My (Not-so?) Grand Return

I'm ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!

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by Jared Nickerson

Dang! Was that the longest I've gone without posting an update to this blog? I'm too lazy to sift back through nearly 10 years (dear lord, this blog is OVER 10 years old!? HOW!?) of posts to double check, so we'll just say it probably is, at least in recent memory.  

Also, side note, seems my first ever post to this blog was September 10, 2010! With all the pandemic and election craziness I didn't even register that! So... sorry, blog, for neglecting the milestone of me doing this for a solid decade! Belated happy birthday? 

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I guess you guys were spared from a sappy and lengthy reflective blog post as I recapped my experiences blogging for a decade.

"Whew!"
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Anyway, April's been a bit of a rough month for me. Nothing too heavy, but just the weight of us doing this whole Pandemic Life(TM) BS for over a year now. I was able to have a nice little Easter celebration with our niece and nephew; tag-teaming between playing with them and helping the hubby grill dinner. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law tried to rein in her father who was in uber-stressed mode. So... that... was... a holiday....

After Easter, work has been fairly non-stop. Let's see, my April list has consisted of (roughly):

• A surge of customers as people are getting their tax refunds and/or the stimulus checks and/or have been vaccinated and feel more comfortable entering stores again.
• Updating clearance for the first time since, like, JUNE (and, for Reasons(TM), updating the clearance is pretty much a week-long process)
• Updating sale tags
• Updating product pricing and figuring out the nation-wide sale prices for these pieces (something else that nearly took a week)
• Battling with the company website not having some products up (which meant I had to track down images and information to put onto the website), having products mislabeled, posting and pricing up a PIECE of a complete set even though said piece CANNOT be sold individually, and sizing information from manufacturers having typos, so the dimensions on some pieces were MASSIVELY inaccurate on our website.
• Dealing with a random influx of angry reviews and trying to explain why I can't do anything about them to the owners.
• Taking webinars about how to promote the business to try to get more POSSITIVE reviews, and then try to convince the owners to do the things suggested in the webinars said owners signed me up to take.
• Playing gate keeper to the seven or so companies that now have my office number and work email (thanks to the aforementioned webinars) all trying to get the owners to buy their website add-ons to help improve customer service.
• Dealing with angry customers who - while warned that it's been hard for us to get product in so it will be roughly a 6 month wait to get new pieces in - are yelling about how long they have to wait for something they've paid for.
• Enduring the near-endless grumbles of at least one coworker who has been threatening quitting (almost on the daily) for over a year now.
• Updating fabric drops, which usually means sorting through hundreds of available samples to make sure we have all the currently offered options, as well as pulling anything that the manufacturer is no longer using.
• Product training that was re-scheduled about 3x and eventually landed on a day I was scheduled off, so I got to go in for a few hours to do that... yay... at least I was allowed to wear my jeans and t-shirt. 

Dang work making me actually work at my job!

Ya-Ya Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

Needless to say, work's been a bit... unexpectedly stressful lately. By the time I get home, I barely have any energy left to work on chores, let alone even recreational things. I'm like that gas gauge in the car, where the needle is hovering by the E, but the Low Fuel indicator light hasn't come on yet. Or your cell phone / laptop / tablet with a near-empty battery icon, but the "low battery" alert hasn't flashed on yet. You KNOW it's gonna happen soon, but until it does, you're gonna ignore how close to out you are and hope for the best. Problem being that the need to recharge/refuel only seems to finally kick in when I'm about ready to do something recreational, and said recreational thing takes too much energy itself; it can't recharge me.

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Case and point: ever since the day that my husband bought me my own Switch and a copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I have played that game daily; faithfully. Even if it's for an hour or so to get my daily checklist done. The exception being, I think, ONE or TWO days I was too busy to play? 

Jump ahead to this month, and I've barely touched the game. It feels weird to not escape to my little island paradise for at least a couple of hours a day, but I didn't even have the energy for that. I missed one day, and then two days, and then three days. So, I did something I very VERY rarely did with the game; I "time travelled" by adjusting the system's internal clock and calendar. That way, in-game, I haven't missed a day. I played through the days I missed, but then fell behind again. Next thing I knew, it was over 10 days and I haven't touched my Switch at all. Haven't played anything on my Steam account either. I just didn't have the mental energy to play anything aside from a small handful of my mobile games. Mostly my nonogram/picross game because I can figure out the logic puzzles fairly easily. I also play some classic klondike solitaire for the same reason: no timer; fairly easy logic.

I haven't even really been on Tumblr much recently, but that's also because I keep needing to dodge episode spoilers now that season 4 of Miraculous Ladybug is beginning to drop. Most of the people I follow on Tumblr do properly tag, so my dash tends to be a wall of blocked posts, but on occasion someone will mistype the tag or forget to include it all together, so there's a big ol' spoiler staring me right in the face. OR, I'll watch an episode, think I'm in the clear, go to click on the blocked post, and realize THERE WAS A TRAILER THAT DROPPED THAT I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT! HERE'S YOUR SPOILERS!

Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

So, most of my recreational time this month has been completely shutting my brain off while Hubby and I either watch anime or the dozens of YouTubers we're subscribed to. Let me tell you, once you've subscribed to YouTubers who are primarily game streamers, it is HARD to stay caught up! Especially when you now have 3 or 4 or EIGHT! hour streams to go through. That's on top of the non-primary-streamers who have their own 2hr weekly streams.

I hold firm that ANYONE who complains that they've "watched all of Netflix" really needs to either branch out to other streaming platforms, branch out to YouTube/Twitch, or expand their preferred genres to watch. Because Hubby and I are barely even keeping up with what we watch, let alone chipping away at that ever-increasing "to watch" list.

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Needless to say, all of this means two main things: 1) I'm not really writing much, and 2) I'm not really reading much. 

Hubby bought me yet another novel the other day, so I have at least three or four professionally published novels waiting for me to read them (ignoring all of the previously owned novels just sitting in our little at-home library). I also have a list of about a dozen fanfics I still need to start/continue. Most of which are poor Taurus Pixie's.

I'M SORRY, PIXIE! I PROMISE I'LL GO BACK TO READ THEM! I JUST NEED FLUFFY STORIES RIGHT NOW AND... Well... you don't tend to write that???? But every last one IS on my To Read list still. Promise.

Seeing as how I did just bring up a need to read fluffy stories, I HAVE been tag-teaming two INCREDIBLY sweet works by MostLovedGirl this past month.

The first one is a story I believe she's had in the works for months now. It's a Felix and Bridgette AU story. For those who need a reminder, Felix and Bridgette are the unofficial (?) original names for Chat Noir and Ladybug back when it was going to be an anime. I believe the name Felix was pitched because of the famous cartoon black cat Felix. I can't recall where Bridgette came from.

Anyway, as I mentioned in this post about my own concept of making the Ladybug PV "canon compliant", Felix and Bridgette were both reworked to eventually become Adrien and Marinette. The show made Felix a canon character by making him Adrien's identical cousin who lives in London. Felix's mother Amelie is the identical twin sister to Adrien's mother Emilie. Amelie became widowed roughly around the same time Emilie "disappeared." It's unclear if this is related or always one of Felix's traits, but he's a great manipulator and master of slight-of-hand; literally convincing Adrien's friends that he's Adrien and stealing Gabriel's wedding ring right off the man's hand.

Well, for MLG's story Negotiations, Felix still lives in London, still lost his father when he was about 13, is still the son of Amelie Graham de Vanily, and is still Adrien Agreste's cousin (although Adrien's name isn't ever really mentioned). In this non-magic AU, however, Felix isn't a manipulator or master of slight-of-hand. Instead, he's in his 20s, is a gifted lawyer, and is a bit of a workaholic who struggles with social interactions. His foil and love interest is Bridgette. She's also in her 20s, but I believe a couple of years younger than Felix. She was a promising lawyer herself - possibly even more skilled than Felix - but realized the career didn't make her happy, so she dropped it all to instead become a florist. The two luck into meeting when Felix is sent to negotiate a property purchase on behalf of a developer his firm represented. The property the developer wanted to purchase? Bridgette's shop and upstairs apartment, of course.

It is an absolutely adorable story where Bridgette helps shake Felix out of his career-based tunnel vision and truly appreciate life. She's also very patient with him and helps walk him through his social faux pas so he knows how to avoid them in the future. Meanwhile, Felix pulls Bridgette from her Live In The Now mindset, and gets her to think a bit more seriously about the future. The whole lovely story is underlined with the fact that, thanks to Amelie, Felix is fluent in the language of flowers; a language Bridgette knows as well thanks to her career choice. The two share secret sentiments and knowing glances as they "read" floral gifts throughout the story.

You can see how much Bridgette enjoys Felix's company, and how sweetly he takes care of her. On the flipside, you can FEEL Felix falling madly in love, and watch him grow and evolve within his relationship with Bridgette. And then you have Amelie come in about 3/4 of the way through the story and basically verbalize everything the readers are thinking.

Honestly, since we know so little about these PV characters anyway, and this is a Lawyer/Flower Shop AU on top of that, you truly don't need any prior knowledge of this fandom to enjoy this lovely story. I keep telling MLG that, should she wish, she could easily rename Felix, Bridgette, and Amelie and call this an original story.

MLG updates Negotiations every Tuesday, with today's update being the penultimate chapter. It's the perfect time to hop on the hype train for this lovely story.

On the flipside, are you're looking for something involving ML characters you already know and love? Are you craving some majorly teeth-rottingly sweet fluff within the blessed Love Square? Do you want to see those two idiots finally figure out their feelings? If so, you need to check out MLG's Adrienette April story Remember That Time When....

The few times this month that I've been on social media (aside from Facebook, that is), it's most likely to promote this lovely story. The premise is a bit unique with this Aged Up AU story. The year is 2023, and Marinette and Adrien are both 22 and married to each other. One morning, however, they wake up to discover they are once more 17 and it's 2018. Somehow their 22yo consciousness switched bodies with their 17yo selves. Which can only mean that their 17yo selves woke up in their 22yo bodies... and married to each other. Chaos ensues.

The story flip-flops between the two sets of Adrienette. Odd chapters are spent with the married couple back in 2018, trying to remember what it was like to be clueless teenagers not even dating yet. They are struggling to not be as sickingly lovey-dovey as they have grown accustomed to, so as to not raise any red flags that they aren't the 17yo Adrien and Marinette their friends and family know in 2018. Pretending to not even know the other is in love with them after two blissful years of marriage is quite the challenge, especially with both Marinette's best friend Alya and mom Sabine having their radars pinging that something is up with Marinette and Adrien.

Meanwhile, the even chapters follow the clueless Adrien and Marinette as they try to figure out how on earth they went from "just friends" to married in less than five years. Marinette has a complete mental breakdown because she just CANNOT wrap her mind around the fact that everything she's ever dreamed of - being married to Adrien as well as graduating from her dream college - is actually hers. The fact that the 22yo body she's borrowing is almost definitely newly pregnant without her knowing doesn't help matters (yay, hormone imbalance on top of stress and confusion!). On the flipside, Adrien is not helping matters as he easily falls into the roll of loving husband without batting an eye. He's confused as to how he ended up marrying Marinette, but he's cool with it, does everything he can think of to care for his friend (wife???), and quickly falls helplessly in love with her without even realizing what is happening. Probably doesn't help (hurt?) that the actual married Adrienette had planned a romantic NYC getaway to celebrate their 2yr wedding anniversary just before the body swap, and the Adrien currently borrowing his older body desperately wanted the two of them to still take the trip. So Adrienette in 2023 are experiencing a very romantic trip to NYC while stumbling their way through their feelings.

MLG posts a new chapter every day for the Adrienette April writing prompt challenge. This means frequent updates, a lot of great content, and relatively short chapters. This story, honestly, has been such a highlight to my days during this crazy month. I can tear through the new daily chapter during my work lunch breaks, and just be in this giddy fluff-high for the next couple of hours. Such a fantastic final push to help me finish my workload.

There are some downsides to this though. Especially when we get an odd chapter following the married Adrienette in 2018... The story as a whole is rated Teen, and everything is relatively clean, especially since Marinette and Adrien are trying their darnedest to behave themselves since their teenage bodies are still virgins. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean some of those chapters don't get a bit spicy.... Those... those chapters might be a bit of a mistake to read at work.

 

There are also the most recent even chapters - so the ones following Adrienette in NYC in 2023 - where these two dingbats are getting closer and closer to realizing and confessing their feelings and I just want to scream with joy! Buuuut, I'm again at work so..... probably not the best plan.

Pandadog and Friends
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by Funnyeve.com

This AU story has yet to make any mention of the Miraculous - going so far as to point out that Adrien only wears a wedding band and Marinette routinely switches out her earrings - or superheroes or supervillains or kwamis. It's not tagged as non-superhero AU or non-kwami AU or anything like that, however. People keep asking in the comments, but MLG just responds with something akin to "it's too soon to answer this question, but it will be answered by the end". So I'm guessing Tikki and Plagg ARE still very much involved in this AU, but the same shenanigans that switched the 22yo Adrienette with their 17yo selves also did something to the kwamis. 

Our first hints were in the 24th chapter, when Marinette dreamed of Adrien pointing out a Camembert-inspired constellation and mentioned the myth behind it being the constellation is always in fear of being swallowed by a black cat demon. That dream then turned into a nightmare set up like the flooded and destroyed Paris in the episode "Chat Blanc." So, yeah, no clue what's up with the kwamis or Miraculouses, but that's an extra layer of intrigue along with the pure fluff that is Adrien and Marinette loving on each other in two different time periods.

In truth, because of the MIA magical beings/items, you don't really need to know the fandom to love this story. Here's all you need to know:

1. Marinette has been in love with Adrien for years, but has never had the courage to let him know. Adrien's clueless of Marinette's full affections. He considers her one of his closest friends but never considered her in a romantic light.
2. Marinette is an aspiring teenage fashion designer.
3. Adrien has an emotionally and mentally abusive father who forces his son to model his line of clothes as well as overbooks Adrien's schedule so the poor kid barely has any free social time; keeping Adrien as isolated as possible outside of school.

That's it. That's all you need to know. Most of it is stated pretty clearly in the story anyway, so I don't know if you even needed to previously know any of that stuff before diving in, but here ya go regardless. 

So go dive on in! Again, those stories by MLG are Negotiations and Remember That Time When....

I think one of the main reasons why I'm promoting RTTW so hard - aside from it just truly being such a delight to read; it's easily in my top 10 faves - is because it also helped inspire some more writing from me.

On the one hand, yes, yet again I'm writing fanfiction based on fan content. First it was a retelling of Pixie's story Twelve Days of Chatmas, then it was a story based on Carpisuns' fanart, and now it's a partial retelling of chapter 12 of RTTW. All I seem to do is build off of other peoples' original thoughts. On the other hand, I'M WRITING SOMETHING! LOOK AT ME GO!

Hacker Girl 
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by Birdman, Inc

So anyway, chapter 12 of RTTW starts off with Adrien in 2023 wondering what to do after Marinette locked herself in her future self's sewing studio all night. He recounts that night, how eventually he went to bed because he didn't know how to comfort his friend, and how she still agreed to join him on the trip to NYC, but seemed both exhausted and incredibly stressed as they waited for take-off.

In my comment about the chapter I had stated that I imagined Marinette creeping out of the studio around 3am, went to check in on Adrien, watched him sleep, wrestled with her desire to just curl up beside him in bed, and eventually re-locked herself away in her studio to resist temptation.

MLG had commented that it seemed like a sweet scene, especially when she wasn't sure what Marinette was doing while hiding from Adrien. That got the ball rolling, and I spent the better part of the next week stealing any brief breathers I could at work - or while doing otherwise mindless tasks such as scanning tags - and brainstorming that scene further. With my limited free time this month, it kept me about ten days to complete my little one-shot (ha! "little"! It's nearly 4500 words long).

Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?

Summary: Marinette is not coping very well when she's magically transported into her older-self's body, and discovers she's now married to Adrien Agreste.

Rating: Teen for mildly suggestive elements

Word Count: 4488

• On FanFiction           • On ArchiveOfOurOwn

                     • On DeviantArt           • On Tumblr

I was excited that MLG loved the story. I was then dumbfounded when she decided to promote it in her own story! So now, when you get to Chapter 12 of Remember That Time When..., the link to my story is in her closing chapter notes. The link is also in the closing story notes, so when you get to the end of the most recently updated chapter - or the end of the whole story once it's complete - you'll also get a link to my story! Like... WHAT!?

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Thanks to MLG helping to promote my story, I'm actually getting way more love for it than I was expecting, honestly.

I haven't quite hit the week mark for the story since I published it Friday night, so I'm not going to share my normal "week-long" stats. I was also too busy Saturday to properly grab the "24-hr mark" stats. However, I did have a few minutes on Sunday, so here are my "39-hours" stats, I guess.

FFN: 335 views, 9 favorites, 7 followers, and 2 reviews
AO3: 1006 hits, 100 kudos, 11 bookmarks, and 7 comments
DA: 408 views, but no faves or comments

Total Results: 1749 views! 109 faves/kudos! 18 followers, and 9 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 7 notes; 5 likes and 2 reblogs.

Reviews:
  1. Very well done! I'll have to check out the story that inspired this. - Agiani
  2. Review by Wildfire's Flame is too long; see below
  3. Aaaahhh this is such a good addition to Remember That Time When. I love it!!!! I love that Marinette didn’t just lock herself away all night, but he doesn’t know. She’s such a mess, it’s perfect. - ktreereads
  4. This was an enjoyable story! I’ll have to go check out the larger one when I have time. 😊 - Pkk
  5. Review by mostlovedgirl is too long; see below
  6. I'm glad you wrote it. It is such a supplement to that story, written just as well as the original. I'd like to read any more of your interpretations. - jessyxx
  7. Oh this is ADORABLE! These two just... such bliss. Such fluff. - Keyseeker
  8. Review by SteelBlaidd is too long; see below
  9. You can't imagine now how much I want a Someday someday 🥰 - Sunnywet
  10. *inhales* AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Go read this!! Read it now!!! - MLG's Tumblr reblog

I still can't wrap my mind around the number of people who have seen my story already. I mean, 1749 views!? In under two days since publishing?! What!?

As for those three "lengthy" reviews?

  Wildfire's Flame: Giggles. I enjoyed it and I must check out the story that inspired it. I did wonder about Tikki and Plagg. But your summary explained that. I kinda would have liked [REDACTED DUE TO STORY SPOILERS] Going to combust. Grins. Its perfect. Thank you

The gushing from the original author that unintentionally birthed the above story just killed me! I mean, check this out!

  mostlovedgirl: Wow. I— Uh— Gah— AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! (I’m a little lost for words at the moment.)

Okay, so I also could not decide how Marinette spent her night. I still don’t know, but it very may well have played out like this. Give me a few minutes to process and I’m sure I will be convinced that this is how it happened.

So many nods to little details in RTTW. (Girl, how many times have you read it?? Color me impressed.)

And, oh, how exquisitely painful it all was. I’m so glad there are only a few chapters left. Marinette needs her happy ending (beginning?), dang it!! Okay time to get back to writing. But kudos to you. Kudos to this fic. Just... kudos all ‘round. Love you, friend. Catch you later. *waltzes out door gracefully*

(Meanwhile out in the hall... *inhales* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Did MLG really sing my praises that much!?

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
Natsuo Maki from Love Lab
created by Ruri Miyahara

My final lengthy review was from one of MLG's frequent reviewers, and someone I've seen pop up more and more frequently on my Tumblr dash.

  SteelBlaidd: Poor Marinette. She still can't get out of her own way.

Her little inner Chloé voice still whispering that she is too lame for Adrien to ever think of her that way.

Excellent pacing and a wonderful feel for the mood.

Her cycles of tentative acceptance and panic are delightfully tense.

Well done.

Speaking of SteelBlaidd, I just started reading some of his shorter fics. The ones I stumbled onto seem to focus more on friendships, which is nice when so many of us ML fanfic writers tend to focus on the romances. Yes, I'm including myself in this. I haven't gotten too deep into his anthology to have a favorite story yet, but I have been liking what I've read thus far. Go give him a check out too if you're looking for more sweet content.

Circling back to my own writing and MLG's story RTTW, chapter 12 wasn't the only one to inspire me. The very next chapter also inspired me. More specifically, a review by ShawnaCanon on chapter 13 kicked my muse into overdrive. The long and short is that, in the chapter, Marinette in 2018 told her husband Adrien that they definitely can't hang out around her mom otherwise the woman would instantly figure them out. It's implied that Marinette meant Sabine would figure out they're romantically attached and would just assume they're dating, but that alone would still cause a bit of chaos for their 17yo counterparts when they body swap back. Shawna jokingly commented that it would be funny if Marinette meant her mother would figure out that Adrien and Marinette are actually a married couple from the future "possessing" the 17yo bodies.

It was too funny a writing prompt to leave it be, so I wrote the scene of Sabine figuring the couple out when Adrien comes over for breakfast. I have yet to publish it anywhere by itself, but I DID post my scene as a response to Shawna in the comments. So, if you want to read that scene, go on over to RTTW, read through it while you're there, and then check the comments section of chapter 13.

I've been debating pulling the scene from the comments section and publishing it for others to see, but I feel like it would really only make sense as part of a series or anthology. Maybe I'll pair it with Can Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell? In the meantime, the scene and Shawna's initial writing prompt inspired MLG, and she did indeed put a variant of that scene in the actual story! So... neat!

With less than a week left before RTTW is complete, let's see if MLG can inspire me to write anything else. Heck, just last night, I fell asleep wondering if I wanted to expand CYPABYH to further dive into what Adrien was doing that night while Marinette was hiding from him. We have the broad strokes, but what if we zoom in and focus on the details of that night, what would it look like? How much did he plan out that night to try to help make Marinette comfortable? How many times did he study the wedding pictures to try to figure out when his future self fell? How many times did he read through the itinerary for the New York trip? How alone did he feel in that apartment? Was he used to being on his own after living with his father? How long did he linger outside the studio door, waiting for Marinette?

Perhaps if I decide to expand this story or create another vignette like I did with "Sabine figures the young couple out", I'll grab the Detective Sabine short from the comments and officially post it. I'm still a touch on the fence right now though. 

I already have all of these other plot bunnies I've slowly accrued since October - my own Felix and Bridgette story, the various story ideas birthed from Ladybug's Simp Squad, the half-dozen long-standing plot bunnies I've been nursing for years now, a companion story for the New York special, and WIPs such as I Don't Care and One and the Same - and so I'm a bit overwhelmed with writing ideas as is. This doesn't even take into consideration any renewed inspiration to work on "Glitches" again.

Man, I really need to find the time and energy to actually get to writing!

At least I'm stumbled my way into posting something new each month since the start of 2021. That's a lot better than 2020 already! Whoo!

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So, to finish up this week's grand return to blogging, some house keeping.

First of all, Hubby and I finally managed our first vaccine shot this past Friday. Whoo! We've had some mixed reactions to the vaccine, but nothing too major. I lucked into having both yesterday and today off, and I ended up spending nearly a third of yesterday sleeping. Not sure if that's because of the vaccine, or simply pure exhaustion after this past month, or a "happy" combo of the two, but I definitely feel better today.

Now to hope the second dose doesn't kick my butt too severely in May.

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combined by LycoRogue

Secondly, a belated Happy Easter or Passover or Ramadan or any other holiday I may have missed this past month. I hope everyone was able to enjoy themselves and reconnect with loved ones.

Third, a big happy belated birthday to my niece! She got to go to NYC for the first time and custom-made an American Girl Doll. What a great way to celebrate your birthday!

UPDATE: Somehow I didn't register how close to Pixie's birthday it was, so a quick Happy Birthday to her as well!

Finally, while I know my mom doesn't like celebrating it, since I'm posting on her actual birthday, I can't just let it go unsaid. So, Happy Birthday, Mom! Hope you could take the time to relax and enjoy yourself.

"TOTALLY not making a big deal, Mom"
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Now, let's hope May is going to treat me a bit kinder. I really want to see you lovely folks again next week. Until then,