A Final #EBook #Sale Reminder, Barely Acknowledged Holidays, And #Roleplaying Games

Time's almost up for you to get four of my books at $0.99 each in the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale!

 

In case you've forgotten, the titles included are:

Pawfect Pet Poems

Snowlilie's Brother

Where's Noodles?

Puppy Poems And Rodent Rhymes

 

All four of which either feature, or are inspired by, Lilie, and two of which also feature, or are inspired by, Logan.

 

So, head over to my Smashwords page and grab your discounted copies of those four titles today.  But hurry, because the sale only runs through July 31st, so you're almost out of time.

 

*~*~*

 

Despite my intentions of acknowledging, and trying to do something for, all the holidays with any significance to us, I let several slip by barely acknowledged in general, and certainly ignored on this blog.

~

As I'm sure you know, Father's Day was June 20th, and - unlike with Mother's Day - that date applied to both Canada and the UK.  So we brought Kelly's Dad a present (a new mug, at his request) and gave my Dad a card and some money (the money was at his request, since he said that's what he'd prefer).  I didn't make the card, because time got away from me, but he appreciated the gesture, even if he knew it was a card I'd brought at the last minute while out running a few errands with my Mam the day before.

 

~

 

June 21st was the Summer Solstice.  In fact, the actual astronomical event known as the solstice fell on the morning of June 21st 2021, at 4:32 am UK time.  I wished everyone a blessed solstice on social media, but we didn't plan on doing anything, since that happened to be the day Kelly was having his second Covid jab, and we weren't entirely sure how he'd be doing afterwards.  As it happened, he reacted the same as the last time: exhausted with a sore arm for about 24 hours after having the jab, and then totally fine.

 

~

 

June 24th was Fairy Day.  I'd had a vague plan of doing something on Fairy Day that could work for both the Summer Solstice and Fairy Day at the same time, but somehow never got around to deciding what I was going to do.  So, just like with the Summer Solstice, I gave it a mention on social media, but it otherwise ended up with no acknowledgement, let alone any kind of celebration.

 

I later tried to make up for it a little by theming the menu for my mad tea party around Summery kinds of foods, hence the strawberry lemonade and lavender cookies.  As a bonus, since we had extremely high temperatures for a lot of July (as you might have seen in Artemis' post from Tuesday) it was incredibly hot when I was staging it, and they were ideal things for such a hot day.  It's actually still quite warm, though thankfully not quite as hot as it was, despite some mild storms.  Well, mild storms in our area anyhow, though they were worse in other areas.  They were bad enough along the coast in places that some of the seagulls came this far inland.  Bearing in mind, we're about 12 miles away from the nearest stretch of coastline as the crow - or seagull, I guess - flies (assuming I have my facts right, though geography isn't my strong point, and it could be a little more or less than that... It's somewhere around that number anyhow, and definitely at least 10 miles).

 

~

 

July 1st was Canada Day, which I'd intended acknowledging since Kelly's Canadian.  But that one crept up on me too, and was another holiday that was ignored beyond a brief  social media mention.

~

Now we're almost in to August, and two days away from Lughnasadh, which falls on August 1st.  I'm going to try to make sure I do something for Lughnasadh, especially after having ignored the Summer Solstice in particular.  Something other than just giving it a mention on social media, I mean.  Even making a point to theme my meal for it would be an improvement on what I've done - or not done, to be more accurate - for a llot of this year's holidays so far.  But we'll see what actually ends up happening.

~

I've really not been doing well with my plan of celebrating the minor holidays and sabbats as planned, have I? Still, at least I've been remembering to acknowledge them enough to give them a mention on social media on the right dates, which is something at least.  I mean, it's better than nothing, right?

*~*~*

The group I was playing Changeling The Dreaming with did decide to start playing The One Ring, which is a Lord Of The Rings roleplaying game, set a couple of years after the events in "The Hobbit" and a long time before the events in the actual Lord Of The Rings trilogy.  We gained two extra members too, since my brother, Carl, joined in, and so did Kelly.  So now it's me, Kelly, Dad, Carl, and five other people.  Eight players is quite a few for any GM to manage, but Greg - the friend running it - is doing an excellent job so far.  I'm playing a hobbit from The Shire, and Kelly's playing an elf.

~

Kelly and I are also roleplaying with another smaller group (there are five of us in total, rather than the nine playing The One Ring) who are still playing Aberrant, which is a superhero roleplaying game.  Though Kelly is playing a different character now, since he wasn't happy with the character he was playing.  He was going to just stop playing, but decided to make a new character instead.  Gareth - the friend who acts as GM for this one - was happy for him to do that, even if it did mean Gareth needed to work out a way to bring Kelly's new character in to the group in a way that made sense for the game's plot.  My character is a speedy and strong superhero, and Kelly's is a shapeshifter, in case you're interested.

~

Kelly is involved in a couple of other roleplaying games with people I don't know.  But I'm not even entirely certain what games he's playing with them.  He did tell me at one point, but I forget.