me and it’s just not worth it.

She probably wouldn’t let me back at the dog

park if I didn’t listen to her. I just love the dog park.

She's asked the question so many times that she barely listened to the answers
anymore. The answers were always the same. Well, not exactly the same, but
the same in a general sense. A more accurate description was the answers
never surprised her. So, she asked for the 10,000th time, "What's your favorite
animal?" But this time was different. When she heard the young boy's answer,
she wondered if she had heard him correctly.

It wasn't quite yet time to panic. There was still time to salvage the situation.
At least that is what she was telling himself. The reality was that it was time to
panic and there wasn't time to salvage the situation, but he continued to
delude himself into believing there was.

The shades were closed keeping the room dark. Peter knew that he should
open them and let in the sunlight so he could begin the day, but he didn't have
the energy or willpower. Nothing had gone as expected the day before and he
no longer wanted to spend the energy to begin a new day. He stared at the
shades wondering if there was a way to disappear from the reality of the world
for the rest of the day.

The bridge spanning a 100-foot gully stood in front of him as the last obstacle
blocking him from reaching his destination. While people may have called it a
"bridge", the reality was it was nothing more than splintered wooden planks
held together by rotting ropes. It was questionable whether it would hold the
weight of a child, let alone the weight of a grown man. The problem was there
was no other way across the gully, and this played into his calculations of
whether or not it was worth the risk of trying to cross it.
There are different types of secrets. She had held onto plenty of them during
her life, but this one was different. She found herself holding onto the worst
type. It was the type of secret that could gnaw away at your insides if you
didn't tell someone about it, but it could end up getting you killed if you did.

The choice was red, green, or blue. It didn't seem like an important choice
when he was making it, but it was a choice nonetheless. Had he known the
consequences at that time, he would likely have considered the choice a bit
longer. In the end, he didn't and ended up choosing blue.

Colors bounced around in her head. They mixed and threaded themselves
together. Even colors that had no business being together. They were all one,
yet distinctly separate at the same time. How was she going to explain this to
the others?

There wasn't a bird in the sky, but that was not what caught her attention. It
was the clouds. The deep green that isn't the color of clouds, but came with
these. She knew what was coming and she hoped she was prepared.

I recently discovered I could make fudge with just chocolate chips, sweetened
condensed milk, vanilla extract, and a thick pot on slow heat. I tried it with
dark chocolate chunks and I tried it with semi-sweet chocolate chips. It's better
with both kinds. It comes out pretty bad with just the dark chocolate. The best
add-ins are crushed almonds and marshmallows -- what you get from that is
Rocky Road. It takes about twenty minutes from start to fridge, and then it
takes about six months to work off the twenty pounds you gain from eating it.
All things in moderation, friends. All things in moderation.

What were the chances? It would have to be a lot more than 100 to 1. It was
likely even more than 1,000 to 1. The more he thought about it, the odds of it