Some hours had passed, and the family had left Heather alone in the living room. The room was barely illuminated by the embers in the fireplace, the wind still howling outside. Heather shivered despite the quilt given to her, still fearing the worst.

There’s still time. I can make it home! Heather crept as quietly as she could off the couch, pushing her coverings aside. She slipped off her shoes and tiptoed across the floor towards the parlor.

“It’s pitch black out there. I need some sort of light,” she told herself. Heather’s eyes glanced around the entryway for where the family stored their lamps. Her eyebrows furrowed in frustration upon finding none, making her way into the kitchen. She found a box of matches at least, finally finding an old miner’s lamp near the door to the cellar.

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Over the ages, people have followed toy trends, always wanting certain ones, or brands, or the hottest thing that was out that season. I remember in 2001, the biggest thing was scooters. Call of Duty 4 was the biggest thing when I was at Walters State. I don’t remember a lot of the other store rushes, though.

One was a big thing back when I was about 9 was collecting Hess trucks. My family had never gotten any period, but a cousin or two would get one every year. Each were released every year as sort of a collector’s edition, having a different frame and even a date stamp. May of them were play-quality, having features such as lights and rubber tires.

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The Magic Tree House was a book series I never really got into until I picked one up in BAM (my shorthand for Books-A-Million) around 2006 or so. Back then my family would travel to Knoxville almost every weekend, and we’d visit bookstores or Sam’s Club. I’d dread the latter (it was a bland store back then), but the bookstore was like a library, except a lot more recent books.

Why am I giving a review about a randomly numbered book out of Mary Pope Osborne’s series? It’s because it was my first Magic Tree House book. It was the first one that got me hooked on her series, and it was the first book I bought of her series years later. That one has stuck with me throughout the years especially.

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Heather leaned forward, spine tingling a little. “You mean like…I don’t know. Ghosts? Spirits?” Her hands wrapped around her knees.

Elizabeth had a faint twinkle in her eyes as she smiled a little. “Well, they could be called that. They certainly act like spirits, but look very real. More like nightmarish figures.”

With the silence afterwards, Elizabeth knew she had all the youngsters’ attention and it was time to spin her tale. With a deep breath she began.

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I highly debated ever telling this story, even five years after it took place. The people that were involved had long gone their ways, and one of them ended us knowing each other on an extremely sour note.

However, if you take all of that away, it was one of my “adventurous” college moments. It also is one of the most dangerous driving conditions I’ve ever driven through. With all of the snow that’s happened in the last week or so, and having my own taste of winter weather this Sunday, I decided it’s time and okay to share this.

Okay, deep breath. Here goes.

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Before I got this, my method of typing was taking an Apple Keyboard with a stand wherever I went. Worked in a pinch, but took up a lot of valuable real estate when plopping my iPad mini down. And it worked horrible on your lap without a lap desk or something hard to put your stuff down on. Especially bad for traveling.

That all changed when I got the Zagg Folio Case.

I first spotted this thing when I had gone into the Verizon store to upgrade my iPhone 4 to 5S, circa launch day in August of 2013. While I was waiting in line, I had spied iPad Mini accessories on their racks, which one was a folio case.

“Wow,” I thought to myself. “Illuminated keys?”

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Still trying to put this evening into words. I won’t bore you with a forever long story, but I was called into the office today, and was given a choice; be let go or take part-time pay. Totally a left-field curveball. I told them part time, took my check and drove home.

So it looks like I’ll need to be looking for another job now. I’m pretty sure the part time thing is just a step into laying me off in the future.

The worst part? I’m single AND going without work. Way to go, Valentine’s Day weekend.

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Heather gave a little grunt of effort as she shrugged into the clothes Tau’mi had given her. They fit almost perfect but were a little roomy; after all, Tau’mi was a bit more robust than a skinny stick and bones girl like her.

Heather had just finished, looking herself over. Despite being generic working clothes, she could clearly tell that Tau’mi had a higher standard of living than her. Heather couldn’t remember the last time she had a clean apron, or when her dress filled out like this with multiple starched petticoats. It made her feel important, warm and a bit comfortable.

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When the boom of Minecraft’s popularity happened, I was barely exposed to what had happened to keep track of it. I was either out of the loop or not around the gaming scene to remember much. But when it became popular, I realized that it wasn’t just some silly cube game, it was actually something quite remarkable.

Circa 2010, first semester of ETSU. I was in Color Theory class with a few other people. There was this one kid in particular called Coty. He was a bit of a nerd and we talked now and then. I remember that when we weren’t painting, he had his laptop out and would play games.

One week he kept going on about “Minecraft”. He had asked me to borrow $20 to buy it, which I agreed to lend him. He never followed through for me to buy it for him that evening, but when we had Color Theory the next time, he had it out on his laptop, running around and hitting cows. I thought it was rude until he explained that you needed to eat, so you had to kill animals.

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So! To kick off the first of my review posts, we start with a book. A very instrumental book in the creation of my blog program, actually.

Written by Margaret Mason, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch is a smallish paperback book I picked up from Books-A-Million in 2009 after my spiral from graduation. I was unable to find a job, lost most of my friends and was getting in hot water for “ranting” on Facebook. Yeah, long story.

I honestly wanted to learn how to blog short of typing angry feelings at the world. What should I blog about? What was okay to put on the Internet? How could I connect to someone by sharing what I experienced?

By then I was pretty much allowed to post what I wanted to at the time, so carving a new way online with my own two feet was left up to me. So yeah, enough of that. This is a book review, not another Storytime.

This was a close contender to A Dummies Guide to Blogging, however, What You Had for Lunch won out for price. Yes, I paid $7 bucks for it in the bargain pile. That was a chance buy, crossing my fingers and hoping that it was worth my money.

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