Happy June!

Is it just me, or did it feel as though May went by very quickly?  I can't believe it's already JUNE!  I mean, gosh.  If time could slow down a little, that would be great.

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I went to my first Renaissance Faire on Saturday.  It put me in a definite costuming mood.  There was one outfit I loved. It was a Ranger-y leather riding skirt, sort of like this one here, except it was mostly green with brown rather than brown entirely.

Yeah, I'd wear this,
but with a camisole. :)

It was really fun.  We saw a jousting tournament - the Green Knight lost, which was expected considering the tale of Gawaine and the Green Knight, and the fact that the announcer made him out to be the Evil Knight, but I liked him better than the Blue Knight - and we listened to some storytellers.  The Gypsy Time Travellers were pretty amazing.  They are a husband-and-wife team.  The wife, Christy Horne, tells stories (and she's quite good, by the way) while her husband Michael Olson does anvil accompaniment, creating little metal thingamabobs during the story.  We heard the Un-Disney-fied version of The Sword in the Stone.  Christy recited it while Michael created ten little salt spoons.  It was quite a unique show.

There was a vendor selling bracelets that looked kind of like this:

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And a vendor selling candles that looked kind of like this:

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There was a Doctor Who geode candle I really liked, where the stone a swirly blue colour, and the woodcarving was of the TARDIS whirling through space.  That one was my fave.

For some reason, there were a bunch of Doctor Whos walking around.  Treskie said it was probably because of that episode where the Doctor marries Queen Elizabeth, and since the Renaissance Faire tends to have a Queen Elizabeth walking around the Whovians decided this was the opening they needed to appear as the Doctor.

(Weirdly enough, considering it was TEN who technically married the Queen,
most of the Doctors I saw were dressed as Eleven.  Yay, Eleven!)

A good time was had by all, I think.  I want to go to the Faire next year, but I think, if possible, I might try to dress up... and in Ranger costume, if at all possible.


To finish off, here are a few pictures of my other nieces and nephews!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And NOW to life, and NOW to life.  Until next time (hahah!)

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God bless!

Cat

The Neglected Blog

Ever since Jack came to visit us near the middle/end of March, I have been rushing, rushing, rushing, and completely neglecting this corner of the blogosphere.

*sigh*

I did post a Good Friday story!

*Hopeful smile*

However, that wasn't really a blog post, was it?

So, I'll give you an update of what's been happening.

I'm visiting a sister.  She had a baby a few weeks ago.

I have so many pictures, you guys!

Here's a small rainstorm of pictures.  I have the most adorable nieces and nephew!

As you can see, I'm absolutely delighted to be holding Baby Jessica Marie, fifth child and fourth daughter of Dan and Regina Gieser.  Actually, I"m thinking about framing that picture, because I think it's freakin' adorable!

So, I've been here with my sis for about a month.  We painted a room on the Saturday before Jessica was born.  I'm firmly convinced it was the painting, and the walk to the library on Monday that persuaded Jessica to be born three days before her due date.

We also put up border in the bathroom -- that was a headache and a half!! It was pre-pasted stuff, and it was ten years old. This was a fact I was totally unaware of while I was putting up the first roll.  I'm sure that's why it took Gina and me an hour to put up that first roll - that, and the fact that I think we soaked it in water a little too long, and were laughing because of all the random movie quotes we were spouting out about the fact that it wasn't sticking.  (We actually saved the last two rolls for after Jessica's birth, and those went up much easier.  We used less water. :-)

We had a great Easter, too.  I had a basket filled with so much chocolate, and a very pretty butterfly barrette.  That Easter bunny knew what I'd like. :)

On a totally separate note, I also finished my Transcription course.  I scored a 100% on the transcription itself, and graduated with an overall score of 97.6%.

Holla!

I have also been accepted into the internship program, which starts in June.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated, since during the internship I'll be getting real experience with real patients and real chart notes.

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Well, that's all for now from me.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  I can't promise I'll be posting for another few weeks, because I'm heading to my other sister's place this weekend, and she doesn't really have internet at the moment.

 

PICTURE SPAMMING!!!

I love Cymera and Picmonkey.  Cymera is a camera app on my phone, and one I used to decorate all these photos, and Picmonkey is a website where I made all my collages.

Thanks for stopping by, and hope you all had a wonderful Easter, and continue to have a good month of May.  Love and prayers, hugs and kisses.

God bless!

Cat

A Story before Easter

I wrote this story a few years ago for something called a Monthly Write off at a writing forum I am part of.  The writing prompt specified the story had to be about a villain, and the overall theme had to be on the side of horror.  For some reason this story wrote itself in my head at the prompt, and while I think it is well written, it gives me a sort of shudder whenever I read it.  A good, somber kind of shudder.  I hope you enjoy it.

 THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER

I sat before the fire, hiding myself amongst the other folk in the courtyard.  I swallowed wine in an effort to warm away the coldness in my heart, but it could not be thawed.  I weighed the purse in my hands, hefted the silver I'd gained for the price of a kiss.  Such a bargain.

Why did I feel so dark inside?

"They say he's to die."

I looked across the fire toward the speaker, a young girl with features obscured by conflicting shadows of flame and night.

"They say he's to die.  How can they commit such a sin?  He is no criminal!"

My fingers curled so tightly that the coins within the purse bit into my skin.  I recognized her.  I'd seen her long ago when she lay defeated on the sands before her accusers, and he had bent down to write her defense into the sand.

Who was she, to speak the words that gnawed into my very soul?  I shook away the voice that reminded me, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me, and rubbed away the cramp that stiffened the fingers of that hand.

Her eyes burned in the flames to the murmuring of voices.  "He is my lord," she said, "and he was betrayed."

She wept, faded into the crowd, and became no more than a formless shape amongst so many other formless shapes of men.  I brushed my fingertips together, the red fury that her words had kindled gradually fading to a black horror.  Woe to that man, memory whispered, by whom the son of man shall be betrayed:  it were better for him, if that man had not been born.  I shook the bag of coins until they rattled in the cloth, trying to blot out his face.

he night was suddenly very cold.  Not even the fire could warm me.  I touched my mouth with my fingers and my lips burned with the acidity of my traitor's kiss.
Dost thou betray the son of man with a kiss?

Were the words memory, or did the fire speak them to mock me?


I rose, wrapped my cloak about me, and left the fire and courtyard and the mass of staring men.  I lost myself in the night, but I could not lose myself from myself.

"He is no king," I told the wind.  "He is a liar and a blasphemer!  He is worthy of death."  But my own heart revealed the lie.  I remembered his eyes, those eyes that had looked deep into my own with love and pleading.  Dost thou betray the son of man?

I walked faster, the clinking of the coins becoming tin rattles of death within the smothering folds of leather.  The gnawing loss in my heart was growing, becoming something worse,  something awful and devouring.  It was as though my inner darkness were changing into a monster that opened a flaming mouth to reveal a far-off pit of fire.  As the monster grew, so did my horror.


What had I done?

Clink, clink, clink, clink.  The coins chattered in my purse.  Trai-tor, trai-tor, they whispered as they jingled.  Had I betrayed him for this, these thirty pieces of silver?

You are not all clean.  Ah, that whispering voice of memory!  Would it not leave me be?  "He saw the temptation in me!"  I shouted to the stars.  "I was the treasurer!  Money is my desire.  How could I not put him aside?"  I stopped in the darkness, plunged my hand into my purse and held the silver to the night.  "The chief priests do not want him either.  They gave me this in exchange for him.  He is a blasphemer!  Death is his just reward."

The monster inside me laughed and the night turned a pitiless eye to me.  Friend, dost thou betray the son of man?

I choked, dropped to my knees in the darkness.  The silver fell about me, each coin striking off the cobbles with the sound of a sharply-tuned bell.  Their thirty separate chimes beat at me, played in counter melody to the laughter of the devil in my soul.

I had betrayed him.  Now he was to die.  Remorse painted my soul black.  I'd known.  Of course I'd known!  Did I not exchange him for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a dead slave?  I knew the priests' hatred of him.  I shared it.

But now... now...

On my knees I gathered the coins into my hands and made my way to the hall where I knew the chief priests and the elders would be gathered.

I burst in on them and didn't recognize my voice as I said, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood."

For a moment there was a silence, and then one of the priests said, "What is that to us?  You see to it!"

The devil within me chortled louder, and it seemed the flames in his smile rose up and devoured me.  There was no thought in my mind, no sense of action.  There was only a choking well of guilt as I flung the silver from my hand.  The coins rang out again, but colder this time as they clashed upon the marble floor.

Then I turned and went out.

There was no point in going on.  I had sinned.  I had betrayed him, my lord and my God.  For love of money, for earthly power, for avarice, greed, and selfishness, I had betrayed him.

There was no way to atone. 

Beneath the shadows of a tree, I bound the halter around my neck.

---

Katrina DeLallo, 2012