Category: Noony’s Blog

personal posts, life, seasonal notes

  • Carpe Carp! And Other C Words for the Letter C – on the A to Z Blog Challenge

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    Okay, technically this is from an earlier post where I shared what the QR code looks like. I had some delays getting my camera downloaded, and did so tonight. This is what the little QR codes look like, scattered around the grounds. What a lovely, unobtrusive way to share information for those of us who want to know what plant is which.

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    And this, Dear Reader, is a bench.

    Yes, I know. B was yesterday. Tough. I just unloaded my camera and found it – and isn\’t it a lovely bench? I love the design of these.

    Okay, let\’s Carpe those Carp!

    But first, a side note: Carpe diem, which is Latin for Seize the day, was popularized by what movie?

    And carp is…

    Well, c\’mon and take a look!

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    Fishy!

    According to Auntie Google, a carp is \”a deep-bodied freshwater fish, typically with barbels around the mouth. Carp are farmed for food in some parts of the world and are widely kept in large ponds.\” Commonly seen in garden ponds, they look like large goldfish. In some Japanese gardens, these fish live over 75 years!

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    The pond is just lovely. And tomorrow, we\’ll get to see what is waiting with baited breath to carpe those carp, when we see D is for…

    But that would be telling! See you tomorrow, Dear Reader!

  • B Is For… the Bellevue Botanical Garden – with a Twist!

    As we really get going on the A to Z Challenge, I wanted to share what it\’s like to visit the actual garden. And since it\’s the Bellevue Botanical Garden, I get two \”B\’s\” for the price of one!

    The Bellevue Botanical Garden

    The Garden is located outside of the city of Seattle, Washington State, USA. Bellevue used to be a sleepy bedroom community, but in the last couple decades the population has exploded and major companies have hubs here: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, to name just a few.

    The Garden has a great website, located here, with information on featured plants and their cultivation, rich photographs, and a robust calendar of events. It\’s just 53 acres, but once you\’re there it feels like you\’re not in a city the size of Bellevue. It\’s truly a refuge worth coming to.

    What I like as a garden visitor is that scattered throughout the Garden are stakes with QR codes that patrons can use to access information about particular exhibits and the featured plants. If you haven\’t encountered a QR code, according to Wikipedia: \”QR code is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode first designed in 1994 for the automotive industry in Japan. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached.\”

    Most modern smartphones can interpret these, and if you don\’t already have that capability, navigate to your phone\’s app store and look for a free \”QR Code Reader.\” Then, when you find a code you\’d like to read, open your phone\’s reader and position the phone\’s camera over the code. Wait a moment and your phone will ask you if you\’d like to launch the reader – in the case of the Garden\’s codes, my phone asks if I want it to open the Garden\’s web page. I took a screenshot of one of the results, so you can get an idea of the wealth of information:

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    Tomorrow we continue our A to Z tour with the letter C. Since I found some birds that will satisfy my letter D, I\’m not quite sure what I\’ll do for C; so I\’ll be just as surprised as you are. See you tomorrow!

    If you are participating in the A to Z Challenge, please leave me a note in the comments so I can come visit you back. Happy reading!

  • Welcome to the A to Z Blog Challenge Day One – The Letter A!

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    Welcome to April, and the A to Z Blogging Challenge! This month, I\’ll be blogging each day, Monday through Saturday, and the day\’s post will be related to the corresponding letter of the alphabet for the day – Day One is for A, Day Two is for B, and so on, all the way through the letter Z. We don\’t blog for the Challenge on Sundays, which gives us 26 days in April, corresponding to the 26 letters in the English alphabet.

    My theme this year is the A to Z of the Bellevue Botanical Garden. I\’ll take you with me as I journey throughout the garden, exploring the gardens, the Copper Kettle Coffee Bar, Trillium Store, and everything in between. There will be a suspension bridge, a Japanese walled garden, a meditation building, native species cultivars… in short, everything an urban nature lover could ask for. I might avoid all the garden bugs, because I don\’t really get excited about them, but since the garden is talking about them this month, you might get a glimpse into the creepy, crawly world around us.

    But today, I\’m going to talk about A is for Alphabet, and thus, writing, which leads me to journaling. Specifically, journaling suited for a journey through an urban garden. In her class, Expressive Pages: Journaling the Everyday, Judith Cassel-Mamet shows us how to use simple manila tags and a binder ring to create something she has dubbed a \”tag journal.\” Pictured above is one of my tag journals, in this case with a gesture drawing of a dandelion drawn with a brush pen. Tag journals are perfect for wandering around in a garden, because you can write, draw, even staple in ephemera and it all stays in one place, courtesy of the binder ring.

    I hope you\’ll join me tomorrow as I visit the garden and look for the letter B – B is for Bellevue Botanical Garden!

  • The A to Z Blog Challenge Theme Reveal – The Bellevue Botanic Garden!

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    The A to Z of the Bellevue Botanical Garden

    Welcome back, Dear Reader, to the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon! I know, I\’ve been very, very quiet of late, and I\’m doing my best to get back to doing what Noony does best – writing! So in a way, this theme reveal is a way to kick-start my writing life, blogging, and in general just pick myself up by my suspenders and carry myself onto the page.

    Why the Bellevue Botanic Garden?

    The Bellevue Botanic Garden is a gem, right smack in the heart of Bellevue, Washington State, USA. It\’s open free to the public and houses acres of local plants, exotic trees and flowers, and even not one but two Japanese garden features. There\’s a suspension bridge and a forest of local trees.

    Why the A to Z Challenge?

    I\’ve had so much fun in years past with challenges. I\’ve done \”The A to Z of the Zoo,\” at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, USA; \”The A to Z of Letterforms in Nature and the Built Environment\” on my companion craft blog, Knoontime Knitting: One Writers Journey Into 3D, and several other things both with themes and without.

    Why a Theme?

    Because it\’s fun! I had so much fun, particularly with the Zoo and the Letterforms projects, that I wanted to reprise that for this year. I\’m only doing one blog this challenge, because I\’ve been so mute lately I didn\’t want to overdo it, but I do have other ideas. For example, I\’m thinking of making the Letterforms project into a book! But for this year, I wanted to ease myself back into blogging and out of the house. The Bellevue Botanic Garden is right here in the town where we live, not far from my office, and it\’s open free – all things designed to get me out of my head, into the world, and onto the page.

    What about you? Are you participating in the A to Z Challenge this year? If so, please share a link in the comments so I can come visit. And if you\’re not, tell me what you\’re looking forward to as part of the Challenge. And if you\’ve never heard of the Challenge, tell me one thing you\’re excited about whether you\’re above the Equator and it\’s now Spring for you, or below the Equator and it\’s now Autumn. Talk to me!

  • Good Morning!

    I\’ve mentioned the three sisters, the spiders who live on my balcony? Yesterday, my husband and I did a mammoth cleaning/reorganizing session in preparation both for Spring and the arrival of long-awaited houseguests next week. I moved the two big bins that stay outside, 55 gallon size, from their winter storage spot under the eves and left them, for a while, in front of my trellises (trelli?) on their way to the corner under the light. I have to reconfigure the seating area there and was focused on cleaning inside, as I had to vacuum before my husband shampooed the carpet.

    So, big production.

    This morning, he\’s snoozing away, snug in our bed, and I woke up like I was going to work. My brain said, \”Good MORNING!\” I grumbled something about it\’s not morning, and go back to sleep, and my brain said, \”I feel like making coffee! And morning pages. Oh, have you started writing that WIP we were doing yesterday, the one with TJ – and ooh! the memoir one! I remember, I remember, I remember!\”

    Sigh. Teaching my brain language may have been a mistake, but I digress.

    So up I get, coffee I make and dishes wash in the dishwasher. And journal I collect. Warm pj\’s put on, and oh, I\’d better grab my robe. My brain is bouncing with excitement, so I grab my journal. \”And the memoir book!\” And the memoir book. \”And the coffee!\” And the coffee. \”And the pen cup!\” \”Are you done yet?\” \”Yeah, as long as you have the pen cup. And the planner.\” And the pen cup. And the planner.

    I walk to the door. Of my nice, spring-prepared balcony.

    But, as brains do, mine has a detour – before the dishing, and the coffeeing – actually, while the coffee was coffeeing and the dishes were dishing, come to think of it – I wandered over to look out the window and what do my wandering eyes perceive on our nice, clean, shampooed carpet and washed floor by the cat boxes?

    Not only did my cat barf, he barfed in front of this box. And that box. And trailed down the center of the boxes for good measure. Missed the base of the cat tree and only got a little on the carpet, and left the remainder of a truly spectacular, epic barf in the middle of the pee pad we left out for my aged dog.

    I swear to dog, I\’m drowning in pet effluvia.

    I clean all that up, collect the journal, and the coffee, and the pen cup, and my bathrobe because it might be cold outside, and turn off my phone so I\’m \”tech free for Sunday\” (I\’m writing this on my laptop, so I didn\’t quite break protocol), and my planner, and I walk with relief to the balcony door all ready to do battle with the serenity gods, when I see it.

    The fucking spider bitch goddess IS WEAVING HER BLASTED WEB BETWEEN MY DOOR, THE EVES OF THE ROOF, AND THE FUCKING FIFTY GALLON STORAGE CONTAINERS!

    Now, I\’m a weaver, and a knitter, and a maker, and I know art when I see it.

    But I\’m ALSO arachnophobic.

    And that, Dear Reader, is why I\’m sitting, sweating, in my blasted bathrobe with my planner, and my coffee, both journals, memoir book, pen cup, AND laptop, crammed into the corner of my dining room table that still has the stuff that we\’re sorting. I\’m planning to do my morning pages from here. Because, spider. And himself is still snoozing and can\’t relocate her for me.

    She\’s laughing. I just know she is.

  • A New Year’s Party – and a Giveaway!

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    The party over at The Romance Studio is in full swing!  Throughout the weekend, I will be blogging on different topics – five posts a day! – as will the other participating authors.  We have prizes from each of us, and the grand prize is a $100 USD gift certificate to the online retailer Amazon.  If you like to read, then this is the party for you!

    Friday the 13th!

    1. Happy New Year! and a State of the State
    2. Body Movement – Walking
    3. Body Movement – Get Help, Get a Trainer
    4. Body Movement – Get Help: Body Buddy
    5. Don’t Eliminate, Add – Five Colors!

    Saturday the 14th

    1. Feed Your Mind – Writing Prompts
    2. Life of the Mind – How To Read a Book
    3. Morning Pages and Self-Dialog
    4. Meditation
    5. Sleep Deprivation and Obesity

    Sunday the 15th

    1. Family and Friends – a Birthday List
    2. Non-Bill Mail
    3. Renewal Weekly
    4. Crafts To Explore – Zen and the Art of Knitting
    5. Tarot and the Subconscious

    Monday the 16th

    1. Kon-Mari
    2. Routine – Daily Round
    3. Simple Abundance
    4. Candles – Slow Down and Unplug
    5. Happy New Year!  The Writer Zen Garden

  • How My Family Survives My Writing – #MFRWauthor

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    I laughed when I first read this prompt.  I mean, my family isn\’t particularly negative about my writing.  My husband is a professional photographer, so he knows what is involved in creating things.  My kid is interested in his own stuff, so he\’s not particularly aware of what I\’m doing because he\’s absorbed in his own stuff.

    But then I got to thinking.  There was a weekend where I wrote for fifteen hours Saturday, and eighteen on Sunday.  My husband informed me, on the Monday following, that I would spend the next weekend with the family and go to a movie.  o.O…  So I think it\’s more a matter of learning how to balance writing with other responsibilities and commitments.  I\’ve also made friends and have been fortunate enough to find people that they understand me and the way I see the world.  But that took a lot of work to find those people, and to find my \”tribe.\”

    So if I had to say what my one piece of advice would be to people trying to fit writing into already busy lives, it\’s this:  hunt for your tribe and balance your writing with the other things you\’ve already got in your life:  day job, kids, marriage, friends, and family.

    What about you, Dear Reader?  How do you balance passion and necessity?

  • A Few of My Favorite Things – #MFRWauthor

    My friends at Marketing For Romance Writers came up with a challenge this year.  As writers, we struggle to keep content engaging and fresh for you, Dear Reader, and so the Weekly Blogging Challenge was born.  Each week, we’re given a topic as a prompt.  We work with a partner, and together egg each other on to post.  The objective is to blog once a week for the entire year – so look forward to some interesting posts, as I’m enjoying writing them for you.  The posts go live on Fridays.

    Our first prompt is, “A Few of My Favorite Things.”

    That’s a toughie – I have so many.  Just off the cuff, I’d have to say cats, yarn, coffee, books, and chocolate.  But I also like dogs, horses, words, psyanky, candles, bubble baths, tea, fine china, jewelry, crafts, friends, travel, cars, boats, really amazing recreational vehicles…

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    Want to play too?  Visit WordClouds to make your own word cloud.

    What about you, Dear Reader?  What are a few of your favorite things?

  • Happy Thanksgiving! A Blog Festival and Giveaway

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    Now, more than ever, we need to remember all that we have for which to be grateful.  Our abundance will give us the strength to understand what we have the power to change, but also all that we already have.  True wealth is internal.  Freedom can be compromised, but liberty is internal.  Love is a verb.  And know this:  never be ashamed for reading what you enjoy, for relaxing and recharging your batteries, and for closing out the noise that has become much louder of late.  Reading, and writing, are radical acts.

    And so, in the spirit of the holidays, I share with you my posts on The Romance Studio, and an opportunity to win our grand prize of a $100 USD Amazon gift card, as well as prizes from participating authors – not to mention, tons of great content.  Please enjoy, and remember: writers are people too, and we are emotional beings just like you.  A comment, even just to say thanks for posting, can warm hearts bruised by so much craziness.  It only takes a moment, but it\’s a valuable gift that will bring a smile to the face of your favorite authors.  Trust me.  I\’m one of them.  🙂

    Love,

    Noony

    My posts for the party (will go live as they\’re posted throughout the party):

    Saturday, November 19, 2016

    1. Vital vs Urgent
    2. Quiet the Echo Chamber
    3. Six Weeks
    4. Simple Abundance
    5. The Artist\’s Way

    Sunday, November 20, 2016

    1. NaNo – Why You Should Care
    2. Consequences:  Where Story Is
    3. Writing and Mental Health
    4. Memoir, Family, Preserving the Past
    5. Recipes of a Bygone Era

    Monday, November 21, 2016

    1. Cauliflower Potatoes
    2. White Bean Pasta
    3. Exercise & Holidaze
    4. Going Caffeineless
    5. The Pecan Pie Debate:  Chocolate or No Chocolate?

    Tuesday, November 22, 2016

    1. Introduction to Persis
    2. Why Keepers?
    3. Food in Other Places
    4. Resting in Plain Sight – Aroma Shower
    5. Take a Bath!  Salts & Oils

    Wednesday, November 23, 2016

    1. Introduction to Chicagoland
    2. Travel in Place
    3. Gather Locally – Meetup
    4. Strength in Numbers
    5. Thank You

     

  • Water Cooler Wednesday – The Cubs Win the World Series!

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    So, it goes like this:

    Let’s get a schedule together for Nice Girls Writing Naughty. We’ll do Saucy Saturdays, and Teaser Tuesdays, and how ’bout Water Cooler Wednesday!  That last one was my idea, in fact, because it’s the nice side of the Nice Girls, where Saturday is the naughty, and Tuesdays’ Teasers are our most popular and longest-running feature on the blog.  In short, readers like them.

    Those of you paying attention will notice it’s Friday.

    Yeah, yeah.  I live in Chicago.

    …

    Not following?

    Say it with me:

    The Chicago Cubs Won the World Series For the First Time Since 1908!

    And this is why, Dear Reader, my Water Cooler Wednesday is Water Cooler Friday.

    See my logic here?

    Three, sir; three!

    Hmm.  Where was I?

    The Cubs won the World Series!

    Can you believe it?

    Talk about the triumph of hope over experience.

    It’s also November, which means National Novel Writing Month, and I’m volunteering again this year as a Municipal Liaison for the Chicago Region.  And in two weeks, it’s American Thanksgiving.

    See previous re: the triumph of hope over experience…

    But for you, Dear Reader, I have a most auspicious announcement.  My co-Nice Girl, Nona Raines, is putting on a movie party for us in December, coinciding with the international premiere of Hairspray, the movie.

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    So, there you have it, Dear Reader.  A little water cooler gossip about the Cubs, some Monty Python, and an invitation to go to the movies with us, your Nice Girls Writing Naughty.  What more could you want?

    —

    “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
    – E.E. Cummings
    Knoontime Knitting:  Blog | Twitter | Ravelry
    Noon and Wilder links: Blog | Website | Facebook | Twitter
    Join my Writers Group, The Writer Zen Garden:  Blog | Website | Forum | FB Group | Twitter | Meetup
    Join my Readers Group, Nice Girls Writing Naughty:  Blog | Website | FB Group | Twitter
    National Novel Writing Month: NaNoWriMo | ChiWriMo | Blog | FB Group | Twitter

  • Saucy Saturday – Poker Face

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    Happy Saturday!  Noony here, with some Noos and a sneak peak.  First, The Noos:  Join me and your other favorite authors over at the Romance Studio\’s End of Summer Bash.  You can enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card, prizes from authors, and read lots of great posts.  The party is open through tomorrow, so be there!

    As for \”Saucy Saturday,\” our new feature here at the Nice Girls Writing Naughty – I figured I\’d share a bit of background, and then a bit of a peek into a story that Rachel and I are working on – that\’s Rachel Wilder, the Wilder part of Noon & Wilder – but hey, you knew that, right?  Right.  When the Nice Girls discussed what to do on our blog for you, our Dear Readers, we wanted to have different kinds of posts – some fun, some naughty, and some nice.  Thus, Saucy Saturday was born.  But I never like to follow the rules, which you may already know about me.  So my saucy excerpt today is more \”saucy\” in the sense of having sass, rather than sexy times.

    Besides.  It\’s a post that made me smile, so I figured it might make you smile, too.

    In case you\’re not familiar with our Persis Chronicles, it\’s a cross between the classic Harlequin white-covers trope of the billionaire with his harem girls, and Anne McCaffrey\’s Pern novels – only set in M/M romance.  They\’re a ton of fun to write, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we do:

    Excerpt (PG):

    Cheula slipped his feet into heavier slippers and followed Ming out.  He tried to pay more attention this time and managed to not get lost until they were several hallways away from home.  He sighed in irritation.

    “What?” Ming asked, eyeing him.

    “Hmm?”

    “You’re frustrated, if I’m any judge.  What’s wrong?”

    “I’m lost!”  He waved a hand at the halls.  “This isn’t like stone!”

    “True.  But look there, see the glyph in the tent wall?”  Ming fingered an embroidered square.

    “Yeah…”

    “They’re directional markers.”

    Cheula gaped at him.  “You’re kidding!”

    “Yes.”

    He blinked.  “What?”

    Ming started walking again and chuckled.  “Come on, we’re almost to the Hunters’ Pavilion.”

    “Ming!”

    “Come on!” Ming called over his shoulder, still laughing.

    Cheula stomped after him and, probably due to his annoyance, recognized the Hunter’s Pavilion from their last visit.  He came even with Ming and the Asian threw his muscular arm around Cheula’s shoulders as they entered.

    “You met Elder Hunter?” Ming asked, releasing him from the hug.

    Cheula nodded.  “Earlier.”

    “Do you play poker?”

    Cheula could get some of his own back.  “Only a little.”

    Ming cocked an eyebrow but didn’t comment, just led the way over to a table.  A Hunter dressed in dark grey turned and Cheula recognized Quill.  He waved one-handed and finished his conversation, then came over.

    “Good day, Senior Hunter,” Cheula greeted.

    “Call me Quill.”

    Warmed, Cheula smiled at him.  “I will.”

    “Poker?” Ming asked.

    Quill shrugged.  “Sure.  Where’s Feyl?”

    “Sleeping.”

    Tybin entered from an entrance on the far side and saw them.  He smiled and spoke to his Keeper, who disappeared back through the flap.  Tybin walked over to join them.

    “Poker, sire?” Ming asked.

    “I could play a hand or two,” Tybin agreed.  “Keeper.”

    “Sire.”

    Ming shuffled with practiced efficiency and dealt.  Cheula checked his cards and smiled to himself.  This would be fun.

    After five hands, Ming sat back in his chair and threw the cards on the table.  “Cheula, you’re not a novice.”

    “Never said I was,” Cheula murmured.  “Just lost.”

    Ming gaped at him and then guffawed.

    “What’s this?” Quill asked, watching them both with his penetrating grey eyes.

    “Ming was teasing me about finding my way around the passages,” Cheula told him.

    Quill laughed.  “Then you deserve it, Ming.”

    “But…”

    Tybin chuckled, a deep rumble.  “If you don’t know by know that Keepers are trained in poker, you deserve what you get, my son.”

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    And in closing, Dear Reader, mark your calendars!  I\’ll be participating with the Romance Studio\’s Spookapalooza next month, so keep your mouse at the ready!

    —

    “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
    – E.E. Cummings
    Knoontime Knitting:  Blog | Twitter | Ravelry
    Noon and Wilder links: Blog | Website | Facebook | Twitter
    Join my Writers Group, The Writer Zen Garden:  Blog | Website | Forum | FB Group | Twitter | Meetup
    Join my Readers Group, Nice Girls Writing Naughty:  Blog | Website | FB Group | Twitter
    National Novel Writing Month: NaNoWriMo | ChiWriMo | Blog | FB Group | Twitter
  • Teaser Tuesday – Release Day! Release Day! The Charmed Bracelet

    Teaser Tuesday – Release Day! Release Day! The Charmed Bracelet

    \"TheToday is the day!  Today is the day!  I’m so excited.  The Charmed Bracelet is release into the world for your enjoyment, Dear Reader.  And for Teaser Tuesday, I figured I’d give you a snippet of the story by Rachel Wilder and I, called “Lost and Found.”

    * * *

    It looked like any corporate conference room, and Shannon suppressed her disappointment. She’d half expected an interrogation cell like on a cop show, complete with one-way glass and a little ring fused into the table for the handcuffs.

    On the other hand, since her imagination was doing its best to freak her out, this was probably better.

    “Thanks for coming down to meet with me.” The detective held out his hand. “I’m Detective Delgado; we met last night.”

    She nodded. “I remember.” His hand was warm and dry. Little prickles went up her arm, and she released him, wishing she could rub her palm without looking like she was, well, rubbing off his handshake. Or cherishing it.

    He beamed at her and then motioned to a chair. “Please, have a seat. You seemed shaken up last night.”

    “Yeah.” She swallowed. “Pretty unexpected.”

    He sat opposite her and flipped open a pristine manila folder. Then he set that to the side and pulled a white legal pad from under the stack. “Start at the beginning. Tell me, in your own words, what happened.”

    She surprised a sudden urge to giggle and blurt out, “Who else’s words would I use?” but she managed to control herself. What was with her?

    He was as hot as her memory told her. Talk about distracting. Why couldn’t he look like Serpico and smell like old cigars?

    * * *

    To find out what happens next, get your very own copy at your favorite online retailer.

    Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Apple | ARe

    And be sure to check out our Facebook group tomorrow for our raffle where you can enter to win your very own charmed bracelet!

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