Book Dragon · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Fantasy

“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”-Dr. Seuss

“One of the best things about folklore and fairy tales is that the best fantasy is what you find right around the corner, in this world. That’s where the old stuff came from.”-Terri Windling

“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”-Albert Einstein

“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”-Terry Pratchett

“The best fantasy does not offer an answer to our lives, it is an offering that acknowledges enough of the truth to resonate and add to the understanding about the human condition.”-Isobelle Carmody

Adventures · Book Dragon · Floating Bookshop

Nora Hazelhart’s Floating Bookshop- Character and Setting

*A solo RPG Adventure based on Ella Lim’s Fox Curio’s Floating Bookshop.

Character Description (Very Wind in the Willows-esque:)

Nora is a Capybara who has traveled around the world and is far from home, ready for a slower paced life. Nora is a stout capybara who has world weary eyes and has some gray fur about her muzzle. Despite that, she is strong from a life of adventure and doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. She has independent means to do as she wishes, as she doesn’t need very much to keep her content. She loves reading and meeting new people. She’s fiercely protective of young ones and other vulnerable folx and uses being underestimated to her advantage when needed. 

Nora was born  on the 12 day of Brink (approximately autumn) Moon. She is creative and capable. She’s particular about her comforts and how others treat her and happiest when going on adventures or creating new things. She enjoys tinkering and since she has been on her own, knows a lot of random knowledge about a lot of things. She always wears overalls- for the pockets, most are slightly shabby and patched with creative patches. She has many cardigans and sweaters, some of which she has made and others that were gifts. She always has a book close by and has a small pair of glasses that perch on her nose. On very hot days, she wears a visor hat that looks like an old time accountant would wear. 

Nora has been staying in Thistledown, which is the town at the top of the river over the Brisk (Winter) moon. While there, she has discovered an abandoned riverboat/bookshop. She’s able to buy it after the previous owner had passed away.

Bookshop Description:

Excerpts from Nora’s Journal titled

A Dubious Beginning

The roof was a splintery mess- a faded mess of patchy paint and dry wood. The sides of the boat looked intact, but definitely needed a new paint job and perhaps a deeper inspection by a carpenter or boat maker, just to make sure of its river worthiness. The window facing the dock was patched with what looked like oil cloth on the outside. Even the sign looked poorly. I could tell it was charmingly carved, but some of the letters and the sign itself had succumbed to the weather so now it hung at a lazy angle and stated “ook op” in faded wood letters. The whole boat looked a little hodgepodge and while I didn’t normally mind that look, it was a bit more daunting up close.

Struggling with the cabin door, which seemed to be swollen shut against the humidity along the river, I didn’t answer directly, just gave a vague nod in her direction. Then straining, I pulled at the door and much to my surprise, it finally gave way, almost knocking me back into the mayor. A poof of dust came out, making me cough and I cautiously peeked my head in for the first look at my new home. 

The first thing I saw in the dim light inside was books. Directly across from the door, I could see the edges of a bookshelf. Picking up my mage light lantern (open flames and houseboats don’t generally do well in the same spaces, after all.) A long curved desk sat to my left by the entrance with what appeared to be a half open door behind it.

Adventures · Life Posts · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Love and Weirdness

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whos weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness- and call it love- true love.” ― Robert Fulghum, True Love

It’s slightly ridiculous to think that 12 years and a day ago, the Husband and I decided that we matched each other’s weirdness and decided to call it love. Since then we’ve gone through happy times, sad times, ridiculously goofy times, and above all, together times! Happy Anniversary and many more adventures to come to us!

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Friendship

“She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”-Toni Morrison

“The balm of life, a kind and faithful friend.” -Mercy Otis Warren

“If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.” – Charlotte Bronte

“Women’s friendships are like a renewable source of power.” – Jane Fonda

“Women helped each other in ways small and large every day, without thinking, and that was what kept them going even when the world came up with new and exciting ways to crush them.”― Alyssa Cole, Let Us Dream

“Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, is a built of a thousand small kindnesses… swapped back and forth and over again.” Michelle Obama

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Independence

“If people are making fun of you then you’re probably doing something right.”-Amy Lee

“It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing.”-Terry Pratchett

“When I look at the world I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.”-Carl Rogers

“I firmly believe in standing by what you are. I was never taught to dim my light to pacify other people.”- Iliza Shlesinger

“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”-Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Respect

“We have tolerance, respect, and equality in our written laws but not in the hearts of some of our people.”-Ruby Bridges

“Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.”-Albert Einstein

“What is home? My favorite definition is “a safe place,” a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It’s a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable.”
― Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life

“Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person’s stature is as large as one’s own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

“Fight only in direst need
Not for lust or petty greed
Honor those that do give birth
Respect them well for their full worth” ― Anne McCaffrey, Dragon Harper

“Respect is a close relative of tolerance, and both go a long way to prevent and alleviate the negative interactions between and among people. Respect was a member of each Lakota household during the free-roaming buffalo-hunting days on the northern plains.”― Joseph M. Marshall III, The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living