Heirs of the Magi News Flash!

***Heirs of the Magi News Flash!*** Winter has, for the most part, been mild so far - or awesome for the month that Cassie and Michael spent in summertime-Australia! They are home now and will be working from home for most of the time until Easter. The hometown work will include getting ready for their next trip, but there will be a lot of fun to get in on and share with their favorite people - including their March Break trip to Florida adventure. All of your favorite Magi Masters will continue to work and play while their future plans unfold; so... ...Visit Witch Falls often to keep up with all of their latest stories; and Happy Reading!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Cassie's Journal - March 23, 2013



This has been one of those very strange days.

Having Dad home again always makes Tai Chi more fun; and that made for a great start to the day.  Doing the full country breakfast was good too, and Mom went over the work assignments with us while we ate.  For me, after helping Rowen to get her things back home where she was going to be helping her Mom; job one was to go with Dad and Aunt Leanne over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to get it ready for their return home tomorrow.  We couldn’t do much of the outdoor work that Dad would have liked to get done if the weather had been nicer, but we did a quick once-through of dusting, vacuuming, cleaning, and bed-making.  That only took us a bit over an hour to get done, and then Dad and I went home again to work there while Aunt Leanne went grocery shopping.

Alicia wasn’t working with Mom today because she and Erin were babysitting tonight instead.  Violet had been helping Mom while we were gone, but shortly after we got back, she went to spend a little time with Dillon before he’d be working at the Inn.  Getting ready for incoming kids tonight was my next assignment; and the babysitting had morphed into another big sleepover event.  I needed to get the extra beds in Ethan’s and Ehlana’s rooms ready for Aiden and Naomi; two second-floor guest rooms ready for the guys; and the two extra bedrooms on the third floor set-up for the girls.  Add in three bathrooms to clean, and that kept me busy through until we stopped to have a late lunch at a bit after one.

Cue up strange moment of the day number one.

Mom took me shopping at Palmer’s and Taylor Shoes.  It was not a coincidence that Rowen and her Mom just happened to be available to go along.  While getting new dresses and shoes for Easter was the advertised reason for the little mother and daughter outing, the weird came when Rowen and I found out that our Moms had decided that we also needed to shop for our first ‘real’ bras.

Rowen was thrilled about reaching that little development milestone; I wasn’t nearly as excited; and we were both a little shy about going through the fitting process with Abby for the first time.  Choosing a new underwear wardrobe continued the weird for me, but I am really, really, glad that Aunt Leanne was not along to offer her advice.  That would have likely escalated the weird to ultra-scary!  Even without her there, I was having a little trouble dealing with the transition from plain and simple to lacey or satiny bra and panty sets that made me look and feel a lot different – and emotionally uncomfortable.

We’d needed to do that first before shopping for dresses, and while that wasn’t nearly as weird as the bra and underwear shopping had been, I was nearly as uncomfortable to discover that we were apparently ready for the next level in dresses too.  I love dressing up and looking my best as much as the next girl, but looking in the mirror and seeing the same ‘wow’ factor that I see in Mom or Aunt Leanne when they’re dressed up, if not quite to that level yet, was high on the weird scale too.

I didn’t feel that way at all about seeing Rowen in the dresses she picked out, and while Tommy does have a girlfriend, if he – and every other guy our age – doesn’t notice her next weekend in a big way; then he seriously needs to get his eyes tested.  Mom and Patricia seemed to find the entire visit with Abby entertaining, and the fact that Rowen and I were practically the opposites of our usual selves may have had a lot to do with why they seemed to be amused so much of the time.  Between the four of us, we picked out a total of eleven new dresses, and Abby was a happy camper by the time we paid for everything and moved on to Taylor’s to pick up new shoes to go with the dresses.  That wasn’t as weird for me, though Rowen and I moved up a level or two with our choices of dress shoes too; and the new footwear definitely matches our dresses.

After splitting up and going home, I was only at the house long enough to put my new clothes away before going over to Rowen’s to help her pack again for our second sleepover in a row – and the last one of our March Break.  it had been raining off and on by then, so we waited for a break to make the dash back to my house; and we were there in time to take over watching Ethan and Ehlana while Mom and Dad got ready for their date night with Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, Uncle Nick, Aunt Deborah, and quite a few of their collective friends.

The next couple of hours were fairly standard for our end of a parents’ date night.  Alicia and Erin came over in time to handle the kid incoming.  Philip brought Naomi over first, and over the next half hour, Aiden, Patrick, Scott, and Lindsay were dropped off by one or both parents.  Aunt Leanne was a designated driver, but Mom and Dad went to pick them up so she’d have the extra seating in the minivan for driving their friends home from Sheldon’s whenever the party started wrapping up for the night.  Violet was staying to help Alicia and Erin with our pizza-making dinner party, but then she was going to be staying overnight at Dillon’s house; and planned on hanging out with him, Jake, and Stephanie at the Inn while they finished up their work for the night.

Making our personal pizzas was fun, even with some goofing around by Patrick and Scott; and we made it through dinner and the clean-up without any major problems.  The second round of weird didn’t start until the rest of our overnight guests arrived.  Miranda and Jacob were two of the winners of a kid-free night, and they dropped Rebecca, Michael, and Tim off on their way home from the Inn before getting ready to meet up with everyone else at Sheldon’s.

There really isn’t an easy way for me to write this, so I’ll just say that my old training bras were, well, holding things in closer to my chest than the new bras do.  I didn’t need to sense anything empathically to know that Michael noticed the change.  I should add that Rowen’s dealing with a similar change, and that Michael wasn’t the only guy in the house to notice both of us.  The really weird part of that, at least when Michael and Tim first got here, was that I was trying to be my normal, fired-up self; and Rowen was back to being even a bit more shy than usual.

The lounge and my room was kid central.  Patrick and Scott had already taken over the lounge to play video games; and they dragged Michael and Tim into doing that with them for a while.  Rebecca was again helping Alicia and Erin as an unofficial junior babysitter; and we all played with Lindsay and the four younger kids.  That included some music time, and Michael joined us for a while; playing my saxophone while I played my keyboard with some rotating help from Lindsay, Naomi, and Ehlana.

Alicia and Erin had Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden tucked in and possibly off to sleep by nine-thirty.  They cut Patrick and Scott off from their gaming at ten-thirty; and didn’t really have them in their second-floor room for the night at eleven.  Lindsay had fallen asleep before then; and they’d moved her into the bedroom across the hall from the lounge.  The top weirdness of my day started shortly after eleven when Alicia, Erin, and Rebecca all decided to go downstairs to watch a movie in the living room; leaving Michael, Tim, Rowen, and me on our own in the lounge.

I don’t really want to know what they were laughing about as they went downstairs, but I can probably guess.

So there we were, just a couple of hours ago, just hanging out in the lounge.  My emotions were already all out of whack from our afternoon shopping adventure, and I was far too acutely aware of how my new underwear felt under my soft, cashmere sweater and jeans without having to think about how Michael was feeling about me too.  Three out of four of us voted to watch a movie, and I voted to be scared.  Why?  Because I’ve been having fun while feeling really uncomfortable too.

And before you think it; no, I am not crossing over!

We picked an action-comedy; Michael and Tim added bonus entertainment when they needed to deal with Patrick and Scott trying to spy on us and attempt a few pranks; and while we haven’t really spent time together like we were doing tonight, I’m sure that Michael and Tim had as much fun as Rowen and I did.  The uncomfortable side of that couple of hours came from the fact that we were in my lounge, and, except for the interruptions from Patrick and Scott, mostly alone with guys that both have girlfriends.  We weren’t doing anything to really feel uncomfortable about, but I was in the tweeird zone for sure anyway.  Add in the ongoing issue I was having with my reaction to wearing the new underwear, and I had to keep resisting the urge to move as far away from Michael or Tim as possible and still watch the movie – not that we were cuddling on the sofa or anything like that either.

No, Rowen, I do not wish that I was cuddling with Michael now even though we are still warming up from being outside – and that’s not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is.  Okay, maybe it is that funny, but I am not laughing.

Going outside was Michael’s idea, and Alicia and Erin gave us their blessing when we told them we wanted to shovel the driveway and sidewalks before Mom and Dad got home from the pub.  That seemed like a great idea, and we had a blast doing the work together right up until the time that Aunt Leanne pulled the minivan into the driveway – and caught us in the middle of a post-shoveling snowball fight.  I’m beginning to wonder if she recruited Mother Nature for her matchmaking too, since their timing getting home couldn’t have been worse for me or better for them from an entertainment perspective.

That’s right; Cassie Proctor was involved in another snow incident with Michael.  Nobody cared that Michael had slipped and fallen while dodging a snowball that I hadn’t even thrown at him, or that I’d only landed on him because he’d pulled me off of my feet when I tried to help him up.  That was bad enough; the teasing was worse; and I don’t even want to think about how that new, lacey underwear was making me feel while I was lying there despite the fact that Michael and I were both bundled up in our winter coats, gloves, and hats.

There hadn’t been a lot of snow, and it hadn’t taken long to clear the driveway and sidewalks.  The fact that it was late kept Aunt Leanne from teasing me too much about catching Michael and me in the snow, but she had a little time for a few zingers while she waited to give Alicia and Erin a ride to Alicia’s house, and Dad, Michael, and Tim went with Uncle Adam to his place to get their driveway and sidewalks cleared.

It was heading toward two o’clock by the time we were all inside again.  Mom and Dad went straight to bed then, and so did Rebecca, but my best friend in the whole world decided that she hadn’t had enough fun yet; and suggested that we – and Michael and Tim – should warm up with cups of hot chocolate first before splitting up and going to bed.  Add in Olde Bakery snacks, and that was a recipe for another half hour or so of tweeirdtainment – at least from my perspective.  Going up the back stairs after that reminded me way too much of stories from Dad and Aunt Leanne from when they were teens; and I’m not going to comment on why Rowen was grinning the way she was when we said goodnight to Michael and Tim on the second floor before continuing on up to my room.

Okay, I have two comments about that:

          1. He has a girlfriend.
          2. I am not crossing over!!!

Moving on, but not really; getting changed and ready for bed felt weird tonight too.  That was definitely a combination of the new underwear, and the fact that Michael and Tim were literally just a handful of feet away while we were getting changed – even though they were below us and there was a solid floor and ceiling between us.  Having scenes involving Superman-like x-ray vision playing in my mind did not help.

I’m going to need to not dream about bunnies and puppies tonight - soft, cute, and cuddly bunnies and puppies.

So we haven’t really been in bed that long; and I’ve been working on this most of the time while Rowen’s been having fun teasing me.  Though we’re alone, and all is quiet in the house; the tweeird continues for me.  Now it’s the absence of that new lacey bra that feels strange; along with the inescapable realization that I really liked the way it feels to wear a real bra – even with all of the emotional turbulence I’ve had today.

Rowen Emerson, that is so wrong!  Here are two more comments for you:

1. You should not be messing up a perfectly good dream-catching technique by telling me that Michael might be dreaming about auburn-haired Playboy bunnies with emerald-green eyes.

2. I AM NOT CROSSING OVER!

With that said, I’m going to wrap this up, snuggle with Mandy, and possibly stare at the ceiling for however long it takes to pass out for a couple of hours.

Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging out!