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Obligatory Disclaimer That Keeps Us from Getting Sued: We are not the ones who created the phenomenon known as Twilight. Stephanie Meyer is the one who holds the rights to it. We just threatened—ahem—I mean convinced the characters to aide us with this story. They will be given back once the tale ends. Okay, fine, we're not giving Edward back. You'll have to catch us first.
DI: *clears throat* Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear Diiiiiiinx, Hap-
slts: Yo, cats in heat sound better than you. Stop it!
DI: But it's Dinx's birthday!
slts: Yeah, well, I'm sure she'd like to keep her hearing more.
DI: *pouts* Can we make her a cake?
slts: And send it to her in an email?
DI: Minor detail.
slts: Licking the screen would probably taste like ass. Besides, you can't eat a picture.
DI: Party pooper. Can we send her a card?
slts: I though you sent one already?
DI: So?
slts: Sending two cards looks weird. Plus, it wouldn't make it there on time, which would be double weird.
DI: Can we buy her a present?
slts: Like what?
DI: A puppy!
slts: *eye roll* I'm sure she already has a dog.
DI: A pony!
slts: She's not twelve! Something else.
DI: A blender?
slts: Really, a blender? Where do you come up with this stuff? *eyes DI with worry*
DI: Then you come up with something!
slts: How about we post the story we wrote for her? You know, that thing we sent back and forth for a month?
DI: Oh. Um…yeah. Good idea actually. And since I made the banner full of pretty-looking Edward, you get to wrap our present! *snickers*
slts: *head desk* And how do you propose we do that, huh? Magically insert our hands and pull out some virtual wrapping paper out of our asses? You can't wrap things in cyberspace!
slts & DI: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DINX!
slts: *whispers* We almost forgot something important.
DI: What? The ribbon?
slts: No.
DI: Then what? I already sung the song, but I can do it again if y-
slts: Must I do everything myself? Honestly! Thank you to JointGifts, nowforruin, MizzDee, and sherriola for beta'ing and pre-reading.
DI: We love you! And we love Dinx! And we love Can'tgetitinward! And we lo-
slts: We get it! You love everyone. Big freaking deal. Just be quiet and let Dinx enjoy her present. Sheesh.
DI: Okay. *sigh*
It was harsh to suddenly realize that what I had thought was perfect for twenty-five years was actually not perfect at all. It didn't help that this realization came in the middle of Barneys on Madison Avenue. The imperfection was my life, and all it took for the epiphany to appear was a mirror of my own childhood.
I was looking for the perfect, lavender colored dress for my parents' dinner party the following night. My mother had told me lavender would go well with her color scheme. The sound of a raised voice made me look up, and I saw a woman speaking sternly to a teenage girl. I looked away quickly, embarrassed on their behalf. Who argued in public? And in Barneys of all places.
I couldn't help but overhear the words spoken, though. The girl wanted a different dress than the woman – probably her mother – wanted her to get. In a flash I remembered. That had been me ten years ago. My mother had taken me shopping for school dresses, and I had asked for a pair of jeans, the only thing I could remember ever asking for. My mother had been outraged, as if I'd asked for a tattoo or a motorcycle.
I had let it go then and gotten the dresses my mother wanted me to get. But now I wondered. Would it have been so bad if she had let me have a pair of jeans? Heaven knew that being the only child of Charles and Renee Swan, CEO and queen bee in New York's higher society, respectively, offered me a very comfortable life. Gave me advantages. Material possessions. Well-mannered friends. No difficult decisions to make. No decisions to make at all. No free will. No passion…
The woman and the girl left without the dress the girl wanted. I sighed and continued looking for lavender dresses. They were all nice, and several of them would be perfect, but my heart wasn't in it. In the end I just picked a random one.
I pondered my small epiphany for the rest of the day as well as the following day. I didn't know what had been so significant about the mother and daughter arguing about dresses – or my old memory about the elusive jeans. But the fact was that it had made me question myself and the choices I hadn't made in my life. I was so distracted that one of my professors pulled me aside after class and asked if I was alright.
When I got dressed for the dinner party, my thoughts were on everything except what I was doing. When I looked at myself in the mirror afterward, I was not wearing lavender like my mother had told me to. The dress I had put on was dark purple, and I didn't know where I had gotten it from. My mother preferred me to wear pastel colors.
I looked at my reflection again and smiled. It wasn't a pair of jeans, but it would do. By wearing it I would be doing something I had never done before – disappointing my mother. But by changing to the lavender dress, I would be doing something I had been doing my whole life – disappointing myself. It was startling to realize that I was a puppet in my parents' little show, offering matinees at the country club, at charity events, and at a million dinner parties. A lifeless puppet, moving only when someone pulled the strings, and showing no sign of life behind the painted eyes and the ever-smiling mouth.
"I said lavender, Isabella," were my mother's first words when she saw me. She was wearing white, as she had taken to lately, because she was certain it made her look younger. Instead, it just made her look pale and almost ill.
"I felt like wearing dark purple," I replied in a tone that felt new and very strange in my throat. It held a note of rebellion.
"You felt like…! Well, I never!" she sputtered before fixing her face back into a welcoming smile as new guests arrived.
I didn't pay much attention to the people around me that night. My childhood home was filled to the brim with the usual people, but they had never seemed as boring as tonight. My mother and her friends gossiped about people at the country club. The people my age either flirted or tried to outdo each other with accounts of what they had accomplished or how much money they made. My father and his friends talked about the stock market, golf handicaps, and which horse to bet on in the next race. I had listened to all of it my entire life, but it had never made me feel sick before.
As the days passed, I became more and more wrapped up in my own thoughts. My mother left me alone, thankfully, sure that I just needed a few days to "cool off." I was not cooling off, though. I analyzed myself over and over, always drawing the same conclusion. Being someone's puppet was not how I wanted to continue living my life. But apart from wearing a different color dress than the one my mother had told me to wear, I had run out of ideas on how to start changing things – how to go about finding out who I was when my every move was not orchestrated by my parents.
The answer came after classes the following Friday. My friends in law school – children of my parents' friends who, like me, were being molded into taking over family businesses - knew about my little controversy with my mother. They probably didn't know the details, but gossip traveled fast, and no one was going to stick their nose in something that might be messy. It wasn't how things worked in the social circles I usually moved in.
That led to me finding myself among classmates I had hardly ever spoken to for a small group project. They were students on scholarships or who worked their way through school. People I had never interacted with because I wasn't supposed to – people who were a lot more interesting than my so-called friends.
"Chica, you look sad," a small girl named Alice said to me after we had finished our project and were gathering up our things to leave. She was bright, which she had demonstrated again and
again while we had worked together. She also had a bubbly personality, short, spiky hair, and wore a million different colors, none of them pastel. I decided that I liked her. "It's Friday. No one should be sad on Fridays."
I smiled. Her logic probably fit herself, but Friday for me meant the start of a weekend filled with social interactions with people I had recently discovered were incredibly boring.
"I just have a lot on my mind," I replied and put my laptop in my bag.
"Wanna go grab a cup of coffee?" she asked, placing a white, knitted hat on top of her spiky hair. "I'm an awful listener because I talk too much, but I might be able to get your mind off whatever is bothering you for a bit. Plus, who doesn't crave java constantly?"
Caught off guard by her amusing candor, I found myself agreeing.
Fifteen minutes later Alice and I were seated across from each other at a little café. She moaned loudly when she took the first sip of her coffee. Her eyes were closed and there was a blissful expression on her face. She was completely oblivious to the people who had heard her and were now staring. I fought my embarrassment.
"Coffee is one of the few reasons I might believe in God," she confessed when she opened her eyes again. "It would have taken divine powers to create coffee beans. I'm not sure if God would be male or female, though. Have you ever thought about it?"
"No," I admitted truthfully. Nothing had ever made me question God's sex before, for which I was grateful because it made me feel slightly uncomfortable.
"On the one hand there is PMS and giving birth which makes me think that God is a man. But on the other hand there is…well, men. Just look at them. Save for a few exceptions, they're dumber than snot. Surely a woman created those suckers, thus making us the stronger sex. Am I right?"
"I suppose you do have a point," I allowed, not used to conversation topics as strange as this one. Though, it was certainly more interesting than discussing the weather, the latest gossip, or fashion. Alice was full of interesting, if not even a little strange, conversation topics. She spoke like she was about to be late for something and had to cram everything into the remaining seconds left to her.
"I'm going to a tattoo party tonight. Wanna come along?" she asked after finishing venting about how her old roommate had burned all her Jamie Oliver cooking books because she had thought they contained messages from the devil.
I tried to catch up. "Um…a tattoo party?"
She nodded. "This guy I know is having it. He's one of God's exceptions and a completely divine dreamboat. I just have to figure out how to make him notice me."
I had a hard time comprehending how anyone could fail to notice Alice. She was small, but her personality was bigger than a house, and the way she dressed made her very noticeable.
"Anyway, it's all very laid back," she continued. "Just a bunch of people having a good time."
"And the tattoo part?" I asked with enough curiosity to move past being polite – at least polite according to my mother's standards.
"Just a tattoo artist coming to do his thing and showing off his work in the hope that people will show up where he works to get something done. I had one done a couple of months ago at a party. The artist was this chick who was covered in tattoos and piercings. Totally awesome and she did brilliant work. See?" She pulled down the front of her shirt and revealed a small, but elaborate clock above her right breast. "Clock's ticking for everyone, including my boobs."
I didn't know what to say. "It's beautiful," I managed. And it was.
Alice sent me a satisfied smile and pulled her shirt back up, once again oblivious to people's stares. "So will you come? I promise you'll have a great time, meet some cool people, and whatever it is that's on your mind and that you haven't thought about since entering this café, won't make an appearance tonight, either."
I laughed. There was no way I could refuse an offer like that. The fact that my mother would hate the idea made it even better. "Thanks, Alice. I'd love to come."
After admitting that the majority of my closet content was made up of pastel dresses and pant suits, Alice declared it necessary to take me shopping. We ventured into stores and boutiques I had never even known existed. Alice made me laugh at her bouts of word vomit and different views of everything while she picked out clothes she thought would be perfect for the party. I could have just nodded like I always did with my mother, but I decided to argue. Not because I didn't like the clothes Alice found for me, but because I could. And because I decided never to let anyone dictate what I wore again. Instead I compromised.
When I got home, I showered and got dressed in a new short jean skirt, a very revealing red top, and brown, knee high boots. I curled my hair a little and let out the oppressed woman inside of me as I applied my make-up. If I had owned a bright red lipstick, I would have put it on, but since red was not pastel, I did not own one. I had to make do with clear lip gloss. Looking at myself in the mirror, I hardly recognized myself. The woman who looked back at me was not someone who favored pastels. The jean skirt was the jeans I hadn't been allowed to get ten years ago. The rest was just icing on the rebellion cake.
A little over an hour later, a cab dropped off Alice and me outside a nondescript townhouse where her divine dreamboat lived. It wasn't a part of the city I was familiar with, but Alice seemed to know where she was going. She twirled around on the sidewalk as we walked up to the door. Her short plaid skirt flared slightly, and she looked so free and so happy that I felt jealousy flare up inside of me for a second.
Music could be heard from inside, and I grew slightly nervous as I had no idea what to expect of this party. It was bound to be very different from anything I was used to. Alice walked right in like she owned the place, nodding her head to the beat of the music. I followed her, squaring my shoulders and reminding myself that I was supposed to be rebelling.
Music and laughter floated around us as soon as we came inside, and I looked around with wide eyes, taking it all in as I knew perfectly well that this rebellion thing was going to be difficult to do alone, and I couldn't count on Alice to drag me out all the time. So I soaked it all up while I could.
Alice grabbed my hand and dragged me through a sea of people, throwing out hellos as she went. She introduced me to some of her friends – Rose, a tall, scary blonde with tattooed thorn branches crawling up her neck and down her arms, and who laughed in my face when I reached out my hand to shake hers. Laurent, seemingly mute, but he had the most fascinating dreadlocks. Mike, a very loud, blond man with more facial piercings than I could ever have imagined was possible, and who flirted with both Alice and me.
I was also introduced to the divine dreamboat and host of the party, who went by the name of Jasper. He was very nice and welcomed me as if he was happy I was there. Alice played it cool, but followed him with her eyes when left us to say hello to some new arrivals.
"How is it even possible to be that gorgeous?" she said with a sigh when someone blocked him from her view. She turned to me as if expecting an answer, but laughed at my bewildered look. "I'll find us something to drink. See if you can find somewhere we can sit down."
She skipped off, leaving me to unsuccessfully find us some seats. People were sitting in the windows, on top of each other, and on the floor. I walked through the rooms anyway, dutifully looking for the seats Alice had asked for. That was when I saw him. I heard myself gasp and quickly looked around, conscious that anyone could have heard me and question my reason. No one even glanced in my direction, though.
I was granted the opportunity to study him as his face was turned half away from me. He was bent over someone sitting on a coffee table, and I realized that he was the tattoo artist Alice had told me would be here, thus making the party a tattoo party. His hair was a mess of bronze locks, and his profile showed nothing but sheer beauty. There was no other word for it. He was wearing a white t-shirt that was stretched tightly across his chest, ripped with well-defined muscles. His left arm, the only one I could see clearly, was almost covered in tattoos, an unrecognizable clutter of patterns and text that I surprisingly longed to take a closer look at. His jeans were dark, ripped in places, with even darker splotches of what was probably ink.
He suddenly stood up fully, stretched, which did wonders for my view, and turned his head to look in my direction as if he could feel my gaze. I ducked my head and felt my cheeks heat up. How embarrassing to be caught staring at the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. I slowly looked back up, only to find him still looking at me with a pair of what were probably the greenest eyes in the entire world. Even across the room, they reminded me of the emeralds on the necklace my parents gave me when I graduated college. My favorite necklace. He sent me a dazzling, crooked smile, and my cheeks heated even more.
We played the looking-blushing-flirting game for a couple of hours. I couldn't keep my eyes off him, even when I was talking to Alice and meeting all her highly interesting friends, and he'd often catch me looking. Each time I was rewarded with a crooked smile that made me blush. Alice kept fetching us drinks from somewhere, and between the alcohol, the blushing, and the hot and bothered state the green-eyed tattoo artist had me succumbing to, I was pretty flushed. At one point Jasper, who Alice seemed to have on a leash by now, noticed me staring.
"Are you looking to get some work done?" he asked me, motioning toward the coffee table on the other side of the room where a girl was propped up with her head in another girl's lap while she had her ankle tattooed. A small crowd had gathered to watch. "Edward is really good, one of the best I've seen. He did this amazing one with some Springsteen lyrics on my back."
Jasper probably didn't notice my lack of reply as he was busy showing his tattoo to Alice, who nearly crawled up under his shirt in her eagerness to see his skin. But the thought festered in my mind. Did I want a tattoo? I had never thought about it before. Except for Alice, I didn't know any girls who had tattoos. And the only man I knew with a tattoo was my grandfather, who had served in the Navy when he was younger and commemorated it with an anchor on his forearm. My grandmother hated it.
Even if I did decide that having something inked onto my body permanently was what I wanted, what could I possibly stand to look at for the rest of my life? And where on my body? If I was being honest, the only reason I was even thinking about a tattoo was the artist. There was nothing I could possible want tattooed anywhere on me. What did Jasper say? Springsteen lyrics?
"Why do you have Springsteen lyrics on your body?" I blurted, interrupting Alice's inspection of his skin.
Jasper smiled and turned his back to me so I could see the tattoo. It said "I've been working real hard, trying to get my hands clean." The letters were perfectly engraved onto his skin, and it was easy to see that there was skill behind them. I had never thought about it before, but it really was a form of art.
"The way I see it, you don't get something inked onto your body unless it means something," Jasper said and shrugged. "I've always loved Springsteen, and I liked the idea of a permanent reminder of how hard I've worked to kick some nasty habits in the past. If I remember my hard work, I won't throw it all away for a quick thrill."
I nodded thoughtfully. It made a lot of sense. I could use a few permanent reminders myself. Like maybe a tattoo of a pair of jeans reminding me to walk my own road in life instead of the one my GPS parents told me to take. My eyes drifted toward the inked piece of heaven I now knew was called Edward, and as if he could feel my gaze on him, he looked up after two seconds. Cue crooked smile and blush.
I wanted to roll my eyes at myself. I was usually very good with people – it was something my mother had taught me very early. So there was no logical reason why I didn't just go over and say hello to a person who managed to capture my attention so thoroughly. God knew that it didn't happen often.
"Carpe diem," I muttered to myself. How was that for a reminder? I had taken the first step away from Alice and Jasper who were in their own little world, when I froze. That was it. My reminder. Before the thought festered in my mind fully, I strode across the floor and didn't stop until I stood right in front of Edward, the Sexy Tattoo Artist…who looked even sexier up close. And had an eyebrow piercing that I found myself strangely attracted to. He turned away from the guy he was talking to and looked at me.
"And we finally meet," he said with a grin. "Been looking forward to that all night."
"No one stopped you from coming over to say hello," I pointed out, unable to hold back my smile.
"I was busy. What's your excuse?"
"I was busy too."
"Is that so? Busy doing what, if you don't mind me asking?" he asked, smirking and crossing his arms over his chest. "Because I gotta say, every time I looked, you did not look that busy."
"I guess you looked at the wrong times then," I told him, wondering where all this sass came from. Maybe it was the alcohol. Alice had poured delicious, green drinks for me all night, and I had no idea what was in them.
"I guess I did," he allowed with a grin. "I'm Edward."
"I know," I said, smiling. "Jasper sung your praises earlier. I'm Isabella."
"You don't look like an Isabella," he told me, studying me with the hint of a smile on his lips. "You look more like a Bella."
I laughed. "Is that so?"
"That is so," he said, nodding.
I bit my lip and smiled. No one had ever called me Bella before except my alcoholic uncle once. My father had chewed him out for calling me something that sounded like the name of a dog. But the way it rolled off Edward's tongue did dangerous and delicious things to my body. He could call me anything he wanted.
"So what does a girl have to do to get a tattoo around here?" I asked calmly, using acting skills I didn't know I possessed. I did not like needles of any kind, but my mind was made up.
His eyebrows rose. "You want a tat?"
I nodded.
He leaned back against the wall. "Would this be your first?"
"Yes." No reason to elaborate, he was probably already judging me.
"I'm not going to insult you by asking you if you're sure," he said, surprising me. "Do you know what you want? I've got some pictures you could look at."
"I know what I want," I replied, not bothering to hide my smirk.
Edward winked and grinned. "Well then. Do share with the class."
"Alis aquilae. In gothic letters," I said. "It's Latin. I can write it down if y-"
"On an eagle's wings," he interrupted. "Book of Isaiah. I don't remember the chapter, but it says something about those who wait shall find their strength renewed, mount up on wings like eagles, run without growing weary, and walk without growing faint. Am I right?"
I nodded dumbfounded. He knew Latin and the Bible?
He smirked, no doubt guessing my thoughts, and lifted up his shirt while he turned around. What was with the males in this place, showing skin left and right? I appreciated the view, of course – and what a view it was. I was so transfixed by the beauty of his pale skin that it took me a moment to realize that I needed to move my gaze north. "Freedom lies in being bold" was written in cursive letters between his shoulder blades. I recognized it as Robert Frost, which did nothing to make me less curious.
"I try to live by those words, so I understand why you'd want something similar," he explained and unfortunately pulled his shirt back down. "I just prefer Frost to the Bible.
"So where am I inking you, Bella?" he asked, the shortened version once again rolling deliciously off his tongue.
I hadn't thought that far. In my determination to get my own mark on my life after having my parents orchestra almost everything I did, that small detail had slipped my mind. I was not ashamed of what I was about to have done, but I also liked the idea of it being just for me. I would have to make the change, not the tattoo. I just liked the idea of having a reminder as Jasper had said. So somewhere hidden from view – most of the time hidden from view, anyway. I felt the blush rise in my cheeks. Edward would have to see that hidden spot. Touch it. Mark it. In a way it would not just be my mark, but also his since he would be doing the writing.
"Bella?" he interrupted my thoughts.
"Yes? Oh, um. I don't know. On my hip maybe?"
He laughed and held up his palms. "Don't ask me. It's your decision. I just do what you tell me."
I had a long list of things I'd like to tell him to do and none of them involved ink. At least not ink on my body, but on his. I cleared my throat. "On the side of my hip. Definitely."
Sexy, flirty Edward turned professional in the blink of an eye. It was fascinating to watch, really. He asked me questions about how exactly I wanted the tattoo, told me what he was going to do, and something about aftercare. Though, at that point I was only listening to his voice, not the actual words. I could Google it tomorrow. He made me lie down on the coffee table while I mused about how I was not afraid of the pain. The needle and possibly my reaction to Edward's touch, yes. But not the pain. Although I probably should have asked Alice how bad it was going to be. Crying would be embarrassing.
I blushed when I pulled down my skirt to reveal my left hip. It intensified when Edward barked at someone who came over to watch like people had earlier. Apparently he no longer wanted an audience. He wiped my skin with something cool and put on a pair of latex gloves.
"Ready?" he asked, looking at me.
I nodded. "Yes." My voice sounded a little funny, but I didn't know whether to blame the man with the needle or the prospect of the needle meeting my skin.
"Okay, just relax," he told me.
Easy for him to say.
The first prick was the worst. I was sure I was going to have to call the whole thing off, but then the pain turned dull and completely manageable. And after a minute the dull pain was overshadowed by the feel of his hand against my skin. I felt a burning sensation even though he was wearing gloves. He would continuously wipe away blood, and while red stuff oozing out of me would normally have freaked me out, I was too busy being fascinated with the way the tip of his tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth to care.
Just before Edward finished, Alice came bouncing over, still with Jasper on his invisible leash.
"Oh my gosh, Isabella! You're getting a tattoo!" she squealed.
I heard Edward mutter "no shit," and I had to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh.
"Aw, you spelled my name wrong, though," she said, giggling as she sat down on the couch and leaned in to take a closer look. Jasper sat down next to her and started chatting with Edward while he finished up. I felt like a meal laid out on the table while the dinner guests conversed. Alice interrupted and introduced herself to Edward, telling him that she would look him up next time she wanted a tattoo done. She then proceeded to tell him about all her ideas of what she might like to get done. The girl had a lot of tattoo ideas. One included a bicycle and a sliced tomato. I don't think anyone but her got the meaning of that one.
"All right, all done," Edward announced, cutting off Alice's stream of ideas. He cleaned up the small tattoo and rubbed some ointment on it before dressing it like a wound. He laughed at my question about payment and repeated what I had tuned out earlier about aftercare.
"Use plain soap with no fragrance or dye to clean it, put some unscented lotion on it to keep it from cracking, and be careful to not bump it so it gets all messed up," he rattled off.
"And show it off, Chica!" Alice offered her input, making us all laugh.
I sat up and fixed my clothes. Alice went to get us some beers, and then disappeared with Jasper in tow. If I ever had a dog, I was going to name it Jasper. I had never met a guy who resembled a dog so much – loyal, adorable, on a leash, and occasionally drooling. Edward and I talked while he packed away his things in a bag. He was really good at making me laugh with his sarcastic comments about everyone and everything.
"Why don't we go back to your place and get to know each other a little better?" The words were mine, but I was as surprised as Edward clearly was that I had uttered them. I was still wondering how to back-track gracefully when he grabbed my hand, smiled impishly at me, and dragged me through the house to the front door. I barely even had time to wave to Alice, who grinned at me from Jasper's lap. The thoughts of back-tracking vanished from my mind the second my skin touched Edward's. Holding hands had never set my body on fire before.
I was by no means a virgin. I had diligently dated the men my parents had deemed fit for me, and I had allowed two of them into my bed. My relationship with Emmett had been fun – perhaps too much fun, as he hadn't been as career-orientated as my father would have preferred. Royce was my second serious boyfriend, but he had been a little too busy with other women. But what I had experienced with Emmett and Royce had in no way prepared me for what was in store with Edward. He awakened my body for the first time, pure and simple.
I barely had time to feel the cool night air before Edward's kisses heated me up like I was on fire. Somehow he managed to flag down a cab, and his mouth's delicious assault continued in the back seat. And I was no innocent bystander as I did my fair share of assaulting. His hands touched me like he knew my body, and the texture of his skin felt perfect under my fingertips. It wasn't until we had left the cab in front of his apartment building that I realized that the cab driver had just heard me moan. Seen me touch Edward. Seen Edward touch me. I felt dirty for all of two seconds. Then I was pulled inside where we managed to trip on the stairs. I thankfully landed on my right hip. Giggling into a delicious kiss, I swooned a little when he cradled my head in a semi-late attempt to save it from bumping into the stairs.
"What the hell are you doing to me?" he mumbled against my skin as he picked me up and practically carried me to his door. He swiftly unlocked the door, and I slid down his hard body to stand on the floor. I didn't look at the way his apartment was decorated, at his furniture, or if he was tidy or sloppy. There was an intensity about him that made my gaze stay locked on him. When he touched me, stumbling through the apartment while clothes started disappearing, everything else ceased to exist.
Edward stared at me for a moment once the last piece of clothing had left my body. I reveled in the fact that he seemed to like what he saw, and when the look in his eyes only intensified as he took in the small bandage he had placed over my tattoo, I knew that I also had a permanent reminder of him.
He was glorious. A part of me wanted to take the time to explore the ink on his body, but the dominant part of me had other plans. He closed the distance between us and put one hand on my hip and the other at the small of my back. He leaned in to kiss me, and I welcomed it. It was like we were in the eye of the storm, not as frantic as we had been before, but everything still heated and intense. He pulled my lip into his mouth with his teeth while walking us backwards toward the bed. I couldn't help but moan.
Then suddenly we tripped again, and I got pinned to the bed. In the fall his teeth grazed my bottom lip, and I let out a yelp. Edward pulled back and looked at me.
"Shit! You're bleeding. I'm sorry. Dammit. I'll go get a cloth f-"
The eye of the storm passed, and I pulled him back down when he attempted to get up. It didn't even hurt, and I could think of a lot of things I wanted more than a cloth. Mainly the gorgeous man above me. Luckily he was not only gorgeous, but also smart because he got the message and kissed me again. He tasted divine, but his lips were not enough. Pushing him back fully on the bed, I straddled him and worshipped his body with my mouth. Seemed like the only thing worthy of such an amazing body. He was hard beneath me, and his hands were deliciously adventurous. I nibbled on his throat and even bit down on his nipple, making him arch off the bed. It wasn't payback for when he nicked my lip, I just couldn't help myself. He made me stop thinking and just feel.
Just as I was getting ready to bite his other nipple, as he seemed to enjoy it, I was flipped over, quickly realizing that those who claimed that payback was a bitch were wrong. Payback was divine. And Edward had a magic tongue that was very thorough and made me omit sounds I had never even heard before, much less produced. He even made me scream when the magic tongue pushed me over the edge, leaving me boneless, stupidly happy, and wanting much more of him than just his tongue.
Apparently he wasn't the only one who was a little out of it, because he completely missed the first time he tried to enter me. I covered my giggle with a hiss, and the adorable man actually apologized. If I wasn't boneless already, I would have melted.
The second time it went much better, and my eyes rolled back into my head at the feeling of him inside me. Sweet merciful… His face rested in the crook of my neck, and he sucked the skin there while he thrust into me hard and fast. I wove my fingers into his hair and gave up trying to hold my embarrassing, loud moans in.
He slowed his pace, which was a good thing because the feeling of him…shit. I could feel him – all of him. Nothing between us, not even a condom. Oh shit! I put a hand on his shoulder, but that just made him pick up his pace again. What was a girl to do? I smacked him.
"Edward," I got out. "Condom."
He flew off the bed, looking as if he'd just seen a monster. He landed comically on his ass, and I kept my giggles in until he started rubbing it. For a moment he looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but then he smiled. The man was giving me serious whiplash by going from gorgeous to adorable in no time at all, and I didn't know which part of him I liked better.
He did know how to handle a condom, though, because it didn't take him many seconds to find one and roll it on. I giggled again when he very enthusiastically nearly jumped onto the bed and landed on top of me. He quite literally took my breath away. Again and again and again…
Every single one of my nerve endings felt him. Inside and out. I went into sensation overload when he reached down between us, never once faltering from his pace, and sped up my orgasm, catapulting me over the edge again with a loud cry. His teeth were on my nipple and I was still shaking when he came forcefully. I heard him, but I didn't understand him. I felt him, but didn't have the strength to lift my arms to hold him when he collapsed on top of me, sweaty skin meeting sweaty skin.
He had officially spoiled me for life.
Edward had more strength than me. He eventually rolled off me and put his arms around me, and before I could even start to consider whether or not I was spending the night, I drifted off to sleep feeling more content than I probably ever had.
I woke up with a headache. The bright morning light irritated my eyes when I opened them, and it took a few seconds to realize why my curtains weren't drawn like they usually were. I was not in my own home. Clutching the sheet around me, I sat up in bed, too late considering what such harsh movements might do to the other occupant of the bed. Wait. Other occupant of the bed? I turned my head sharply, wincing a little at the pain it brought to the inside of my skull. My eyes settled on a glorious specimen of a sleeping male, and my cheeks heated as memories from last night assaulted my mind. Edward was unlike anyone I had ever met, and even asleep I felt the power he had over my body.
Sweet merciful…
I suppressed the urge to moan. It wasn't that I regretted last night, not at all in fact, as I had undoubtedly had the best sex ever, but I had no idea how to deal with the morning after. What was I supposed to say? And if whatever I was supposed to say took longer than fifteen minutes, I would be late and have no time to get home to shower and change before going to my weekly brunch with my mother and grandmother. And showing up at brunch looking like this would not do at all. My courage had been used up last night, and with nothing left, there was no way I could stay and no way I could face Edward.
Carefully, trying not to wake him, I slid out of bed, stumbling a little when I stepped on one of his shoes. My clothes were strewn all over the room, and I hurriedly dressed after finding them all. I struggled a bit with my boots, but finally managed to zip them up. Once again checking to make sure that Edward was still asleep, I crept out of the room and took a deep breath when I had managed to close to the door without making any loud noises.
I took the elevator down to the main floor and quickly walked outside. The neighborhood was not familiar to me, but I would remember it fondly. At least if I could avoid making eye contact with anyone who might mistake me for a prostitute. God only knew what my hair and whatever makeup I still had on looked like. I saw nothing I recognized, so I started walking in the hope of being able to flag down a cab. I needed an address if I had to call one, and I couldn't spot any street names.
Although I decided to, I was not able to forget Edward on the cab ride home. Every thought was of how his lips felt against mine, how his hands felt against my skin, and how he made me feel things I hadn't even known existed. My rebellion had turned out very different from what I had expected, and although last night had been beyond amazing, I was undecided on whether or not that was a good thing. At least before I hadn't known what I was missing. Now I did. And a reminder of it had been tattooed onto my skin by Edward himself.


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Hi everyone,
this is a very funny question because it reminds me so many stories about the beginning of my adventure as au pair in the United States.
When I arrived in the United States in San Jose in California, the only conversation in English that I was able to support, was about to tell my name and a few basic words like "seatbelt on", in case I needed it with the child, but for sure, all my keywords dictionary was not enough to communicate with a 9-year-old girl.
So, my adventure with huge question marks faces printed on it, starts immediately.
My "host dad" came pick me up at the airport, I remember that he made me a good first impression, he had a great desire to communicate, he seemed friendly and very welcoming. For all the way from the airport to the house, he continued to show me things, roads or buildings? believe me, even now I have no idea what he was talking about it!!!
But still, you know what, that was not a huge issue, my heart was pounding, I was in the US, and even if I had understood the conversation, probably that day my answers were always the same: Yes, and Okay!!!
The first meeting with Sofia was fast, it was late, both of us for different reasons very tired, there was a quick "Hello, how are you? My name is Federica ", but nothing exceptional.
Luckily that my "host mom" speaks Italian, she`s Italian!!!
That was a blessing, a "hand from the sky"!
It was hard, it was tough, Sofia was a 9-year-old girl, very smart, responsible and so busy with her passion for gymnastics.
I was tested by her every day, I felt constantly under scrutiny, I tortured myself with the usual questions: she will like this? Why I have to do this? Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Or maybe I've not mistaken anything and she is just too different?
It was a torture, and the language then, not being able to communicate in English as in Italian was killing me day by day. I had a lot of things to say, I wanted to make her understand that when she ignored me made me felt bad, that when I didn`t understand something and she got mad for that, disarmed me, make me gave up and wait just for the final shot.
In Italian we say "hold blow" it means "stay strong". I did it, until one day, I finally realized that was not her who had to understand me, was not her who had to change her attitude towards me, was not her who should have spoken my language. It was me that quietly I had to ask the permission to enter into her world.
I realized that the language was not the real problem, in the human relationship especially the children ones, we don`t always need a common language to communicate, often, it may seem trivial, but the language of the heart is more common than you might think.
And this is what I did, I forgot my age, I put aside the problems, the negative thoughts and the filters that invade the adult world and I started to color.
I started reading children books, they have a lot of direct speech and for this reasons are very useful for people like me who want to learn a new language. I started watching cartoons simpler ones, then movies, I watched a lot of movies, in the beginning with English subtitles, never Italian, then I also started watching without subtitles.
Communicate with Sofia was really important day by day, even though sometimes was completely incomprehensible, and even when in her face appeared the famous huge question mark!!!
I didn`t care anymore, in one way or 'another I had to talk with her!
The language that in the beginning seems impossible slowly made room
in my head and a great English class has definitely made the difference.
Sofia started to call me Chicca (KiKa), what can I say, I had made it, I was able to win the heart of the most terrible teachers that I`ve ever had.
A little girl who had to understand that I was not there for the only reason to stay in the United States or learn English, but I was there because I wanted to give her something, and I wanted in the same way that she gives something to me.
I realized that the answer to the question above: "how to communicate with a child when you do not speak the same language?" Is easier than you might think.
You, what are you willing to do to communicate with a child?
I found out my answer asking this question to myself, wondering what were the real reasons that take me there to make that experience and only through those answers, I realized how I should act.
What do you think?
Don`t forget to give me your opinion!
And…Sorry For My Bad English!!!
Follow me on my social accounts:
Kiss from Kika

subset: commoncrawl


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Chicken caesar salad
You can now enjoy this cafe favourite at home with all the same great flavours.
- Ingredients
- 3 tsp wholegrain mustard
- 3 tsp olive oil
- 1 clove(s) garlic, crushed
- 12 slice(s) baguette
- 400 g skinless chicken breast, (2x200g)
- 80 g Bacon, shortcut, raw, coarsely chopped
- 2 tbs low-fat mayonnaise
- 1 tbs lemon juice
- 3 medium anchovy fillets in oil, drained, finely chopped
- 180 g cos lettuce, outer leaves removed, torn
- 2 medium Boiled egg, peeled, quartered
- 25 g shaved parmesan cheese
- Instructions
Preheat oven to 200°C or 180°C fan-forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Combine mustard, 1 teaspoon of the oil and garlic in a small bowl. Spread each side of bread slices with mustard mixture. Place on prepared tray. Bake, turning once, for 10 minutes or until croutons are golden and crisp.
Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Cook chicken for 2 minutes each side or until golden. Place chicken on a small baking tray. Roast in oven for 6–8 minutes or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Cover to keep warm. Rest chicken for 5 minutes before slicing thinly.
Cook bacon in same pan, stirring, for 3–5 minutes or until crisp. Drain on paper towel. Combine mayonnaise, juice and half of the anchovies in a small bowl. Combine lettuce, eggs, remaining anchovies, chicken and bacon in a large bowl. Add dressing and toss gently to combine. Season with freshly ground black pepper and sprinkle with parmesan. Serve with mustard croutons.


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|THE NGO NETWORK ALLIANCE PROJECT - an online community for Zimbabwean activists
This article participates on the following special index pages:
This article participates on the following special index pages:
Youths and systems of governance in the new Constitution making process
in Zimbabwe
The National Youth Development Trust (NYDT) will this weekend take its policy dialogue meeting to Lupane, the provincial capital for Matabeleland North, where it will engage young people on the new constitution making process in Zimbabwe.
The theme for this meeting will be "Youths' and systems of Governance in the New Constitution making process in Zimbabwe" and the main presentations on this topic will come from Mr. Vumani Ndlovu a civic activist, Ms Delta Ndou, a journalist and activist together with Mr. Emmanuel Ndlovu a community activist from Bulawayo. The guest of honour at this meeting will be Senator Dalumuzi Khumalo.
The meeting will commence at 10:30hrs and conclude at 1300hrs and aims to gather from young people, their views on what they expect to be included in the new constitution with regards systems of governance, in particular the devolution of power to the provinces. Lupane is one of the areas most affected by the current systems of governance (constitution) which gives less authority and responsibility to the local authority and has seen the province lose millions of dollars (US) worth of revenue from timber production which is not ploughed back into the development of that community. Furthermore this timber processing industry has the potential of employing youths from the area but they have been somehow deprived of that benefit. While Lupane also has a state University being constructed and which has already started enrolling students, most of these students are from no where near Lupane or Matabeleland north for that matter. As classes are being conducted in Bulawayo, most of the University's beneficiaries are presently from in and around Bulawayo.
As a way of surviving the economic malaise, most young women in the area marry early while some of them including a huge fraction of young men leave the country for South Africa and Botswana to seek employment that will sustain them and their families back home. Of the young women that remain behind a large number is drawn into prostitution regardless of their marital status.
This meeting seeks to get a buy in from youths in Lupane about their wishes for their province and to make them realize that their part in the drafting of a new constitution can change the current state of things. It is to empower them with the knowledge that they do have the power to turn their fortunes around for good and the opportunity is now, in them playing a full part in the new constitution making process.
Young people from all walks of life, all political parties, all spheres of influence and those that support the empowerment of young people are thus invited to this NYDT youth platform to discuss these pertinent issues in order to draw from you the likely solutions to these problems once and for all. Make your voice count in the new constitution!
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.


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Economic and Financial Reports Volume 01/2004
- Display in:
- en
- Available in: en
- Release date: 30 January 2004
Systemic Credit Risk in the Presence of Concentration
This paper analyses the potential for instability in the Euro area by looking at both aggregate and name-level data for the corporate sector.
- PDF - Available in :
- Hard copy not available.
Economic and Financial Studies Secretariat


text:
Windows Server Active Directory 12.01.01
Lepide Active Directory Management and Reporting is one such effective utility that can facilitates you with easy-to-use wizards to quickly and flawlessly add and manage domains, create and manage organizational units. Perhaps, this Windows Server Active Directory tool enables the administrator to add and manage domains, add and manage users in Active Directory in a most simplified manner. The most unique aspect about this software is it even...


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AFAC and Deutsche Messe in partnership with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC are delighted to bring AFAC18 powered by INTERSCHUTZ back to Perth for the first time in six years.
To be held at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, AFAC18 follows on from a successful Sydney event in 2017 that attracted over 3,200 attendees.
Exhibition space and sponsorship packages will enable you to put your organisation in front of a passionate and engaged audience.
What will be exhibited at AFAC18 powered by INTERSCHUTZ?
Product categories:
Visitor sectors:
Five reasons to exhibit:


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04 Nov 2005 17:32
Does SME need ERP system ? it seems that it will streamline the process. But i don't know if this is a must to have an ERP System.
07 Nov 2005 17:26
Please click here for the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Research Center a comprehensive analysis of the features of ERP.
27 Nov 2005 11:50
depend on the cost/performance. There is a lot of SME ERP system
in the market but need to choose the one to meet the company's
object, environment and operation. Nowadays, most SME ERP cost only several HK$ ten thousands. And if any related enquiry, contact me at email email@example.com
31 Dec 2007 17:45
We are one of the ERP system software house in HK, Try our demo : http://demo-erp2.petersoft.com
04 Jan 2008 15:14
when the business is small (below 50 orders per annual), the data to handle is not much, money can be invested in someway else, such as marketing and purchse, doing so you will get better result. ERP is just show off at this moment, and yet your buyer will not care about your using ERP or not. Only when your staffs have over 10 - 15 and you need spend over 30% of your working time to due with everyday business information, you then need such tool.
20 Sep 2008 15:24
Every organisation when they are at their initial stages will use accounting packages, they are like Bachlors using motorcycle. After Marriage and having 2 kids they will look for a car. There is no broblem in the motorcycle, but family has out grown. The same way as the organisation grows, more than flexibility, the security and response will become important. The only answer is an ERP system.
24 Nov 2008 11:14
we are providing cost effect ERP solutions for hong kong SME , linux based & customised to your needs, contact us on email@example.com
29 Nov 2008 10:22
The ERP system can help you to increase your productivity, sharpen your competitive edge, grow your business, and connect with your employees, customers, and partners. It delivers integrated functionality to support solutions for: ‧Financial Management ‧Supply Chain Management ‧Customer Relationship Management (CRM) ‧E-Business You can e-mail me for more detail
05 Mar 2009 11:02
hi kenneth, can you please send me some information on ERP systems please? I want to find out if SMEs need to implement ERP system an the initial stage of their business or at a mature stage
15 May 2009 10:53
Impact ERP Software Solution India helps manufacturers or traders from small businesses to mid size enterprises see more clearly. Integration of data across the enterprise ensures that you have greater visibility in all areas of your business, from daily operations to a strategic decision level. Insight into production, inventory and financial data makes it easy to identify opportunities for cost savings and efficiency improvements.
19 May 2009 11:22
Beside of awesome website, a Professional Seo service should be there, but affordable?. where? ask me
14 Apr 2010 09:06
email@example.com is a web-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that requires only a web-browser and optionally a PDF reader to manage internal and external resources including tangible assets, financial resources, materials and human resources. Please contact email@example.com for enquiry.
27 Sep 2011 10:54
You could try Microsoft Dynamics Products. My company is implemented by AIB Consultants.
We should say good for their service. Microsoft has a range ERP products from Small Medium to enterprise organization.
01 Aug 2012 11:29
Yes Now a days All Small and Medium Enterprices are required ERP system.SME wants to improve Improved efficiencies, Reduced errors, Reduction in cost of operations and need to get into better management of customer relationships. Pandora Business Suite ERP system is to integrate the functions & processes of an entire organization into one single framework. http://www.pbasolutions.com/
03 Oct 2012 10:24
Easy to implement and takes lesser time to implement than the traditional ERP for large organizations..
29 Nov 2012 09:32
The ERP system can help you to increase your business, and connect with your employees, customers, and partners. It delivers integrated functionality to support solutions for: ‧Financial Management ‧Supply Chain Management ‧Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
If u want to more details visit http://www.clouderpsystems.com
26 Nov 2014 15:23
I think that helps but choosing a right partner and understanding the whole picture is very important. Our company has experienced serious troubles and put ourselves into very helpless situation recently using Multiable. They don't understand our needs at all and both the interface and output format are unfriendly. Whatever changes we suggested, they charged at 10,000 per man day! I still don't know how much we have to pay at the end, it's like a deep hole so must be careful and make sure exactly what is offered in the beginning!
by Raul Hidalgo - 29 Jun 2016 22:23
by Raul Hidalgo - 29 Jun 2016 22:23


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BIDDEFORD – Keely Gendron scored with 11 seconds remaining to give Biddeford a 3-2 victory over Noble in an SMAA girls' soccer season opener Friday.
Gendron finished off a pass from Brooke Thompson, who beat two defenders.
Peyton Janelle scored in the first half and Maddy Cantara converted a free kick in the second half for Biddeford.
Gabby Reil and Taylor Mallett scored for Noble, and Shaylee Ashburn stopped 17 shots.
SCARBOROUGH 4, SOUTH PORTLAND 0: Sarah Martens scored twice and Kate Daniels had a goal and an assist to lead the Red Storm to a win at Scarborough.
Hadlee Yescott also scored and Sam Sparda had two assists. Sydney Martin stopped three shots for the shutout.
Emma Russell made 12 saves for South Portland.
DEERING 2, MASSABESIC 0: Alexis Elowitch and Simone Lauture scored first-half goals to lead the Rams to a win at Portland.
LeeAnn Downs made six saves for the shutout.
CHEVERUS 6, MCAULEY 0: Darby Rawcliffe and Abby Maker each had two goals as the visiting Stags handled the Lions at Portland.
Sadie Lyons and Eden Munson also scored, and Hannah Tyson stopped four shots.
Molly Miller made 14 saves for McAuley.
MARSHWOOD 1, KENNEBUNK 1: Abby Hyson scored the tying goal early in the second half as Marshwood earned a draw at Kennebunk.
THORNTON ACADEMY 10, BONNY EAGLE 0: Amanda Arnold scored four goals and Haley DaGraca added two for the Golden Trojans, who built a 7-0 halftime lead at Standish.
YARMOUTH 2, NYA 0: Tess Merrill scored two first-half goals for the Clippers in a win over the visiting Panthers.
Scout Fishman finished with 24 saves for NYA. Yarmouth keeper Shannon Fallon needed just two saves for the shutout.
WAYNFLETE 1, SACOPEE VALLEY 0: Arianna Giguere scored on a through ball from Isabel Agnew in the 39th minute to lift the Flyers over the Hawks at Portland.
Waynflete keeper Katie Duvall made five saves. Emily Colbert stopped 11 shots for Sacopee Valley.
OCEANSIDE 2, MEDOMAK VALLEY 0: Makenna Brooks scored both goals to lead the Mariners to a win at Waldoboro.
Brittany Rytky assisted on the second goal.
RICHMOND 2, OLD ORCHARD BEACH 1: Amber Loon and Sadie Gosse scored a goal apiece as the Bobcats edge the Seagulls at Richmond.
Gosse also set up Loon's goal with a corner kick.
Anna Foss scored for Old Orchard Beach, and Haley Plante had six saves.
GARDINER 8, LINCOLN ACADEMY 1: Ally Day scored five goals as the Tigers cruised past the Eagles at Gardiner.
Kylee Granholm, Katie Owen and Morgan Carver each added a goal.
Ali Gorrill scored for Lincoln.
ERSKINE ACADEMY 6, SKOWHEGAN 1: Avery Bond scored a pair of goals and had an assist as the Eagles downed the Indians at Skowhegan.
Kelly McCormack added a goal and two assists.
Skowhegan keeper Andrea Quirion made 24 saves.
FALMOUTH 3, CAPE ELIZABETH 0: Dayna Vasconcelos scored in the first half, and Jillian Rothweiler and Zuleika Scott each added second-half goals to lead the Yachtsmen (2-0) past the Capers (1-1) at Cape Elizabeth.
Falmouth goalie Hillary Nash stopped three shots. Julianne Ayers finished with six saves for Cape Elizabeth.
FREEPORT 3, WAYNFLETE 0: Dayze Gaulin scored midway through the first half to start the Falcons (1-1) on their way to a win over the Flyers (1-1) at Freeport.
Hannah Williams added a goal in the final 10 minutes, and Olivia Bubar scored off a penalty corner with one minute remaining.
FRYEBURG ACADEMY 1, YORK 0: Courtney Bartlett scored from Ellen Bacchiochi less than four minutes into the game to give the Raiders (2-0) the edge over the Wildcats (1-1) at Fryeburg.
Amanda Kasbohm made 12 saves for York. Fryeburg Academy goalie Sage Antolin did not need to make a save.
SACOPEE VALLEY 2, OLD ORCHARD BEACH 1: Abigail Ouellette and Paige Shortsleeves scored in a six-minute span midway through the second half as the Hawks (1-1) beat the Seagulls (0-2) at Old Orchard Beach.
Mackenzie Rague scored for OOB off after a penalty corner with 1:38 left.
WATERVILLE 6, MORSE 0: Jenna Nawfel scored four goals as the Panthers (1-0) cruised to a win over the Shipbuilders (0-1) at Waterville.
GORHAM 3, FALMOUTH 2: Lindsay Chapman had 16 service points and seven kills as the Rams rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Yachtsmen at Gorham, 19-25, 21-25, 25-20, 25-15, 15-11.
BIDDEFORD 3, CAPE ELIZABETH 0: Katelyn Lebreux had nine kills and two aces, and Mariah Hebert had six aces and 24 sets that led to kills as the Tigers downed the Capers in straight sets at Biddeford, 25-12, 25-15, 25-9.
KENNEBUNK 3, LAKE REGION 0: Kate Rothrock and Brennan Cain each had strong service games to lead the Rams past the visiting Lakers in straight sets, 25-14, 25-14, 26-24.
YARMOUTH 3, NYA 0: Gina Robertson had seven aces and 16 service points to lead the Clippers past the visiting Panthers, 25-19, 25-10, 25-5.
Kristina Borderia added seven kills and Lyndsay Tyler had 10 digs.
Grace Gilbert had six aces for NYA.
Local & State
Scarborough considers tax break to develop village center at the Downs
New England
Camper falls 250 feet to his death in New Hampshire
Local & State
Mainer killed in crash on I-95 in New Hampshire
Kavanaugh vows to fight misconduct allegations as Republicans dig in
EMHS to become Northern Light Health


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More Autumn colours – there is something so attractive – in the sense of 'drawing one in' – in autumn landscapes. As more mini-views appear, one just has to pull on the walking boots and head off to discover what lies beyond the bare branches.
A lane littered with fallen leaves… it's definitely time to regress to childhood and kick those leaves!
As for this one – one more storm and all those leaves will be gone and the glorious twisted trunk of the tree will be fully revealed.


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Orthodox Churches
Construction of Orthodox chapel of St. Olaf begins in Stiklestad24. July 2014 - 12:19
On 16 July 2014, the foundation of the Orthodox chapel of St. Olaf, King of Norway, was laid in Stiklestad (100 km from Trondheim). The chapel is being built at the site of the death of "Norway's Eternal King". St. Olaf, the heavenly patron of Norway, died in 1030.
Primate of Orthodox Church in America leads celebrations at Patriarchal cathedral in New York to mark 700th anniversary of the birth of St. Sergius of Radonezh24. July 2014 - 12:06
On 20 July 2014, a solemn Divine Service was celebrated at St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York. Thus the Patriarchal parishes in the USA concluded the celebrations marking the 700th anniversary of the birth of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Upon the blessing and at the invitation of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada officiated at the Divine Liturgy. Concelebrating with His Beatitude were Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad; Archbishop Justinian of Naro-Fominsk, Administrator of the Patriarchal parishes in the USA; and the assembly of clergymen of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Church Abroad, and the Orthodox Church in America.
Holy Royal martyrs commemorated in Yekaterinburg on their feast-day18. July 2014 - 14:44
The night of July 16/17 is a tragic date in the history of Russia. On this day in Yekaterinburg, the Russian Tsar Nicolas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, their children as well as their faithful servants were brutally murdered.
The Church "on the Blood" in honour of All Saints who have Shone Forth in the Russian Land, has now been built on the site of the crime. And the tragic night annually gathers thousands of pilgrims to this site from all over Russia and other countries for prayer, reports the News Agency of the Yekaterinburg Diocese.
Patriarch Kirill Led a Procession from Khotkovo to Sergiev Posad17. July 2014 - 12:01
Let us pray today and in all the days to come to St. Sergius, that he might raise our prayers to the Throne of the Almighty: for our people, for our entire historical Fatherland, for the Russian land, and for our Church, that he might preserve it in oneness and keep it from enemy forces.
On July 16 a procession with thousands of people went from the Stavropegial Monastery of the Protection in Khotkovo, a suburb of Moscow, where the relics of Sts. Cyril and Maria– the parents of St. Sergius – reside to the Annunciation field in Sergiev Posad.
120,000 people visited the grave of elder Paisios the Athonite on the 20th anniversary of his repose16. July 2014 - 9:52
20 years ago (on July 12, 1994) the Athonite elder Paisios (Eznipidis) reposed. On July 12-13, 2014, a very large number of people came to commemorate the great ascetic of our times and to pray at his grave, reports AgionOros.ru.
Thousands of pilgrims queued for hours in huge lines waiting for their opportunity to come up to the elder's grave, to lay flowers and pray. At the Convent of Sts. John the Theologian and Arsenios of Cappadocia, where elder Paisios of Mount Athos is buried, at the anniversary of his repose a service for the dead and a Vigil were celebrated, followed by the Divine Liturgy early in the morning.
Moscow church destroyed by Napoleon to be restored15. July 2014 - 13:04
The Church of Beheading of St. John the Baptist, destroyed by the French at their retreat from Moscow in 1812, will be reconstructed near the walls of the Novodevichy Convent, reports Interfax-Religion with the reference to Vladimir Resin, State Duma deputy and adviser of Patriarch Kirill.
"The approximate, cost of the building will be 50 million rubles," he said on Tuesday at a press conference in Moscow. The chronicles date the foundation of this church to the year 1525 – the time of construction of the Novodevichy Convent. In September 1812, the convent was temporarily occupied by the French, who, could not destroy the whole convent as the left, but did destroy the Church of Beheading of St. John the Baptist. As contemporary to the convent, this church was an integral part of its ensemble. One of the convent towers is called "Predtechenskaya" ("of the Forerunner") to this day.
Unique cave monastery complex of 12th-13th centuries in Georgia to be conserved15. July 2014 - 10:22
Vardzia is the cave monastery complex of the 12th-13th centuries in the valley of the Kura river, situated about 70 kilometers south of the town of Borjomi. This is an outstanding monument of medieval Georgian architecture.
The three-day international seminar, dedicated to the development of plans for conservating the Vardzia cave monastery complex in the Samche-Javaheti region, began on July 9 at the nature reserve. The seminar is organized by the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia and the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia. "The primary aim of the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia is to stop the rockslides in the unique cave complex and prolong the life of the historical site. In order to save Vardzia, Georgian specialists should unite and work out the (still non-existent) document on preservation of Vardzia. This document will serve as a start of preparation of the plan for control of the cave monastery complex," reports the Ministry of Culture. The special guest of the seminar was president of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Italian Ministry for the Environment, UNESCO consultant, assistant to the president of the International consortium on landslides Claudio Margottini.


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|Half Baths
|3,000 sq ft
|Property type
|Minimum Stay
|2 nights
Just steps away from Bloomington's courthouse square, Baker Place is a large 2800 square foot apartment in the center of downtown. Perfectly located near Kirkwood and Walnut Street, Baker Place is surrounded by local shops, galleries, restaurants and bars and is just a few blocks from Indiana University's Sample Gates.
This historic property was completely remodeled in 2006 and was professionally designed and decorated. Baker Place is an upscale property featuring 13 foot ceilings, 100 year old oak floors and displays photos and paintings for sale by local artists. Enjoy the privacy and historic stateliness, while being seconds from the energy and action of this college town's nightlife and activities.
The full kitchen featuring stainless appliances and granite countertops adjoins the large living room and is perfect for family reunions, rehearsal dinners and couples weekend getaways back to idyllic Downtown Bloomington.
Keywords: Apartment
We hosted my brothers bachelor party/gathering here, it is well suited for large groups. The Condo has many great features and has been tastefully restored. There was plenty of space for our guest. The location is the best part. We had no problem finding food and entertainment. I would recommend the Baker Place to anyone with a large group looking for a convenient location.
Stayed here over a long weekend with some fellow alumni. We were looking for a large, renovated space that could fit all of us while being close to campus and downtown. We looked forever but couldn't seem to find anything that was modern until we came across Baker Place. Not only was the space large enough to sleep everyone comfortably but the appliances were all brand new, the art work was curated with impeccable taste and we could come and go as we please without having to worry about bothering neighbors as it is situated above a knitting/yarn store. If you're looking for an opportunity to come back and relive some glory days in style, you couldn't do much better than this space.
We had six plus family members coming in for an Indiana University event. The condo is wonderful! It
is walking distance from everything, very clean, comfortable beds and plenty of space. Each bedroom had it's own bathroom. The kitchen was huge and we enjoyed watching the final four basketball on the wide screen tv in the living room. The owner is very easy to deal with and accessible. I just wish we had found out about this place earlier.
While it has been several months since we stayed, our "crew" can't imagine a better place to stay while in Bloomington. Ron did an excellent job of making us feel at home and the property, amenities, and location are all top notch. We'll certainly make Baker Place our priority "stay" for any future visits!
Indiana University, Big Ten Sports, Lake Monroe
|Rate Period
|Weekend Night
My Standard Rate
2 night minimum stay


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The Wayfinder Schools seek two full time interns for our Residential Program in New Gloucester. Both positions provide excellent educational opportunities and partialroom and board at our Opportunity Farm campus. Full description below. If interested, email cover letter and resume to firstname.lastname@example.com by 8/28/12. No phone calls please.
Internship #1: Academic Intern, New Gloucester, ME
Availability:Spring, Fall
Position:Provide support to residential staff and students with emphasis on academicrequirements; work closely with lead teacher and program director to plan andfacilitate assignments and activities.
Schedule:40 hours per week, overnights Monday – Thursday.
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Learning:interdisciplinary curriculum and learning plans; restorative practices; endlessopportunities for creativity; inspirational alternative learning techniques andteaching strategies geared toward empowering, strength and discovery;relational education; conflict resolution; one-on-one mentoring; communitybased learning; group facilitation; expeditionary skills; crisis management;de-escalation; trauma abuse; cultural competency; teaching; confidencebuilding; enduring relationships; genuine purpose of service andaccomplishment; your own real life learning experiences; computer software;digital camera, video, and projectors; tools.
Internship #2: Residential Living Team Intern, New Gloucester, ME
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Schedule:40 hours per week, overnights on all weekends
Benefits:Room and board living on the Farm, travel expenses, conference attendance,training in Restorative Justice, many other perks
Learning: inspirationalalternative learning techniques, relational education, conflict resolution,mentoring, community based learning, group facilitation, expeditionary skills,crisis management, de-escalation, trauma abuse, cultural competency, teaching,confidence building, enduring relationships, genuine purpose of service andaccomplishment, real life learning experiences, computersoftware, digital cameras, video, projectors, tools.


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Mwilini is a dried up river in the Katulani area, about a 20 minute drive outside Kitui town. The river starts in Kitui Town, where it's called Kalundu river, but is renamed Mwilini river as it leaves the town. The sight is a smaller version of The Sea of Sand, and what you can see at the two places is mostly the same, but the drive to Mwilini is a lot shorter and more car-friendly than the road to The Sea of Sand. You can also walk up the seemingly dried up river and enjoy the scenery. Here it is greener than the otherwise dry surroundings in the Katulani area. You will also find waterholes where the local people come to give water to their cattle and planted sukuma wiki along the riverside.
Last updated: 27.01.2012


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- Missprincessmegs
- 5 years ago
- Wedding: June 2014
Recently, I've gone to a few paper stores to price out invitations and can't believe the amount of money it is just to order invites!!! I've also priced out some invites on Etsy that i'm finding to be very pricey as well. I would normally make my own invtes, but i'm in school full time, and I do not have the time to make them. I hate the fact that my taste is pretty expensive, but I simply cannot afford the pricey tag. Where did you ladies order your invitations?


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Peoria Wedding Photographer > Sarah & Kevin Married
Sarah & Kevin's wedding was at the historic (and scenic) Watchtower Lodge at Blackhawk State Park in the Quad Cities. The bride, groom, and wedding party braved some brutally hot weather, and we were able to get some great photos. Here are a few of my favorites:
The bridal party's gorgeous bouquets were done by Seeded Earth Growers in Muscatine IA.
Awesome 4- tiered cake from MeMe's Treat Boutique in Homer, IL.
Sas DJs in the Quad Cities kept the party going, and did an incredible job of lighting the room.
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How To Make Juice Without a Juicer
Juice is a healthy way to take in the fruits and vegetables you need for optimum health. Juicing is popular and there are hundreds of recipes on the Internet for a variety of different juice based drinks.Most of them assume that you will be using a juicer.
Not everyone can afford a top of the line juicer. Not owning a good juicer does not mean going without fresh juices. There is a little more work involved, but having totally organic homemade juice is well worth it. The recipe below will work with a variety of other berries. Use two pounds of grapes or berries per quart of juice as a rule.
Steps to Making Juice
tep 1:
Gather your fruit. The easiest fruit to start with using this method would be grapes. It takes just over two pounds of grapes to make one quart of juice. Most recipes are based on the USDA recipe that calls for twenty four and a half pounds of grapes. To gather this much, either pick your own, visit a farmer's market, or choose a wild growing variety. Many people love the taste of wild scuppernog grapes when used in juice.
Step 2:
Wash and remove the stems from the grapes. Wash in batches, then place into a large, clean bucket. Make sure there are no stray bees or wasps. Yellow jackets love grapes and can hide inside of the bunches, accidentally getting a ride into your home.
Step 3:
Carefully pour the grapes into the largest capacity pot available. A hot water bath canning pot is perfect for this step. Either- A) Heat water to just boiling with the grapes in the pot-or- B) Pour boiling water over the grapes, just enough to cover. As soon as water is to boiling point, reduce heat to a simmer and leave until the skins are very soft.
Step 4:
Carefully pour the juice through a double layer of cheesecloth that is lining a strainer. Once all of the juice has been strained into a large, clean bucket, begin squeezing the skins and pulp through the cheesecloth. Twist the top of the cheesecloth down to extract every drop of juice.
Bottling and Storing
Step 5:
Pour into jugs and place in the fridge for one to two days.
Step 6:
During the time the juice is sitting, sediment will build in the bottom of the jug(s). Pour the juice off or strain again.
Step 7:
Pour all of the juice back into the large pot and add sweetener if desired. If using sugar the normal addition is about one and a half cups if the grapes are sweet themselves. If the grapes are watery or slightly bitter, up to 3 cups for the entire batch may be needed. Heat the juice until the sugar is dissolved then to a boil. Remove from heat and store.
Storing Your Juice
This juice can be stored by canning- pour into jars and leave one fourth inch of space from the rim. Process in a hot water canner for 5 min if using quart jars and 10 if using half gallon size. Remove from the water carefully and place on a folded towel in an out of the way place. Allow to rest undisturbed overnight. You should hear the lids pop as the jars cool. This indicates they have sealed well.
I love the back to basics concept, although my first goal is to grow some grapes that don't die the first year! So when I have accomplished that, I'm coming back! Thanks for a great hub!
Mdme Audet, this sure seems like a lot of hard work to extract a few precious drops of juice from grapes. It seems that great effects are the ROI of great effort.
Cool Information
Yeah, this seems quite helpful when you don't have juicer or when you alone and you have lot of time.
I will have to try this!
Wow! this is easy. Thanks for sharing your secrets here :) Surely rated up and awesome :)
Oh! Thanks for sharing this hub. Juicers are quiet expensive and yet you still give us idea on how to make juices without using any juicer. Very practical. Great hub.
This is a fascinating way of making juice at home. I will definitely try it.
i just take a for to small batches, or sometimes a hammer...
Cooking does effect on nutrients and pressure squeezing the juice seems to best option for fresh juices. Boiling is anyway good way to make juices for storage. Thanks!
Yum, I don't have a juicer but would love to start making homemade juice. This recipe doesn't sound too hard, so I might try this when it gets a little nicer up here on the northeast coast. Cheers and thanks!
I remember my mother gathering the grapes and making her homemade juice. We did not have a juicier and she did it the way you described. I had actually forgotten all that. Thanks for the memory and the fact that I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars to get homemade juice.
I love homemade juice! But somehow homemade carrot juice is never as tasty as the kind you can buy in the store. I must be missing something. Hehe. Nice hub!
I'm going to bookmark this one! Thanks!
I use to help a fellow with his small vineyard. We would put the grapes in a squeezer and crank it down until the grape leftovers were almost dry. The only thing left was bit of pulp, which we composted. It was great juice.
And all of the nutrients were intact without cooking.
Very nice post.
Fabulous, I love it, thanks great idea, now I can start juicing since I can't afford a good juicer.
I have memories of back home on the farm when I read about how to make grape juice without a juicer. We grew everything and my mom new how to process and preserve all kinds of food. And we grew grapes. we had lots of grape juice and grape jelly too.


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The Kaleido XP is a constantly changing decorative effect that projects a varying display of psychedelic patterns.
Using a high power 100W LED its bright output and razor sharp images add a unique element to any show, venue or party.
- 1 x 100W white LED
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- DMX channels: 4
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- 0-100% dimming and variable strobe
- 4 push button menu with LED display
- IEC input/output
- 3-pin XLR input/output
- Fan cooled
- Supplied with hanging bracket
- Power consumption: 133W
- Power supply: 100~240V, 50/60Hz
- Fuse: F3A 250V
- Dimensions: 230 x 275 x 340mm
- Weight: 3.6kg
Choose a currency below to display product prices in the selected currency.


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McClellan, Kyle Robedeaux and Brian Stoner
For Our Loved Ones (Canyon Records CR-6397, 2005)
Peyote is a hallucinogen
made from a woolly Mexican cactus. It is used by many southwestern American Indian
tribes spiritual ceremonies.
For Our Loved Ones features Jeff McClellan (Sac & Fox, Iowa, Otoe,
Shawnee & Seneca), Kyle Robedeaux (Otoe/Seminole) and Brian Stoner
(Ponca/Cherokee). These Native American singers join voices in this reverent
collection of peyote songs from the Southern Plains of Oklahoma.Accompanied by the pulsating rhythm of water drum and gourd, their
passionate chanting is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Native American Church.
Providing healing and encouragement, the thirty-six songs on
For Our Loved Ones presented by McLellan, Robedeaux
and Stoner guide the listener on the spiritual journey along the sacred Peyote Road.
For Our Loved Ones].
Other Peyote song stories:
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has been writing about world music and progressive music for many years. He founded the websites worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. Angel produced several specials for Metropolis (TVE) and co-produced "Musica NA", a music show for Televisión Española (TVE) in Spain that featured an eclectic mix of world music, fusion, electronica, new age and contemporary classical music. Angel also produced and remastered world music and electronic music albums, compilations and boxed sets for Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Music of the World, Lektronic Soundscapes, and Mindchild Records. Angel is currently based in Durham, North Carolina.


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This article was originally published on FIVE THôT. MarketWatch, a Dow Jones-owned website that should know better, published an article a little while ago called "The world's worst investors", chock full of terrible, terrible advice. Which doesn't bother me. Lots of people who should know better give terrible advice. What bothers me is the smug way he says it.
Brett Arends, the author, tells the story of Mark Villa and Lucie White, two doctors in Houston who lost a lot of money getting out of the stock market decline of 2008 and who are now getting back to investing. Arends virtually detonates in an air-burst of condescension and misinformation. His basic complaint is, as he says, Mom and Pop, as he calls them, "have consistently bought high and sold low."
Which is demonstrably true, but then he follows it up by saying, "You could have made astonishing super-normal profits over the past thirty years just by selling stocks when Mom and Pop were buying, and buying stocks when Mom and Pop were selling."
That statement is arrant nonsense. If it were true, Arends could have done it himself and made a fortune. He'd be too busy blowing his nose with hundred-dollar bills to waste time writing misleading financial columns.
The basic intuition is exactly what he said: if it's a bad idea to buy a particular stock, or stocks in general, at a particular time, it's necessarily a good time to sell. If Mom and Pop actually were so dismayingly amazing at picking losers, they would equally amazing at picking winners — they're the same stocks, if you do the opposite and sell when Mom and Pop buy, and vice versa. It would call into question why investment companies spend money on experts and computers and research when they could just do the exact opposite of whatever Mom and Pop are doing.
Perhaps Arends has a mental image of amateur investors like Villa and White as a panicky herd of animals, like cows or sheep, that stampede in some direction, while a few savvy professional — I'm sure Arends is casting himself in this role — pick off the strays like wily wolves.
But numerically, it just isn't so. In the open range of the stock market, the wolves outnumber the sheep. Most trading is done by huge institutions: mutual funds, pensions, large investors. In a liquid market, it's exactly as impossible to make a spectacularly bad investment as to make a spectacularly good one. If a thousand people are selling a particular stock, and nine-hundred ninety nine people plus you are buying that stock, how likely is it that one side or the other is making a huge mistake?
Someone — it is supposed to be John Maynard Keynes, but it wasn't, it was a Forbes analyst named Gary Shilling — wrote "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent." Which would mean that even if there were something in Arends's fantasy about panicking amateurs capsizing the market, there's no way to benefit from that knowledge. If the price of a stock were driven irrationally low, it wouldn't be enough to buy that stock; you have to buy it near the bottom and then hold it until it recovers — something that might very well never happen.
Underlying all this is the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which says that prices on traded assets (like stock) already reflect all publicly available information. No amount of research is going to help you find you a good deal; no amount of stupidity is going get you a bad one. Arends calls the EMH "a cult".
The interesting thing about the EMH isn't that it's wrong, although it is, a little. The interesting thing isn't even that it's self-contradictory, although it is, a lot. The really interesting thing about EMH is that it depends on being self-contradictory in order to be useful.
It's easier to see why the EMH is wrong if you think about why it's right. Imagine a market where the price of stock was completely detached from its value. All prices are set at random. In such a world, it would certainly behoove even the dimmest investor to do some research. If Google is selling for $1 a share (here in the real world, it's selling for 800), go and snap that up. A market that started out completely inefficient would quickly be thronged with investors, bidding up the $1 Google stock to $100 or $700, something reasonable, something "efficient" as economists say.
But you can see what happens. As more and more people do more and more research and investing, the bargains dry up, and there's less return on doing the hard work of research and the risky work of investing.
Likewise imagine a perfectly efficient market. Every stock traded for exactly the correct price (which, to be technical, is the risk-adjusted net present value of the dividend stream). In a perfectly efficient market, there's absolutely no point in picking one stock over another, any more than you pick one dollar bill over another when getting cash from a teller. They're all the same to you.
But why would a perfectly efficient market stay efficient? Nobody's bothering to do any research — because there's no money in research. Imagine you had a vacant lot choked with weeds. To get rid of the weeds, you brought in a small flock of goats. The goats can, of course, make short work of the weeds but if they eat all the weeds, they will themselves starve. For the goat/weed ecology to work, there needs to be enough weeds to keep the goats alive to eat the weeds. In my (okay, rather tortured) analogy, "weeds" are inefficient, inaccurate prices: great stocks and terrible stocks. The "goats" are investors, they are only in the market because they're looking for weeds to eat, but by eating them, they get rid of them. Eventually, for a given size lot, there are just enough goats to eat the weeds down to a stubble.
Eventually, all the EMH guarantees is that the market will be "mostly" efficient, not "perfectly" efficient — in fact, it guarantees the market won't be perfectly efficient. There has to be enough inefficiency to reward people for doing research and modeling, rooting out that inefficiency, feeding themselves on the inefficiency.
Is the market going to reward you for doing that work? No, probably not. There are people with decades of experience and scads of computers and brains the size of beach-balls working on this problem 24/7, so they are probably going to do a better job than you. You might get lucky, of course, but you might get unlucky. It's like a lottery where most people win a little.
And Arends, for all his smugness, certainly knows this. He writes, "In late 2008 and early 2009 I was tasked by The Wall Street Journal with finding good value stocks for people to buy. And my job was very easy." Note that Arends doesn't mention investing any of his own money in those easily found bargains. He seems to be still working for a living.


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I got a handful of compliments of late. Me and compliments!? Yes, believe it! It surprises me as well.
People ask, why and how the renewed vigour? I wish I knew. Perhaps it is the weight loss due to lack of proper meals. According to some, I have become skinny. But I can't feel it. It could be the tremendous increase in responsibilities. I can't possibly be feeling relaxed. My life took a 180 degree turn and I have a lot on my mind. I lost the one person I was connected to. This person was a reflection of God, a paradigm of affection. A part of me! I can't put into words what I lost.
Now I have absolutely nothing to lose. Perhaps, this is the very reason behind the relaxed outlook. An utter sense of fearlessness, things can't go worse. It does put one's mind at ease.
I have paid the highest price to earn a bunch of compliments.
I wish to hear from people who have felt this fearlessness and what lead them to it?
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Discover Volunteering Drop in Days
If you are interested in giving your time to something fun and interesting then one of our new volunteer roles could be just the ticket! We are currently seeking new people to join our busy team. Come along and chat to us on 22 and 24 February 12noon – 3.30pm. Here's an example of the things you could be getting up to with the team at Upton.
Welcome Team
Roll out the red carpet! We give a warm welcome, as well as any important information visitors need to get the most out of their day. From driving the buggy to helping in the Restaurant, you are the stars who go where you are most needed! You'll meet lots of new people every day and help them with anything they might need to make their day just right for them.
House Host
Providing the warmest of welcomes to all our visitors, ensuring they have an exhilarating and memorable time. You'll be happy to pick up stories, listen as much as you share, and help people enjoy the Made to Measure Home presentaiton throughout thre house.
Catering Hosts
Imagine a world without cakes! Catering Hosts understand the importance of a little sit-down, helping visitors to relax and refuel. You'll be happy to help in our Pavilion Restaurant or our Tea Window at our busy times. If you are good at juggling tasks and working as part of a team, this is the role for you!
If you'd like to know more please drop in on 24 and 24 February 12noon – 3.30pm. We can chat to you about some of our roles, meet some of the team and find out about life at Upton. If you can't make these dates, we would still love to hear from you:
If you'd like to know more please get in touch. We'll invite you for a chat over coffee and you'll have a chance to find out more and meet some of the team. We hope to hear from you soon.
How to get started
Follow the link to the online system, search Upton House in the box and choose one of the roles we are recruiting for and fill in your information. We'll invite you for a chat over coffee and you'll have a chance to find out more and meet some of the team.


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Here Are The Sexiest Instagram Models On Earth – And Their Gorgeous Sisters
1. Anllela and Laura Sagra These sisters are dominating the wellness world with their indecent snaps. The Colombian beauties have a great many supporters on their Instagram accounts and they post once a day. 2. Mathild and Pauline Tantot These French siblings are venturing to the far corners of the planet and sharing hot snaps to their online fanbase. Not only are they some of the most smoking hot sisters around, they own the Khassani Swimwear company together.