proper compliance with grass regulation), they form something of a safe path. 7) Any changes to character creation specializations? We already have a few changes in line, like simplifying Companion's words (no actual rules are changing, just shortening the words we need to express them). In the future, when the alchemy update drops, we'll redo that to fall in line with the new alchemy rules. And in the far future, we'll be introducing more. Or we would like to, as people have asked for more character creation options, and that’s what we worked this subsystem into 3e for. The crux of the problem is what to add. There’s a set of hurdles to jump to get a new first level spec. First, it needs to be something that works as an idea that would be exclusive to a character’s backstory (as opposed to something that could be a specialization earned in play). It needs to be unique enough that you couldn’t make it work under something that already exists. Then, it needs to be written up so that it has enough weight to make it equivalent mechanically to the other options. A question we find ourselves asking a lot is ‘is this worth losing a second weapon, or a fistful of skill points?’ The answer is often ‘no, lets try and find another place for this.’ 8) Bring back the bane plane, cowards. Meec: They got jokes, hu- TT: Done. 9) How's your day going? TT: Kinda cold and wet. Also the store seemed determined to be out of everything I needed to make dinner today. So I bought a duck. ...That’ll show ‘em? Meec: Work was uneventful, a bit of a pain with the new tax year rolling around. Do your taxes in accordance with all your local, state, and federal tax laws, kids. Bonus Becks: I'm cold. (author’s note: took the texan out of texas, surprise) 10) 2xshield says you can't block the same attack twice, but this is just worse than shieldkind and bonus block, and BB doesn't work with 2xshield either. What do. This is an oversight, we'll get it fixed. 2xshield's can't block same attack twice clause is a relic from when Block dice stacked. Since they don't stack now, we don't need to keep this clause around. Thanks for spotting it! And there it goes. Fixed. 11) Any opinions on scrapping called shots or making the bestiary without it? Not really, no. It's working well enough, or at least, well enough we haven't heard much negative about it. (Hint, if there’s a lot of you that think negatively about it, let us know so we can hear.) If you don't want it, you are free to take it out and play without; the most common snag you might have without this is when a player wants to, say, shoot something out of someone else's hand. A called shot provides them an easy way to do this. Without it, you'll want to figure out your own rules for how to do it. If the mechanic feels a bit overwhelming, it may help to think of it as that thing you basically ignore… until that one random situation where you do, and then look there’s a rule for that! 12) For the love of god please make a 3e character sheet walkthrough. Eventually, a 3e sheet video is the plan! But it’ll be an absolute assload of work to produce that video for us. Fun fact, we had most of the pieces for a 2e one (a nonjoke one, yes) that we never got around to finishing because… Well, we finished the first sharable version of 3e first, which put a damper on putting out conflicting 2e content. Which is why we’re waiting for now. We know 3e’s sheet isn’t exactly in it’s final state, and almost certainly will change and render any video we make obsolete and inaccurate… Again. For now, there is a really wonderful 3e Character Sheet Walkthrough made by calculatedTheatrics that, while not a video, we’d totally recommend until there is a video! 13) The way sylladices are now are really crippling for people who've no intent of weaponizing it. Wat do. We anticipated this, and we made the packrat option with you in mind, which strips the weaponized part of the sylladex in exchange for as many slots as we could reasonably justify. 70 slots is more than most players end up using over the course of their sessions anyhow. 14) What's the item size restriction for packrat? Another oversight, we'll get that clarified. But while we go fix that-Heavy(meaning items up to one size larger than the character) seems the appropriate weight to go with here. Packrat’s balanced to allow for… Well, item hoarding, and the ‘balance’ part of that equation is that it doesn’t pack much of a punch when weaponized. Which means yes, even a fridge ejected from a packrat modus will only do a single point of damage. The price you pay for carrying ridiculous amounts of stuff. Unfortunately, this is one of those things hardcoded into the character sheets, so we can’t retroactively fix sheets that already exist with this clarification. We are putting a section on sylladex types into the Primer soon, though, so there's that. 15) Have a nice day. You have no choice. TT: O-Oh. Meec: no u 16) Do a ko-fi or… pateron? We’ve discussed this in the past. ...Extensively, even. There would be a lot of things for us to handle if we ever wanted to monetize the development of RPGStuck, and frankly, we’re not interested in the headache right now. We’re okay with getting to treat this as something we work on recreationally because we want to, which is something that would fundamentally change if we accepted financial backers. Also, what would we spend the money on? We agreed that if we were to accept donations, they would be put back into the game somehow. We can't really do art until the system's finalized and ready to go, and that’s our best idea on where to put the money. 17) The EXP values for combat rise over a tier whereas gambit EXP doesn't, gambits are harder than strifes, and they feel like an objectively less viable way of getting EXP. Please advise. After looking at the sheet… Yeah, good point. Gambits just aren't that rewarding, and their different DCs just don't work like how CR does for strifes. So here’s the new plan, in two stages: One is that we're going to pump up the XP numbers. they're rookie numbers. Double and triple and whatever-ple them according to some scheme that Meec isn't allowed to explain because this post has to fit the 50k character limit. Basically, we’ll tweak the figures. Two is that the SM sheet's due for a v1.1, since the adversaries rework is coming to a close. We'll redo the XP tables for gambits to more clearly communicate it, by which we mean differently from strifes so the two don't get confused. More details when... we’ve figured out more details. 18) Saberkind. Meec: ...like the beat? TT: Isn’t that uh.. Isn’t that rapierkind? It seems like a saber would be easily covered by rapierkind. Or regular ol’ swordkind could work, if you’re not agreeable to some rupture mechanics. Or use whatever weapon layout you really like and name it saberkind-remember, the flavor is always _flexible!_ Meec: wait like _light_sabers? 19) Make a non-strife focused path/gambit path. Essentially, pillars and paths are specifically for combat while decors are for non-combat. Previously, we had them mixed under just P+P in 2e and the less combat focused steps/paths were frequently complained about being underpowered due to the fact you had to give up one of those combat oriented steps in order to pick them up. Now that they're split, we've made it possible to have both without missing out on either one. After all, this is one of the core design points of Third Edition. For more, you can pore through our previous mechanics posts on the subject, here and here! 20) Point buy system like GURPS or Fallout's SPECIAL, how feel? The council of neutrality has chimed in, and we have no strong feelings one way or the other on this. If you want to do this, go over it with your SM/players, if not, then not. We’re not opposed to the idea, and may even do so in the future; it's not really a priority for us right now, though. 21) d6 default for stakes dice feels confusing when the most obvious example of one is in the demeanors, but they're d8s. Make this clearer pl0x. This could probably be made simpler to grasp, yeah. Problem is, we’re not seeing a clear way to show this on the sheet. Yet. We’ll keep thinking on it, promise. But if anyone has a specific idea, do please suggest it! Meec: uhhhh yes that'll be it for this month, we've gotten a lot of questions for roughly two weeks' time. TT: New shiny thing is a new and shiny thing. Meec: Remember to thank your welcome mat and water down your soda. TT: Meec what the fuck? Meec: You get more soda that way. TT: Meec what the _fuck?_ Meec: I am officially being told to rescind this conversation. Becks does not have a gun to my head. TT: Shoot him! SHOOT HIIIM! Meec: DO NOT TELL HER TO TT: … Merc? … Uh. Send us more questions for next time here. See you next month. oh fuck
I’m 27, work as an Administrative Assistant in Albany, NY, and this week I spent some of my money on cider donuts
(Oops, I forgot the flair...) Assets and Debt: Retirement balance: $7000. I started my 401(k) when I was eligible at my current company and have put in 13% since. Savings account balance: $14,000 Checking account balance: $11,000 Credit card balance: $1100 when the diary starts, which is my spending since my August statement date. September’s statement balance gets paid off during the diary. Student loan balance: $12,900 from a degree in English because I intended to be a technical writer. Currently on pandemic forbearance. Car loan: $1900 when the diary starts Income Progression I really have nothing to say for myself. I had a $10/hour internship in technical writing when I was in college, and since then I’ve had one $17/hour job anywhere near that field (I did layout and proofreading), and otherwise worked retail while trying to get a job. Finally I got my current job which was $19/hour when I started and now closer to $20/hour. Income TWO PAYCHECK MONTH: $2100 after $410 to my 401(k), $64 for health/dental/vision insurance, and taxes THREE PAYCHECK MONTH: $3250 after $615 to my 401(k), $96 for health/dental/vision insurance, and taxes (October is a three paycheck month for me.) Side job monthly takehome: $100-$150, PRE-TAX since it’s paid on a 1099 My partner and I do not pool our incomes. After the household bills he pays and the ones I pay, we have about the same amount remaining. I’m being vague about his job and income partly for his privacy and partly because I think it would be identifying. Monthly fixed expenses My partner pays rent, gas, and electric in full, it’s $1500 or less depending on gas and electric use Auto + renter’s insurance: $200 (I pay in full) Internet: $75 (I pay in full) Trash: $26 (I pay in full) (Edit for clarity: Neither of us gives the other any money toward the bills we each pay. I do not give him any money towards rent. I effectively do not pay rent and he effectively does not pay the smaller bills.) Phone: $25 (my line on a family plan. My parents pay for 30 gigs of data to be shared by everyone on the plan.) Car payment: $300 minimum (but I’ve been paying $900 to finish it off) Student loan payment: $205 (not due so I’m not paying it until the forbearance ends. I am saving it with the intent of sending it to the loans: $1640 so far.) Donations: $10 per paycheck goes into a ‘donation fund’, which I use when I see something to donate to Yearly fixed expenses $50 Sam’s Club membership $20 Microsoft 365 subscription (I pay my parents for my share of a family plan, and to be honest they refused the money this year because of the pandemic) Financial background questions Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Yes, but I wonder how much of that was that we were interested in fields that required it. My mom has a lot of family members who were very successful in blue collar jobs, so I can’t imagine she’d have insisted we go to college if we had other plans. Did you participate in higher education and how did you pay for it? I have a bachelor’s degree in English. I had a half-tuition scholarship, took out the max in federal loans, put in what money I could, and my parents paid some. I would have had to take out a small private loan but other relatives loaned me the money with no interest. (I’ve paid them back.) Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances? We never discussed my parents’ finances with specific numbers, but they were very clear about their philosophy of managing their spending on small things in order to afford the big things that mattered to them. When they gave us an allowance there were rules about saving and donating percentages of it, and they educated us on things like credit cards, student loans, and saving for retirement. What was your first job and why did you get it? Summer nanny because my parents knew the family and suggested it. After that, the internship because my parents suggested it and I wanted spending money while in college, since I’d spend most of my savings. Did you worry about money growing up? Only once that I can think of, when my mom mentioned she might have to get a job. (She’d always wanted to be a stay at home mom and we all knew it, so that was pretty jarring.) Do you worry about money now? I worry about everything, so yes. (And of course the pandemic has only made that worse.) At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Never, if you count being on family plans and not splitting household expenses evenly. In terms of paying household bills, buying groceries, etc, at 24 when I moved out of my parents’ house to be with my partner (who’d recently moved too). Do you have a financial safety net? I’m sure my family would give me/us money if we needed it. My partner’s family would probably offer too, but given their financial situation I wouldn’t want to accept. Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? $1,000 after a relative died. I wanted to use it toward a special trip in memory of him (to a foreign country), but then COVID happened so I guess I’ll have to find something else special to do with it. Or just throw it at my student loans. Day 1- Thursday Morning- My partner's alarm goes off. He snoozes a couple times, then gets up and ready for work, coming in to kiss me goodbye before leaving. I go back to sleep and have a nice dream about going to a dance with him, and going to a lake just outside the door to sit with our feet in the water. Then my alarm goes off and I wake up and get ready for work. I remember I still have laundry in the dryer that I forgot to fold last night-- oops. On the way to work I play along with a quiz on the radio-- I liked it more when it was more general knowledge questions, now it's mostly current events which I'm terrible at. Lunchtime- Work's been quiet all morning. I got to chat with some coworkers about the storm and power outages last night. I didn't realize how much I need these little interactions until I went without them for two months due to the shutdown. We can't use the microwave or fridge at work due to COVID, so I'm glad I live close enough to head home for lunch. I have a leftover Korean Inspired Chicken Bowl (I used russets since my partner doesn't like sweet potatoes, and we ran out of gochujang so I added some sriracha) and a chocolate pudding cup. Check the New York Forward site for the latest COVID statistics. Afternoon- A coworker shows me a gadget she brought in to heat up cups of water for tea. This is an awesome idea, since the hot water tap is also off due to COVID. I might have to get one myself. After work- I head home, have an apple cider donut from a local farm for a snack, and work on my side hustle. My partner’s picking up chicken for dinner, and I cook Mrs. T's perogies to go with it, since my mom texted me that today is National Perogi Day. I would have liked to get homemade perogis, but the only place we know is pretty far away. Partner pays for the chicken, $28 with tip, and we eat when he gets home. Evening- I go to get the clothes out of the driver and find I never turned it on. Eep. I dry them and fold them, and realize there's a hole in my jeans, so I order a new pair. I look to see if there's anything worth adding to get free shipping... and I end up adding some masks. I'd been not buying any that I liked as a safe smidge of rebellion (I'll wear it but I won't pretend to enjoy it!) and in hopes that maybe someday I can stop wearing them, but I guess I give up. ($60.34) I drink half a Sparkling Ice and write and play around online until bed. The fountain pen I'm using runs dry, so I clean it and change colors to Diamine Oxblood. Daily total: $60.34 Day 2- Friday Morning- Much the same as yesterday except I dream about a wild boarding school and a store of elaborate doll-sized clothes. Before heading to work I check the thermostat-- the house has been staying warm enough I still haven't turned the heat on. Looks like it might have to go on today but I'll wait until we're home for the evening. Lunchtime- Another quiet morning. I head home and heat up leftover Chicken and Black Bean Soup (no tortilla chips and no jalapeno... but I wish I'd put in the jalapeno since I couldn't get Rotel so I used the Del Monte version and it's not as spicy). It is nice to be able to heat the soup on the stove. I start working on my grocery list for tonight. Normally I shop Sunday or Monday, we eat homecooked all week, and then get takeout (or eat out, pre-COVID) on the weekends, but my partner has to work late this month so we've shifted the takeout to during the work week. I get a notification from Prism that my credit card bill has been paid-- I have it paid three business days before the due date. The balance is now around $450. I eat a couple Cadbury candy-coated eggs (I bought a giant bag around Easter but didn’t open it until June) and check NY Forward for COVID stats. After work- Oh good, no deluge of work at 4:05. I head home, have an apple cider donut, and work on my side hustle for a bit. I check the prompt for Flash Fiction Friday (a weekly event where you have 24 hours to write a 100-1,000 word piece inspired by the prompt) so I can start thinking about it while I shop and cook. Ooh, “blood on my name”? Interesting. Dinnertime- I go to the grocery store and buy ingredients for four dinners (well, three and a bit: I have almost everything for tonight’s), and Polar Seltzer, plus a couple household items: CLR and Goo Gone. Also sugar and butter since I have coupons to get one of each for $0.99. ($72.28) I hate grocery shopping since the pandemic because of the masks and one-way aisles and because I have to pack my own bags so I’m always afraid I’m taking too long and the person behind me in line is judging me. I get home just as my partner gets home, and get to work on dinner which is Balsamic Mushrooms and Herby Kale Mashed Potatoes. While it’s cooking I wash dishes, since I’ve let my lunch containers pile up. It’s late by the time we eat. Late evening- My partner opens an Ommegang Witte and sits down to watch video game streaming. I join him for a bit and share part of the beer. Then I do a little more work on my side hustle, and write and post my flash fiction piece. I see Birmingham Pen Co. has released some new inks– they’re rereleasing old colors, now made completely handmade– but not the one I’m most interested in so I [browser-]window shop but don’t order anything. Thanks to dinner and dishwashing the house has warmed up to 73– the furnace is staying off another night! Daily total: $72.28 Day 3- Saturday Morning- I get up around 9 on weekends. I take a shower, then work on my side hustle and play around online. My partner stays up late on weekend nights so he won’t be up for a while. I realize I should make the payment to my car loan while I’m thinking about it. The due date is the 15th, but my student loan due date was the 6th, so when I switched from focusing on student loans to focusing on my car I decided to pay everything around the 6th. Then student loans went on forbearance, extra payments pushed my car loan due date to like January ’21, and I’ve become super lax about when I pay it. I make the payment– now I should only have two left! Noonish- I make slow cooker chili for dinner tonight. (My partner found the recipe originally, no idea where he got it, but I can tell you it calls for cocoa powder and sugar and we sub in chocolate chips instead.) and wash some dishes. I check NY Forward. Partner gets up and we order subs from an Italian deli for lunch. I spot my absentee ballot sitting on my desk, so I grab it, vote, and stick it in the mail when we leave. Afternoon/Evening- We go pick up the subs– partner goes in and pays, based on past experience it’s around $25– and then go to a farm to pick a pumpkin ($8). While we’re there we stand in a long line for cider donuts ($8.75 for a dozen), and then go visit their animals– mostly goats and chickens plus a cow and a sheep. By the time we’re heading home we realize there’s no way we’ll want dinner if we eat the subs, so when we get home I turn off the slow cooker and eventually stick the crock in the fridge. We eat the subs and then I go back to my usual (side hustle, writing, playing around online, +/- Spotify and YouTube). I check the payment platform for my side hustle and have over $50 sitting there, so I withdraw $50 to my savings account. Head to bed at midnight. Daily total: $16.75 Day 4- Sunday Morning- Get up around 9, sit around in my pajamas for a while before convincing myself to get dressed. I have a cider donut (and a couple candy-coated eggs) and then watch livestream Mass from my partner’s old church. I haven’t been to church in person since the shutdown, and I’ve been rotating what church I watch every week: my church, my parents’, my college, churches I’ve been to on vacation. Then I play some Animal Crossing– I haven’t played in a while so I’ve been missing the fall features. My best friend and I had discussed playing together after she got her island set up, so I give her a text. She says she’s going to see her parents right now but maybe later. Afternoon- Heat up leftover steak for lunch, grab a Sparkling Ice, and turn on the football game. I listen to the radio broadcast online while watching the animated game updates on the ESPN website. Really miss being able to watch my hometown teams on TV. (My parents let me use their cable subscription online, so I can watch if my team is being shown nationwide, but it’s a 1:00 game today so teams local to where I live now are also playing.) Put the chili back on for dinner tonight. Late afternoon- Partner washes dishes. I write and watch YouTube. Consider texting my friend to ask if she’s ready for Animal Crossing but I told her to let me know and I don’t want to bug her. Evening- Chili for dinner, and I open the last Ommegang Witte. After dinner my partner goes to the grocery store– I’d asked him to make chicken noodle soup or chicken broccoli and rice this week but he hadn’t gotten back to me on which so I didn’t buy the ingredients on Friday. He asks if I want anything, I say maybe maple cream Oreos? He returns with ingredients, gochujang, the Oreos, and Sun Chips, having spent $19 plus $5 in rewards points. After more of my usual I take a shower and head to bed at 11:30, my ‘work night’ bedtime. Daily total: 0 Day 5- Monday Morning- My partner snoozes, then gets up. He doesn’t kiss me goodbye and I hear him zoom off down the street, so I assume he just found out he needs to be at work ASAP. Before my alarm goes off I dream about using my telescope in my parents’ driveway. On the way to work I have to wait for someone to finish pulling out of a driveway, then let someone else pull out of their driveway to get in front of them… and after all that they both pull into a Stewarts a couple hundred feet down the road. I’m confused. Lunchtime- Head home and eat leftover pizza for lunch, along with some Sun Chips and a couple of the candy-coated eggs. Check NY Forward. Afternoon- I have a meeting with a manager to discuss a project I’m working on for his department. To my surprise, I find out that he also wants me to start doing some writing for his department! What?! I think I manage to be cool and matter-of-fact about this but I feel like jumping up and down. After work- I’m making a pork roast for dinner, so– after quickly looking up how tightly to wrap it, the recipe is not specific and I’ve never done this before– I get it in the oven. Have more Sun Chips and a couple Oreos for a snack. Work on my side hustle. By the time I put potatoes in the oven to roast for a side, the smell of the roasting pork is about to make me cry. It’s my mom’s recipe so it smells like home, and during a pandemic when they live in a different state whose new cases have just gone over 10 per 100k so my state’s governor is about to announce a travel ban (well, not a ban, a required 14-day quarantine after returning, and I can’t afford that), that’s almost too much to take. Evening- Obviously it takes a long time to roast the roast, so we eat late. I saw this coming, but Saturday threw everything off and I didn’t want to freeze the roast. My partner is super happy with the pork and with the side, garlic roast potatoes and asparagus. I only used half the potatoes and asparagus, figuring I’ll make the other half fresh to go with the leftover half of the roast. After dinner I drink half a Sparkling Ice and do my usual until bedtime. Saturday was warm and today the oven warmed the house, so I still haven’t turned on the heat. Daily total: 0 Day 6- Tuesday Early morning- Wake up after a dream about my grandpa dying. My mind goes straight to memories of my other grandpa dying, and it takes me a while to get back to sleep. Morning- Typical morning routine. I remember to take the garbage out to the curb, which is not as typical as it should be. Lunchtime- Head home, heat up leftover chili. My car is dinging about tire pressure so I’ll need to add ‘winter air’, but it’s clammy out today so I think I’ll do it tomorrow when it’s supposed to be warmer and sunny. Check NY Forward. Travel advisories not announced yet. Afternoon- Work is dragging, and to top it off I hear a coworker tell another that she’s going to tell her a secret later. My brain being what it is, I quietly freak out that the secret is either gossip about me, or news that I’m going to be fired. After work- Get home, bring in the trash can, check the mail and my clothing order is here. I spend a good 15 minutes trying on the jeans to decide if they fit weird and eventually decide I’m okay with them. On the bright side, they have full front pockets now! Full as in my entire phone fits into them! (This should not be so rare.) Also in the mail was the internet bill, so I schedule that in Prism. Snack on a cider donut, work on side hustle. I brace myself and check the travel advisories… and my parents’ state is not one of them? I check the Global Epidemics map– yep, it went back down to just below 10 per 100k. Evening- Make Pork Chops in Mushroom Paprika Sauce, an old favorite– except not quite, my partner request I use cubed pork this time so it’s even more stroganoff-y. Partner gets home and we eat and then hang out for a while. Then I take a shower, a bit of my usual, and head to bed after finally turning on the heat. Daily total: 0 Day 7- Wednesday Morning- Morning routine and head to work. Unusually for me, I don’t remember my dream. Lunchtime- Head home and heat up leftovers from last night. Eat a couple Oreos– we’re 2/3 of the way through the pack so I’m definitely going to be buying more of these when I shop on Friday. I remembered they were good but forgot how good. After work: Get gas for the first time in a month. I think the farthest we’ve been from home is the cider donuts and goats farm, and we took my partner’s car both times we went there. The pump shuts off before the tank is full and I can't get it going again, so I leave with 3/4 of a tank. ($18.85) When I get home I put air in the tires, replace the worn-out twist tie on the compressor cord with a Velcro cord wrap, and Snapchat my mom thanks for letting me take some from her giant pack of cord wraps the last time I was home. (I knew I wanted them for something.) Cider donut for a snack, work on side hustle. Check Pocketguard to see if my car loan balance has been updated yet, which it hasn’t, but… uh… the employer contribution to my 401(k) has been made and it’s $700? That’s way more than I was expecting. I’m only 20% vested but still. A nice surprise. And more good news– the certificates for completing Writer’s Month (sorta like NaNoWriMo for shorter pieces– you have to fill 31 prompts in around 40 days) are out! I’m pretty proud of myself for finishing. Dinnertime- Partner arrives home (much earlier than the last two days) with a pint of Pumpkin to Talk About ice cream he picked up while getting a coffee. Yay! I make the potato and asparagus side again and heat up the pork and gravy, and we have dinner. Then I drink half a Sparkling Ice and write for a bit, until the fountain pen I’m using– the one I didn’t clean and fill last week– runs dry. After dinner: I always call my mom on Wednesday nights and she always puts me on speaker so I can ‘hang out’ with her, my dad, and any siblings who are around. I always put her on speaker too because of the length of the calls, and so if I have a pen to clean I can do that while we talk. I clean the pen and fill it with Robert Oster Gold Antiqua. We talk until almost midnight– the except to the work night bedtime is my calls with Mom. Daily total: $18.85 Total spending: Food & Drink: $67.55 Fun & Entertainment: $8 Home/Health: $13.48 Clothes & Beauty: $60.34 Transport: $18.85 Other: 0 Grand total: $168.22 This was an average-to-high spending week for me. I hadn’t bought clothes since March, and I only got gas every two to three weeks even before the pandemic. Between naturally being a saver and going a total of two years without a full-time job after college, I’m really good at not spending money on myself. Part of this is being really good at not buying things to try to fill a void they can't fill, which has been a useful skill since the pandemic began and left me with so much void that no thing can fill.
Cover Art! Story Summary: After years of beatings and neglect from her parents, 13-year old Frances was summoned with her entire class to the fantastical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the "Demon King." If she succeeds, she might have the home she never had. But if she can't overcome the trauma and self-loathing inflicted on her by her abusive parents, Frances will die, and be summoned back to the home she escaped, on the day that she left. Teaser: Frances and friends hang out with their... um, frenemies? [The Beginning] [<=Book 2 Chapter 17 (81)] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Book 2 Chapter 19 (83)=>] Index of Windwhistler Family Members Fractured Song Discord Server so you can ask me questions and just hang with other fans. We have a meme channel. It has memes of the serial. I am also planning to post art later :) Author's Pre-Chapter note: We have art of Frances's friends, Elizabeth, Martin, Ayax and Timur. Courtesy of RianneDraws :) Frances smiled uneasily, head bowed slightly, but doing her best to keep her eyes on Ayax, who was standing in front of her, arms crossed, a frown knitting her brow together. “Okay, so… I understand that you say that Elizabeth isn’t in a place for a relationship, but you haven’t explained why?” “Um, it’s a bit private Ayax. I think the best way I can explain it is that she’s figuring out if she likes girls that way or not,” Frances stammered. “Oh,” Ayax nodded, her frown fading. “That sounds… like she’s going through a lot.” “It’s something alright. Maybe, you can ask her? Talk to her, not confess, but like, say you heard she’s having a rough day and you’d like to help?” Frances suggested. “That’s a good idea. Thanks for letting me know, Frances,” said Ayax. Frances smiled and after chatting with her cousin for a bit, decided she needed to go find her friends. She had talked to them before her match against Jeffrey, but she’d never actually reassured Elizabeth. She found Martin and Elizabeth outside, discussing something quietly. “Frances, something strange happened,” said Martin. Frances frowned and took the letter Elizabeth proffered her. She read it once, and looked up with wide eyes. “That is strange, though, I think that’s nice of Robert to invite us on an outing,” said Frances. “He’s inviting us to have lunch with your last and next opponents,” said Martin. He pursed his lips. “On the other hand, he says that it’s because he’s grateful for our help and would like to apologize.” “Elizabeth? What do you think? And have you shown Ayax yet? Her name’s on the invitation,” Frances asked. “We were going to show her next. As for me… I’m a little hesitant, but why not?” Elizabeth smiled, “It could be fun.” Martin chuckled, “Always like you to look on the bright side, Elizabeth.” He pursed his lips and glanced at Frances. “By the way, did you have something to say to Frances, Elizabeth?” “Uh, but, bwah, right now?” Elizabeth stammered. She sighed, “I suppose it’s as good a time as any.” Frances felt her eyes widen as her friend averted her gaze and took a deep breath. “Frances, I… I talked to Martin about what I felt and he listened and said something similar to you and well, what I’m saying is, I know that I threw a lot at you and I’m sorry for… for saying something so… that made you uncomfortable. Can you forgive me?” Elizabeth asked. “There’s nothing to forgive.” Frances smiled and gently embraced her friend. “I’m still glad you apologized. I wish I could have helped you more, though.” “You listened. That’s what’s important.” Elizabeth grinned and took the letter back. “So, what do you think?” Frances pursed her lips. “Why not? Let’s go ask Ayax.” Ayax swallowed her bite of food. It took all of her considerable self-control not to let her stoic mask break and make a face. Still, as she turned to Robert, her eyes looked haunted. “I thought this was supposed to be fun,” she hissed. Martin had to nod weakly. Robert had invited them to one of Erlenberg’s restaurants that specializes in serving bite-sized “taste experiences.” The thing was, though, the “taste experiences” had nothing to do with making sure the patrons kept their food in their stomachs, or making them taste goods. So... reception had been… mixed. Even as Robert arched an eyebrow and took a bite from his chosen “taste experience” (Martin suspected it was the pork and eggplant cocktail cream served in a small glass), he noticed the troll try to hold his smug look. He held on for precisely half a minute, before he gave up, made a face and gagged. Even the ever chipper Elizabeth looked like she’d run a mile. She was certainly drinking enough water to either hydrate or drown herself. Jeffrey was sipping on his drink, briefly glancing at the platter in front of him, and clearly debating on whether to risk another. The only two who seemed to be enjoying themselves were Ophelia, and Frances. Both mages looked rather pale and had repeatedly used the “vomit bins” provided for the patrons. However, Ophelia was cackling with glee, and Frances was smiling brightly. “That was such a strange taste! I mean seriously, spiced chicken and grape? I mean grape and cheese is a nice combination, but chicken with those spices should be paired with rice, or something else.” Frances chewed her bite another time, with the look of a scientist, before she swallowed and shivered. “Oh yes, this is a very weird flavor.” “I just can’t believe we paid money for this!” Ophelia exclaimed, biting a vaguely grayish looking cream on a cracker. She swallowed and her eyes widened with pleasant surprise. “Oh, this is nice.” “You’re not pretending so I try it and find it’s disgusting are you?” Frances asked, narrowing her eyes. “Honest!” Ophelia said, putting a hand over her heart. Looking at the treat skeptically, Frances gave it a lick and immediately dropped it. She grabbed her glass of water and downed it, desperately trying to drown out the sudden intense heat that made it feel like her tongue was on fire. “How… what?” Frances coughed, and accepted a refill from Martin. Ophelia pulled out a glowing card from her pocket and grinned. “Magic!” “That… is a really crap move even for you, Ophelia,” said Jeffrey. Robert groaned. “Alright, I really hate to admit this, but this was a big mistake. What I don’t get is… how are you enjoying this? I mean, Ophelia, you’re a bit strange, so I know why you like this—” “Hey! I’m eccentric, not strange!” “—eccentric means strange!” Robert spluttered, his tail flicking left and right rather aggressively. “Well, as I said earlier, Robert, I like cooking. But sometimes I feel like I always need to hit the same kind of flavors with my food because people find only those flavors good. I find eating things deliberately designed to have different or unique flavors is kinda fun.” Frances took another gulp of her water. “Even if they do taste… bad.” Ayax snorted. “Well thankfully I had a backup plan. I originally just planned it for us four but…” she glared at Robert. She hadn’t actually talked much to Robert or Jeffrey, but they and even Ophelia had been completely cordial. So Ayax sighed and said, “You can… come along.” Robert blinked and smiled hesitantly, “Thanks. Ayax’s plan involved a visit to a street stall near Erlenberg’s harbour district where they all picked up sandwiches. They weren’t small sandwiches either, but huge, thick stacks of thin white bread and slices of ham, cheese and vegetables piled together. After also buying some bottles of fizzy fruit cordial, she led them up the stairs of a fairly steep hill near the city’s harbour. The hill was called Charlotte’s Rest and at the top, surrounded by houses, was a city park with carefully cultivated trees and cut grass. Stone benches and picnic tables dotted the area and it was on one of these that the group settled down on. From here they had an amazing view of the harbour, particularly, the ships in it. Moored in the piers and in the V-shaped bay of the city harbour, was an uncountable sea of ships bobbing in the water. Some were smaller schooners and brigs of smaller companies' merchant vessels. Others were larger trading barques, clippers, fluyts and galleons of the great merchant houses of Erlenberg. If Frances was recalling a lecture given by her uncle Eustace, a captain in the Windwhistler fleet, the Windwhistlers used large groups of faster barques and clippers that could transport cargo quickly. In that way they were similar to the Seaskimmers who also preferred the faster ships. The Windstorms and Voidsailors tended to use the larger fluyts and galleons. Then there were the warships. You couldn’t mistake them, with the gunports cut into their side, and their sleek lines. They ranged from comparatively small frigates to massive ships of the line. It was such a nice view, with the seagulls squawking overhead and a clear blue sky silhouetting the whole vista, that the group was just quiet for a while as they ate their sandwiches. “How did you even find this? You’re a w—recent arrival to the city,” Robert said, correcting himself. Ayax grimaced, but after taking a deep breath, let it go and replied, “Sometimes I want to be alone and this being on a hill, it’s not as accessible as other parks.” “It’s very nice, Ayax,” said Elizabeth, smiling as she breathed in the sea air. She didn’t notice Ayax’s cheeks color slightly. “That’s a lot more warships than I was expecting, though. I thought most of them would be at Port Lisalle,” said Jeffrey. “It’s probably due to the sabotages. We were cautious of Alavaria before, now we’re downright furious,” said Robert. “Why do Erlenberg and the Kingdom of Alavaria have such bad blood in the first place?” Martin asked. “I heard it was something to do with how Erlenberg split off from Alavaria.” Ophelia coughed officiously. “In short, yes and no. What do you know of the Third Great War?” “A bit, mostly that not a lot of people know what happened because it destroyed so many records and ended in a near-stalemate,” said Elizabeth. Ophelia put her sandwich down. “From what we can tell of our own, albeit, limited records in the Great Library, we actually split from the Kingdom of Alavaria amicably, though, not exactly formally. Erlenberg was a small territory and with the war over, the Kingdom of Alavaria was trying to focus on rebuilding itself. Some of the Otherworlders and Alavari banded together to form a small town which grew to become Erlenberg.” Ophelia took a sip of water. “The tension began however when Erlenberg started to become a trade hub. We’re situated between the Kingdom of Alavaria and Erisdale, and have the best port on the eastern coast of Ravorna. The Kingdom of Alavaria have no port that’s always open no matter the season. Their only port on the eastern coast freezes during the winter.” “We also have the best dockyard and port facilities in the entirety of Ravorna. You can make an armada with the craftspeople you have in Erlenberg, and you could launch all kinds of ships,” Robert explained. “Finally, Kingdom of Alavaria resents our trade influence. Erisdale, Lapanteria and Roranoak have learned to live with us ruling the seas, but the Kingdom of Alavaria hates that we do, mostly because it decreases the money their elite can earn through trade,” Jeffrey added. “Has Erlenberg ever tried to redress this with Alavaria?” Elizabeth inquired, curious. “Of course not. Why should we? I mean we made our own place and fortunes. It’s not our fault that Alavaria can’t catch up,” said Robert. Elizabeth sighed. Martin grimaced. Ayax rolled her eyes and shook her head. Frances pinched the bridge of her nose. “What? I mean, it’s not like we have a responsibility to them—” “But perhaps we could have reduced this tension, for our sake, Robert?” Ophelia suggested, one eyebrow arching up. Robert blinked and sighed, “Alright maybe…” He took a good swig from his flask of cordial. “I swear, I thought this Winter Tournament was going to be just all normal, but now we have Otherworlders, conspiracies and intrigue to boot.” “Here here. You should have seen my face when I found out you and the Windwhistlers had busted a sabotage in our stadium!” Jeffrey exclaimed. “Though, part of that was you working with Windwhistlers.” Frances, who had been mostly in her thoughts and just enjoying the chatter of the background, suddenly felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Focusing on that sensation, she tracked her mind until she realized why she was feeling that way. “Why hasn’t the Winter Tournament been cancelled yet?” Frances whispered. “Sorry?” Ophelia asked. “Why hasn’t the Winter Tournament been cancelled yet?” Frances said, more loudly, and sitting up straighter. Ophelia frowned. “It’s the Winter Tournament. Why would it be…” the girl’s voice trailed off and her eyes widened. “That’s a good question. Maybe someone wants the tournament to go on?” Elizabeth asked. “But why would they? They can’t sabotage the tournament anymore. It’s too risky,” said Jeffrey. The teens were silent at this, until Martin snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “Then maybe they want to use the tournament as a distraction.” “For what, though?” Ayax asked. “I hate to say it, but the Kingdom of Alavaria has a myriad of targets to choose from. The harbour, the docks, Erlenberg’s barracks, the ships in the harbour… there’s too many to choose from.” That brought another round of silence, which grew increasingly longer and more oppressive, until finally, Ophelia groaned. “Why don’t we just ask our parents if they know anything. You know, all sneaky-like.” That suggestion was agreed and the teens dropped the conversation, moving to different topics. Frances however, couldn’t help but think back to the tensions between Alavaria and Erlenberg. For as flawed, and somewhat selfish the people in the city was, it was her new family’s home. If war… when war came, that would all be in danger. When Frances, Martin, Elizabeth, and Ayax returned to the Windwhistler compound, though, they were met by Eleanor. The Windwhistler matriarch wore a smile, though, that was cross with a crossed expression, as if she didn’t want to admit something. “Kids, we have an interesting development. Rachel and I have been smashing our heads together and getting on our nerves, but thanks to the Windstorm’s records, we have a lead.” Frances blinked, and smiled brightly to hide her surprise. “That’s amazing!” Her grandmother narrowed her eyes, though. “What are you not saying, Frances? That I can’t work with the Windstorms?” Eleanor said, arms on her hips. Frances’s smile faded and she bowed her head. “Um…” “Don’t answer that question, Frances. I did nearly have to verbally pry mom and Rachel Windstorm apart a few times,” said Edana. She snorted as Eleanor elbowed her, hard, and smirked at her daughter. “You need to focus on training for your match against Ophelia. Elizabeth, Martin and Robert though are going to be part of a group checking out a warehouse. We suspect the gunpowder used in the sabotage attempt was stored there.” “We are also going to ask if the tournament can be rescheduled,” said Eleanor in a very grumpy tone. “It’s gotten extremely dangerous and it’ll be a curveball the saboteurs will not suspect. It’s clear they want the tournament to stay going.” “Oh, that’s good. We were going to ask why the tournament hadn’t been cancelled yet,” said Elizabeth brightly. “You think they will cancel it?” “I think we might face some opposition, but even if we fail… we’ll find out who wants the tournament to keep going on,” said Eleanor, grinning. Author's Note: Bit of a transition chapter as we move toward the last chapters of this arc. We're basically around 5 chapters before the end of Book 2's first arc. Sorry for the shorter length, the next chapter makes up for it by being 4000 words. For the question of the update, we return to foods. What's your favorite breakfast/lunch/snack foods? I have a love affair with the Trucker breakfast with pancakes, pulled pork, crispy pork belly, sunny side up eggs, and hash. Frances: I love jam and butter on toast. Elizabeth: Egg rolls with mushrooms and green onions! Martin: Hot cocoa. Served with flatbread wrapped around salted ham. Edana: Tea, mashed potatoes and a boiled egg or two. Frances glances at Edana: Why is your breakfast so... odd, mom? Eleanor: Edana has odd cravings. I thought it was a mage thing, but Frances has decidedly normal wants. Edana: MOM!
I am 37 years old make $138,000 (HHI $187K), live in Portland, OR and work as a Finance Manager
Just warning you, I'm not concise, it's a novella. Section One: Assets and Debt Retirement Balance: $205K, 90% of which is my 401K with a mix of standard and Roth funds, the other 10% is a Roth IRA. I didn’t contribute to my 401K until I hit 30, but for the last three years I’ve been able to max out my contributions. My employer also does a 10% contribution each year. Husband has $40K in his IRA, he also did not save much till he turned 30 and but we’ve maxed out his contribution for the last three years. Joint Equity: just over $100K, bought our house 5 years ago with a 5% down, FHA loan. We’d saved for a couple years to have $15K down payment, sold my husband’s car and minimized all our expenses to save aggressively once we hit 30. Bought our fixer upper house for $285K. With all our remodeling, we forced appreciation and refi’d a year later to drop PMI. Refi’d again this summer to pay off a HELOC and get a 2.75% interest rate. Joint Savings account balance: $51K Joint checking account balance: $3K Personal checking & savings accounts: $2K Husband’s (H) personal checking & savings: $3K HSA: $6K 529: $2K Mortgage: $328K Car loans: $57K, Kelly Blue Book value of both is $75K Student loan debt: $34K for business management undergrad degree. Home Reno loan: $9K Peloton: $1800 Credit card debt: 0 Net Worth: Roughly $330K Section Two: $120K base salary with annual $18K bonus, spouse’s salary & bonus is$ 40K, rental income (rent out finished basement unit to a friend) $9K, totaling $187K Income Progression: I've been working in my field for 10 years, my starting salary was $14/hour which was about $28K. I’ve stayed with the same company and have leveled up four times to my current role. For the first seven years I was paid under market but didn’t know this and when I realized it, didn’t have the confidence to negotiate. After working on my confidence and researching how to effectively ask for a raise, finally asked for an equity adjustment three years ago and since then have received four pay increases. Main Job Monthly Take Home: Gross salary is $10K month and net $6K after deductions listed below, annual bonus is paid mid-year and net is $7500 after 401K contribution and taxes. Deductions: Taxes: $2K 401K: $1100 Medical & dental: $200 HSA: $75 Dependent care FSA: $416 Life, accident, cancer & disability insurance premiums: $40 Nonprofit contributions: $150, this gets matched by my employer so I always contribute through my paycheck. I mostly support a local mental health nonprofit and have smaller amounts going to the Oregon Food Bank and Oregon Humane Society. Side Gig Monthly Take Home $100 net for rental income after expenses (1/3 of utilities & mortgage, taxes-our costs for these expenses below reflect this adjustment). We will have to raise the rent (haven’t done so in three years) soon as the IRS requires that the rent charged must be within market parameters but it doesn’t feel right with COVID as our tenant (and friend) was impacted for some months. We also sell items online that we no longer use/need. Have generated an average $200/month the last four months of doing this. Didn’t include this in income as it’s very irregular and we’re going to run out of stuff we’re willing to part with soon. Any Other Monthly Income Here My spouse and I have both joint and separate accounts. His take home is $2500 after taxes, he doesn’t pay for health insurance as his employer covers 100% of premium, and he doesn’t have access to a 401K. His contribution is $1K/month to our joint checking and the rest goes to his own checking and personal savings. While I pay more into our joint accounts, $3500/month, we take turns buying groceries/dining out/other household items. Section Three: Expenses Mortgage, Taxes & Insurance: $1183 (this is adjusted as a 1/3 of our cost is offset by rental income). Currently aggressively paying off student loans at $750/month, with $34K left. Husband paid off his loans last year with an inheritance. Haven’t been serious about paying off until this year. My car: $689, I bought a new SUV last year, put 20% down. The monthly payment hurts but I also LOVE my vehicle-plenty of space for toddler, pups and us. Interest rate is 3% so this is low on our priorities list to pay off early. His car: monthly payments are $525 and is a 1% rate so we have no plans to pay off early. This is paid from my husband’s own account and not our joint account, as are my student and car loans. Home Reno loan: $265, this is a 0% loan, so no plans to pay off early. Peloton: $66, this also is a 0% loan, so again, no plans to pay off early. And yes, I am one of the many that bought one due to COVID, no regrets. No credit card debt, we pay in full each month. Utilities-water, electrical, trash, gas and internet: averages $300/month after annualizing. This also is adjusted due to 1/3 being offset by rental income. Cellphone: $85-this one bill is paid directly by husband from his personal checking. We switched carriers last year and just haven’t updated the payment account. Monthly Subscriptions: $116 for book subscription for my kid and my niece ,Peloton App, Netflix, Disney+, Apple Music, Apple data storage. Daycare: $1150, partially paid via DCFSA, the rest out of pocket. Savings contribution: $500 to HYSA, $100 to 529 which also gets random deposits. Retirement contribution: $6-10K/year deposited annually before cut off dates to IRAs. Pet expenses: About $1k annually for vet visits and meds. Food and misc items are accounted for in weekly spending. Credit card fees: $600 paid throughout the year. Car insurance: $1800/year but paid biannually (H has tickets and an accident in the last three years-grr) Annual subscriptions: Prime $129, YNAB $84, PlayStation Plus $70, Calm app $60 MD Questions Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it? No, I was the first in my extended family to attend college. My mother never finished high school (no GED either) and my step dad finished high school in the middle east. I moved away from my mom’s household when I was 14 to live with my grandma and while she supported me wanting to go to college, she had the mindset that I would take care of myself by finding myself a husband, as she and my mother had. I was a ward of the state at that point and received lots of grants but also needed student loans to pay for five years (I struggled my first two years as I was depressed) and took out over 45K in loans for those years. Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances? No, it wasn’t discussed due to the cultural background of my stepdad. My mom didn’t have a job as my stepdad comes from a culture where women stay home. They struggled sometimes-for years I didn’t have glasses because they couldn’t afford to get them for me. But I never went hungry and while we shopped at Salvation army, it was my norm so I didn’t realize we were considered poor till pretty much middle school. What was your first job and why did you get it? I babysat for neighbors-on top of watching my own siblings-when I was 14. When I moved to live with my grandma, my uncles-who were general contractors-would hire me and my cousins to do grunt work and so I’d make $5/hour randomly during the summer until I hit 16, and my first job that summer was working at a cannery for minimum wage which I think was $6/hr. I still cannot eat canned/frozen green beans. I got that job so I could buy myself a car, which I did by end the of the summer. Then I got a different job-pizza parlor-to pay for the gas and insurance and worked after school and on weekends. Did you worry about money growing up? Not really. My grandma lived off social security and some assistance from the state for taking me in, so I knew money would always be tight but she was thrifty and made it work. We always had food and I had clothes-new ones from Kmart-so I felt secure. I didn’t start to actually worry about money until I was accepted into college and then I had to figure out how to pay for it. At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net? When I moved away for college at 18. I never thought about moving back in with my grandma though I probably knew I could, but I saw it as a failure because so much of my extended family thought I was stuck up and “getting above myself” for going to college. We have a large savings now due to an inheritance and that is our safety net. I should probably pay off more of our debt but having the large savings makes me feel more secure and it’s worth the interest we pay to feel that security. Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain. Our rental income is mostly passive. My husband received $90K in an inheritance and used a 1/3 to pay off his student loans, the rest when to savings and some purchases such as the down payment for my vehicle. Day one 6:35 Wake up to the sounds of my toddler (T) talking to himself in his crib. I’ve slept in and he’s awake early, at least it’s Saturday. Sluggishly get out of bed and go in to get him up. He greets me with some happy babbling and a hug. Change his diaper and he signs he’s hungry so I we head to the kitchen for breakfast. I warm up some frozen aebleskivers for him (make a big batch once a month and freeze for weekend breakfasts) and add a banana to his plate and a cup of milk. For myself, I make a cup of coffee via pour over and add some chocolate protein powder, use a milk frother and drink my protein mocha. I let out our pups and put together their breakfast of meat and veggies. We raw feed our pups a mixture of different animals-primarily beef, chicken and turkey-and add veggies & organs. 8:00 Husband is awake, so I finally have a chance to shower and do my am routine of Cerave face wash, epicuren protein toner, Hanskin hyaluron essence, PerriconeMD vitamin C serum, and philosophy’s renewed hope in a jar moisturizer, wait a couple minutes and add some Aveeno facial sunblock. I head out for a quick walk by myself, usually I take T with, but it’s 45 degrees and misty this morning. I listen to Corinne Crabtree’s podcast as I walk and wonder about how I’m going to get my step goal (14K) in with the crap weather. 9:30 My best friend has shown up with her toddler and we head out for a coffee (drive thru only, with mask on) on our way to the farmers market. I get a cafe au lait and it’s on the house due to points. $2 tip. My best friend, brother and sister are part of our COVID pod and we see each other about once a week in person. 10 Pay to park downtown ($2), bundle up the kids in a wagon with blankets and head into the park blocks for some food and produce. T and I share a pork and chive pancake ($12 for two with tip) while in the middle of some grass to ensure we're adequately distanced from people. Afterwards, I go a bit nuts and buy four different types of squash ($9). Since my husband doesn’t like squash, it’ll take a while for T and I to eat-but it will be delicious and I'm already anticipating the roasted yumminess. We walk around some more and feed the kids snacks (crackers, oranges, peaches) as we catch up and chat. 11:30 Head out to the west side suburbs for some apple cider donuts (have been craving one for three weeks!) and spend a bit of time sitting outside with the kids as it warms up. I've never been to this place, and it's much busier than I expected so we people watch and eat our donuts. I buy some frozen sweet and savory pies for the freezer as well as a wooden farm puzzle for T in the store that also sells the donuts as we leave. I'll have to find a toy at home to post for free as I have a strict one in/one out policy with toys. $71 1:45 Back home and T is down for a nap that doesn’t actually happen. I semi listen to him talk to himself in his crib for an hour while I chat with my husband about the day. 3 T is up so we have a very late lunch. I warm up some butternut squash ravioli and marinara for him and I have the other pork and chive pancake from the farmers market. 4:15 My brother arrives for game night with husband and our friend/tenant. I pop open a canned cocktail of coffee and rum and put on the Hamilton soundtrack while I do some online shopping. Dance around with T (trying to get in my steps) and pick out 4 long sleeve tops and sweaters and request curbside pickup for tomorrow. I'm slowly rebuilding my wardrobe as my body has changed so much. Two years ago I was pregnant, last year I was nursing and this year I'm down a couple sizes and have literally five cool weather shirts/sweaters. Hoping this purchase will net me at least two items to keep, so I try not to feel bad about the cost when I know I'll likely return half the items. $136 6:30 Bake the chicken pot pie for everyone to eat. It’s so comforting-just what I wanted on a dreary day. I try to get T to eat some, but after 4 bites he just spits it out and laughs. I give him some leftover snacks from earlier along with milk and a fruit & veggie pouch. H feeds the pups and the guys head back down for more game night. 7:20 Put T down for bed after four books and he’s asleep within minutes, thank goodness. I tidy up from dinner, start some laundry and put away the load that got washed while I was out. 8:30 Sit down with a coconut seltzer water, check my social media, personal email and then journal a bit. 10 Realize it’s later than I typically stay up so I take my melatonin, drink water and do my pm routine after brushing my teeth: cerave face wash, toner, essence, Kiehls midnight eye cream, Origins nitamins oil, cerave pm moisturizer. Head to bed and read till I pass out. Daily Total: $232 Day Two 5:45-A bit early but I know I won’t get back to sleep so I get up and start my coffee and mix in the protein powder. Since it’s Sunday, I meal plan for the week and update my grocery list. We cook 3-4 meals/week and we eat leftovers the other days and supplement with delivery/take out for one night a week. I buy meat and most bulk items from Costco about once every 5-6 weeks (average $200 for those runs) so for this week, only need things we’ve run out of and fruit/veggies and milk. 6:35-T is already awake, so I warm up his aebleskivers and then go in to get him up. He’s quite cheerful for another early morning but get’s cranky as soon as I set him down to eat, so I break out his tablet and let him watch some toddler shows on YT Kids. H wakes up and helps with the pups, while I get started on weekly cleaning. Luckily T loves to “help”, so he’s back to his cheerful self once I give him a rag and mini spray bottle of water to “clean”-which he promptly sprays everything with. With the three of us cleaning, only takes about an hour to get all the common areas dusted and tidied up. 9 Get my morning skincare routine in after a shower, same as the day before. Make an egg and bacon scramble and share with T. I then head out to get grocery shopping in. Start with Whole Foods and get bananas, pomegranates, salad, onion, yogurt, deli ham, eggs and milk for $35. Head over to Trader Joes and look for butternut squash mac and cheese but they are out for the season!!! ARGH. Pick up some soppressata, crackers, PB&J bars, chocolate covered frozen bananas, three different types of tea, butter and some brookies for $45. I’ve spent enough time waiting in lines, I can pick up the clothes I bought yesterday. Pull up to the store and open my trunk and they deliver my clothes. 12:30 T is asleep when I get home so I put away groceries and make myself a meat and cheese plate with some leftover balsamic brussels sprouts from earlier in the week. Really feeling the lack of caffeine so I lay down for 20 minutes, and then remember I have clothes to try on, so I get up. Alas, only two items fit well enough (and are soft and warm enough) to keep. One is a black heather tunic with a cowled neck and uber soft, I also decide to keep a flannel plaid shirt in pink. 2 H wants pizza, but only a slice, and so we decide to go out to eat and pickup some books from Powells. Bundle us all up-still only 46 out!-and head out. Make sure to grab the foot muff for the stroller. We park in the NW part of the city, $3 for parking, and head into a small but empty restaurant. I get a slice of cheese to share with T and a lime seltzer, H has an everything slice with a beer, $20 with tip and H pays. It’s sunny so we walk around for while after checking out the changes wrought over the last six months as we haven’t been back to this part of the city yet. Wait in line to get into the bookstore and it wraps around the building because it’s well spaced out and only 50 people are allowed in the store at a time. When we get inside, it’s a reprieve from the biting wind, and very hard not to touch all the books I’m interested in-but I resist (honestly, H has to keep reminding me). Pick one up for T, two for H, two for me, and a cookbook for my MIL as it’s her birthday next month. Comes out to $71 and H pays; all of the books except the gift are used which is awesome. 4:30 Back home and we settle in for some downtime. T plays with his new farm puzzle (I have to take a picture cause I’ll never remember how it goes back together) and I sanitize a toy wagon that he’s no longer interested in to post for free on FB with a porch pickup. We read some of our new books, drink some tea, and eat some brookies. 6:30 Time for leftover chicken pot pie. T actually eats some this time and drinks a whole lot of milk. Pups get fed and spend minimal time outside in their dog run due to the cold. 7:30 H does bedtime routine with T and puts him down for bed. I get a load of diaper laundry started, look at the load of clothes to fold and tell myself I’ll do it in the morning. I prep T’s snacks and lunch for the next day: yogurt for am snack, chicken and veggie pasta for lunch, and a mix of oranges, hummus & crackers for his pm snack. I prep overnight oats for the week and throw in some chia seeds, PBFit, a little cinnamon and brown sugar. 9: Journal a bit, take my melatonin and do my pm routine with a RoC retinol serum instead of the nitamins oil. Daily Total: $174 Day Three 5:55 Wake up before my alarm goes off and I’m slightly irritated that I miss out on the last 15 minutes of sleep I could have had. I get up and start my protein coffee, put away the dishes from yesterday and then settle in to review my work calendar for the week. I usually take 15-20 minutes before T is up to figure out work schedule and see if I have any urgent emails. 6:40 T is awake so I get him up, take his temp to make sure he doesn’t have a fever (daycare protocol) change and dress him, and then warm up some overnight oats and feed him. H wakes up, and since it’s a day he has to go into his office-happens 1-2/week-he quickly feeds the pups and then packs up and head’s out. 8 Pack up T and take him into daycare. His daycare is operating under an emergency order and is able to have up to 10 kids per class (since T is a toddler, there’s less kids in his class with two teachers) but with strict rules in place. He gets his temp taken again before entering the class and I’m so damn grateful that we have the option to use daycare during COVID. Back at home, I make another cup of regular coffee, light a candle, turn on my heating pad and get to work-which is meetings, emails, reviewing financial disclosures and filings. I setup an office in an extra bedroom over the summer and keep myself closeted in there while H typically works from our dining table when he’s not in the office. 9:30 Have a break before my next call, so I warm up some overnight oats for myself and put away the laundry from last night. 11:30 Have an industry update webinar to attend, so I head out with headphones to call into the meeting and walk with a pup for 45 minutes. Back home I warm up a bit of chicken pot pie and eat it and some cucumbers with hummus. 1:30 Pack up my gear and some yogurt for a snack and also head into my office as I have some documents to get notarized. I can’t believe how many states still require wet signatures and notarized documents when they have secure online platforms to submit documents. This is the fifth or sixth time I’ve had to go in since COVID broke out so it’s not that onerous except I’m not used to it anymore. At least parking is plenty and free. 3:30 Waiting on the notary so I take a quick walk and pickup a couple gift cards from Starbucks for some of my team members. They’ll also be coming into the office next week so I leave it on their desk with a thank you note for all their hard work lately (after googling how long coronavirus can survive on paper & plastic-up to five days is what I found). $30 5:30 Get home and snuggle with T for a bit (H picked him up on his way home at 4) before getting to work on dinner. I had pulled out some frozen ground turkey last night, so I make stuffed bell peppers with the turkey, quinoa, onions and diced tomatoes. Add lots of garlic and some ginger to make it tasty as H isn’t fond of quinoa but he says likes it this time. T also eats it and we’ve got so much leftover I may have to freeze some. 7:00 It’s my turn for bedtime routine, so T gets his bath and then we read five books before he settles in to sleep. I take my shower and spend extra time actually washing my hair and doing a hair mask. Do my PM face routine and watch a movie with H while also journaling. Finally remember to prep snacks and lunch for T. 9:30 PM face routine, into bed I go and read until I pass out. Daily Total: $30 Day Four 12:30 Wake up to T crying, which is not normal. Wait a couple minutes to see if he works it out and then go in and sooth him back to sleep. As much as I hate the disruption to my sleep, I love holding him while he sleeps and know this time is fleeting. 610 Alarm wakes me up and I feel refreshed somehow, so I pop out of bed, make my protein coffee and prep breakfast for T (oats, banana and milk again). Grab the laundry from the day before and get it folded before T wakes up. Do the usual temp routine and get him changed for the day. While he eats, I get my schedule sorted out and reply to a couple emails. H wakes up after 7 and feeds pups. 8 Drop off T at daycare and back at home with more coffee, my vanilla pumpkin candle lit, heating pad on and into my first calls of the day by 8:30. 10 Call into my next meeting from my phone, throw on my Beats, grab a pup and take a walk for 45 minutes. Once I get home, I eat some overnight oats and have some white pomegranate tea. 12:30 Eat some leftover bell pepper stuffing and then brush my teeth as I’ve a dentist appt in a couple hours. 3:30 Pay $15 for my office visit; for small dollar amounts like these, I do not pay from my HSA so this is out of pocket. The visit was a bit surreal but reassuring to see that the office is maintaining strict COVID practices. Head home and realize I need gas, stop by Costco and run my own cards before the attendant fills the tank, $45. 5:30 H picked up T and plays with him while I finish up some work. We eat leftovers that are in the fridge, so there’s the last bit of chicken pot pie, some roasted sweet potatoes and stuffed bell peppers. 7:30 It’s H’s turn to put T down so I say goodnight to him and head out for a walk by myself. Hit just over 13K steps before I call it good and head home for some tea, journaling and downtime with H. 9:30 My back begins to spasm up by my shoulder blades, this random pain started a couple months ago and comes and goes. I’ve started seeing a chiropractor for this but not sure it’s helping, thinking I’ll need to see a physical therapist soon. For now, I have H rub in some CBD camphor cream and take a CBD gummy to help me sleep. Daily Total: $60 Day Five 5 I am awake and know that if I try to get back to sleep, it won’t happen until I actually need to get out of bed. Make my protein coffee and journal for a bit. I spend extra time working through thoughts I have around the holidays. Our house is typically the center of family & friend gatherings and I’ve been trying to figure out how I want to approach this year with a large gathering not an option. Prep T’s snacks and lunch for the day (yogurt, mandarins, butternut ravioli, peaches, graham crackers and some peanut butter pretzels, milk), prep his breakfast-last morning of oats & banana- and then go through my work calendar and emails till he wakes up. H wakes up sometime after 7 and feeds the dogs and helps with T so I can change and do my am routines. 8:15 Back home from drop off, have all the things in place and am able to get into my work. 10 Have a break in meetings, so I jump on the peloton and do an easy 20 scenic ride while I work through emails on my phone. After, I have some herbal tea and get back to my desk. 12:30 I get super irritated at a peer in another department and have to walk away from my laptop. Realize I haven’t had food so I eat more stuffed bell pepper, sans the bell pepper, which just means lots of quinoa and ground turkey. Really have to cut back how much I make of this recipe in the future. 4 Call it a day so I can be the one to pick up T. We head over to have a play date with best friend and her toddler. It’s so nice out that we manage to go on a walk around their neighborhood. 6:30 Arrive home to some yummy chimichurri steak, a salad and roasted delicata squash waiting for us. While H won’t eat squash, he’ll cook it for me if I send him the recipe. I cut up some steak into tiny pieces and give it to T and he seems to enjoy it. Give him some squash and it pretty much gets thrown to the floor for the pups to eat. 7:45 Bath and bedtime routine. Since it’s daylight savings this weekend, I’m starting to push T’s bedtime back 10-15 minutes at a time; by the time I put him in bed he’s pretty much asleep and I’m mentally drained. Decide I need a walk to sort myself out, so I head out with a pup listen to Women of Impact. Barely manage 10K steps but I’m ok with it. H has his weekly DND game night that’s virtual so he takes over the office and I don’t see him again for the night. 8:30 Settle in with sleepy time tea and a three TJ’s dark peanut butter cups. Get caught up on my transactions in YNAB, see that the Peloton loan charges came through and make sure all our expenses are accounted for through the end of the month. Take a shower, do my routine-realize I forgot to do this last night-take my melatonin and listen to a Calm app sleep story till I pass out. Daily Total: $0 Day Six 2 Wake up and wonder why. I have struggled with insomnia and have instituted many habits to reduce it. Practice my go the fuck to sleep meditation and think I fall back asleep sometime after 3. 5:45 I wake up to sounds of T talking to himself and I wonder why me? I lay in bed and contemplate how I want to tackle his early morning waking and decide to leave him in his crib till he starts to complain. I get up and make coffee & protein, prep T’s milk, bananas, mandarins and cheerios, and then do work emails till I hear T begin to get cranky. 7:15 H is headed into his office, so I juggle getting T ready and getting pups fed and back into the house after they have time in their run. Not feeling my day so far. 11 Listening into some status updates for my area so I put away the diapers H washed last night, unload the dishwasher and change our bedding. It’s times like these that I feel especially grateful to work from home as it frees up our evenings to spend more quality time as a family. Being able to do these chores also settle my dissatisfaction with my day so far. 12 Eat some leftover steak & squash and a blackberry seltzer. Go for a quick walk by myself and listen to podcasts. 3 Call into a meeting on my phone while I do another peloton scenic ride. I haven’t really found an instructor that I love, so I’ve been making my way through all the place based rides which are pretty cool. 4 H picks up T and I continue to work till about 5:30. We head outside to the backyard to enjoy the last bit of sunshine. H cleans up the dog run (which is a big task as it’s about 700 sq ft) while I endeavor to keep T from throwing rocks. We snack on pomegranate seeds. 6 Cut up the last bit of steak and make fajitas with black beans, bell peppers and onions. Apparently beans are a hit with T and minimal amount of food gets donated to the pups via the floor. They get their meal after we eat and spend time in their run. 7 Realize we’re out of milk, so I run out to the closes grocery for milk and pick up some bananas, $5. Since I ran out to my car without a jacket, I get an overwhelming urge to have a warm drink, I stop and get a hot cocoa with some Irish cream flavor in it on the way home. $5 with tip. 8 T is down for bed, so we put on a movie in the background (a not so awful Nicholas Cage flick) while I journal, write up my MD, and H plays games on his phone. 9:30 Melatonin, pm face routine with retinol, and in bed. I try to make it through another chapter of Omnivore’s Dilemma but can’t recall where I fell asleep at. Daily total $10 Day Seven 5:50 It’s the end of the week and I wake up excited for the weekend and get started with my protein coffee and prep T’s snacks and lunch (yogurt, PB&J sandwich cut into tiny pieces-and yes, I eat some, apple chips, cheddar bunnies and belvita pumpkin crackers, milk). When T does wake up, I give him some banana, pomegranate seeds, and a nature’s bakery bar. H wakes up and helps with T while I feed the pups and then get ready (ie am face routine and changing from pjs to my new tunic and some leggings). 8 Call into my first meeting while I drop off T at daycare. When I get home I keep the call on my phone while I eat some pumpkin yogurt and another cup of regular coffee in my kitchen. H has a late start to work today so he head’s out for dog food run, $189 for 130 pounds of raw meaty bones and organs and $18 for veggies. We keep an extra large freezer for all the dog food, which allows us to buy in bulk and minimize the raw feed costs. 12:30 Eat some roasted butternut squash-with butter, nutmeg and cinnamon with a side of soppressata and cheddar. H runs to the local hardware store to pick up some items to make a six foot candy shoot for trick or treaters. I tell him to make sure to buy disposable gloves for handling the candy. Really don’t know if we’ll get kids but if we do, H wants to have it for them. $25 1 Have some project calls to listen into, so I take the calls from my phone while running some errands. Pickup my refilled prescription for eczema, $1, return the tops that didn’t work out, -$49, and also return some toddler clothes to Target I purchased earlier in the month, -$25. Since I’m in and out of three different stores, I use disposable masks. 5 Finish up the last of my updates for a project and call it a day. It’s cold out but sunny, so we decide to go for a drive to a different neighborhood and walk around. Order a pizza from H’s fave place-1/2 everything for H, ½ BBQ chicken for me-and drink some wine in an outdoor covered patio while we wait to take the pizza home. I ply T with snacks (TJs pumpkin bar and a mandarin). H pays for the pizza, $35 with tip, and I pay for the wine and a bottle to go, $47 with tip. 7 Back home and we can finally eat. Still feeling a bit tipsy from my glass so hold off opening the bottle so I add it to the wine fridge. I don’t drink as much as I used to and I have got to stop buying wine like I drink it everyday. 8 Bath and bedtime for T. He’s so tired he falls asleep as I read the last book. It’s my night to choose a movie so I pick Hocus Pocus (third time watching it this month!), and H checks out on his phone but I pull out the froze chocolate banana slices and text my sisters as I watch the movie. 10 Stayed up late for me on a Friday night. Part of me smh at myself but a larger part of me is glad I get so much sleep. Melatonin, PM face routine and snuggle into my bed. Goodnight! Daily Total: $241 Week Recap: $747 Food + Drink $246 Fun / Entertainment $34 Home + Health: $263 Clothes + Beauty: $62 Transport: $50 Other: $92 This was one of the most out and about weeks we’ve had since COVID started so the total dollar amount was a bit higher than average. I’m struggling now as I read through this about how much I went out among other people even though I wear a mask, sanitize my hands and do my best to not touch surfaces. With cases re-surging in Oregon, I really need to limit myself going out. On the other hand, it felt so great to have a busy week and be among others so not sure how I’m going to reconcile this.
Blindly, I'll always somehow find myself at my Grandmothers little Inn down the road from my sweet, little coast-bound house up here in Connecticut over the summer break to help out with all the guests flooding their way into Fairsville. It's not like I'll have her forever, so I try to make the best of the time she has left. And, if you knew why I loved the place so much, you'd travel near and far just to get a look at it. The Inn is small, nothing special from the outside. Hell, doesn't even have its own name. Grandma didn't even want to put a name up at first, saying it wouldn't feel as home-like as she'd want. I convinced her otherwise after a week without having anybody to serve. I couldn't see my dear Grandma upset, so I offered to put it up myself. She obliged, thankful she didn't have to do it herself. Sadly, she still felt weary over the idea. The inside is what'll kill you. Cramped, yes, but my does it feel like a place you'd want to lay your head. Everything is warm, coming from the grand fireplace in the corner where she used to settle up heaving pots of cocoa for me and my many siblings. The furniture is very outdated for the times, but what guest wouldn't want to get an 'aesthetic' picture up in front of all these wonderful decorations they'll get praise for, not caring about the strict photography rule. Grandma has many, many rules. They feel as they have only been created to suit her own needs and not that of the workers or patrons, but hey, I guess that's it works for her. Besides the ruckus these rowdy adults can cause, that's not what I find the most unsettling; The kitchen. I've always had a strong hatred for it, and I haven't exactly noticed why my feeling was off since a week or so ago. This story will sadly start with one of my most favorite, mouth-watering delicacy of my Grandma. Her biscuits. Holy shit, these things used to make me warm to the core at the thought of them. They were silky, layers crisp from all the butter-folded into them. Grandma tried to show me and my family how to make them, but even today it seems impossible. It's technique is difficult, making me wonder how this little-Italian lady, prone to being impatient, can even handle it. Must be the end product that drives her so. Though, they feel to have gotten worse over the years. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat anything thrown out in front of me, but these.. I can barely stomach them. How could they have decreased in their flavor? Grandma was a perfectionist, she would kill any of us if we even tried to claim our biscuits (once finished, after a good twenty times) were the same. "Too little salt, don't be afraid of flavor!" I can still hear her yelling that at my poor father, not wanting to make his pastry taste like what dough was left on the pan after serving. It was around the time when the biscuits went wrong that the kitchen and fireplace began to reek of death, smelling like the decaying animals father used to hang up across the porch after finding them out on the road, finding it be some sort of 'cool decoration.' I know, weird, but the family does have some odd habits that I've noticed and.. No, this story isn't about him, I'll continue. Guests began to complain, begging for refunds after little less than a nights stay at the place. Grandma got these air-diffusers, washing out much of the smell for the people who would sleep there for the night on their travels, but it was worse for me. She didn't put any fresheners in the kitchen, so my nose was constantly clogged by the smell, making me grow sickly. Grandma didn't seem to notice, going on with everything she usually did. It was like she wanted me to be ill. Everything was wrong. I should've caught on by then that Grandma wasn't the honest, kind lady that she was seen to be. No, I didn't know, I couldn't have known of the horrors that she had completed in one, tiny closet. The closet. God, the closet. Grandma used to send me to the closet as punishment when I'd take too much from the guests little buffet, or hit my siblings if they angered me. I'd be in there for hours, staring up at all the spices and sugars, the feeling of them toppling over and cracking into my skull never leaving my poor, eleven year-old mind. She can't do anything like that now as I'm older, but the memories haunt me to this day. She almost worries about me looking in there nowadays, adding to almost each task that involved me entering the kitchen alone, "My dear, please don't enter the closet without Grandmamas permission! We don't want anything falling on you!" Now she worries about things falling on me? How about when I was six, climbing up half the thing before I was caught, almost sailing to the floor? I lost a tad bit of respect for her then, but then my mind was washed. Biscuits, fresh out of the oven. I couldn't help myself, dissolving deep into the layers of butter and crispy edges, burning a hole in the worried thoughts. It was like some sort of drug, blinding me from the truth of how shady it was. Looking back, everything about her was shady, down to her very nickname that got her so loved by guests.. 'Grandmama,' that's what she would call herself, it made her look sweeter to people now that I think about it. I remember my little cousin repeating to her the name at age three, unable to grasp that was not what the rest of us called her. She took on the name, forcing all of us to call her it in her presence. It was sweet, but the name was awkward to say when I was trying to talk about my family to friends while there. I remember being nine, trying to impress some girls I had become acquaintances, when our comes Grandma, a tray of her fine pie on her head, shouting, "Grandmama is here, dears! Come get some Grammy pie!" I almost couldn't forgive her for it, but hey, Grammy pie is not something you could turn down. With my surprise, I somehow made it to the point where these people were my friends. It was an absolute score. Oh golly, I've been rambling on. I should get on to why I'm here. I've seen bodies. Hundreds, it seems. A couple months ago I decided to take a peek inside, I got too curious, and what I found nearly sent me to the floor. Bodies. The spice cabinet must've been taken out years ago for space to do whatever the hell this was. Sickened, I remember slamming the door before planting myself to the ground, trying my hardest not to vomit. The scent was the worst of it, think of rancid, musty old meat you'd find in the bottom of your freezer, left to sit in its own juices until you finally decide to remove it. I can't count them anymore, they pile each time I go to this damn closet to check on them. I remember there being fifteen the last time I counted, stacked up on each other like some sort of crude Janga. I can't even say they're really bodies anymore, no, just badly super-glued pieces of burnt bone stacked into each other, making badly-made skeletons. They looked like the deformed ones Miss. Smith used to put out, the props Mr. Jackson had splintered into fragments after a hit to her tree with his old John Deer. This is where the smell was coming from. The poor people had been most likely been cooked in the massive stone pizza oven she has out back, powerful enough to only take off the flesh and skin, leaving the badly scorched bones of our once happy travelers. It had to be happening at night, the peak time for Grandma to start on her famous biscuits. It had to be some sort of lie, instead of buttering biscuits she was butchering bodies. I regret my next action to the day. Shakily getting up from the ground, I decided to search around the containers that sat themselves around the room. Everything seemed normal; the sugars thin and grainy, the butter sitting out on the counter in it's cute little dish, and the spices all at a perfect grind. Bile swarmed to my mouth as I reached the flour. This was not flour, but ashes. They smelt too similar to that closet to not be.. I then realized it. I had been eating the remains to dead patrons for the past year, and I hadn't known it. Patrons who disrespected her and the establishment must've gotten on Grandmas nerves, forcing her to go on this damn spree. Her rules. My Lord, these poor people, sent into death for not following stupidly put-together rules! I might've been slightly better if I hadn't had eaten anything from her. I didn't consume much other pastries, only the fresh beef and beans she had crafted up the money for a while back when business began to boom. Ever since then, she's been putting up more expensive, lighter meals for her guests, but hey, who couldn't love a family recipe? They'd buy it either way, she knew the appeal. But there was one thing I had eaten that there had said ashes in it, and you know full well what those are. The biscuits. I've seen her everyday after classes scooping the flour from that old china-pot Grandpa had gotten her years ago out into the old stand-mixer. I thought because of the poor candle lighting she preferred over actual lamps in the main dining area and kitchen was the reason to its off coloring, but now I've seen I'm gruesomely wrong. They looked like ashes you'd see in a little vase after a family member had been cremated. I've sadly seen a few of those, my family prone to illness, but that doesn't matter now. I had been eating innocent people under my own eyes and my Grandma is going to get away with this. I should call the local police, have them come fly her away to a life sentence, but I just can't. This is the lady that has brought me up into the lovely person I am now. I just can't do it. It would feel wrong. So I will keep this secret. I hope this reaches the right people on reddit, so I'm warning you now, that with whatever you do in life, please, for the love of god, if you are ever finding yourself up the winding streets in the town of Fairsville on some sort of visit, if her Inn is the only option (which, hopefully it isn't by what I've told you), I warn you to mind your manners around my dear Grandmama if you happen to stay at her said to be warm, welcoming Inn, You may find yourself in the next biscuit I'll have to consume.
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