Oh Most High Father, Earth’s grace, Lord of All, your son cries your name in lamentation.
Great is my shame, as sharp as the blade I sheath within the flesh of the Great Worm. Large have been my boastings, my wrongs, and my iniquities. Equally as sizable is the wound that lay within my breast, stinking and festering to the Heavens. Heavy is the weight of my burden as this hour grows late.
Your forgiveness is a balm but the cut of anguish pricks me still. I guard the Sun Barque by night when I wish nothing but to bask in the light of her that is the day.
Golden is she, that goddess of my heart. Monumental has been my grief ever since our story began. But my sister remains and ever will be the heart and soul of our brother, Asar. One half of the whole that they share. Perhaps it was destiny that my sister wife, her twin, should come to despise me so. For how much more monstrous would be my lot if her image continued to be forced to my side? They cannot love me, cannot be mine, because their hearts already belong to their King.
So to the desert, my wasted lands, so seemingly empty and yet still managing to cling still to life. To survive and thrive through adversity, as I shall continue to do into time immemorial. I will bring the sting of the sword and the storm to our enemies and maybe someday that seeping wound will slowly become a scar, ugly for the memory but ultimately a sign of meeting adversity and coming out the victor. Coming out the better for it.
So Little Maxwell is always asking if she can download this new game or that new app. I’m pretty particular about what kinds of games I won’t let her play. For example, I don’t let her play the “match-three” style of games like Bejeweled or Candy Crush. Is Bejeweled even still a thing?
She got an ad for another game in one of the apps she was playing one day and begged me to download it. I checked it out and agreed but under one stipulation: she only played with me. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the fact that it’s a sort of social game that doesn’t have the option of offline play. The game is called PK XD.
Hopping in to the game, I was blasted with the neon and sheer… Well. Childishness. It definitely is made with it’s target audience in mind. It’s bright and accentuated with catchy music and sound effects. There are regular community events and an arcade of mini games that allows each player the opportunity to collect in-game currencies without having to spend real money. In fact there are quite a few opportunities to do so which I was rather pleased with. The game has admins that regularly run my paces through the two floating islands that the PKXD universe consists of.
As for communicating with other players, there are predetermined, pre-selected scripts and responses, even Emojis with sound effects like laughing or crying, that the player can select but speaking freely with players one-on-one outside of that doesn’t seem like an option that is commonly used if even available. I found myself put at ease a little more by this realization. Little Maxwell isn’t really reading fluently yet but I doubt it will be a long. I like knowing that anyone she might become friendly with in-game is relegated to the many, though very PG, communications.
We took the opportunity to catch a photo op at one of the murals during Pet Week! Both of us are supporting pets from the Halloween update. Little Maxwell has an Alibrije spirit cat and I have a spooky Ghost Horse! 👻
The more I played with her, the more I’ve come to really enjoy the game itself. What I love the most though is the fun and engaging quality time that I get to spend with my daughter now, doing something that we both really enjoy together! As a gaming family, we are all often enjoying the latest video game, table top or board game. But, though they may enter set with other family members like when I play Diablo with my sisters and Dad and Minecraft with my brother and bestie hetero life partner, those don’t always necessarily include little Maxwell or her dad. So it’s always nice when we have a game that we can play together especially when it’s one that she so adamantly enjoys.
It’s very easy to add each other 2 your friends list and once you are linked as friends, the game gives you the opportunity to jump in to the servers that your online friend is playing from so you can literally play together. We have had a very big time helping each other decorate our houses and bouncing around the parkour Pet Week course. Visiting other people’s homes to see how they’ve decorated as well. The game boasts a sort of trophy/achievement system by way of stickers that can be collected from literally anywhere and anything. Today, I unlocked a hidden sticker no I received by drinking milk 10 separate days. Another I got from adding items to my house or even finding hidden pets throughout the world.
While it isn’t the most graphically complex game I’ve ever played, I can definitely recommend PK XD or anyone looking for something to do with their kids that don’t be mind-numbingly dull. There is no end to different events, achievements, and fun things to do when you’re spending time with the people you love.
What do you think? Are you going to give PK XD a try with your little ones anytime soon? Let me know what you think in the comments!
Today, I found myself irresistibly fascinated by the shapes, colors and textures of the clouds as a storm front made it’s way into our local area.
They were beautiful and strange. Remarkable and wonderous. It led to conversations about the heights that certain clouds sat at and the colors that some had taken on.
It just served as a potent reminder of the wonders all around us in the natural world, in our world, if only we took the time to look.
I hope that at some juncture in your schedule, you take the time out of your day to just stop for one moment…and look. Look up. Look down. Look at all the wonders that can be found in the things that we overlook everyday.
Those things that we see but have become so much the norm that they are easily passed over. Look at the clouds or the rain. Even the soil beneath our feet and how it teems with life. How we would not be able to survive without it. How sick much of it has become…
Without these small, oftentimes considered insignificant things because of their regularity, our world but not be the amazing place that it is today so take a moment to just appreciate it.
It almost doesn’t seem real does it? We’ve been in quarantine for three and a half weeks now but it still just feels like none of it is actual happening. The sun has been bright and beautiful. It’s been warm, the height of spring. Yet, we can’t see our families. We can’t leave the house. Security as we knew it is a thing of the past.
People keep saying, ‘well, when quarantine is over...’ It’s so surreal how time has now been separated into Before COVID, Now (during our present pandemic period of flux) , and After Quarantine. I’m starting to believe that even when quarantines are over, when we can finally stop and take a final count of the COVID dead, life is never going to be the same. It will never ‘go back to normal’. I think there will be things that will be forever altered because of this. Things like hand shaking, sitting closely. Seemingly innocent things that now have the stain of insidiousness to them.
Even more damaging, however, is the isolation.
We as humans are pack creatures, social beings hardwired for community and interaction to such a degree that it is a psychological, nay, a physiological, need. The effects of COVID will not just be found in our numbered losses, or measured in our griefs, it will be a far reaching scar upon the minds and hearts of the world as a whole.
We will be seeing vast upticks in numbers of depression, anxieties, phobias, many more and worse, for a long time to come. Just tonight, after a fight to sleep that lasted until an ungodly one a.m., my three year old daughter told me that she hated quarantine and then the net thing she said, the last thing before she finally drifted off, was if her Nana missed her.
Even the youngest of us aren’t exempt from feeling these stings to the spirit.
Keep that in mind as the distanced days grow longer, as they stretch into what is looking to become a quieter, more somber summer. Be patient when your kids act out right now. They don’t have the emotional ability in many cases to process, recognize, or cope with these feelings of sadness, confusion, fear, and isolation. Acting out, as we know it, is always the flower of something more deeply rooted. It is always communication in oftentimes the only way our littles are capable of right now.
The world has become a frightening and confusing place for us. Can you imagine what it must be like for them too?
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another over-caffeinated edition of Grinding Gourmet! Today, I’m going to be talking about Starbucks’ Costa Rica Latin America Blend!
The Costa Rican blend is a part of Starbucks’ stunning Premium Select Collection, boasting a cooperative of beans from both the coffee’s titular homeland and Latin America. It pairs well with lemony pastries and milk chocolate according to Starbucks’ blog spot for it. Costa Rican is a medium roast with beans that boast a lovely mild aroma, sweetly delicate, piquant, and nippy.
I found the taste to be enjoyable, not too dark and not too light. A perfect blend for a balanced day. I can picture having it on a quiet morning with a delightful lemon-glazed biscotti. That said, I did enjoy the Costa Rica, yet unlike its cousin, the Christmas Blend, it did not amaze me. It was good, faithful, and true, but nothing exceptional, in my humble opinion. It is a blend I would be happy to enjoy again but find it easily overlooked for more bold flavors and exciting brews.
However, I do implore you to try out the Costa Rica Blend for yourself and come to your own conclusions! Let us know here in the comments what your own thoughts were. We would love to hear them!
In all of the turmoil, fear, and uncertainty, we are all facing some of our darkest days. Information is rampant and widespread, much of it helpful and some of it, unfortunately, not.
However, that’s actually not what I want to talk about today. Today, I don’t want to talk about what we need to do to keep ourselves safe and healthy no matter what the circumstance comes to. I want to talk about what we can do for each other. Obviously, I’m not saying going door-to-door. What I mean is, what we can do for each other here in this online space.
Something I hadn’t heard of yet was a support group for those not just affected by the COVID/Corona virus but for everyone. Everyone who’s dealing with this fear and uncertainty about what tomorrow might bring. I want to establish a place where anyone and everyone is free to go and talk about what their experience is. What they’re afraid of, what they’re dealing with and also a place that we can go to share this time with others and share support with our fellow human beings.
No matter where you’re from, what borders exist between us, or other lines that we may draw between people and places.
So, here on Little Journeys Everywhere, it’s my mission to create a place where all of this can come together. Where all of us can come together. Because right now, the situation is such that we need each other now more than ever before. We need to support, understand, and share with each other more than ever before, possibly in our history.
It’s my prayer that this sort of support group will help many of us, my own family included, get through the heartache, loneliness, depression, and isolation that can come from illness, distance, and quarantine. So we are going to be launching a social media network support system just for you so that we can all come to the other side of this together.
There is another side to this and we will get there.
Have no doubt about that.
Come join us as we launch the Before The Dawn: A Corona Virus Support Group and leave your stories, testimonials, or words of hope, comfort, and support. It will also be a place where we can put resources and stories of hope for those who need them. Before the Dawn is a community that will be open to all, unmonetized, free of politics, fingerpointing, or bullying. It will be a place that, despite quarantines or borders, everyone can come together no matter your level of affectedness.
I implore those of you who have counseling training or experience to reach out and offer your aid whether it is in Before the Dawn or anywhere else!
Before the Dawn will be on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, and will be linked on our Little Journeys pages. Look for those in the next 24 to 48 hours. The Facebook page can already be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/539367610029409/ .
Here on the blog main, I will also be posting ways for you and your families (especially our poor kids) to get through times of quarantine as well as other resources to offer all of us hope and just a little bit of security until we can reach that other side.
Okay so we all know that PETA is awful. Right? Can we all agree on that? It’s not exactly a secret after all. An example? Exhibit A.
Okay. Moving on.
I have a food allergy. A really freaking weird food allergy that makes my immune system respond if I eat anything coming from a mammal, including meats, dairy, and gelatin. It’s called an Alpha-gal allergy. I got it from a tick bite. Yes, it freaking sucks. No, I am not a healthier person because of it. I like cake and Oreos, okay? Obligatory exposition over.
I was looking up recipes for some tasty desserts online recently and came across a page for the top rated vegan desserts for this Valentine’s Day just past.
When I saw it was PETA site, I should have frikkin known not to get my hopes up.
I did not expect the first words I set my eyes to be,
“There ain’t nothing sweet about breaking a mother’s heart by stealing her calf and her milk, and there’s nothing to love about grinding up baby chicks or cramming gentle hens together in filthy, dank cages. If you’re trying to show your affection this Valentine’s Day (and beyond), you best leave eggs and dairy out of it!”
I know I’ve been trying to swear less in posts and just in general lately but grant me this one, yeah?
Holy F**cking Hell, PETA!
Dear PETA,
I know.
I know it’s hard. But could you try, just try, for one time not to be completely horrible? A solid effort is all I ask.
I mean, holy bleeding beefcakes! Are you fracking serious?
Now don’t get me wrong. I love animals. We had already cut out buying almost all of the beef from our household even before my food allergy, slowly making the transition to a more environmentally friendly, sustainable household. We had swapped all of our toiletries to vegan/cruelty free formulas, if not vegan brands altogether. Almost all of the clothes that I buy myself are second hand. We recycle and have even made strides towards growing some of our own food in recent years. We donate unwanted clothes instead of throwing them out.
We are an eco-friendly family.
But that sh*t is not helping anything or anyone.
Case in point? Even as a vegetarian, I was so horrified I immediately clicked right off.
And I know.
I know that their ultimate goal isn’t for me to see that there’s a really great dessert that I would definitely eat at a restaurant within 30 minutes of my house (number ten on their list). No, their goal is to get people talking about them. I suppose, in that regard, they have succeeded. I am, after all, talking about them.
Shouldn’t their goal, rather than something that seems a little self-serving more than anything, be to actually be helping animals though? Helping people make the change towards a more environmentally sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle?
Because sure, I’m talking about it here today. Yet the way that PETA puts on the death and slaughter of animals and our environment as a whole as nothing but a horror show, is counterproductive. Much of the industrial raising, processing, and killing of animals for consumption and product manufacturing impacts our global wellbeing on an increasingly large scale and PETA is in a position to make a big impact on that. What are they doing instead? Becoming a gross-out factor that people simply write off and scoff at.
It’s not encouraging people to change their lifestyle habits in a positive and lifelong way. It’s getting them publicity of course but not in a way that is aiding their long-term goals, if actually helping animals and our planet actually is their long-term goal.
Putting on a show of horror and gore to encourage people to go vegetarian or vegan isn’t helping anyone. It’s not helping people go and stay that way. It’s not helping the homeless animals on the street or those being abused. It isn’t helping animals being used for blood sport like dog fighting or bull fighting. It isn’t helping wildlife conservation or enacting better policies that would make these goals possible.
What it’s doing is detracting and distracting from their own goals by turning people away from their message before they even bother to hear it simply because PETA’s name is attached to it.
Their methods have done the very thing that undermines their entire message.
They’ve become one of the single most disdained organizations in the country.
They’ve become…
A meme.
So, I ask again.
Dear, PETA. What the actual FAQ is wrong with you?
With Peace and Passion.
Ta!
This message brought to you by my deep and sudden need to go look up why cheesecake is called a cheesecake.
Edit: It’s classification as a cake is widely disputed but it’s called a cheesecake because, at least in our country, it’s made with cream cheese or ricotta cheese! In other countries, the ingredients are actually usually different. For example:
“The most prominent version of cheesecake in the Philippines is ube cheesecake. It is made with a base of crushed graham crackers and an upper layer of cream cheese and ube halaya (mashed purple yam with milk, sugar, and butter). It can be prepared baked or simply refrigerated. Like other ube desserts in the Philippines, it is characteristicaly purple in color.”
This is from the lovely Ellie Parfitt at hearinglikeme.com! Go check her out because she is truly amazing.
Birds singing. Wind blowing. The sound of far off kids playing. All these things I hadn’t heard before. Amazement dawns. My heart, it soars.
I hadn’t remembered That one could hear all these things. Little joys I’d been missing. Never realizing How much they would mean to me.
I’ve had this picture in a folder for years now but I don’t know who it was who took it. Just know it isn’t mine and that I’m not claiming credit for it. I could never crochet that well!
I knew from the moment that I picked this deck up that I was in complete love with it. That’s right, my peeps! Today, I bring you my feels on the Everyday Witch Tarot! At long last. Yes, I know that you’re probably wondering what the hell took me so long and that, dear Journeyers…is a very good question.
It’s been a slow few weeks, okay?
The Everyday Witch Tarot was the fourth deck that I’d bought or been gifted so I wasn’t exactly new to the cards at that point. It was a gift from Daddy Maxwell for my birthday last year after I discovered it at a local metaphysical shop.
I love using the Everyday Witch Tarot in conjunction with the Everyday Witch Oracle. It’s been reading well for me and I remember, when opening it for the first time, there was this feeling of…rightness. If you’ve ever bonded with a deck, you’ll know exactly what I mean. That’s not to say that everyone will mesh well with the Everyday Witch tarot. Every person is different, every deck is different, every witch is different. For me, though, this one is golden!
The scenes and characters have both a medieval fantasy yet somehow modern feel to them, the colors bright and images beautifully illustrated. Another creation of the talented Elizabeth Alba and written by Deborah Blake, this deck is a point of pride for any tarot collector’s hoard. I love the motorcycle riding Chariot card!
My only point of contention would be the lack of diversity in the characters and art. I love the quirkiness of it all and the cats that feature somewhere in almost every card. However, there’s a certain repetition in it. It’s very…white. Given the wide breadth of witches from cultures worldwide (is there any culture that doesn’t have the witch in one form or another?), it would have been so cool to see the hoodoo queens of the south and the bokor of Haiti.
I do think it’s fascinating that each suit tells a story. This was something I knew was true of the Rider-Waite tarot but the Everyday Witch deck makes it far easier to suss out that narrative for the average reader.
Needless to say, the Everyday Witch decks have quickly become my go-to decks, pushing my standard Rider-Waite to the side with little trouble at all. It’s, without a doubt, the one I reach for time and time again. The light, fun illustrations are simply magical and I hope to enjoy the Everyday Witch Tarot and Oracle decks, as well as Deborah Blake and Elizabeth Alba’s other products, for many years to come!
On this beautiful Saturday, I want to tell you about a movie that I saw on Netflix just two days ago. Why? In short: I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Here’s why.
My Life as a Zucchini (or in it’s original French, Autobiographie d’une Courgette) is a 2002 novel by the lovely author Gilles Paris, a man I had the distinct pleasure of talking to briefly just this morning. Although his book has been translated into twenty different languages, those regrettably do not include English.
The film, however, has.
My Life As A Zucchini was adapted for audiences for the second time in 2016 as a Swiss-French film directed by Claude Barras in a stop-motion style, screening at the Cannes Film Festival and eventually going on to enjoy a tour at the 89th Academy Awards with an entry for the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Animated Feature Film.
I know that sounds good and all but…
Go watch this movie for yourself.
Please.
I’m telling you that it is so heartfelt, and not in all of those warm gooey ways that we usually associate with that word. No, it is grieving, it is warm. There is kindness and there is hatred. Greed and acceptance. There are angry words but it also contains hearts that are open to new loves. New lives.
Zucchini’s story is filled with the lost and lonely children that have “no one left to love them” as the boy, Simon, comes to tell him. Simon is a collector of stories, of the stories of all of the children that come through the orphanage, Fontaine’s. Each of them coming from the very worst situations that life has to offer.
Abuse, addiction, mental illness, deportation, a possible sexual abuse case, and eventually we see the child left behind after a jealousy-induced murder suicide.
These kids are the somber reminders that everything we do, our own issues and struggles, don’t just affect us. Our darknesses leave scars behind on more than just our own bodies and hearts.
image courtesy of intofilm.org
Zuchini won’t simply settle for having abuses happen to him anymore though, and neither will his friends. He is capable of making a mark on his situation, even changing it entirely. We see this as he closes the trapdoor on his abusive mother before the title screen even plays out. He dared to say no, to not just take a beating from someone who was supposed to love and care for him.
Granted, he didn’t mean it to knock her down the stairs but in closing that door on her abuse for what we can assume is the first time, he closes the door on that part of his life and the person that he once was. The Zucchini that was forever a victim of others and of his circumstances.
This becomes a sort of theme throughout the short movie where we see the children support and draw strength from one another in times of struggle and to slowly come to find themselves again. They find something else too, something almost as precious.
That there are adults who they can trust, and who want to be trusted.
Adults who can be actually kind, not just putting on a show of it in order to get something out of it.
For a movie, there isn’t as much dialogue as you’d expect but so much is said through the brilliantly expressive characters that the creators have brought to life.
image taken from animationmagazine.net
And, oh my Lord and Lady, this scene! The kids are just looking on as a boy has a spill and his mum comes to comfort him. The two realize the unabashed audience they have pretty quickly but Zucchini and his friends don’t care. You become painfully aware while watching it that it’s because they simply aren’t used to seeing a mother comfort a child.
Yeah, no, it’s cool. Totally didn’t need my heart or my soul. Or those tissues wadded in the bin now. You keep those.
So, again, please. Go find this movie on Netflix or elsewhere. Read the book if you know any of the other languages it’s been released in! Give the author, Gilles Paris, some love, enough to send his heart melting.
I know that the tender story that he created certainly melted mine.
Little Journeys Everywhere 