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#alllllll over the neighborhood too
lavenderacademia · 1 year
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THE CHAIN -> e. roundtree PART ONE: Drummers' Curse
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PAIRING: eddie roundtree x fem!reader WARNINGS: mentions of minor injuries (NOTE: some warnings for this story include MAJOR spoilers for this series down the line, so I'll put those beneath the cut. If you don't want to get the story spoiled, then just ignore it ― but I did want to provide the chance for you to get an idea of how the story will go later down the line if you have any sensitive topics you'd like to avoid. please prioritize your mental wellbeing!)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apologies in advance for making Y/n the drummer and putting Warren on rhythmic guitar. I just loooooooove female drummers. Also can you tell that I love Karen and Camila? Because I love them with alllllll my heart and soul. Another sorry in advance because this one may break your heart a little ― it sure broke mine. NOTES ON THE WORK: I used the timeline from the book, mostly because I couldn't keep track of it in the show haha. I read the book twice before watching what episodes of the show were out, so the lines may blur between the two. For your convenience (and mine, tbh), I'll put the year all the characters were born underneath this note so you can reference it when you need to. I just couldn't keep track honestly. I think in the show they start the band when Graham is fourteen, but in the book he's around 18 when they add Warren on, so it's kind of confusing?? I decided to stick with the book because it was a more physical timeline. Anyways, enough talking, here's your guide! ― YEARS BORN (in order of age) Billy Dunne -> 1947 Camila Dunne -> 1949 Graham Dunne -> 1949 Warren Rhodes -> 1949 Eddie Roundtree -> 1949 Daisy Jones -> 1951 Y/n L/n -> 1951
WARNINGS (SPOILERS INCLUDED): reader has a terminal illness. Discussions about death and loss, depictions of grief, hospitals
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It's no secret that the renowned 1970s band Daisy Jones & The Six went through its fair share of ups and downs. Until their inexplicable split on July 12, 1979, they were undeniably one of the biggest bands in the world. While a more detailed account of the band's history will be recounted in a more thorough transcript, this advanced edition will focus specifically on two of the band members: Eddie Roundtree and Y/n L/n. More specifically, it will focus on their individual and combined roles they played in the band's eventual downfall.
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THE RISE OF THE SIX (1965 - 1972)
GRAHAM: Y/n grew up next door to us. She was a little younger, two years or so, so we never really gave her a second look. Until the day she wandered into our garage during band practice out of nowhere. She practically ripped the drum sticks out of Chuck's hand and just started...wailing on 'em. I mean, she could make your head spin. Here was this thirteen, fourteen year old girl next door, this kid, and she was the best fuckin' drummer we'd seen. I mean, in the neighborhood. She wasn't Mitch Mitchell, but she was the closest thing we had. And she was too good to be shoved in the back with a tambourine. But we couldn't just take Chuck's spot away and hand it over to the new girl.
CHUCK: I knew right then and there that they wanted to give my spot to the new girl. There was no doubt in my mind. And, you know what? I got it. This chick was good. Way too good. Did I feel threatened by her? Hell yeah, I did. And at the time I probably wanted to tell her to screw off, but now...now I get it.
EDDIE: She was good. Amazing, actually. Graham and I looked at each other and knew that she was something we'd be stupid to pass up on.
BILLY: When Chuck told us he wanted out, we were pissed, of course. We were heading off to open for Winters that week. It felt like things were going to look up, just like I always knew they would, and he was ditching. I know now that that wasn't really what it was ― he'd gotten into college, fan-fucking-tastic. It was a good opportunity for him, a sure thing. But right then it felt like a betrayal.
WARREN: So he ditched, and Billy just turned right to Eddie and said, "Go tell Y/n she's in." And he was just...terrified.
EDDIE: I said, "why me?" You know? It wasn't my band, it was Billy's. And here he was, ordering me to tell some new girl she was in. I was fifteen and could barely ask a waitress for ketchup. At the time, that was probably the last thing I wanted to do.
GRAHAM: He asked why it had to be him, and I told him the truth: he was the least intimidating. Billy, you know him. He had a tendency to get too focused on the task at hand and could get a little...harsh. And Warren? He had one of the biggest personalities you could find. He'd scare her off before we had a chance to offer her the spot...[Pauses] I probably could've done it, in all honesty. I just didn't want to screw it up. Eddie was better with words than I was, and we needed her in our band. Badly.
EDDIE: And I remember thinking, "Here goes fucking nothing."
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The doorbell ringing was what got her attention. No one ever used the doorbell. It was always a knock ― that, or someone just walked in. The L/n's front door was hardly ever locked back then. Y/n's mom was a nurse, formerly a school nurse. She didn't want to risk the chance that some kid took a spill and had to limp home on an injured leg. So all the neighborhood knew, if you got hurt playing outside, you could march on over to Miss L/n's place to get yourself fixed up.
Y/n had her own share of walk-ins, too. By the time she was ten, she had seen her mom help out enough kids that she was practically a nurse herself. She could disinfect and bandage and stitch up any old case that walked through her front door. And if someone who was too busted up for first aid? She knew where the keys to the family Winnebago was and how to drive herself and them to the local hospital. She was only fourteen and didn't have a license, but it didn't matter. She was a safer driver than most everyone else on the road.
So when someone rang the doorbell, she assumed that it was someone too injured to knock. She grabbed the car keys and made sure her suture kit was within reach.
When she opened the door, she didn't see the blood and broken bones she was expecting. Instead, Eddie Roundtree stood on her front porch, hands shoved anxiously in his pockets. He looked all right, but that didn't stop her from asking: "You're not hurt, are you?"
"Um. No," Eddie said quickly, taking his hands out of his pockets.
"Okay," she said slowly, eyes narrowing. "Do you want to come in?"
"Yeah, sure."
Y/n turned and walked further into the house, prompting him to close the door and follow her. She led him to the kitchen. "Lemonade? I made it this morning," she offered, already opening the fridge.
EDDIE: That jug of lemonade was bigger than she was. [Laughs] I could barely watch her get it down. I was afraid she'd drop it on her foot. But she just took her time getting it from the fridge to the table. I found out later that her mom bought a pound of lemons a week because Y/n wanted something to offer every kid that came through their front door. [Pauses]. She was just like that.
He gave a nod. Y/n stood on her toes to grab two glasses from the cabinet. She poured one glass, hands shaking from the weight of the jug, and Eddie realized that this awkward silence was probably the best time to transition into his real reason for visiting.
"Chuck left the band."
"Oh," she said simply. "Sorry."
"Don't be."
She paused, looking confused. And Eddie, who's will to live was slowly draining from this conversation alone, raced to finish what he had (awkwardly) started.
"I just mean that...you're in. The band. If you want to be our drummer, you're in."
Y/n paused mid-pour, setting the pitcher down on the counter carefully. She turned around until her back pressed into the kitchen counter, arms crossed over her chest. "And you thought I'd jump at the chance to join?"
"No. No," Eddie said quickly. "We just wanted to offer you the spot if you still wanted it."
"Did I say that I wanted it?"
"No, but―"
"Okay, just making sure," she handed him a glass and hopped up onto the counter, crossing her legs underneath her. "So you need a drummer?"
"Yes. Badly."
She took a sip from her glass and paused, as if weighing her options in her mind. She swallowed. "Are there any other girls in the band yet?"
EDDIE: Yet. Like she knew it was going to happen. It was just a matter of time.
"No, not yet." he replied.
"Then be honest with me: are you guys sleazeballs?"
EDDIE: Sleazeballs. She didn't sugarcoat things. She wanted to know if we were creeps or if we'd let her play drums in peace. I get that, one hundred percent. but back then, it felt like she was trying to accuse us of something.
"No," he said quickly, "Well...Warren can be a little much, but he means well."
She took another slow sip, once again weighing her options in her mind. "When's your next gig?"
"We play pretty much every night, wherever we can find. It might take us a bit to teach you the songs, but―"
"I can learn them," she said confidently. "How soon do you need someone?"
"Soon as possible."
EDDIE: By then, I was terrified she'd say no. All these questions and never once did she seem really interested in joining. I was already trying to figure out which of us would be the least shit at the drums.
"Okay. I'm in."
EDDIE: And that was it. She said yes. I didn't appreciate how much she'd saved our asses right then, but I was relieved. That was for sure.
GRAHAM: Eddie came back, told us she said yes. She couldn't join practice until her mom got home ― she didn't want the house to be empty if some injured kid wandered by ― so we had about an hour and a half to teach her every song.
BILLY: She picked 'em up like [snaps] that. Never doubted it for a single second, either. Once she knew it, she knew it.
EDDIE: She showed up to the first gig in overalls and sneakers. She let Camila put a little makeup on her, too, but we could all tell she hated it.
CAMILA: She was sweet. And, surprisingly, a little shy. I could tell she was a little scared of the boys. That's why she was a little cold to them at first. But she was just the coolest kid. I mean, fourteen years old and joining a rock band? She was a little rockstar, right off the bat. She asked me to put some makeup on her before her first gig with the band. When I gave her a mirror after and asked her what she thought, she said, "I like it, but it makes me feel like a doll. Not a drummer." She liked the glitter the most, though. It became her trademark. She put it on her cheeks, in her hair, everywhere that would catch the light. She'd come off stage and you'd see a little pile of sparkles behind the drum set.
EDDIE: Right off the bat, first gig. It was enough to freak anyone out. She joined the band six hours ago, learned the songs three hours ago, and now she was playing in a club to a couple dozen people. It seems so small now, but back then? It was like starting at Wembley.
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Y/n shook out her hands for the eighth time. It wasn't about loosening up for the gig anymore, she just needed something to do that didn't involve throwing a punch or screaming at the top of her lungs. She looked up at Billy, standing at the front of the group, cool and calm as ever, and she had the distinct urge to kick him in the shin. Why did he get to be so calm when she was right behind him, on the verge of throwing up?
She turned to anxiously twisting a single drum stick between her fingers, around and around, faster and faster. Eventually it became so mindless that she barely noticed as the stick slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor. She bent to retrieve it quickly, hoping no one had noticed.
But, of course, someone did.
"Hey," Eddie said, looking back at her.
"Warren knocked it out of my hands." she said quickly.
Eddie glanced over at Warren, who was a solid two feet ahead of her, physically unable to have knocked a drum stick out of her hands. Y/n knew from that glance that he could see right through her lie. Now she really wasn't in the mood to talk.
EDDIE: She was terrified. And she was lying her ass off about it. I didn't want to run the risk that she choked up in the middle of the show and screwed up our set. So I figured I'd just, talk. And if she wanted me to screw off, she'd tell me. She had a way of saying exactly what she wanted.
"You've heard of the Drummer's Curse, right?" he asked.
She frowned in a way that told him no, she did not.
"First, there's the obvious stuff: drummers have to lug around the most shit out of anyone in the band. Drums sets are heavy and expensive, so there's that. But the worst part is that they're easy to overlook, you know? They're at the back of the stage behind all this shit, everyone stands in front of 'em. Drummers can fade into the background real easy. The best drummers can outshine anyone else onstage. You'll do that one day, but if you're freaked out now, just let yourself fade a little. You'll play better than anyone up there and the crowd'll know it, but you can let them focus on someone else if you want. You get what I'm saying?"
EDDIE: For a second, I thought she was going to punch me.
But then she nodded, wiped off some of the pink lipstick Camila had put on her with the back of her hand, and pushed her bangs to the side. "Drummers' Curse, huh?"
"Some people believe in it, some don't."
"And you?" she asked, turning to him. "Do you believe in that kind of stuff?"
Eddie paused. Shrugged. "Sure. Seems true enough to me."
Y/n nodded. "I don't. It sounds like bullshit to me."
Eddie frowned. She looked up at him. "I'm not going to let myself fade because I'm scared. I signed up for this, you know. The least I can do is own my place. If I outshine you, it's just because I'm that good," she said matter-of-factly. "I will need help carrying the stuff, though."
EDDIE: I didn't know what to say. I mean, [laughs] what the hell do you say to that?
He felt like he'd had the rug pulled out from under him. And then, he surprised himself: he laughed.
And Y/n surprised herself then, too ― she smiled.
EDDIE: That was just...[Shakes head. Smiles.] I don't know.
"I think we can manage that." he said with a smile.
"Ladies and gentlemen...The Dunne Brothers!"
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WARREN: If I were still the guy I was back then, I would completely undersell her to you right now. I'd tell you she was an average drummer who was more in it for the thrill than the craft. But that wasn't it at all. She got up there and she just...shined.
GRAHAM: We all knew she'd be scared before the first gig. In fact, she looked about ready to throw up when they announced us on stage. But the second she hit those lights, it was like she was a different person. She waved and smiled like she'd done it a hundred times. The only other person I'd seen do that ― I mean really become another person on stage ― is Billy.
BILLY: That first show with Y/n was a little bit of a trainwreck. We were at least a half beat behind the entire show. And I'm not saying I blame her, but she was new and shiny. We got through it just fine, but I think we all felt it wasn't our best show.
WARREN: That show was bitchin'.
GRAHAM: It was a great show.
WARREN: Back in those days, we'd get off stage and start cheering for ourselves like we'd just won the goddamn lottery. Somewhere along the way, that stopped. We'd just pat each other on the back, say 'good job,' and that was that. But when Y/n got backstage? She was screaming and yelling like it was the best night of her life. And all of us joined in without a second thought ― well, maybe all of us except Billy. He was kind of a hard ass, even then. None of us had ever heard this girl talk louder than a glorified whisper, and then she came out of nowhere with this full-body scream. And who did she run to? Well, I think you can guess.
CAMILA: She just about jumped into Eddie's arms.
Adrenaline is a funny thing. For one, the effect is had on different people can be vastly different depending on who it was. Some people mellowed out, some people amped up. Y/n fell into the second category.
The second she got off the stage, a giddy laugh ripped from her chest, turning more into a scream of triumph halfway through. She was buzzing. Literally. Her hands felt numb ― or, more accurately, they felt like they felt more. Everything she touched was sharp and blinding.
The next person to join in on the screaming and jumping around was Warren. Then Graham. Then Eddie. And then, reluctantly, Billy. Eddie was the last to come off stage, slinging his guitar off his shoulders, and Y/n, without thinking much about it, ran straight to him, leaping directly into his unsuspecting arms.
The others were too hyped up on their own adrenaline rushes to notice that anything out of the ordinary had happened. She wrapped her legs around his waist hanging onto him like a koala. And Eddie, who couldn't deny adrenaline, held onto her back without a second thought.
After a moment, she leaned back, arms still wrapped around his neck, faces inches apart. "Drummers' curse, huh?"
EDDIE: She didn't fade. She couldn't, not even if she tried.
Eddie just smiled and shook his head. "Sounds like bullshit to me."
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Alllllll the updates
Finally got the laptop unpacked, charger located, and charged. Naptime yesterday was a shit show hence no update. Too much to write on my phone so buckle up peeps because this is about two weeks worth of things I want to document. I shall categorize for reading and archiving purposes.
Rent House
-I am SO glad to be finished with the little rent house. It served it’s purpose and we were lucky to have it available to us when we needed it but HOLY CRAP. I am so so glad to be out of that house. It was too little, too old (for me), and notttt exactly in a neighborhood I felt the most confident spending 90% of my time in pregnant and alone with a kid. So so so glad to be done. 
New House
-Still beautiful, still moving in, and adjusting. We have MOST of our stuff where we want it to go however we still have lots of adjusting to do and organizing and unpacking to finish in order to be more functional. I enjoy doing it but it definitely gets interesting with me at home with the babes alone and how much of that can actually be accomplished. 
Mom’s Visit
-My mom came and stayed with us for almost 2 weeks to stay with Calvin during Hudson’s arrival and then to help out with the moving and just help me in general with the two munchkins as Jake had to go back to work and also focus more on the last little details of the move. It was.... interesting. Since she lives in a different state and due to Covid we haven’t really had many opportunities to learn how to navigate the Parent/Grandparent relationship between the two of us which lead to some toes being stepped on. Plus my Mom battles depression and she’s not been in a great headspace mentally so she was extra sensitive and me being postpartum hormonal had a ROUGH time at balancing both of our moods. I was glad to have her here but I was also glad when she left Saturday and left us to settle in on our own. 
Momming of Two Children
-Calvin has been an incredible big brother. Not too much jealousy aside from the initial “that’s mine” response when all the baby gear was brought out that we used with him. He’s adjusted quite well and LOVES to help and wants to hold him alllll the time. This morning he was holding him (with my help) and he kissed him on the head and told him he loved him-all unprompted-and I just about lost it sitting on the couch next to him. It was quite literally the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen and I love how much he loves his brother already. That’s “HIS baby” as he tells people. 
Naptime yesterday was an absolute shitshow on my 1st day of SAHM-ing. However, due to how turbulent our year was last year as far as change and transitions went, Calvin has developed some separation anxiety-which I would consider to be a little more severe than a typical toddler might experience-but I totally anticipate it going away after some time here and routine is restored. He literally asks 2-3x an hour where Dada is if he’s at work. My mom said he asked all day every day where we were while we were at the hospital, and if the dogs have been out in the backyard for any length of time he asks about them too. It’s almost as though he’s constantly taking roll or checking off boxes to know where all of his people are. 
This has created a ROUGH go at nap and bedtimes because he thinks that if he goes to sleep someone is going to leave. Which makes perfect sense considering his last few months-Jake getting up and leaving to drive back to work while Calvin was still asleep, Jake leaving for the week during Calvin’s Sunday nap time. We had to leave for the hospital early while he was still asleep. I can understand why he might have those concerns. Soooooo the Teacher Mom in me is understanding where he’s coming from and simply trying to help him adjust and know that life has returned to be consistent again and also PRAY that once he stops asking about where everyone is all the time he’ll go back to being an independent sleeper. Right now he absolutely will NOT go to sleep unless Jake or myself (and mostly myself) is IN THE ROOM right next to him so he can touch us-whether that’s on the bed, standing, sitting, or rubbing/patting his back/tummy. I get that we might be setting up bad habits for later (actually I did that in Jake’s absence! SORRY HONEY!) buttt I also think to some degree the kid deserves some slack and absolutely should get what he needs to be reassured of our presence. I have always been a pretty hard lined person when it came to sleep habits-we used a modified CIO method, I was pretty stern in teaching him how to sleep in his toddler bed independently, we taught the ready-to-wake routine early. But I just think with all this kid has been through in his short two and a half year of life (living in 3 different houses, having literally 7 different day care teachers/babysitters over the course of two years, moving to a totally new town, losing the routine of daycare, etc.) he deserves some slack and some support in adjusting and if it means having a longer bedtime/nap routine for a bit then so be it. I’ve just gotta figure out how to make it manageable at naptime without help. 
Food
-Thank you all for all of your ideas with the ground beef dinner dilemma I found myself in. :P 
This was last nights dinner/today’s lunch. (Impossible Cheeseburger Pie) It was good, super easy, but I’d recommend adding more seasoning/flavoring to it. Definitely better the next day as leftovers-and in general-would be super easy to adapt/change to a lot of different flavor variations. 
This will be tonight’s dinner. (Thanks @adventuresasmrsfindley: The unstuffed pepper idea sounded SO GOOD. I’ll report back on this recipe tonight!) 
And looking at doing mini-meatloafs tomorrow in a muffin tin! If anyone has a good recipe for that LET ME KNOW!! Otherwise I’m using the one I found on Pinterest lol. 
That’s the Reader’s Digest version of all the things. Hopefully I’ll be able to update again more in depth soon! 
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“The ouija board says you’re a little shit.”“Wait, are you actually scared?”“I’ll just be chilling with the monsters under my bed.”
I apologize but someone sent this in and I cannot find out who requested it!! There’s a couple of cuss words.
“The ouija board says you’re a little shit.” She heard the yelling as she carefully walked into the loud house. Jack was so excited for her to come over for Halloween, that he sheepishly apologized for the mayhem that could possibly occur.
“Kat!” Her head whipped around, looking for the voice who had yelled her name. “Jack didn't say you were coming.”
She grinned at Crutchie, watching him come closer dressed as a pirate. “He told me it would be a good time to come meet everyone. He mentioned something about mayhem.”
“The only mayhem that will occur is Race being twenty times louder than he normally is.” Crutchie grinned, watching the man in question yell something before pushing back from the table and walking towards the kitchen. “Come on, Jack’s this way.”
Crutchie led her further into the house, it getting quieter the further she got. Jack was sitting at the table with a bunch of littles surround him. He had his paint supplies strewn across the table as he painted different designs on their cheeks and faces. Kat stilled, watching him poke his tongue out between his lips in concentration, falling a little more in love with him.
“Hey Jack, you got a visitor.” Crutchie said, as every eye around the table snapped to them as Jack stood up grinning.
“Hey look what the cat dragged in.” Jack pulled her into his arms, gently kissing her as the giggles of the littles got louder.
Breaking away, she buried her head in his chest, as a blush crept up her cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
She quickly looked over her shoulder as all the littles continued to stare. “Your siblings are quite intimidating.”
Jack looked up at them, chuckling. “They have that special ability. Hey, can’t a guy kiss his girl without an audience?”
“Then don’t kiss her in the middle of the kitchen.” Race yelled back, giving them a pointed look.
Jack sighed, looking down at her. “Wait, are you actually scared?”
“I mean …” Kat looked up at him with wide eyes. “They’re so special to you.”
Jack held her at arm's length, grinning. “They’re harmless. The one you have to worry about is Race and you’ve already put him in his place several times. The littles will come to love you just like I do.”
“Wait, who says that Kat has to worry about me?” Race looked between the leader and his girl.
Jack rolled his eyes. “We alllllll know that you put anyone new in this house through the ringer, including significant others. Kat is no different and the fact she can play your game as well as you can proves that she belongs.”
“Well she’s a tough cookie.” Race shrugged. “I’ll just be chilling with the monsters under my bed, if anyone needs me.”
The littles giggled, as Jack brought her over to the table. “Kat, you know Romeo and Specs but the rest of these knuckleheads are Blink, Buttons, JoJo, and Smalls. This is Kat you guys.”
“We’ve heard a lot about you.” Buttons grinned. “About time you bring her around, Jackie.”
“Drop it Buttons.” He gave him a look. “Now who wants what on their face?”
The four clamored for Jack’s attention as she went and sat at the island watching the mayhem. “It’s a little much, huh?”
“You could say that. How do you keep it all together?” Kat grinned at Medda, watching the matriarch watch her children interact.
Medda laughed, loudly. “I would rather it be loud then quiet any day. Quiet is trouble. At least when they’re loud, I know what’s going on. Some would say nine kids in the house is a little crazy but I love it.”
Kat grinned, not knowing what to say to Jack’s mom. Though they had been dating just shy of a year, Kat was intimidated by Medda. She loved the woman that cared so intense about Jack but she was in awe of her as well. Sometimes she didn’t know how to take the matriarch. “You’re good for him, Kat. Just keep being there for him.”
A blush covered her cheeks, not realizing she had spoken out loud. “Thanks Medda.”
“Anytime. Now what are you and Jack up to tonight?” She watched the dining room table carefully before looking at Kat.
Shrugging, she smiled. “He asked me to come over but I don’t think anything. Maybe a movie in the living room.”
“If so, I’ll keep this lot out of your hair.” Medda smiled. “I don’t think you want to watch a movie with 16 additional eyes, do you?”
Kat laughed, shaking her head. “Thanks Medda.”
“Anytime doll.” She stood from the island. “Jack you almost done? Trick or treating starts in 10 minutes.”
Jack dipped a paintbrush in a cup of murky water before dipping it in paint. “Almost momma. Smalls is my last victim and she’s almost done.”
With a final swipe of red paint, Jack finished the blood on her face. “Ta da! All done.”
“What have you done to my little girl, Jack?” Medda put a hand to her chest.
Smalls grinned. “It’s me momma. Jack just added a lot of blood.”
“Indeed he did. Now go finish getting ready and round up your siblings.” Medda shooed them from the kitchen as Jack started cleaning up. “Now Race is going over to Spot’s and Crutchie over to Albert’s. I’m taking the littles trick or treating for an hour or so. Don’t do anything stupid, Jack.”
He hummed his agreement before Medda stopped in front of him. “Jack?”
“I heard ya momma.” He blushed, looking over at Kat who had her own blush. “We’re gonna watch a movie, innocently.”
Medda snorted, shaking her head. “Sure … believe it or not, I was 17 once too Jack. Would you like a text when we’re heading back?”
“MOMMA!” Jack cried out. Kat would’ve thought the situation was funny if she wasn’t currently involved in it.
Medda gave him a look. “Just offering, Jack. We’ll be back in about an hour. We’re going around the neighborhood.”
Nodding, Jack sighed. “Alright. Have fun and don’t let them have too much candy.”
“Love you baby.” Medda leaned over, kissed his cheek before walking out of the kitchen.
Jack locked eyes with Kat, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry that you had to be exposed to that.”
“She’s concerned about you.” Kat shrugged as he threw something away before leading her to the living room. There was a loud noise as several of his siblings ran down the stairs and out the door. Medda gave them a look before closing the door behind her.
Collapsing on the couch, Jack sighed. “They’re exhausting.”
“No wonder when you come over to the house all you do is take a nap.” Kat snuggled closer to his side and kissed his cheek.
He hummed, nodding. “It’s crazy but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Not bothering to turn the TV on, her and Jack sat in the silence, quietly talking. Crutchie came rubbing down the stairs, grabbed a set of keys before running out the door. “Sweet, sweet peace and quiet.”
“You’re a great brother, you know that right?” Kat asked, as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I don’t know how many brothers would paint their siblings’ faces for Halloween.”
He shrugged. “It’s really nothing. It makes them happy and they love dressing up for the holiday. I just want them to have fun. It’s Smalls’ first Halloween with us - she’s just a kid and has already gone through so much shit. It’s just not fair.”
“She’s safe now. She’s got a family who loves and cares for her.” Kat grinned. “Besides she’s got to be tough if she’s the only girl in this house, besides Medda.”
Jack laughed, nodding. “She’s tough for sure. Just like you are.”
“Love you, Jack Kelly.” She looked up at him, smiling.
He leaned over and kissed her. “Love you too, Katherine Plumber.”
“Hand check!” Came the call as Kat and Jack jumped apart, wide eyed. “Momma told you to do nothin’ stupid, Jackie.”
Looking behind the couch at his grinning, younger brother, Jack jumped over the couch, landing directly on Race before giving him a noogie. “Momma said you were going out with Spot.”
“That’s not until later. She told me to keep an eye on you.” Race said, grinning at Kat. “I take my younger brotherly duties very seriously.”
Jack raised an eyebrow, pushing him further into the carpet as the door opened. “Jack get off your brother.”
“But momma ….” Jack started, pushing Race one more time before getting off him.
She held up a hand, shaking her head. “But nothing. Race, I believe you have somewhere to be. Jack, you have a girlfriend waiting on you.”
“Come walk me to the door. I have to get going.” Kat pushed herself off the couch. “Medda it's always good to see you. Thanks for letting me come over.”
“Anytime doll.” Medda watched them walk to the door before slipping out onto the front porch.
Kat threw her arms around Jack’s shoulders, pulling him down for a kiss. “I love you Jack Kelly. Happy Halloween.”
“Love you too Kat.” He kissed her. “Text me when you get home?”
She nodded, walking to her car before blowing him a kiss. The door opened behind him as Race appeared, mocking his brother. “Love you too Kat.”
Before he could do anything, Jack punched Race’s arm and messed up his hair. “Get outta here. Give my regards to Spot.”
Race blew him a kiss as Jack watched Kat back out of the driveway and drive away. He sighed watching his brother do the same before walking into the house. Yes his family was a pain but he really wouldn’t have it any other way.
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arthropooda · 3 years
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One month later and this wreckage is still here
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free for all, wood and sheet metal, and I know if there were another hurricane coming management would have no involvement with cleaning anything up first because it was already mostly like this before hurricane zeta
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taylorrashti · 4 years
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Week Six Writing Exercise Amos Oz Writing about Childhood
I was born and raised on Long island with my parents and a whole bunch of family. I vividly remember my house before it got renovated. My room was all pink and hand painted hot pink flower designs across the wall by my mother, the tiny kitchen with a white table and chairs, and I always used to sit at the head of the table and behind me was a shelf with a whole bunch of cook books. The living room had black leather couches with cheetah pillows and every time I would come home from camp over the summer I would pass out on the couch. I even remember the smell of my basement. I had a mini playhouse that would be my second home and I would always climb on the roof of it and slide off. (I was a very wild kid). And the other part of my basement was like another mini house. There was a bath, kitchen, room and Livingroom. The Livingroom had salmon colored carpet and pink chairs. I remember being there like it was yesterday. My backyard is humongous. There used to be an apple and berry tree and my father and I always used to pick apples and bring them back. There are always these white butterflies in the backyard to this day. I used to have two swing sets/playhouses and I always used to fall asleep on it as I am swinging. Because I am an only child, every day I would go to my aunt’s and be with my older cousins. I consider them my siblings because we are that close and they taught me so many things. I am much more mature today because I grew up with people 7+ years older than me. My older cousins would always babysit me if both our parents had events at night. My best family friend would always bring us a chocolate chip cookie lava cake and whenever my cousins came over we would eat it and It is SOOOO addicting. I still crave it to this day. I would always have playdates with friends from preschool or even my cousins my age. I remember whenever one of them came over we would first play dress up and I would always be snow white, then we would play in my playhouse and pretend to cook, then we would go to the living room and drink SunnyD or cool aid. Oh, how I miss my Barbie doll and doll house. I had a bunch of American Girl dolls and they are still in my basement. I treated them like they were the most important things on this planet. Every Sunday my Mom would go to work and my dad would watch me. He would take videos on his Sony camera alllllll the time... all day every day and especially on vacations. We have so many home videos. My parents would take me to Puerto Rico and Miami every year and La, san Francisco etc. I started going to Israel when I was about 7. We are a big travel family. At age 2 I already knew how to change the CD to play a new song. I would always dance and sing. I was the child that made everyone so happy and obsessed that they would forget all their current problems. From age 2 to age 7 Amanda, my stay at home Nanny and house keeper, lived with us raised me when my parents were at work. She is from Colombia and by the age of three I was able to talk conversationally in Spanish. This Is also how I also started my coffee addiction because she would always make me coffee and put muenster cheese in it and I can still taste it to this day. Every Friday I would go to dance class and then that night we would have Shabbat dinner either at my house or one of my cousin’s houses. We all live five minutes from each other. We still keep this tradition to this day and always have the best food. Halloween was my FAVORITE. I would dress up in the best costumes, one year I was a pop star and we would always walk in the really nice neighborhood by my aunt’s house and after we would go back to my aunts, drop all the candy on the table and trade candies to whichever we wanted more. Every new years eve we would have a huge family party where the whole town would come but my cousins and I were too young so we would stay at my aunt’s order Chinese and play games. We are very family oriented always having big parties and events. Every year on my birthday my parents would throw me the BEST birthday parties and no I’m not exaggerating. I remember every birthday party I had and believe me each year was like a mini bat mitzvah. I grew up being very active. I dance, play tennis, play piano and violin, swim etc. my dad is very very competitive so he wanted me to have an active side.  I could go on and on but these are the best things about my childhood that I wish I could go back and re live.
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drawnontheway · 4 years
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The best Christmas lights in NYC are alllllll the way out in Dyker Heights. This Kings County neighborhood in Brooklyn is famous for its over-the-top Christmas light displays. How many light up Santas are too many for one front porch? That’s a trick question if you’re decorating in this neighborhood where the only thing bigger than the electricity bills are the crowds that literally take buses out to see this megawatt display of holiday cheer. A trip to Dyker heights is still on my Christmas List, so big thank you to my friend @badbrad for lending me a photo for inspiration. I was giggling the whole time I was making this every time I looked at Brad’s face! (at Dyker Heights, Brooklyn) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6MOyrnjDE9/?igshid=1y1llz2rgcx0n
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seederturnip4-blog · 5 years
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Basement Bedroom Reveals
August 25, 2018
Oh man, it’s time for our basement bedroom reveals and we are so excited!! We went for clean and simple, modern with a touch of traditional.
Is it weird that redoing our basement actually taught us a lot about life? It’s been so, so busy picking things out and making decisions that this past month I found myself doing something I didn’t expect, I stopped working on the basement. These basement bedroom reveals are everything to us, but they definitely aren’t what we envisioned, they are better, but different.
How’s that for confusing?
Here’s the thing, I don’t like design. It’s not my thing. I’d rather figure the most amazing pancake recipe, and I did… Melt in Your Mouth Buttermilk Pancakes, but design, no thanks. It stresses me out, doesn’t come easy to me, and I hate forking out all of that money.
We had felt it though. Finishing our basement wasn’t just because we thought it would be fun, but because this Christmas we had literally felt inspired to do it. So we threw caution to the wind and jumped in with both feet.
And don’t forget to check out Becky Kimball, our lovely photographer for all these photos.
Park City Blinds and Design
Once things were moving along and it was time to fill the rooms I seriously wanted to stop the whole process. The stress had hit. And then, and I mean, like within a day we discovered Park City Blinds and Design. If you aren’t following them on Instagram, get yourselves on over there,  such beautiful inspiration. We ran out to PC and visited their gorgeous showroom, and got totally inspired.
We learned soooo much too. But I have to take you back in time to explain…
Elsie Mahe
Elsie Mahe lived in our neighborhood, a little toddler with the most darling family, including a dad who coaches BYU football. This sweet little girl accidentally got a cord from the blinds wrapped around her neck and passed away. It was incredibly tragic for our neighborhood and I’ve felt multiple times in this build process that our basement blinds should be cordless. In fact, I’m desperate to switch out our entire house, but that’s going to take some time.
So we started there. We got inspired by our window coverings and learned one thing I never knew.
Buy High Quality Window Coverings
I’ve always loved a good deal, but I learned quickly that when you use the cheapest curtain rods the room automatically looks less pulled together and yes, I took to the internet, and it really was true! On top of that, we had previously learned that buying and installing blinds pretty much never fits right, so when we heard that they would come out, measure, fit, and install the blinds I was alllllll in!
Thankfully they are also really good at what they do, so they also guided us on colors and textures and brands that would be the right fit for us. Nothing too crazy expensive, but also not the cheapest stuff that would look awful and more importantly, not end up lasting a long time, which is also a big deal to us.
We started with the windows and everything else fell into place. We are so glad we partnered with Park City Blinds and Design, for a million reasons, but especially because of how incredible they look!
The blinds are super cool too, you merely push and pull them with just one hand! So simple, clean, and lovely.
We lined this particular bedroom because it faces a direction that more light would be pouring in once morning hit.
The rest of the rooms were kept simple. This room started off with the blinds, but it was actually that side table that came next. I’d bought it for another room but ended up loving it in here. It gave guests a place to sit things and  helped to break up that long wall.
The Truth About the Bed
The bed honestly isn’t our favorite, I’ll link up to it but it’s not very sturdy and was a real beast to get together. If it hadn’t been such a hassle I would have bought a new one by now. The sheets and bedding are worth it though.
Our Favorite Sheets After Trying So Many
We asked and asked about sheets on social media, and ended up trying out a few different kinds which we didn’t like. And then came Sweet Sheets. Seriously the most soft sheets ever and they haven’t pilled or stretch even a little bit! Winning!
And best of all, there’s more than just the standard white, so buy whatever suits your needs.
Oh my goodness, and the signs! I’m obsessed and we are totally loading them into our shop asap (that’s right, we are creating a shop where you can easily buy all of our favorite things anytime!) They are a team effort between the Etsy Shop, SK Wood Designs and Cade and I. We wanted them simple and clean, but to also immediately make our guests feel welcome and at ease.
Discount Code for Oh Sweet Basil Readers
Oh and Kim has been nice enough to offer you all 10% off! Just use the code, OHSWEETBASIL10 
All Wood Letter Board
This wood letter board is also a new favorite. We see all the same letter boards everywhere and were super excited when we found this one from Emerie Lane! It’s so, so fun to leave little messages, quotes and even access to our guest wifi. You totally should snag one.
See that little grey dome on the table? Every single one of us have a Dohm sound machine in our rooms as it drowns out those crazy 4 am birds. We thought our guests might sleep better in a strange place with a little white noise too.
Our bedside lights were a total win. We got them on facebook page, but they are originally from West Elm . We ran them through a simple wood bracket for $5!
Now it comes to the part where I tell you that it’s not what I expected. If I was a designer I would have finished decorating those side tables, thrown down a rug and maybe a little more artwork and some fun pillows, but I didn’t. And I’m glad.
Letting Go
After a while I noticed that I was spending so much time searching websites and stores for the perfect pieces, stressing over things I couldn’t find and overall not connecting with my family like I should so in a quick decision I ditched it all. I don’t feel bad about it either. The rooms are totally live-able and perfect just how they are. I don’t need things totally finished up to be happy, I need my family. Maybe one day if I happen upon some great pieces I’ll buy them, but until then, I’m good.
Scroll through the links and feel free to drop your own links in the comments for anything you think would work well in the space.
Shop Our Rooms
Beds
Wall Art
Window Coverings
Extra Furnishings
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
About the author
Carrian Cheney
Lover of all things beautiful, good and delicious. Wife, mother, friend, foodie.
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Source: https://ohsweetbasil.com/basement-bedroom-reveals/
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brettanomycroft · 7 years
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Swamped [Kidge Cryptid Hunt Oneshot, VLD]
“Why else do you think I would insist we come here before we started on our Swamp Ape hunt?” she asks.
“Because we needed cookies?”
She flings her hands up, and the bag of cookies nearly flies off her arm.
“Because we needed to harness Publix's mystical force to aid us in our quest!” she exclaims. Her voice deepens, heightening her drama. “Dark Publix, show me the Cryptids!”
Author’s Note: This was completely self-indulgent. I’m a 3rd or 4th generation Florida native and have spent all but a few years of my life in this lovely, strange state. All but one thing written here about Florida is fact, which is that I don’t think there are two Publix across the street from one another in Cape Canaveral, but there sure are in the town I live in now. Thank @stardusted for the inspiration and planning. She started this. Not me.
Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender Paring: Keith x Pidge Words: 6101 Tags: Swamp Ape, gratuitous Florida, barely edited, bonding, sass, snark, more Florida, mosquitoes, kissing, cute shit, rednecks.
Read on AO3 "Flashlights?"
"Check."
"Water bottles?"
"Check."
“Camera?”
Keith turns in his seat towards Pidge and presses the button on a boxy, plastic camera. A flash goes off. She pouts, but for once keeps both hands on the steering wheel, rather than trying to retaliate.
“Digital and disposable, check,” he says with a grin.
“I can't believe they still sell those. At least if that picture is terrible, I can physically burn it.”
“It won't be,” Keith says.
Pidge’s brows raise. It takes her a moment to resume going through her mental checklist. “Bug spray?”
“Like a gallon of it. Are you sure this isn't overkill?”
"Look, Toto, we're not in the desert anymore, so unless you want the mosquitoes to turn you into a prune so you can start planning your early retirement to Boca, then we're going to need alllllll that bug spray. You've gotta trust me, I'm the expert here. Now, do we have the cookies?”
He looks down at the disposable camera. Suddenly, the process of winding it to the next picture is the most important task in the world.
“Uh…”
The clicking sound as he winds the camera bridges the silence.
"You forgot to grab the cookies?" she asks in a low voice.
"My arms were full carrying all the bug spray!" Which is how Keith finds himself in the middle of an aisle at a grocery story that is surprisingly nice considering he lost cell service thirty minutes ago and still isn't sure if Pidge sneezed in the middle of telling him the name of the "town" they were stopping in.
For an intergalactic pilot, his Earth-side travel had been limited to the desert outskirts beyond The Garrison and a few big cities he visited with his dad, cities that seem more haze than memory now. The maze of palm trees and identical ranch homes the Holts lived in mystified him, and the rural, ramshackle spots he and Pidge had stopped off at when they needed gas were downright eerie. And while he really doesn't get how peanut butter cookies are crucial to the cryptid-hunting process, he's more than willing to give Pidge credit for taking them to what seems the likeliest place for downhome folklore to become fact.
Assuming they ever get out to the site. By the time Pidge decides which brand of cookie to get, the team’s “Voltron Spring Break 2020” will be well over. He wonders how the locals would take to the sight of a massive, glowing UFO appearing over their neighborhood Publix.
“Why don't you just get the ones from the bakery?” he asks.
She looks over her shoulder and rolls her eyes as if he’s asked the most obvious question in the world. Keith gets the sense that she’d wave a dismissive hand in his direction, if both weren’t occupied with two different boxes of cookies.
“The bakery cookies come in those child-proofed plastic containers,” she says, “meaning they’ll make way too much noise to open and close any time we want to eat during the hunt.” The follow up *duh* is unspoken.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Keith leans against the shelves opposite her, careful not to disturb the rows of crackers. “You’re the expert,” he replies, voice going flat so that she could tell just *how impressed* he was.
Pidge puts one of the packages of cookies back on the shelf. She must hear his sigh of relief, though, because a moment later she locks eyes with him and makes a slow reach for another type of cookie.
“Come *on* Pidge.”
A wicked grin stretches slow across her face. “Why don't you go grab another bottle of bug spray while I finish picking out the cookies?”
Keith shakes his head and crosses to Pidge’s side of the aisle. Stretching past her, he picks the box of cookies Pidge just set down, and another box of the ones she still has in hand.
“It's a conspiracy,” he says gravely. “No one needs that much bug spray unless they've got a vested financial stake in it. I refuse to to help you serve the secret interests of Big DEET, Pidge.”
“While in most cases I'd be inclined to agree with you,” she says, “This time, your theory neglects to take into account one important variable: we're in Florida, a state that is more bug than land.”
“Sounds like something a Big DEET lackey would say to cover up their connections.” He pauses to stick out his tongue in response to hers. “Forget the extra bug spray, let’s roll.”
With a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, she sets down the cookies in her hand and follows him towards checkout. When he glances back, he can see the tell-tale tight lips of one trying their best to hold back a smile.
The two of them ignore the strange looks they get from the cashier as they unwind the secret plottings of Big DEET and the significance of OFF™. They pay, and Keith hands the plastic bag filled with cookies to Pidge. She immediately tries to push it back to him, but he sidesteps and comes in with a “You know, we're standing in the most intriguing Florida conspiracy I’ve ever witnessed, but I haven't heard anyone question it.”
Already curious, she doesn't try to hand the bag off to him again. Success.
“What are you talking about?”
The cashier stares hard at them, face still fixed in a smile, but ready for them to clear out so she can finish with the customers behind them. Keith ignores her in favor of making a wide, sweeping gesture towards the grocery store around them.
“Publix. Ever since we landed, it's all I ever hear your mom and dad and Matt talk about. Even you've started doing it. 'Keith, you haven't lived until you've had a Pub Sub,’ and 'I know we stopped at Publix earlier, but let’s go pick up this other thing.’ It goes on.” Pidge nods along, glee filling her face.
“I'm pretty sure everything in your house is Publix brand,” he continues, “and three days ago, when your dad was driving us around town, I saw two Publix across the street from one another…And both were packed. Everyone here has an unnatural obsession with this store.”
The cashier finally shoos them towards the exit. They stop once they reach the parking lot, where Pidge reaches up to cup his cheek. She shakes her head.
“Oh, poor, naive Keith,” she says, doing her best to keep a straight face. “The Publix Phenomenon isn't a conspiracy if everyone knows about it and is willingly accepting. Every Florida child grows up learning of the strange contract made between the Jenkins family and a powerful, interdimensional entity. No one cares because Publix is the best.”
Her words pick up momentum, excitement and investment in the ridiculous story growing. Her eyes crinkle at the corners and he's not entirely sure if it's her pulse or his that he feels at the point where their skin meets.
Her hand drops. Keith exhales, letting go a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
“Why else do you think I would insist we come here before we started on our Swamp Ape hunt?” she asks.
“Because we needed cookies?”
She flings her hands up, and the bag of cookies nearly flies off her arm.
“Because we needed to harness Publix's mystical force to aid us in our quest!” she exclaims. Her voice deepens, heightening her drama. “Dark Publix, show me the Cryptids!”
She holds her pose for a few long ticks before they both dissolve into laughter. Clutching at his stomach, Keith doubles over, gasping as he tries to speak.
“And here this whole time I thought you were weird. Turns out you're just Floridian,” he manages.
“Hey! I resemble that remark!”
Pidge chases him all the way back to the car, both cackling as she tries to nail him with the wildly swinging bag of cookies.
It's another 30 minute’s drive out to the location Pidge has found for their Swamp Ape stakeout. The sun is low in the sky and right in their faces, but the car’s A/C is cold and conversation engaging. Pidge once again shares how she found the spot: a combination of digging through forums and coding a program that took location and environmental data from the various sightings and calculated the best possible area for spotting the cryptid. Keith's heard the story three or four times by now, but doesn't begrudge her excitement. Once she’s done, he retells his story of how his attempts at tracking down the Thunderbird ended up with him trespassing on Garrison property before he was even a cadet. Pidge always laughs at the part where he evaded Iverson by making terrible bird calls, so it’s worth the embarrassment of recreating the scene.
Between laughing at themselves and the dense forest that crowds the single lane highway they’re cruising down, Pidge misses the turn off. They’re alone on the straight, narrow road, so Pidge lets out her choicest of expletives and pulls a U-turn right in the middle of it. Both of their phones are without signal, but Keith had gone the old school route and printed out the map as well, so after a few miles going under the speed limit and another U-turn, they find their road.
Loose gravel crunches under car tires. A plume of dust rises up behind them. Keith stares out the windows, transfixed by the way the trees flit by. His eyes catch on shadows and shapes further back in the woods: trees, no doubt, but in the growing twilight he swears he sees something dart away.
Being a paladin of Voltron came with no shortage of action and excitement. They were constantly on guard, always ready for the next fight. But this is a different prickling in his stomach. This is a pick up in his pulse that he hasn’t felt since he was fourteen and scrambling under a break in the fence at The Garrison. He glances over at Pidge. Her attention is glued to the path ahead, but there’s the hint of a grin at her lips. Her hands flex and tighten on the steering wheel.
The road dead ends at a small clearing of grass. Pidge parks the car. At the far end of the clearing, a few knobbly fence posts do their best to hold back the forest. Pidge turns to him, vibrating in anticipation. Her eyes are bright, a hint of gold lit in the setting sun.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Beyond ready.”
Keith opens the passenger door, slides out, and shoulders his backpack. From the side pocket, he withdraws his knife and returns it to its proper place on his hip. Pidge had assured him that open carry was a thing in Florida, but he hadn’t wanted to take chances. The weight of his blade at his side kickstarts the pounding of his heart, sending it to his ears. He can see Pidge getting geared up on the other side. She bounces from foot to foot, tests the weight of her backpack, and consults the compass clipped to her shorts.
“Let’s roll. We’ve got an hour or so until sundown.”
They cross the clearing. Long grasses and weeds tickle and stick at Keith’s ankles. He regrets not wearing jeans, but Pidge had insisted that he’d die of heat stroke before they found the Swamp Ape if he did.
Pidge stops between two of the fence posts. Barbed wire coils between the posts, the “NO TRESPASSING” sign attached to it faded but sturdy. She doesn’t hesitate or turn towards the car. He can’t hold back a grin as she pulls a pair of thick work gloves and her bayard from the side pocket of her backpack and goes, “Care to do the honors?”
“Nah, go for it. I broke the law last time.”
She chuckles, tugs on the gloves, and dispatches the barbed wire with little effort.
“Remind me to fix that on the way out,” she says.
“Fix that on the way out,” he replies.
“You’re *so* helpful.”
With her gloves, she holds the barbed wire back, allowing him to pass. He reaches up and ruffles her hair once he’s safely past the sharp metal.
“I try,” he says.
He walks two or three yards into the forest, then turns when he doesn’t hear Pidge’s footsteps behind him. Rather than the expected look of disgust, she stares at him with an expression that falls somewhere between impish and downright devious.
“You’re forgetting something, Keith,” she says in a singsong voice.
“And what’s that?”
From the bottle holder of her backpack, she yanks out not a bottle of water, but a massive can of bug spray.
“Spray down time.”
Groaning, Keith trudges back to her.
“Repellent?” he asks. “I thought that’s why I had you and your personality here.”
And, as he deserves, Pidge hits him in the pants with a long shot of the wet, citrus-smelling stuff.
Their little camp is little more than a blanket laid out on the ground and their backpacks leaned up against the wide trunk of an oak. They’d walked maybe a mile or two from the clearing until Pidge had dubbed them sufficiently far enough from civilization for a Swamp Ape to appear. Settling in, they’d gotten out their individual field notebooks, water, and one of the boxes of cookies. And then, the wait began.
There’s desert hot, and then there’s *this*, and *this* is misery. Oftentimes when Pidge had talked about home, she’d referred to it as “the swamp”, but in the cool expanse of space, it had been hard to imagine. Keith ought to have figured it out as they were flying in, when he’d seen from Red’s viewscreen the long tracts of murky green, but Pidge had been chattering away over their private channel about how great it was going to be to see her family and take him out on a proper cryptid hunt, so it hadn’t really hit him.
The heat doesn’t just swelter, it clings. Walking through a wall of food goo would have been easier and more pleasant than what they’re sitting in now. The lowering sun provides as little relief from the heat as do the pines that stretch above them. If anything, the trees trap the humidity in. Pidge runs a can of soda along her forehead and cheek. The hair from her ponytail that isn’t plastered to her neck curls and frizzes.
A buzzing at his ears tells him that despite all the bug spray, he’s about to become dinner; he swats at the mosquito near his neck and lands a hit. When he pulls his hand away to look, its a mess of sweat, dirt, and a smear of blood. Keith decides then and there that the only good thing to come from Florida is Pidge, and even right now, she’s not earning many points. He should have gone to Disney with Lance, Hunk, and Allura, or stayed in Cape Canaveral and gone bar-hopping with Shiro, Matt, and Coran.
“Why did we have to choose to hunt the Swamp Ape?” he grumbles. “Why couldn’t it have been the Beach Ape, or better yet, the Indoor Air Conditioning Ape?”
“Because those aren’t legendary monsters, those are tourists,” she says. “I know the heat’s shitty, but shut it. All your complaining will scare off the Swamp Ape.”
He’s not sure if he should feel relieved to know from the sting of her words proved the heat was getting to her too, or offended by her jab. Pidge could get downright nasty when the mood struck - her sense of tact and social etiquette were about as refined as his - but most of the time he had the privilege of being the observer, not the recipient.
And maybe she realizes her harshness: a few ticks later, she pulls a chilled soda from her bag and waves it in front of him.
“Cool off?” she asks, as close to an apology as he can expect.
“Yeah, sure.”
She slides the can up his arm, giggling when he jumps at the cold contact on his skin. A trail of goosebumps follows the condensation the can leaves as she rolls it over his shoulder and up his neck.
The next two hours pass easier with Pidge recling on her backpack next to him. They split a beer Keith nicked from Lance; not because either of them were too young to buy their own, but because watching the confused look dawn on Lance's face the next morning as he counted the drinks left and tried to compare it to what he was sure he’d drunk the night before was one of their new favorite things. In low whispers they exchange what they know about their quarry, from the accounts they’d each read about to their own pet theories. There’s an undertone of hope, as if talking about the Swamp Ape might make it appear, but instead the sun sinks below the horizon and the mosquitoes come out in full force.
Keith had the foresight to bring a deck of cards, so they flip on the lantern Pidge packed and run through their options. Egyptian Rat Screw is out of the question - too loud - but they play a few good rounds of Rummy, Crazy Eights, and a game Coran had taught them called Yarbling Yellmore. Pidge then cajoles him into a game of Go Fish, which is unfair when they both know she’s the reigning Go Fish champion back on the Castle.
“Got any… threes?” she asks.
“Go Fish,” he says, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.
In the fuzzy blue light of the lantern, Keith sees Pidge give him a *look*. Her eyes narrow and she purses her lips.
“You’d better not be lying,” she mutters.
“I’m not. Go Fish.”
“Keith, this isn’t Bullshit, give me your goddamned three.”
She leans in. He resists the impulse to lean back, doing everything in his power to maintain his semblance of innocence.
“I already told you, I don’t have one. Go Fish.”
As if this weren’t the first time this has happened, Keith scrambles back on his butt the moment before Pidge launches herself at him. He keeps his card hand high in the air, out of her reach as she practically crawls over him on all fours.
“You’re such a shit,” Pidge swears, trying to swipe at his cards.
“What happened to being quiet?” he teases. He stretches his arm up even higher.
Of all of the paladins, he’s the shortest second to Pidge, but every bit of extra height counts in carrying on the game of keep-away. Her knee digs into his thigh and her hand is planted on his shoulder as she continues her futile attempts to snatch his cards from him. He tilts his head up to avoid getting a mouthful of green tee-shirt, only to come to close to getting a mouthful of something else. Pidge seems not to have noticed the precarious nature of their position or the red that floods his face. She leans in closer as she tries to leverage all the height she can to reach his cards.
“What happened to h-” Pidge starts, but her voice cuts off with a sharp squeak the moment after a loud rustle comes from the dark forest.
Their heads snap towards the sound. Beyond the circle of the lantern the forest is a patchwork of black and blacker. They both jump as a deafening crack of a tree branch snapped in half echoes around them. Without looking away from the verge of light and shadow, Keith plants his hands on Pidge’s hips to keep her from tumbling on top of him. His cards hit the ground with the faintest flutter. Pidge is too occupied to notice the pair of threes.
“Swamp Ape?” Pidge breathes.
“Dunno.”
The sound of scattering leaves and shaking foliage continues. A chorus of pops and cracks surround them. Pidge tenses under his hands.
“Flashlight?”
“Closest one is in my backpack. Front pocket,” he whispers.
Pidge slides off of him and inches towards his backpack. With aching slowness she undoes the zipper, trying to make as little noise as possible. The unseen source of the rustling nears; Keith can practically taste the tang of his heart in his mouth. Whatever it is, it's almost at the edge of their makeshift camp.
“Gotcha,” Pidge hisses. She stands, Keith's flashlight in hand, and swings the beam of light towards the noise.
Three small, bulbous shapes give off a dull shine in the light. They freeze in the middle of their rooting around in the dirt. Black beady eyes peer out at them. Pidge lets out a long string of expletives that ends in “Quiznaking armadillos.”
Tension drains from Keith's body, and he falls back on the blanket. He needs a minute to get the painful pounding of his heart back to a healthy tempo. He hears Pidge stomp around and kick up leaves and twigs to chase the small creatures away; the rustling they make as they scamper back into the forest isn’t even as close to as loud as it had seemed before.
Pidge collapses on the blanket next to him with a huff. They look at one another, and burst into laughter.
...
“We’re goinna give it thirty more minutes,” Keith insists, “and then call it quits. If the Swamp Ape doesn’t show up before then, it gets to keep its ‘Elusive’ status.”
The protest Pidge offers is garbled, drowsy.
“Beg pardon?” he says.
She shifts a little to look up at him, but her head remains planted on his shoulder. Her eyelashes flutter as she fights oncoming sleep.
“But I wanted you to have the coolest cryptid hunt ever,” Pidge whines. “Instead all we’ve had swampy weather and some stupid armadillos.”
Keith eyes the watch on his wrist. After having gotten used to the ticker he wore while in space, it takes him a moment to interpret. It’s already past midnight, and they’ve got a two hour drive back to Pidge’s house that Keith suspects he’ll be in charge of. He runs a hand over her hair, consoling.
“I’m having fun,” he says. “Swamp Ape or no Swamp Ape. What else do you think I’d want to be doing? Spending my Spring Break keeping Coran and Matt from starting bar fights? Spinning around in some silly bowls at an overpriced circus until I puked?”
Pidge chuckles, and scoots closer. She adjusts until it seems she’s found a more comfortable position leaning against him.
“One,” she starts, “don’t pretend like you wouldn’t be the first to start a bar fight.” Keith shrugs the best he can without disturbing her. “And two, don’t knock the teacups ‘til you’ve tried them. Outside of the mindlessly long lines the Disney Corporation uses to optimize harnessing of human soul energy, the parks are pretty great.”
“The only way any of that could be more entertaining than what we’re doing is if the bar fight was at Disney.”
They continue chatting, doing their best to keep the other awake for the final half hour of their quest. While not as oppressive as earlier, the air is still on the warm side, and between that and the lullaby-strains of frog song and insect hum, Keith knows he’s fighting a losing battle. He can see a pocket of stars through a break in the trees above, and decides he likes how pleasantly surreal it feels to be with Pidge looking up at the stars instead of down. His fingers absently toy with the end of her ponytail as they talk.
Ten minutes remain in their hunt when it happens.
It starts with the frogs. Pidge is the first to notice. She sits up.
“Hear that?” she whispers.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
The forest is cloaked in odd silence. Keith feels very, very awake.
They sit in absolute stillness, and are rewarded a few seconds later by a long, deep howling sound. It’s too far off for Keith to figure out what direction it’s coming from, but it won’t be that way for long: it’s getting louder.
When he’d imagined the Swamp Ape, he hadn’t imagined the terrible crush of underbrush like thunder rising from the earth, hadn’t imagined the inhuman, reverberating roar, unlike anything he’s ever heard before. Blurry images of a tall, loping figure flash through his mind. All reports indicated it was fast, powerful. His paladin armor would be a blessing right about now.
Pidge grabs his hand and squeezes hard. She’s gone pale, and it’s clear the same thoughts are crossing her mind. Blindly, she fumbles for her backpack and feels around until she finds her bayard.
“Keith, if we die here,” she says, voice low and serious, “I want you to know that there’s no one else in the world I’d want to go cryptid hunting with and that I’d been hoping we could do that kind of stuff together for the rest of our lives, Voltron or no.”
Something pings in his brain at her words, something some part of him feels like he would be paying a lot more attention to if the angry bellowing of a charging creature weren’t headed straight for them. He stands, muscles tensing.
“We’re not going to die, Pidge,” he snaps. “We’re both trained warriors with space weapons going up against a big monkey.”
“Okay, well, yeah,” she says as she stands up, “but the adrenaline’s talking now and I don’t have a good brain-to-mouth filter under normal circumstances and monkeys and apes aren’t the same thing.”
Whatever beast is out there isn’t slowing down. Keith estimates they have maybe another twenty seconds before it reaches their camp.
Pidge and Keith turn to each other as one. And maybe the adrenaline has hit his bloodstream, or maybe her words catch up with him, or maybe this was going to happen the entire time and both of them were too wrapped up in the hunt to even notice, but it happens now: Keith slings his free arm around her waist and Pidge grabs his shoulder and their teeth click painfully as their lips collide once, twice, three times. He tastes peanut butter and mint gum when his tongue slides into her mouth. A soft whine rises from the back of her throat when they part for air, a sound he mimics when she sucks his bottom lip between her teeth a moment later. The roaring in his ears is either his heart or the Swamp Ape less than ten feet away, probably both.
Hand on his blade, he pulls away from her and turns to the source of the roar. Every muscle tenses, each nerve fires off with the command to defend: now that he's kissed Pidge, he's not about to let either of them get mauled by Redneck Sasquatch. Next to him, Pidge crouches low. Her bayard sparks to life, glow illuminating flushed cheeks and kiss-plush lips.
They’re hit with a bright blast of light. Keith throws up his arm but it’s too late, and he’s blinded. He holds his defensive stance and tries to blink his vision back.
“What the hell are ya’ll doin’ out here? This is my private property!”
As his eyes adjust to the light, it clarifies into two points - headlights. A loud motor revs and growls. Keith can just make out the darker outline of what looks like a 4-wheeler with a man atop it. He can’t see the expression on the man’s face, but the anger in his shout and the slender shadow of a shotgun make his facial features pretty unnecessary.
Pidge gets her words back first, but he swears he hears a slight twang to her voice that, should they make it out of this alive, he was definitely going to tease her for.
“Sir, we are so sorry, we did not mean any harm, you see, it’s just that we were out here lookin’ for, ah, uh…”
The man gives a contemptuous snort. “Lookin’ for what? Ain’t nothin’ but pine and cattle for a’hunnerd acres.” He turns his head towards Keith. “Nah, the only thing ya’ll’re lookin’ for was a real private place. Thinkin’ you could get some all the way out in the woods, huh boy?”
Keith tries to stammer out some sort of response, but he’s completely blindsided. He looks from the rancher, to the wrinkled blanket below his feet, to Pidge, wild hair mussed from a long night of humidity. It does look a lot like what the rancher was suggesting.
“No, that’s not-” Keith starts. “We weren’t doing anything!” He clenches his fists to keep himself from reaching for his knife. He’s been launched from one potential fight into another, and his body is still ready to go. Reason tells him that the last thing he needs to do is beat up some stranger in the deep woods of Florida, but instinct doesn’t like the way the man is staring the two of them down.
“We were looking for the Swamp Ape!” Pidge shouts.
Just like before, the entire forest goes quiet. Even the thrum of the 4-wheeler’s motor seems muted.
“The what?”
“The Swamp Ape,” Pidge repeats, sounding defensive.
A bark of laughter echoes around them. The rancher lowers his gun.
“Where you two from?” he asks.
“Cape Canaveral,” she says.
“You two came all the way out here from Canaveral lookin’ for that damn ape?” The man hoots and dissolves into great gasping bouts of laughter.
Keith takes a breath, stance relaxing. They were going to be all right. He sees Pidge deactivate her bayard.
“Yes Sir, we did.”
It takes three or four more staggering breaths before the man can speak again. “Girl, there ain’t been a sightin’ this far north in years. You gotta go down to the Everglades if you wanna catch a whiff a’ him.”
Pidge visibly deflates, shoulders sagging. The expression on her face as she turns to Keith is pure apology. He shrugs.
The rancher lets them pack up their things and escorts them back to the property line. He watches with an appreciative eye as Pidge uses her bayard to mend the cut barbed wire, then issues about as stern of a warning as he can muster.
“I figure ya’ll wastin’ your time out here for nothin’ is punishment enough.”
The drive back is quiet. Despite the chug of the A/C, the air feels thick. Keith stares out the window, but sneaks glances at Pidge when he thinks her attention is fixed on the road. He’d kissed her. She’d kissed him. Somehow, that discovery feels more monumental than 1,000 confirmed conspiracy theories.
He takes another chance at a glance, and finds her looking at him.
“I’d understand if you don’t want to go on anymore cryptid hunts,” she says in a quiet voice. “This was a total bust.”
He swallows hard and reaches out to fiddle with the air vent. It’s suddenly hotter than an afternoon in July. He shakes his head.
“I thought you said you wanted to do this kind of stuff together forever. I was starting to get pretty set on the idea.”
Pidge’s smile is soft. Keith assembles every last bit of courage that hasn’t been drained from the night’s events, and leans over to take the hand resting in her lap. Her fingers curl around his.
“You’re by far the best thing to come out of Florida,” he says.
If she thinks she can cover up how wide her eyes get, or the color that rushes to her cheeks with a sarcastic sounding, “Keith Kogane, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” well, she’s wrong.
She holds his hand the rest of the drive home, not even letting go when she has to swerve around a pack of armadillos crossing the middle of the road.
3 AM has come and gone by the time Pidge navigates the car into the driveway. The Holt family home is dark but for a single stove top light in the kitchen, which allows Matt, the only one still awake, to give them a once-over. He sets aside the jar of peanut butter and spoon in hand and lets out a low whistle.
“No luck, huh?” he says.
Keith feels the mirth radiating from Matt as he takes in their matching sweat-drenched clothes and mud-flaked faces. He circles the kitchen island and plucks a small twig out of Pidge's hair.
“Three armadillos, an annoyed rancher, and a flock of mosquitoes,” Pidge mumbles.
“Not exactly the monsters you were looking for, then,” Matt says. “You’da had better luck coming out to the bar with me and Shiro and Coran. We ran into something inhuman tonight - dunno what it was, but Coran swore up and down that it wasn't an alien.”
Matt launches into a descriptive but somewhat slurred story about, from what Keith could gather in between the large clumps of peanut butter Matt starts eating again, Coran’s close encounter of the Texan kind. Keith's too tired to protest or be offended at Matt's descriptions of the tourist.
Keith and Pidge yawn in unison. He can feel sleep creeping up on him, and if he doesn’t go upstairs and shower soon, he’s going to fall asleep in the middle of the kitchen, coated in a thick layer of sweat and bug spray.
“Eh, well, you’ll have better luck next time,” Matt says. He tries to twirl his peanut butter spoon between his fingers, but it drops with a loud clunk. His eyes narrow as he shoots the spoon an accusing glare, then shrugs and scoops out some peanut butter with his finger instead.
“But just think,” Matt continues. “Maybe the real cryptid was the friends you made along the way”
Pidge glances at Keith. She bites her bottom lip, then looks away. Keith feels warm again. He, too, suddenly finds it hard to look at her.
Matt laughs. He looks like he’s about to pat Keith on the back, but reconsiders a moment later. Keith is pretty sure the stench coming from him and Pidge is potent enough to put the Swamp Ape to shame.
“I call first dibs on the shower,” Pidge announces.
She wraps his hand in hers and gives it a quick squeeze, then hurries upstairs before he can protest her shower dibs. He watches her climb up until she’s out of sight.
When Keith turns back, he meets Matt’s piercing stare. For all that Matt had been acting like he’d had a bit too much at the bars that night, the look he gives Keith now is both sober and sobering.
“Any theories on why you guys didn’t manage to find the Swamp Ape?” he asks. “Maybe a little too occupied with something else?”
After everything Keith has faced that night - mosquitoes, wild armadillos, unpredictable property owners - nothing chills his blood so much as the very Big Brother expression on Matt’s face.
“Apparently we were too far north for a good sighting,” Keith says quickly, “and if we wanted to actually track it down we’d have to go to the Everglades.”
“Next time, then,” Matt says. Keith shivers.
“Yeah, hopefully.”
“Maybe I’ll come along.”
“Yeah, sure thing, definitely,” Keith hedges. “Well, I’m exhausted soooo I’m just going to go upstairs now.”
Matt wishes him a ‘good night’ that sounds a lot like ‘I’d better not catch you doing anything with my sister’. Keith does his best to walk upstairs in a calm, collected manner. He’s so focused on avoiding a premature death that he nearly jumps out of his skin when Pidge swings up the door to her room and steps into the hallway.
She’s bundled in a towel, pajamas in hand, and her hair cascades down across her bare shoulders. All thoughts of Matt and dying vacate.
“I’m going to hop in the shower,” she says quietly.
“Don’t take too long. The only cryptid rarer than a Clean Pidge is a Pidge Shower that’s less than 45 minutes.”
Rolling her eyes, Pidge leans in and presses a light kiss on his lips.
“You’re lucky that Blushing Keith is my favorite cryptid,” she shoots back.
Stunned, he doesn’t manage his reply until she’s almost shut the bathroom door behind her.
“Well, you’re mine!” he says.
Keith counts it as a success when he hears a soft yelp and a drawn out “Stoooooop,” from the other side of the door.
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bringmemyqueen · 7 years
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I'm a potate and I'm here bc iwadai :D Do you have some hcs or aus with them? (I'm sorry if I'm a bother, I just keep thinking that I need smth with them and it haunts my butt for over a week now T_T)
why hello fellow potate ♥∠( ᐛ 」∠)_ you’re not a bother at all!! how could i ever be annoyed by an iwadai ask??? that’s literally impossible never going to happen don’t worry :>
OH BOI DO I HAVE HCS AND AUS FOR IWADAI??? yes, yes I do.
some random headcanons:
Iwaizumi just loves to bask in the few cm of height difference between him and Daichi. Daichi swears he’ll grow taller in the next year (of every year). these dorks and their height obsession i swear
Iwaizumi is an actual sap ok like he sometimes doesn’t even realize it. i’m forever going to write him this way. I just feel he’s the type to really cherish and love hard when he’s in a relationship. Also because I love Daichi so much I like to make Iwaizumi emotionally weak to Daichi =u=
Daichi is such a fuckin tease (most times intentional) and Iwaizumi initiates touch more often
Iwaizumi’s favorite physical features of Daichi: eyes and thighs; Daichi’s favorite physical features of Iwaizumi: pouty lips, arms, eyes, back
They take turns doing chores and are all civil about it, but in general they’re a mess like they throw their clothes everywhere and anywhere until a pile forms and they can’t tell which pile is clean or dirty
THEY GET A BIG FLOOFY DOG!!! who I’ve decidedly named Wan because it sounds like a bark and also the number one which can stand for Daichi’s jersey number and Hajime ;v;
Iwaizumi is a movie/film fanatic and they have movie night twice a month sometimes more depending how free they are. they cuddle on the couch, kiss each other with popcorn breath, and have lengthy discussions about the plot and characters
Daichi enjoys listening to all types of music and Iwaizumi loves watching him sing because he’s always so into it (not the greatest singer tho). Daichi has plenty of foreign songs that he likes to sing to Iwaizumi but Iwaizumi doesn’t know much English so he looks up the songs and realizes that they’re all incredibly cheesy love songs and wow he’s blushing so hard now
They’re both strong enough to carry the other over their shoulders and they wrestle each other alllllll the time for funsies. Sometimes it leads to make-out sessions and other times one or the other accidentally gets elbowed or kicked a little too hard
some iwadai aus
college au: me and my friend jess tried to write a slow burn chaptered fic but uhhhhhhhh we’re stuck on chapter 2……like its been what six months?? since we started OTL i really want to finish it because im so so so desperate for an iwadai centric long fic and trust me this was going to be long. we have an outline. AN OUTLINE. OF THEIR FOUR YEARS OF COLLEGE. BUT WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO WORD. anyways this is the basic college au i will never get tired of where iwadai become friends and eventually like each other but they’re both too dumb and dense to realize their own feelings until some incident happens and one of them realizes and they’re like oh shit what to do because they don’t want to ruin their friendship. gawwwd i want to write this but i’m forever a mediocre one-shot writer TT__TT
same neighborhood au: where Daichi moves into the same neighborhood as Iwaizumi and Oikawa in his childhood. The three of them become close but Daichi ends up moving again after a couple of years. Then they meet again in high school when Daichi transfers to Seijou during his third year. ughghgh im sorry I have a story for this and i’m trying to explain without spoiling it too much because I want to make it into a comic but its basically a high school romance iwadai au lmao (also a small bit of one-sided oi/dai maybe?, but supportive best friend oiks) aaaand jsut to put it out there Iwaizumi has a scar on his lip and Daichi has one on his stomach/back from an incident that happened when they were kids and that’s all I’ll say for now. its a vague mess i know OTL
mafia au: i don’t have much of an idea for this one yet since I just thought about it recently (which is ridiculous because im fcking love mafia au the best kind of angst man). honestly i just want to draw iwadai half-naked with a bunch of pretty and elaborate tattoos. But I’m thinking about it as I write this and guys……imagine Karasuno mafia boss Daichi falling in love with Seijou’s right hand man Iwaizumi. The mafia bosses having monthly meetings or something and they’re only allowed to bring one person with them. Imagine the eye-fucking during the meetings and secret rendezvous during high tensions between the groups hgngngngn im gone
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waverule2-blog · 5 years
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Basement Bedroom Reveals
August 25, 2018
Oh man, it’s time for our basement bedroom reveals and we are so excited!! We went for clean and simple, modern with a touch of traditional.
Is it weird that redoing our basement actually taught us a lot about life? It’s been so, so busy picking things out and making decisions that this past month I found myself doing something I didn’t expect, I stopped working on the basement. These basement bedroom reveals are everything to us, but they definitely aren’t what we envisioned, they are better, but different.
How’s that for confusing?
Here’s the thing, I don’t like design. It’s not my thing. I’d rather figure the most amazing pancake recipe, and I did… Melt in Your Mouth Buttermilk Pancakes, but design, no thanks. It stresses me out, doesn’t come easy to me, and I hate forking out all of that money.
We had felt it though. Finishing our basement wasn’t just because we thought it would be fun, but because this Christmas we had literally felt inspired to do it. So we threw caution to the wind and jumped in with both feet.
And don’t forget to check out Becky Kimball, our lovely photographer for all these photos.
Park City Blinds and Design
Once things were moving along and it was time to fill the rooms I seriously wanted to stop the whole process. The stress had hit. And then, and I mean, like within a day we discovered Park City Blinds and Design. If you aren’t following them on Instagram, get yourselves on over there,  such beautiful inspiration. We ran out to PC and visited their gorgeous showroom, and got totally inspired.
We learned soooo much too. But I have to take you back in time to explain…
Elsie Mahe
Elsie Mahe lived in our neighborhood, a little toddler with the most darling family, including a dad who coaches BYU football. This sweet little girl accidentally got a cord from the blinds wrapped around her neck and passed away. It was incredibly tragic for our neighborhood and I’ve felt multiple times in this build process that our basement blinds should be cordless. In fact, I’m desperate to switch out our entire house, but that’s going to take some time.
So we started there. We got inspired by our window coverings and learned one thing I never knew.
Buy High Quality Window Coverings
I’ve always loved a good deal, but I learned quickly that when you use the cheapest curtain rods the room automatically looks less pulled together and yes, I took to the internet, and it really was true! On top of that, we had previously learned that buying and installing blinds pretty much never fits right, so when we heard that they would come out, measure, fit, and install the blinds I was alllllll in!
Thankfully they are also really good at what they do, so they also guided us on colors and textures and brands that would be the right fit for us. Nothing too crazy expensive, but also not the cheapest stuff that would look awful and more importantly, not end up lasting a long time, which is also a big deal to us.
We started with the windows and everything else fell into place. We are so glad we partnered with Park City Blinds and Design, for a million reasons, but especially because of how incredible they look!
The blinds are super cool too, you merely push and pull them with just one hand! So simple, clean, and lovely.
We lined this particular bedroom because it faces a direction that more light would be pouring in once morning hit.
The rest of the rooms were kept simple. This room started off with the blinds, but it was actually that side table that came next. I’d bought it for another room but ended up loving it in here. It gave guests a place to sit things and  helped to break up that long wall.
The Truth About the Bed
The bed honestly isn’t our favorite, I’ll link up to it but it’s not very sturdy and was a real beast to get together. If it hadn’t been such a hassle I would have bought a new one by now. The sheets and bedding are worth it though.
Our Favorite Sheets After Trying So Many
We asked and asked about sheets on social media, and ended up trying out a few different kinds which we didn’t like. And then came Sweet Sheets. Seriously the most soft sheets ever and they haven’t pilled or stretch even a little bit! Winning!
And best of all, there’s more than just the standard white, so buy whatever suits your needs.
Oh my goodness, and the signs! I’m obsessed and we are totally loading them into our shop asap (that’s right, we are creating a shop where you can easily buy all of our favorite things anytime!) They are a team effort between the Etsy Shop, SK Wood Designs and Cade and I. We wanted them simple and clean, but to also immediately make our guests feel welcome and at ease.
Discount Code for Oh Sweet Basil Readers
Oh and Kim has been nice enough to offer you all 10% off! Just use the code, OHSWEETBASIL10 
All Wood Letter Board
This wood letter board is also a new favorite. We see all the same letter boards everywhere and were super excited when we found this one from Emerie Lane! It’s so, so fun to leave little messages, quotes and even access to our guest wifi. You totally should snag one.
See that little grey dome on the table? Every single one of us have a Dohm sound machine in our rooms as it drowns out those crazy 4 am birds. We thought our guests might sleep better in a strange place with a little white noise too.
Our bedside lights were a total win. We got them on facebook page, but they are originally from West Elm . We ran them through a simple wood bracket for $5!
Now it comes to the part where I tell you that it’s not what I expected. If I was a designer I would have finished decorating those side tables, thrown down a rug and maybe a little more artwork and some fun pillows, but I didn’t. And I’m glad.
Letting Go
After a while I noticed that I was spending so much time searching websites and stores for the perfect pieces, stressing over things I couldn’t find and overall not connecting with my family like I should so in a quick decision I ditched it all. I don’t feel bad about it either. The rooms are totally live-able and perfect just how they are. I don’t need things totally finished up to be happy, I need my family. Maybe one day if I happen upon some great pieces I’ll buy them, but until then, I’m good.
Scroll through the links and feel free to drop your own links in the comments for anything you think would work well in the space.
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About the author
Carrian Cheney
Lover of all things beautiful, good and delicious. Wife, mother, friend, foodie.
Source: https://ohsweetbasil.com/basement-bedroom-reveals/
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taylorrashti · 4 years
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week 8
For the first blog I decided to use Revising transitions. This is because i was not finished with my story. It had a “to be continued” ,and now there is a conclusion. For the second blog used Adjustment of sound to sense and finding the right word. I rearranged the sentences so that it had a flow and was more descriptive in terms of detail to imagines, tastes, something meaningful in that moment.
1.Before: Week Five Writing Exercise David Grossman
A story that I have chosen to talk about is the time when I was put in a singles Jew Facebook group chat. There are about 30,000 people in the group from all over the world. My roommate posted four pictures of me with a funny cute description and a lot of guys reached out to me soon afterward. The plot of the story was soon after when my friend posted me to the group, this particular guy reached out to me who I really got along with the most and is very much my type. and now we have been talking and facetiming for three months. The conflict is that I am all the way in Israel and he is in LA. We really like each other and we see a future together but the question is… when are we going to meet? Will it be months from now? I know this sounds crazy but we automatically clicked and it felt like I’ve known him for years. There may be ups and downs before we meet each other because it’s very hard to do long distance but I know when I see him we will have so much fun and memories to make. I feel like a little school girl who has a crush. Is it just the crazy quarantine phase? This is the most exciting thing going on in my life right now and after I read David Grossman's lecture, it made me think about this situation because he described love and passion in the first page. This would be a very cute and romantic love story if there is a future with this man. The end of the story is to be continued…
After: A story that I have chosen to talk about is the time when I was put in a singles Jew Facebook group chat. There are about 40,000 people in the group from all over the world. My roommate posted four pictures of me with a funny cute description and a lot of guys reached out to me soon afterward. The plot of the story was soon after when my friend posted me to the group, this particular guy reached out to me who I really got along with the most and is very much my type. We talked and faceted for two weeks. The conflict is that I am all the way in Israel and he is in LA. We really like each other and we see a future together but the question is… when are we going to meet? Will it be months from now? I know this sounds crazy but we automatically clicked and it felt like I’ve known him for years. There may be ups and downs before we meet each other because it’s very hard to do long distance but I know when I see him we will have so much fun and memories to make. I feel like a little school girl who has a crush. Is it just the crazy quarantine phase? This is the most exciting thing going on in my life right now and after I read David Grossman's lecture, it made me think about this situation because he described love and passion in the first page. This would be a very cute and romantic love story if there is a future with this man. Now that it has been a month later I am here to announce that we do not speak anymore but we still consider each other as friends. After two weeks of talking and facetiming every day, I saw the real side of him and I couldn't see a future. I guess we can say I was infatuated. We did make a promise that if we are both single and we end up meeting each other, we will see where things go. I guess this was just a quarantine phase because I don't have any more butterflies but I do miss the attention he gave me.
2. Before: Week Six Writing Exercise Amos Oz Writing about Childhood
I was born and raised on Long island with my parents and a whole bunch of family. I vividly remember my house before it got renovated. My room was all pink and hand painted hot pink flower designs across the wall by my mother, the tiny kitchen with a white table and chairs, and I always used to sit at the head of the table and behind me was a shelf with a whole bunch of cook books. The living room had black leather couches with cheetah pillows and every time I would come home from camp over the summer I would pass out on the couch. I even remember the smell of my basement. I had a mini playhouse that would be my second home and I would always climb on the roof of it and slide off. (I was a very wild kid). And the other part of my basement was like another mini house. There was a bath, kitchen, room and Living Room. The Living Room had salmon colored carpet and pink chairs. I remember being there like it was yesterday. My backyard is humongous. There used to be an apple and berry tree and my father and I always used to pick apples and bring them back. There are always these white butterflies in the backyard to this day. I used to have two swing sets/playhouses and I always used to fall asleep on it as I was swinging. Because I am an only child, every day I would go to my aunt’s and be with my older cousins. I consider them my siblings because we are that close and they taught me so many things. I am much more mature today because I grew up with people 7+ years older than me. My older cousins would always babysit me if both our parents had events at night. My best family friend would always bring us a chocolate chip cookie lava cake and whenever my cousins came over we would eat it and It is SOOOO addicting. I still crave it to this day. I would always have playdates with friends from preschool or even my cousins my age. I remember whenever one of them came over we would first play dress up and I would always be snow white, then we would play in my playhouse and pretend to cook, then we would go to the living room and drink SunnyD or cool aid. Oh, how I miss my Barbie doll and doll house. I had a bunch of American Girl dolls and they are still in my basement. I treated them like they were the most important things on this planet. Every Sunday my Mom would go to work and my dad would watch me. He would take videos on his Sony camera alllllll the time… all day every day and especially on vacations. We have so many home videos. My parents would take me to Puerto Rico and Miami every year and La, san Francisco etc. I started going to Israel when I was about 7. We are a big travel family. At age 2 I already knew how to change the CD to play a new song. I would always dance and sing. I was the child that made everyone so happy and obsessed that they would forget all their current problems. From age 2 to age 7 Amanda, my stay at home Nanny and housekeeper, lived with us and raised me when my parents were at work. She is from Colombia and by the age of three I was able to talk conversationally in Spanish. This Is also how I also started my coffee addiction because she would always make me coffee and put muenster cheese in it and I can still taste it to this day. Every Friday I would go to dance class and then that night we would have Shabbat dinner either at my house or one of my cousin’s houses. We all live five minutes from each other. We still keep this tradition to this day and always have the best food. Halloween was my FAVORITE. I would dress up in the best costumes, one year I was a pop star and we would always walk in the really nice neighborhood by my aunt’s house and after we would go back to my aunts, drop all the candy on the table and trade candies to whichever we wanted more. Every new years eve we would have a huge family party where the whole town would come but my cousins and I were too young so we would stay at my aunt’s order Chinese and play games. We are very family oriented, always having big parties and events. Every year on my birthday my parents would throw me the BEST birthday parties and no I’m not exaggerating. I remember every birthday party I had and believe me each year was like a mini bat mitzvah. I grew up being very active. I dance, play tennis, play piano and violin, swim etc. My dad is very very competitive so he wanted me to have an active side.  I could go on and on but these are the best things about my childhood that I wish I could go back and re live.
After:
I was born and raised on Long island with my parents and a whole bunch of family. I vividly remember my house before it got renovated. My room was all baby pink and hand painted hot pink flower designs across the wall by my mother, the tiny kitchen with light brown cabinets, a black magnetic fridge, a white table and white chairs, and I always used to sit at the head of the table and behind me was a shelf with a whole bunch of cook books. The living room had black leather couches with cheetah pillows and every time I would come home from camp over the summer I would pass out on the couch. I can even remember the smell of my basement. I had a mini plastic playhouse with a mini kitchen and table that was pink with a blue roof that would be my second home and I would always climb on the roof of it and slide off. (I was a very wild kid). And the other part of my basement was like another mini house. There was a bath, kitchen, room and Living Room. The Living Room had salmon colored carpet and pink chairs. I remember being there like it was yesterday. My backyard is humongous. There used to be an apple and berry tree and my father and I always used to pick apples and bring them back. There are always these white butterflies in the backyard to this day. I used to have two swing sets/playhouses and I always used to fall asleep on it as I was swinging.  I would always have playdates with friends from preschool or even my cousins my age. I remember whenever one of them came over we would first play dress up and I would always be snow white, then we would play in my playhouse and pretend to cook, then we would go to the living room and drink SunnyD or cool aid. Oh, how I miss my Barbie doll and doll house. I had a bunch of American Girl dolls and they are still in my basement. I treated them like they were the most important things on this planet. My older cousins would always babysit me if both our parents had events at night. My best family friend would always bring us a chocolate chip cookie lava cake and whenever my cousins came over we would eat it and It is SOOOO addicting. I still crave it to this day. I also remember from one of my birthday parties I got custom made sugar cookies that were pink and said my name in white that were kept in the freezer. Because I am an only child, every day I would go to my aunt’s and be with my older cousins. I consider them my siblings because we are that close and they taught me so many things. I am much more mature today because I grew up with people 7+ years older than me. Every Sunday my Mom would go to work and my dad would watch me. He would take videos on his black Sony camera alllllll the time… all day every day and especially on vacations. We have so many home videos. My parents would take me to Puerto Rico and Miami every year and La, san Francisco etc. I started going to Israel when I was about 7. We are a big travel family. At age 2 I already knew how to change the CD to play a new song. I don't remember the name of the CD. I'm almost positive it was an italian artist. The CD has orange designs on it kind of like circles I would always dance and sing. I was the child that made everyone so happy and obsessed that they would forget all their current problems. From age 2 to age 7 Amanda, my stay at home Nanny and housekeeper, lived with us and raised me when my parents were at work. She is from Colombia and by the age of three I was able to talk conversationally in Spanish. This Is also how I also started my coffee addiction because she would always make me coffee and put muenster cheese in it and I can still taste it to this day. It tasted like warm muenster cheese. I grew up being very active. I dance, play tennis, play piano and violin, swim etc. My dad is very very competitive so he wanted me to have an active side. Every Friday I would go to dance class (which always smelled like a pair of new ballet slippers mixed with a doctor's office), and then that night we would have Shabbat dinner either at my house or one of my cousin’s houses. We all live five minutes from each other. We still keep this tradition to this day and always have the best food like Tabit, Red Cuba, Schnitzel, refreshing israeli salad, beef and couscous, challah etc.  Halloween was my FAVORITE. I would dress up in the best costumes, one year I was a pop star with latex pants and a latex blue crop top and a microphone and we would always walk in the really nice neighborhood by my aunt’s house and after we would go back to my aunts, drop all the candy on the table and trade candies to whichever we wanted more. Every new years eve we would have a huge family party where the whole town would come but my cousins and I were too young so we would stay at my aunt’s order Chinese and play games. We are very family oriented, always having big parties and events. Every year on my birthday my parents would throw me the BEST birthday parties and no I’m not exaggerating. I remember every birthday party I had and believe me each year was like a mini bat mitzvah. When I was little, on my birthday we would celebrate, my mom dad and I, with a white chocolate moose ice cream cake with vanilla frosting and oreo inside. After I blew out the candles I would say “again again!!” and my mom would relight the candles and we would sing over and over.  I could go on and on but these are the best things about my childhood that I wish I could go back and re live.
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