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GOING HOME

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the Child and His mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the Child’s life are dead.” … And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth …. (Matthew 2:19-20, 23)

I wonder what it was like for young Jesus, listening to His parents make plans to go home. Because as young as He was, Egypt probably felt like “home” to Him. He was probably not quite two when they left Bethlehem—did He remember it at all? And He had never seen Galilee. What Jesus knew as a young child was a mixture of His family’s language and culture and that of His Egyptian playmates.

Still, God wanted Him in Israel, and that is where they went.

If you think of it, that’s not a bad picture of how Jesus’ life went as an adult, too. Because during the years of His preaching and healing, He is constantly on the move; He says, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head,” and He’s right (Luke 9:58b). Bed was often a stranger’s home or a spot on the side of the road. There would be no true lasting rest for Jesus “at home” until after He suffered, died, and rose from the dead. His great work made it possible for us, too, to become children of God, forgiven and blessed. And now Jesus has gone home to His Father’s house ahead of us to get things ready for us (see John 14:2, 17:24). He wants us with Him forever.

WE PRAY: Thank You, Lord Jesus, for making Your home mine. Amen.

Reflection Questions:

What makes a place “home” for you?
What do you think it will be like to live in Jesus’ home forever?
Do you expect to enjoy it?

Advent Devotions were written by Dr. Kari Vo.

Current Mood: thoughtful

via

sanguinity

Grab the nearest book.
Turn to page 126
The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.

Immortalized in ballads, they became a central part of the mythology of the Australian past.

Current Mood: i didn't try to game it
Current Music: i swear

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memes

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Current Mood: enthralled

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heated rivalry

( a mixed bag of a day; includes rambling about social anxiety )

Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom

Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

Forgot to do this yesterday (Saturday) because I was at the emergency vet with Gremlin Steve! As one does! He's """""""""fine""""""""" in that the emergency vet said that x-rays can wait until Monday at my regular vet, he is not fine in that he's been limping for a month, month and a half, and the (regular) vet thought it was because of a split toenail that then split further (a valid conclusion) but now he has a lump of swelling on his wrist joint. So into the emergency vet we went.

The thing is, the e-vet decided it was nbd based on Grem letting him move his leg and flex the joint, and how he didn't have a temp. Grem will not let me even touch his leg so like clearly it hurts which to me says something is up. At least they sent me home with pain meds for him?

Ugh. Anyway. I have more pets but Grem is my problem (expensive) child.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: the recliner in my living room
Current Music: Heated Rivalry, s01e06

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New Year Book Meme, via

calliopes_pen:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 126
3. The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.

I'm quoting the sentence in context, just for additional fun:

Schließlich sagte Fidelma in ruhigem und vernünftigem Ton: "Ich bin wieder in Ordnung, Grian. Du kannst mich loslassen."

Definitely happy to take that for 2026!

(The book is Peter Tremayne's Tod auf dem Pilgerschiff - the German translation of Act of Mercy, one of the Sister Fidelma mysteries. I happen to also have the English version in ebook form - there, the paragraph in question reads, "Finally Fidelma said in a quiet and reasonable tone: ‘I am all right now, Grian. You may let go.’")

Going by yesterday's poll, most people only sometimes know how the story will end when they start writing. I envy the ones who usually do - I used to be like that; the ending was what I started out with, long before I came up with the beginning. But in recent years that's changed more and more: I come up with a fun beginning, and then end up flailing because I don't really know where to take it. /o\ I'd really like to change that again, but I'm not sure how.

Also, most people in the poll said that if they don't know the ending, they'll just write the story until it gets there. More envy! But at least I'm not the only one who can only write bits and pieces until I know what I'm aiming for.

Today's writing

I've been having a headache all day, and if it weren't for

fandomtrees reveals approaching, I probably wouldn't have written more than an alibi sentence. As it is, I worked a little on the treat I started yesterday, and I think I'm figuring out the ending, so it's good that I did.

WED Question of the Day

Poll #34042

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

View Respondents

Do you find deadlines helpful for writing?

View Answers

yes, they help me write
4 (18.2%)

yes, they help me finish things
12 (54.5%)

no, they only make me nervous/anxious
2 (9.1%)

no, they don't do anything for me
4 (18.2%)

it's more complicated; I'll explain in comments
3 (13.6%)

tickybox is not a writer/has never had deadlines
0 (0.0%)

Tally

Day 1:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

philomytha,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 2:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 3:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 4:

china_shop,

trobadora,

ysilme

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

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I moved all the shelves around in the spare CD rack and have turned it into a dedicated shrine to Sir David Attenborough *g*. My entire Attenborough DVD collection in one place, except for my Christmas present of "Asia" (currently by my bed because I'm watching it).

It snowed on Thursday night; about a centimetre lying everywhere when I went out at half six on Friday morning, and about half of that had melted by the time I left the pool to go up to the office, but most of that is still lying now. I had very little trouble getting in, but it sounds like most of my colleagues struggled; my oldest colleague broke her shoulder very badly ice-skating a few years ago (was off work for months) and she's really nervous about ice now - she'd clearly freaked herself out quite badly by the time she got in on Friday. I did look at the trampled and half-melted station car park on my way home and think "this is going to be lethal once it refreezes" but the round trip to church on Saturday was fine. And the bus driver saw me coming and waited as I "ran" for the bus (half the pavement was clear, but I was tiptoeing very carefully over the other half...).

It's mostly stayed below freezing, occasional spikes up to 1 or 2C. And more snow due tonight, although the forecast is no longer saying "bits of snow every day for the next week", and it's going to get warm enough (four or five whole degrees!!!) that it ought to melt by midweek.

First day back at work was noisier than I expected; there were half-a-dozen people in on my team, although we were the only ones on the whole floor! The one manager who was in brought a giant tin of fancy M&S biscuits, on the basis that if we all had to be in we deserved something nice. Monday will be back to full normality, though. I'm consoling myself with the fact that I have a day off later this month; I'm going to a Thursday night concert (Mahler 1), and decided to treat myself to not having to get up at six the next morning!

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It's always hard for me to judge my podficcing efforts, so looking back on what I've done this year is interesting. For some basic stats, I posted 32 audioworks to AO3 in 2025, and my podfic spreadsheet says I made 17.5 hours of audio. Of those 32 works, 13 were of my own fics & 4 were collaborations of some sort. Most of the pods for fics by other people were done for either Voiceteam or Voiceteam Mystery Box (the two podfic-centric events I participated in last year), which I knew but it's sort of startling to look back ad see.

The majority of my podficcing efforts that weren't either my fics or VT/VTMB focused on long pods! I actually at first forgot that I finished my first long pod, I Thought You Were Blind, in June. But I'm super proud of what I did! 9.5 hours longs, and I kept up a weekly posting schedule for almost a year to get it complete. (Archive.org going down sometimes prevented me from updating.) I feel like I really managed to find a rhythm with my workflow with this pod—because I knew what I was doing next and also had a reason to record regularly, I think it really helped me to find how I like to do things.

It was in the spring while working on this pod that I switched to a true punch-and-roll style for recording, and oh man I love it. I don't think my current work flow would have worked for me before, I needed to go through growth in getting more comfortable speaking before I could get confident with doing a take and moving on. But I am so, so glad I finally looked into how to do punch-and-roll in GarageBand because it makes podding so much more enjoyable for me. I just get the fun of reading and don't have to agonize over which take anymore!

Doing ITYWB also taught me that I enjoying doing long pods. The uploading process is soooo much simpler when I'm just updating in a couple places and not having to start new to make new posts constantly. Which explains why the majority of my other-people's-fics pods are for events, because I spent the year working on 3 pods I considered long pods: ITYWB (9.5 hours), Epistaxis Anime (3.5 hours), and The Place You Call Home (1.25 hours). And I've got my next 3 long pods chosen, and I'm looking forward to getting into them. ^^

I don't entirely know where I'm going with this. I learned a lot about how I like to make podfics and about my own style this past year. I sort of feel like I haven't done a lot, when I look at posting different works, but then I look at my long pods and I'm really happy about what I've done. I'm hoping in 2026 to continue my momentum and not being afraid to try new things if I think they look fun. It might be nice to do some more random, shorter pods, but I can't say whether or not that will happen. I want to try to pod according to my whims, with whatever looks fun to do in the moment!

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It snowed today, just a little bit. But it was totally worth taking the children out for a walk round the pond and up the hill to be in it.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

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photos,
pixelfed

If you want a picture of the future, imagine me sitting on the sofa trying to read a book with Sophia on my left asking for help with Stardew Valley and Gideon on my right asking for help with Lego Star Wars - for ever.

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micropost

( Click here )

Current Mood: artistic
Current Location: My home office
Crossposts: https://mrs-sweetpeach.insanejournal.com/801906.html

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birthday

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BLAME

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. (Matthew 2:16)

This question used to trouble me: How could God allow these little ones to die when His own Son was safely on the way to Egypt?

Logically it makes no sense to blame God. Herod is the one who did the evil, not God. But saying that never helps. It’s as if we expect the Herods of this world to behave that way, so when they do, we just grieve and move on without surprise. But not with God. We expect good from Him. And when we see horrible evil happening, we cry out in shock and blame. It isn’t logical, but it’s human.

I only got over this when I realized that in fact, God didn’t save Jesus from death. He postponed it. The last baby of Bethlehem died too—betrayed, flogged, nailed to a cross 30 years later. And He did it for the other babies—and for me—and for you.

Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection is the only way I can bear the horrors of the world. Because Jesus is God Himself, and He chose His path deliberately—not to save Himself, but to rescue all of us from evil, at the cost of His life. He loves us that much. If that is what God’s heart is like, the Herods of the world will never win. Jesus lives and reigns forever. And because of Him, we too will live.

WE PRAY: Lord, when horrible evil happens, save us! Amen.

Reflection Questions:

Do you have trouble watching the news?
Why do you think both ends of Jesus’ life are marked by horror?
How do you lean on Jesus for help in evil times?

Advent Devotions were written by Dr. Kari Vo.

Current Mood: contemplative

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Current Mood: tired

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heated rivalry

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heated rivalry

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Crossposts: https://highlander-ii.insanejournal.com/468073.html http://highlander-ii.deadjournal.com/293873.html

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