Chapter 2 - Awakening the Great Deer

The two walked together, hand in hand, through a nearby park in their town. "Oh the leaves are beautiful this time of year.", Grandma Christine said. The fall colors were beginning to show on the trees, though it was still warm enough to wear light clothes outside. It was Francis' favorite time of year, as well as his grandmother's.

They stopped near the edge of the park, and the boy turned to his grandmother, "I wanted to show you something cool. I found a trail in the woods yesterday!", he said to her. "Oh? I'd love to walk it with you!", Christine replied happily. Francis smiled, and led her to the nearby woods.

He found the path again, and helped his grandmother climb over the vines and twigs underneath. "There is a path!", Christine said, "I never knew this was here!" Francis then began, "I...I wanted to show you something I found. It's not far." The old woman smiled once again, "Show me."

They began to hike through the path. He knew where he was going - he remembered the way the path was. He stopped at a sloping part of the woods, and began to climb down. He stopped to help Christine down the slope.

They reached the bottom, where she took a deep breath. "I haven't hiked this much in ages.", she said. The boy led her on, until they reached an open area. Francis looked to his grandmother, and said to her, "I think I found the deer in your story."

Christine took a few steps forward, wiping her eyes. "Quad? I can't believe it! He's here!", she said. She reached into her purse, pulling out an old plush deer. The statue of the great deer had not changed since yesterday - Quad was still sitting, a slight smile on his face. "Francis! You found Quad! This is wonderful!", she exclaimed happily, and then went to the statue and put her hand on Quad's face.

"Quad...", Christine began to say, "...what happened to you?"

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Hey guys, my aunt sent me some really cool charms to use on my necklaces! I'm trying to decide what beads I want to use on them, but I know you guys will love them!



I've got three of them, so I may make each necklace have different beads. ^_^

Update 1/07/10 - Head Tilts for TEF is officially closed! I just sent the last payment for the November and December donations today! Thanks to everyone who supported this event!

If you were working on a piece for Head Tilts, I'll still accept it and will send an additional payment when you get it done.

The official amount I donated from this project was $54.50. That's about 39.18€

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Check this topic for more info.

The dollar amount ($) represents the 'value' of the submission, and at the end of each month, I will add up the amounts and donate the total to Project: Greenleaf.

The words SEPT, OCT, NOV, and DEC tell which month that artwork was submitted, and which month the value goes toward.

Update 1/07/10 - Head Tilts for TEF is officially closed! I just sent the last payment for the November and December donations today! Thanks to everyone who supported this event!

If you were working on a piece for Head Tilts, I'll still accept it and will send an additional payment when you get it done.

The official amount I donated from this project was $54.50. That's about 39.18€

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Hey everyone, I had a neat idea for funding towards TEF. I know many of you don't have money to spend, likewise donate, so my idea was that I would donate a small amount for each person who made me a quality artwork!

I know, this is going to come off as really greedy, but in the long run it'll be very beneficial, especially for the Forest.

Click here to see all the submissions made so far!

Basically here is how it will run down:

1. Submit an artwork from the list of subjects below.
2. I will add the artwork to a separate topic that showcases every submission. Each artwork will have a monetary value I will designate (starting at $1 and possibly increasing to $2-3) based on the rules and bonuses for them.
3.

Sorry no screenies today (gotta figure out my Photobucket situation...i may have to make a new account on there like Silent suggested).

Anyway, Quad had a lot of fun with everyone who was on just now. I'm sorry, I forgot the name of the deer I was hanging with most of the time (orange pelt, zombie mask), as well as the other deer wearing the crying mask and DotD set.

Seeing Ghost sleep-slide onto my screen really made my day! I did not expect that so I was like, "GHOOOOOOOOOOST!!" when it happened XD

Anyway, I gotta get ready for work :<

Update - Now you have the choice between the Blue playlist (has a bunch of songs I really like), the Green playlist (my Project: Greenleaf playlist, has some of the same songs), and the new Red playlist that has nothing but Sonata Arctica, which is a really cool Finnish power metal band!

Autoplay is off so please click play on whichever one you want to listen to, and please comment if you liked or hated a particular song!

MySpace Music Playlist at MixPod.com

I thought this would be an interesting topic. I've discovered a little about myself that my favorite season is Autumn. Beforehand, I always thought Summer was my favorite, because it was the time away from school to relax and have fun. Well, as I grew older, Summer became less of a season to relax and more of one to get things done (or to work more than I normally would).

So eventually I discovered Autumn was my favorite season. It has a lot of nostalgia for me, and I just love the weather when it's between hot and cold. Plus the trees are just so beautiful.

Anyway, I've discovered that I have started some traditions to invite or otherwise 'celebrate' the coming of Autumn:

#1: 10 Years was a band I got to hear at a local music festival in October, Bayfest. I bought their first CD at the festival and ever since I associated their music with Autumn. I seem to only listen to them between September through December. Since yesterday, I started listening to them again in celebration of Autumn.

Ironically, their first album is titled The Autumn Effect.


Here are a few of my favorite songs by them, if you wanted to hear what they sound like:

10 Years - Wasteland (first song I heard by them)
10 Years - Seasons to Cycles (Really pretty song)
10 Years - So Long, Goodbye (Probably my favorite song. This would be Quad's death song if he had one)

Check this out! Pega showed us a site with a bunch of deer on it and this one totally looks like Quad in real life (with his old gazelle antlers, not the zombie ones)!! It's called a Blackbuck!







Okay, side-by side comparisons! Let me know if you want to see some more comparisons! I might make some more just for fun!

















Ooooooh I so want to hug one right now!!

It even looks remarkably similar to the thing Ephra made for me:

This is just a post to get everything off of my chest.

I understand things are tough - sometimes unbearable - for all of us. The world has problems, and maybe it's just human nature to be greedy and destructive. The world sometimes doesn't seem fair at all.

This summer started off with a week where I was able to relax and spend some time with my Forest friends. The next week was my mom's first day of summer, which began with her being bitten by a rottweiler. Her wound has healed greatly since that day, but she will have teeth scars on her arm for the rest of her life because of it. Since that day everything has gone downhill.

My dad has been working at the post office for 47 and a half years. He took his 2 week vacation because he hasn't been feeling the best, and now we know what is going on. He has cancer again - he had it a long time ago when I was still in elementary school. So dad retired at the beginning of this month. He is going through a 2nd wave of chemotherapy now, and will have surgery afterward. While that's been going on, my mom is going through colonoscopy. She will be in the hospital tomorrow through thursday or friday with her surgery.

During all of this, my 1990 Mazda 626 had been acting up. We took it to the shop and found out the transmission blew out on it, and would cost around $2,000 to fix. I was lucky my brother found a new car for me - a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer for $4,000. So I am paying back someone who loaned us the money for it.

Before summer ended for us, a small piece of the ceiling in my brother's room fell down. We discovered that the air conditioning vents were leaking, so we had to borrow $8,000 to get a new air conditioning unit and vents put in.

So last night Quad got in the Forest wearing the zombie set. He usually sneezes the zombie pelt off to have his beluga pelt, so when he ran up to greet everyone at the pond, I tried to sneeze off the pelt...and my computer crashed on me.

After it restarted, I got Quad back into the Forest, and sure enough, there was a clone of him still there! (I've had this happen in the past, it makes a funny but unintentional event in the Forest)

Anyway, here's some screenshots of all the silliness.











And then he left...


And Quad was sad.