Daughters of Heaven

Once upon a time, twin girls were born to the Rulers of Heaven.  The Rulers named their daughters Sun and Moon, gave them a magical Orb, and sent them to Earth to live and learn among mortals.  Every nine years the twins were to pass the Orb from one to the other, so that their heavenly powers might remain balanced.  For hundreds of years they did as their parents had instructed, ruling in harmony.  Sun, the older twin, was much engaged with the world and experiences of the flesh- even taking mortal lovers and eventually giving birth to a daughter she named Starlight.  Moon, however, was more intrigued by the realms of magic and the mind, and thus held herself apart from most mortals.  Eventually there came a day when Moon was working on a particularly intricate and difficult spell, and did not want to interrupt its progress by returning the Orb to Sun at the appointed time.  Moon knew Sun never did as much with the Orb as she herself did, and felt her sister wouldn't mind waiting a while longer for its return.  In point of fact, however, Sun was enraged by this breach; but so long as Moon held the Orb, Sun was less powerful than her twin, and could do nothing in retaliation.

During this period of estrangement, a demon stole Starlight.  Sun was able to rescue her daughter, but discovered to her dismay that the demon had separated the girl's spirit from her body, and had hidden the spirit away before vanishing back to Hell.  In despair, Sun transformed Starlight into a beast, so that her body would remain safe while Sun attempted to locate and rescue Starlight's spirit.

By this point Moon was deeply regretting her selfishness: she knew that if Sun had been in possession of the Orb, as she should have been, the demon would never have been able to get close to Starlight.  And so Moon started looking for a way to recover her niece's spirit.  As she did so, she sent one of her servants to return the Orb to Sun.

This did not go as planned.

Frella

(I recently had to scramble to create a true-neutral human character.  This is the hastily-sketched background that resulted.)

Frella was born to a jaguar.

Well, technically she was born to a human woman, by the name of Firsha.  But Firsha, like her wandering mate, was a druid.  And Firsha, like her mother before her, preferred to spend most of her time in animal form.  And the form Firsha liked best was that of the jaguar (unlike Firsha's mother, who lived far away in the frozen north and found an ice tiger to be much more comfortable).  So unless something require speech or thumbs, Firsha was found in jaguar form, her young, not-able-to-shift-yet daughter clinging happily to her back.  If Firsha's wandering mate wandered into her territory, the three of them might spend as much as a moon cycle in human form, so they could speak words of love and affection in the common language of their people.  Frella loved those times her father visited, loved to bury her face in the stiff black feathers of his preferred harpy eagle form, loved to listen to his stories from far-flung places.  Too, Frella loved the moonlit gatherings with other druids, a chance to exchange knowledge and wisdom and best of all, still more stories.

As Frella grew older, and began to come into her own abilities, she also began to realize that while she loved the animals of her jungle home, and reveled in the power their forms brought her, she was not like her mother, or her mother's mother: she wanted to walk the world in human form, at least for a while.

And so she did.

Boots to Fill

You know I love my oxblood boots.  And yet, I haven't worn them since my maternity session back in October (one of these days I'll post some images from that).  The reason for that is sort of ridiculous- after the session, I left them in my car... and there they've stayed until today.  At first it was because I was pregnant and couldn't really wear them.  And then I was no-longer-pregnant, but I was... distracted...

But I wore them today!  And they sure are looking good.

Who knows, maybe someday we can recreate this photo, but in reverse...

Patriotic Pals on Parade

We drove up to Eatonville today, to spend Independence Day with Nathan's sister and her family.  I feel really fortunate that they're currently near enough for us to do Holiday Day Trips.  I didn't have any cousins until I was 13 (and I topped out at two cousins, total) so it's very special to me that a) Neeps has eleven (so far), b) several of them are close enough for him to actually spend time with on a semi-regular basis, and c) the older ones are so sweet and loving towards him (the ones closest to his age tend to be a little more bloodthirsty.  Can't blame them, really: limited resources, and all that.)  Few things are more heartwarming than watching my siblings' children play with mine.

But that's not the point of this post!  The point of this post is that one of the 4th of July activities that we participated in as a family was representing Hike It Baby in the Eatonville Parade!  I'm pretty sure it was my first time being in a parade (and certainly Neeps's), and it was quite fun*.

Lined up and ready to go (behold my glorious leggings: SUPER patriotic!)

Yep, nursing boobs = wearing a sports bra to make my go-to party dress family-friendly.

You'll notice Nathan isn't in any of the pictures- that's because he was (shockingly) the photographer, and circling about our group like an inquisitive shark.

Look at that waving action!

Parading is hard work.

After the parade we had a family picnic, where I carefully fed Neeps the food of his ancestors: GF fried chicken, potato salad, and watermelon.  And Cheerios, because what's an 8-month-old's meal without Cheerios.





*The other great thing about today was it gave me a chance to try out our new hiking pack, the bright red Escape by Phil&Ted.  (please notice I matched my lipstick to it)  I liked it pretty well, but as with most adjustable packs, I ran into the problem of my torso being just a little too small for the smallest setting.  Still, it was a lot better than any other ones we've tried, so I look forward to using it out in nature very soon!

Pretty Pots

While my mom was visiting, she and I went out to lunch at the most exquisite little bakery.  Everything was so delicious-looking that I actually took a gluten-pill so that I could indulge a little.  In addition to lunch, we each ordered a dessert, and then shared (obviously).  One of the desserts we ordered was a pot de creme, and it was fabulous.  So fabulous, in fact, that I got a bee in my bonnet about making my own.

I found myself a promising recipe for caramel pot de creme, but suddenly realized that I wouldn't be able to make it because I didn't have any ramekins!  Tragedy!  But then, when I went to visit Oma and Opa, I happened to ask Oma if she could help a sistah out, and sure enough, she could.

To the kitchen!

All the finest things.

I used farmer's market eggs, because obviously in a custard egg quality is exceptionally important.  I also used my Secret Weapon, which is a vanilla extract made for me by Adam and SCurry using bourbon from the distillery where Adam works.  Everything I make using the Secret Weapon automatically becomes 3x more delicious.  True fact.

Whisking and whisking

And then I poured water into the pan.

Vintage floral!

They came out super rich and delicious- too rich, really, for the size I made them in (my newly-acquired ramekins being twice the volume recommended by the recipe) .  But honestly, it was kind of fiddly/pain-in-the-ass-ish to make, to the point where this is one dessert I'm going to officially categorize as Worth Buying.

Still, you never know until you try, eh?

Drama Llama and the Alpacalypse

So this happened at the Farmer's Market today:

Redheads FTW

Also this:

Bushy Beards!

What can we say?  We love us some local celebrities.

Mad Dash

I took a personal day today, so that I could take a whirlwind trip up and see my recently-hospitalized grandfather.  I rode up with my uncle, and back down with my mom, so that was actually kind of nice because it gave me too unexpected (and uninterpreted) hours with her, to talk about this, that, and the other before she flies away once more.

Opa is doing better now (yay modern medicine!) and frankly it did me a world of good to see him handling things (including admin screw-ups at the hospital) in his typical patient, competent way.

I really, really want him to be able to stick around long enough for Neeps to have good memories of him.

::sigh::