“I wanted to tell you that wherever I am, whatever happens, I’ll always think of you, and the time we spent together, as my happiest time. I’d do it all over again, if I had the choice. No regrets.”
“You may be born into a family, but you walk into friendships. Some you’ll discover you should put behind you. Others are worth every risk.” ― Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End
This ecard sums up my family quite well with an emphasis on the “drink”.
Mary Kate DeCraene author of “No One Said Life Was Fair” a poignant and humorous memoir about growing up in an alcoholic family. Purchase your copy today on www.amazon.com.
It was Christmas Eve, 1965—my parent’s first Christmas together as newlyweds. Mom’s brother Pete and his wife, Lucy, purchased a new home in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a southwestern suburb of Chicago. Their home was beautifully decorated for the holiday, and was immaculate—not a thing was out of place. They invited the entire Sheedy clan over to celebrate including all nine of their nieces and nephews, who were under the age of twelve. Mom’s sister Lois invited her boyfriend, Bob, aka the Polish Cowboy, to meet the family for the first time.
At the height of the party, the children ran amok through the house. During their mayhem, they accidentally broke Pete and Lucy’s new laundry chute. Exactly how the laundry chute broke and who was responsible, remains a mystery to this day. The men, including Grandpa Sheedy, congregated in the basement and were happily getting drunk. Nana Sheedy and the other women sought refuge from all the commotion in the kitchen. My parents were both drunk and having one of their world-renowned screaming matches in the recreation room. Mom wanted to stay at the party with her family, and Dad wanted to leave. Ah, the joy of the holidays. Dad demanded Mom get her coat and shoes on, and, as he exited the room, shouted, “I’ll pick you up in the alley.”
What Dad failed to realize during his drunken tirade was they were in the suburbs, and there were no alleys. Stubborn as he was, however, Dad did not let that stop him. He got into his car, revved his engine loudly, and gunned it. He created his own alley by tearing down whatever obstacles stood in his way—including fences, manicured lawns, and sod. The pristine white snow turned to mud as his spinning wheels flung dirt clods of grass high up into the air.
Dad’s car came to a grinding halt as it got stuck in the mud behind the neighbor’s house. My parent’s private fight suddenly became very public as Dad kicked opened the car door, stumbled out, and exchanged a plethora of un-pleasantries with the neighbors. Right in the middle of Dad’s rant, his foot got sucked into the mud like quicksand and knocked him off his feet.
Realizing he was unable to extricate his car out of the mud alone, Dad got up and marched toward Pete and Lucy’s house for help. Unfortunately, all the cookie cutter houses in their neighborhood looked exactly the same. The only way Dad could tell them apart was by the address. Covered in mud from head to toe, he stomped up Pete and Lucy’s front steps, flung open the door, and traipsed across the brand-new living room carpet leaving a trail of muddy footprints behind him.
“My car is stuck in the alley. Can someone help me push it out?” Dad asked then meandered back to his car.
Stunned party goers, in awe over the spectacle they witnessed, asked in unison, “What alley?”
Everyone at the party went running to the back window to see what happened. Lois’s boyfriend, Bob, tried to distract the children by doing magic tricks and telling jokes. Mom, sensing Dad was about to explode, was determined to go outside and defuse him. She fought her way through the crowd and headed toward the back door. Her sister Peggy stopped her before she went outside.
“You can’t go out there like that, Pat. It’s winter. You’ll catch a death of cold. Here, wear my shoes.” Peggy took off her flats and offered them to Mom. As Mom fumbled to put on her sister’s shoes, the argument outside came to a boil.
Uncle John is one of the few people who can reason with Dad when he is drunk. He and Dad are very close. They have known each other ever since they were kids and played baseball together. Curious to find out what Dad was ranting about, John followed him outside. “Are you crazy, Ronnie?” John screamed as he witnessed firsthand the carnage that was once the neighbor’s backyard.
Dad turned to confront John and fell face first into the mud.
Much to Dad’s chagrin, the police arrived on the scene right on cue. Peggy sent her husband, Frank, out to stop Dad before he did something he regretted. Mom attempted to slip out the back door with Frank, but her family urged her to stay inside and let the police handle matters.
As Dad tells it, “There I was, crawling through the mud, when I happened upon a pair of well-polished, patent leather shoes. I looked up and saw an angry Oak Lawn police officer glaring down at me.”
Dad crawled between the police officer’s legs and made a break for it. The officer turned around, grabbed Dad by the scruff of the neck, and pulled him back up to his feet. Dad steadied his footing and took a rounding swing at the officer. Not the soundest judgment, for it landed him and Frank in a heap of trouble.
“Ronnie, don’t!” Frank pleaded, as he stepped in between Dad and the police officer.
Dad missed the police officer and hit Frank instead, right in the kisser then swirled to the ground. John pleaded with the officer to let his brothers-in-laws go, but he soon realized it was futile. Dad and Frank were arrested, charged with disturbing the peace, and spent the night in jail.
My parents had no money for bail. Luckily, Pete and Lucy came to the rescue and bailed Dad out of jail the next morning, so he could spend the rest of the holiday with his blushing, hung-over bride.
Two weeks later, Dad and Frank were scheduled to appear in court. Still bruised from the experience, Frank explained to the judge he was merely trying to prevent his brother-in-law from hitting the police officer. The police officer corroborated his story. The judge dismissed the charges against Frank and let him go. Dad, however, never showed up for court. The charges against him were dropped, and he got off scot-free.
I’m reading this romance book and it’s bad. Granted, I’m only 16% into the book, but I’m truly hating it. The book is bad in that hard to explain way, where the writing is bad. It’s not the grammar or editing, but just the writing. I’m not going to say the name of the book, but here’s a screenshot of 1 page of it from my iPhone kindle. But first context.
The main character is 18 and she dreams of independence and wants to go to college with dreams of a Ph.D. But when she’s sold off by her father into an arranged marriage, she just accepts it. Her father is a U.S. senator (the most believable part of the whole situation) and he’s marrying her off to a rich family so that family can back his next campaign. Her new fiancé is only 26, and he’s handsome, so that’s fine. Her father could have married her off to an old bad of dirt, but he didn’t. She met her fiancé at her 18th birthday party, he was her birthday present (no joke). The scene below happens 3 months later, at their second meeting — their wedding day.
Now, I often find romance novels to be problematic because of all the genres out there, romance seems to be one where many bad writers make their names. The main character is compelling and her story has a lot of potential, but I have to keep rolling my eyes to the back of my head because of how badly this writer keeps butchering the story and characters. It’s bad.
I’ve read really well done books about dominant men and the women who love them. Books where the idea of, “you married him and so he owns your body now,” runs rampant. I’ve accepted a lot of sketchy writing from authors in the name of a good and well told story, but this one is just so bad. My whole mantra while reading this has been, “she’s only 18, she probably doesn’t know any better.” ♀️
It seems to me that this author only knew what they wanted these characters to do, not how to actually write them doing it. So, things are just thrown at the reader and we’re expected to process it and it’s problematic implications and move on. The section that I highlighted above, that statement is incredibly sexist and demeaning to women, but it is said in the book with no modifiers and no push back. How can someone who just wants to break free from her father and go college just unquestionably accept that ridiculous advice. And even worst, this is the 1st book in a trilogy and I, for the life of me, don’t know how that is possible.
This is where I’m always unsure what to do next with these types of books. Do I keep reading in hopes that it gets better? Or do I just stop the torture, but never know what happened to these characters? This is the dilemma that these types of books place readers in. At it’s the dilemma they place me in, and it really sucks.
Curse Of The Gods By Jane Washington and Jaymin Eve
I love this book series. It’s a reverse harem book series set in an alternate fantasy universe. It’s a funny, crazy, and amazing series. I love the main character Willa and her absolutely ridiculous thoughts and actions. The later books do have sex scenes in them, but they totally add to the whole story line. I would recommend this series to everyone over 15.
Did I buy the kindle edition so I could use the translate option in order to read it even though its not going to be 100% accurate and some parts may be confusing?
The beginning seemed rather long drawn to me, and I couldn’t fathom how this devilish twist mentioned on the cover of the book proof would factor in. I’ve still not come to that point but the mystery is building up, so I expect to henceforth get along with reading much quicker.
How do you feel about long introductions that take their own sweet time to get to the point?
“You’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”
Those had been Finn’s words the morning after the party.
You had blinked at him from the doorway, fully dressed from the night before and still somewhat drunk. When he had followed up with the news that Poe was gone, you had been naive to think that you would be able to fix things with him once you caught up with him on the mission: that would be your chance to talk about what had happened, to set things straight and decide where you both stood after how things had unfolded the night before.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
You weren’t going on the mission. Poe had reassigned you back to Nic. Maker, it wasridiculous. The smallest misunderstanding, a drunken kiss, and Poe had run away instead of talking it through. He clearly wanted to put as much physical distance between you as he could, and his answer to that was continuing the mission without you.
If it had stopped there, perhaps you could have accepted it as a rash mistake, an overreaction on his part. If he’d given you the chance, you would have told him that he was blowing this out of proportion and allowing it to snowball. You could have returned things to the careful equilibrium that had taken years to cultivate. But it didn’t stop there. Poe avoided any attempts you made at contacting him: no comms, no holocalls, nothing.
For the first time since your friendship had begun, Poe Dameron was at his furthest point from you; he was at aphelion.
Pairing: General Poe Dameron x Female reader Rating: mature Word count: 5.5k Warnings: mentions of food, alcohol, drunken shenanigans, mutual pining, yearning, mentions of past relationships, mentions of sex, language, clowns trying not to be in love with each other, poe dameron kisses.
The night air isn’t cold or unwelcome as it caresses your exposed skin from where you stand on the balcony: it brings a freshness and the most delightful fragrance of exotic flowers that scatter across the stretch of land before you. It’s beautiful here—not just the scenery, no. It’s more than that: the people, the atmosphere. You have only been on the planet for hours, but the people greeted you as though you had spent a lifetime here.
By now, the celebrations are underway. Dinner was a remarkable display of the finest foods, sourced from many different planets to showcase how the decadent flavours work so well with the food grown in the gardens of the palace. You sat between Finn and Poe, talking away comfortably as though you were accustomed to being a guest at such an elegant affair, but as dinner began to wind down and they got pulled into more serious conversations, you were suddenly reminded that you are completely out of your element.
Despite your vast knowledge and understanding of politics, you don’t hold a high ranking title, so you’re an outsider to this kind of life. You have always gone above and beyond to prove yourself, to earn yourself respect and promotions in hopes of rising through the ranks, but it never happened.
Maybe if the war with the First Order hadn’t overshadowed everything, things would be different. But after Leia had gone, Poe never chose to promote you; there was always someone else who fit the post better, who was slightly more qualified. He always chalked it up to timing or specialty or seniority. He’d say that you were so perfectly suited for a mission that he couldn’t possibly move you yet. There was always a reason.
Through it all, some small part of you wondered if he didn’t want to promote you so he could retain control over the missions you went on and in turn, limit your time away from each other.
Pairing: General Poe Dameron x Female reader Rating:Mature Word count: 8k Warnings: mutual pining, yearning, mentions of death, mentions of past relationships, mentions of sex, language, clowns trying not to be in love with each other. A/N:The reader in this fic has the nickname ‘Stitch’ which was given to her to Poe. The name will make so much more sense when the backstory arrives… And it has no connection to that Disney character. This is a repost of the original chapter because Tumblr decided to refuse to put it in the tags. Apologies for the amount of times you’ve seen this on your dash today!
Your boots pound over the uneven terrain of Ajan Kloss as you trudge your way towards one of the newly built rooms on the base. You’re heading in the opposite direction of the ship that you are supposed to be leaving on, and with each step you take, your teeth press tighter together: the expression on your face matches the thunderous stomps of your feet. You’re already suited and booted for take-off, and you know what this is about—you know exactly what’s coming, and you carry the tension heavily in your jaw. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and you know for a fact that it isn’t going to be the last. By now, you should expect it. Yet, somehow, it still enrages you as you turn the next corner.
The walk is supposed to calm you down, but it doesn’t. Your fingers clench themselves into fists at your sides the more you think about it, and when you finally reach the door, you pause, taking a few slow breaths of the humid, jungle air.
How dare he? How fucking dare he?
Because he’s the General. That’s how. And even when you don’t agree with his decisions, you have no choice but to respect them.
Leia would never have done this without good reason.
You know that it’s unfair to compare them, as many others do, but it comes so naturally in moments like this. The familiar ache hangs in your chest, a lingering reminder of someone that could never be replaced. Leia Organa had led with such strength and compassion: she always seemed to know what to do and carried all of her decisions with an air of grace that made leading look so easy. But she had also led with fairness and, despite everything that came out of Poe Dameron’s mouth to make it sound as though he was trying to follow in her footsteps, his actions sometimes said otherwise.
Drawing in your final, calming breath, you let it out slowly and unclench your hands so that you can key in the code for the door and listen to it hiss open.
Put up my purple lights today to decorate for Halloween! Here’s a haunting book recommendation for Halloween week
The gods and monsters series by Kelly Keaton is a new take on the classic Greek legend of Medusa folowing one of her decendants. The cursed orphan Ari, dives into the underworld of New Orleans and teams up with a colourful band of vampires and Warlocks to fight the gods and her fate.
“When I think of all the people who want to forbid abortions, it seems it can only mean one thing - not that they want this new person in the world, but that they want that woman to be doing the work of childrearing more than they want her to be doing anything else. There is something threatening about a woman who is not occupied with children. There is something at-loose-ends feeling about such a woman. What is she going to do instead? What sort of trouble will she make?”
“As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed. ”― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
