I love the combination of salty and sweet. The layer of salted caramel was definitely needed to balance out the rich chocolate.

Base ingredients

The base ingredients are quite flavour neutral which works really well with this tart as it doesn’t detract from the ‘star performers’ – chocolate and salted caramel.

Pressed into the tart pan

To even out the tart base I used the back of a wet spoon. By wetting the spoon it prevents any of the base sticking to the back of it and ruining all your hard work.

Salted chia caramel

Chia seeds expand when they come into contact with liquid. At first the caramel doesn’t looks as though it is thick enough, don’t be tempted to add more seeds as in time it will thicken.

2nd layer complete

I also evenly spread the caramel layer with the back of a wet spoon.

Chocolate ganache ingredients

For the chocolate ganache, if you don’t have cacao butter you can just use coconut oil. However I strongly recommend using cacao butter as it provides the chocolate with a creaminess. It can be purchased from most health food stores.

Ready to be devoured

This tart will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 4 days and in the freezer for up to 10 days.

Raw chocolate ganache salted caramel tart

Serves 16

Ingredients:

Tart crust

• 2 cups almonds
• 10 fresh dates, pitted
• 1 TBSP water

Salted caramel

• 8 fresh dates, pitted
• 1 cup water
• 2 TBSP chia seeds
• 1 TBSP 100% pure maple syrup
• 1 tsp salt

Chocolate ganache

Tart crust

1. Line and grease a tart pan.
2. Process the almonds and dates in a food processor until crumbly. Add water and process until it comes together
3. Press into the bottom of the lined tart pan and place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Salted caramel

1. Process dates, water, chia seeds, maple syrup and salt until smooth. Set aside for 5 minutes to allow it to slightly thicken.
2. Pour into the frozen tart crust and place back in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Chocolate ganache

1. Process cacao powder, maple syrup, coconut oil and cacao butter until smooth.
2. Spread the ganache on top of the solid salted caramel layer. Place back in the freezer for minimum 1 hour, preferably overnight.
3. To serve, sprinkle salt and place shaved homemade cashew chocolate in the centre. Slice and enjoy!

Note: to easily remove it from the tart pan, take out of the freezer 20 minutes before serving to allow it to slightly defrost. Place a cake tester or skewer in each groove of the tart pan to release it from the sides.

Enjoying the last slice!

Treats such as this tart don’t last long in our house so I definitely enjoyed the last slice with a cup of tea!

Do you like the combination of salty and sweet?

xoxo

Becky

Raw Apple Pie Energy Bites

(Vegan & GF)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups medjool dates, soaked & pitted
• 1 cup dried apple rings
• 1/2 cup raw almonds
• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 1/4 cup whole roasted flax seeds
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Soak your dates in warm water for a couple of minutes. This will aid in the pitting process and make it easier. Once you dates have soaked, drain them and pit them all.
2. Place your pitted dates into a food processor with your apple rings and process on high until they come together.
3. Add in your almonds, cashews, flax seeds and cinnamon. Process on high again for a couple of minutes until a sticky dough like mixture has formed and your nuts and seeds have broken down quite a bit.
4. After everything has come together, you can use your hands to form the dough into balls. I like to make mine about a tablespoon each.
5. Place them in the freezer for an hour or so to allow them to firm up, then enjoy!

After the Mother’s Day rejection, I decided I really needed a revenge fuck. I had an opportunity this week so I took it. I found this one very sexy well-reviewed escort who advertised on a number of ERBs and sites. She looks like a cross between a vampire and a biker chick (OK very similar). Tattoos. Cleopatra eyeliner. Black leather everything. Super sexy badass rocker girl. I was looking forward to having a blast with her.

So I texted her like she asks in her ad. She responded right away and we set up a date for the following night. She’s a funny texter actually. My 40 year-old self had to work really hard to decipher messages like “kk brb GTA hry” (“OK OK. Be right back. Gotta hurry.”). There was a lot of texting back and forth after I had confirmed the time and she was running late getting ready. I should have known then from her very spaztastic texts that the night wasn’t going to go well. But I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I finally got to her apartment and was made to wait a few minutes outside her door while she finished getting ready. When Donna finally opened the door, she was definitely the rocker chick, but I was a little disappointed. Slightly heavier than her pictures—not that big of a deal—but a lot more makeup than I am usually fond of. Her studio apartment was suitable and mostly clean, but she had a couple of small animals running around: a chihuahua and a skinny kitty. Her windows were open because her apartment was quite hot, being on the top floor. But since her building overlooked two freeways, the place was actually fairly loud. She also had the fan going and some loud industrial music. And she was a mumbler which made it really difficult to understand what she was saying most of the time.

I brought some vodka (her choice) so we scrounged around her kitchen for some styrofoam cups and ice. She proceeded to ask me about my taste in music. I said I liked almost everything but not too big into hip-hop. She put on some hip-hop and cranked it up. I don’t think she was doing that to annoy me, but more so that she didn’t really retain much of what I was saying. Throughout the whole evening Donna talked a lot about herself: her depression, eating habits, weight, ass, credit rating, car accidents, ex-boyfriends, johns she refused, escort agencies trying to recruit her, porn companies trying to recruit her, etc. She was quite self-centered and didn’t really ask much about me. Any questions she’d as would be about my opinions about her. Whatever I said she took the wrong way and once accused me of having bruised her ego three times. I did not go there and drop a few hundred to be made to feel bad.

She probably has ADHD and fairly low self-esteem. In fact after the first BBBJ, she was trying to get me hard again, but right in the middle of stroking my cock, as it was getting harder, she got up and dug around her closet for a few minutes for some lube. Obviously whatever progress she made in getting me hard again was lost. Then when she returned with the lube and started stroking me again, she went on a long rant about escort agencies. Needless to say I shrunk again. Then she got up again to look for some perfume or cologne or something for a couple minutes. (I left my wedding ring on, which I always do with escorts so that they know not to leave marks. She should have known better about the scents.) Finally after about 15 minutes of hearing her go on and on about her life, I got her to fuck me, Asian CG. I didn’t last long, mainly because I didn’t want to. She kept riding me though until she came, which was fine.

After that, I put my clothes on and got out of Dodge. So much for my fellow Hobbyists steering me right. Again I do want to say that this is a rarity. Most of the escorts I’ve seen aren’t this crazy and don’t have issues like this.

More semi-horror stories in the next entry, but this one was probably the worst yet, and I’m left unsatisfied.

Related articles

• Review: myRedBook (takechargeblog.wordpress.com)
• Review: The Erotic Review (takechargeblog.wordpress.com)

50g of Snacking Essential dried pitted dates 148 calories

250ml cup of hot Robinsons no added sugar apple and blackcurrant 5 calories

Total = 153 calories

The other big news is from last week and something I hadn’t actually covered, so I’ll catch up now. I have finally been confirmed for my rooms at the Folger. After a month of madness, it is finally, certainly in. This was some incredibly maddening stuff from the get-go; I was going to delete this post when I put it up, but now I don’t want to lost those emails because it’s the sort of thing I know I’ll want to go back to someday. Plus I went through all the trouble of formatting them. So I can read my entire correspondence with the registrar here; the password is “crazy.” That way you can tell if I’m exaggerating the trouble with this guy or not. Anyhow, I’m incredibly excited about my one-bedroom apartment come August. Only 75 days to go!

Actually that’s been it this week. Finally watched Taken 2 with my parents. Been watching stacks of Gordon Ramsay; there’s not a whole lot going on and it’s comfortable to watch him fix other people’s miserable and out of control lives. I want to make a supercut of all his inspiring speeches and listen to it nonstop. Other than that, other than my being angry half the time, it’s been a better week than most lately and May has been gentler than April. Sunday is Episode I and Episode III’s 14th and 8th birthdays, respectively. Now the rest of this post, abruptly, will be about Nicholas II. Thank you, Pinterest.

Nicholas II with Alexei, 1913

Tomorrow is Nicholas II’s birthday, and March 27 was the 400th anniversary of Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov being crowned tsar in 1613 (or 7121 by the ancient Russian calender; fun fact: the Russian calender, which Peter ‘the Great’ forced them to switch out for the Europeanized Julian calender in 1700, was supposed to have been calculated since the creation of the world, or anno mundi. This would suggest that the current year is 7521, but the Jewish calender suggests 5773).

Nicholas II in 1898

Nicholas II would have been 145 years old this year, but the last birthday he observed was 50, in 1918 almost two months to the day before being shot with his family. He expressed surprise in his diary that he had reached that age; his father was 49 when he died. Here’s a picture of him at the age of thirty, in 1898. Of course, he wouldn’t have survived to 145 even if he hadn’t been shot by revolutionaries, but just to think . . . if he had matched the oldest documented woman, Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years old, he would’ve died in 1990! She was a little younger than he was, born in 1875 and dying in 1997. If  he’d lived to 1997, he would’ve been 129. Interestingly, he once described in his diary an encounter with a 130-year-old Russian peasant woman who talked about her memories of Napoleon’s march on Moscow in 1812. So if he’d lived as long as she had, he would’ve died when I was 14! Of course, I wouldn’t have cared who he was because if he’d lived that long, Russia would either be just another constitutional monarchy with a useless kingly figurehead, or he’d just be some Russian emigre living in Canada that I wouldn’t be interested in. I didn’t just pull Canada out at random; there’s evidence that the British government was trying to put together a safe place for the Romanovs to live in Canada — it was Nicholas’ wish to start farming — and his sister Olga died in that country in 1960.

You know my fascination with dates, though. But I’ll get off that topic and share with you something very special I found just in time for the occasion: voice recording of Nicholas II. That’s right! In the recording below, you can hear him saying, “Братцы! Спасибо вам за полный парад! Спасибо, братцы, вам за отличное ученье!”

The parade recorded here (the stills and video are to other occasions) was appropriately for the birthday of the Sovereign; it was of His Imperial Majesty’s separate Grenadier Corps commanded by Lieutenant-General Baron von Eck Eduard Vladimirovich.

0:01-0:04: Lt. Gen. E. V. Eck: “Listen to (inaudible)! Brothers! I drink to the health of our dear Sovereign Leader Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich! Hurrah!”

0:05-1:02: Orchestra plays the national anthem of the Russian Empire.

0:39-0:41: The child here must be Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich.

1:03-1:12: Lt. Gen. E. V. Eck: “To the ceremonial march – rifle on his shoulder! Quick march!”

1:13-1:48: Orchestra plays a Kroup military march, “Homesickness.”

1:49-1:53. Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich: “Brothers! Thank you for the full parade!”

2:08-2:13: Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich: “Thank you, brothers, for a excellent apprenticeship!”

Body pump is a barbell class that sculpts and tones your entire body! It focuses on low weight loads with high repetition movements to help you burn fat, gain strength, and quickly produce lean body muscles.

We are loving this class and if you think it seems like something you’d enjoy too, you should check out this website to see if there is a class taught in your area!

Although 5:30 am is a little too early for our typical big breakfast we still like to at least put something nutritious in our body before our workout. Late Sunday night we were brainstorming what we could make to grab quick in the morning before our first Body Pump class. With a container of dates that needed to be used and inspiration from our favorite food bloggers Kylie from immaeatthat and Emily from the Daily Garnish these were created.

Coconut Date Energy Bites (makes 23 tablespoon sized bites)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of almonds
1 cup of rolled oats
10 dates, pitted
1 tablespoon of hemp seeds
2 tablespoons of ground flax
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 cup of textured vegetable protein (TVP)
8 tablespoons of unsweetened shredded coconut (reserve 2 tablespoons for rolling)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 cup of water

Directions:

1. Pit your dates and chop them into bite sized pieces.
2. Combine all ingredients in blender or food processor, excluding water and 2 tablespoons of shredded coconut. Allow the mixture to blend for a minute or so to break down the ingredients.
3. Once the mixture is slightly dry and crumbly slowly add in 1/4 cup of water and continue to mix or blend together until the mixture becomes sticky and wet.
4. Scoop out tablespoon sized portions and roll them into balls.
5. Roll balls in shredded coconut and place in refrigerator or freezer.

These bites are super easy to make and you can basically substitute any ingredients for ones you have on hand. Any type of nut, peanut butter, or dried fruit would be a great addition to these energy bites. These are perfect to grab on the go and average about 65 calories per bite with almost 2 grams of protein! We usually grab 2-3 bites before our work out! These are definitely a new staple in our house.

A close up shot of these babies, yum!

What is your go-to snack before you workout?

Dairy, on the other hand, for a child who’s favourite foods were cheese and yoghurt is a bit of a nightmare.

I have to say though, after a trip to the supermarket to investigate my options, I was mortified.  I mean, seriously, all the products marketed gluten and/or dairy free are FULL of chemicals, vegetable oils, preservatives and a plethora of other numbers that I don’t even really want to look up.  I mean what are the manufacturers really saying – ‘hey your poor child clearly has a sensitive digestive system, I know let’s take the gluten/dairy out of this product and flood it with crap- I’m sure it will go down wonderfully’.  Keep in mind that most of these products are directly marketed at our kids.

So, I have decided that I simply have to spend even more time in the kitchen than I already do and get creative with my cooking and baking so that I can feed my children the kind of food they deserve, despite their intolerances (bearing in mind that my children could be the fussiest kids ever).

One of my new creations are these delicious vanilla cupcakes that are gluten, dairy and sugar free.  I trawled through the internet and cookbooks looking for such a thing and couldn’t find it, so I have made up my own and am proud to say that not only do I find them absolutely delicious but MY KIDS DO TOO!  And they seriously take about 5 minutes to pull together.  Winning!  So give them a go – they are delicious on their own, but you could add chocolate chips, banana, blueberries, cacoa powder (1/4 cup would be good) – whatever you like really.  You could omit the dates and they are a delicious savoury base for breakfast muffins.

Gluten, Dairy and Sugar Free Vanilla Cupcakes

(serves 18 mini cupcakes)

You will need:

1 ½ cups almond meal

1 teaspoon baking powder (gluten free – from health food stores)

2 organic/free range eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup macadamia, coconut or olive oil

¼ cup milk of your choice (I used almond milk)

½ – 3/4 cup of pitted dates

How to pull it together:

Put all ingredients in your food processor and blitz until well combined (dates in particular).

Spoon into mini cupcake papers and bake in a moderate oven (about 180 degrees) for 12 – 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Careful – they tend to burn easily on the top.

Mini Vanilla Gluten Free, Dairy Free and Sugar Free Cupcakes.

Enjoy!

AGM and regular meeting Sat 25th May at 12 noon- bring a plate!

Byron Writers Festival

Bowraville launch?

Meeting dates

Another date ball? Yes sir. We finished off the batch of  banana bread bites quickly and were anxious for more. If the first recipe intrigued you, I guarantee this bad boy will have your mouth watering. Hope you enjoy!

On to the recipe…

1. In a food processor blend 2C almonds
2. Once blended add in 6 pitted dates, 1/2C raisins, 3/4C unsweetened cacao powder, 3T maple syrup, 3T water, 1T coconut oil & a pinch of himalayan salt – blend until smooth consistency (~1-5minutes dependent on your texture preference)
3. Roll out mini date balls with your hands (roughly the size of a ping pong ball)
4. Dip the bites into raw/unsweetened shredded coconut flakes & set aside

These definitely have more of a dessert twist to them than the banana bread bites, but who says you cant have dessert any time of the day? Like the other recipe I placed the bites in a zip-lock baggie & stuck in the freezer. Perfectly chewy & no thawing required!

Continue reading for ingredient list & original recipe…

Ingredient List for Date Bites:

• 2C raw almonds
• 6 dates
• 1/2C raisins
• Raw/unsweetened shredded coconut flakes
• 3/4C raw unsweetened cacao powder
• 3T maple syrup
• 1T coconut oil
• Himalayan salt to taste

Original recipe is from the one & only Kimberly Snyder. To find more of her recipes click here.

We bonded over angst regarding footwear (Recall my older post about proper footwear). During finals week college student wardrobes go all to hell. (Generous of me to assume it’s “together” the rest of the time.) The worst part is the footwear choices. Some girl can be entirely dressed as if it’s a normal day to be in society but wait, look down, those are slippers on her feet. What is it about big tests that justify this kind of lapse in judgement? I have a personal motto: Dress to impress and you’ll be a success. This applies to music performance, big tests, dates, making first impressions on people. Just try, people! 

Anyways, one day during finals I couldn’t hold it in any longer and brought up my frustration with footwear to my future friend. She agreed, we complained together, and bonded. Funny how complaining about the same things brings us together. Thats a different issue though.

Soon we started hanging out and found that we share a really similar sense of humor, and something about the two of us is easy like an old friend. We both really enjoy witnessing people running with backpacks (Who doesn’t). We both like mashing together songs in our heads. We both have an obsession with wordplay to the point where we are socially awkward with it, but thats okay, because together we can say that stuff, because the other was thinking it anyways. 

It’s really refreshing to be around someone who understands you and just gets who you are. 

I’m feeling really thankful that someone like that is in my life right now. That we can shamelessly make plans for months and even a year in advance knowing we’re going to be friends for a while, because when it works, it just works. 

ad finem

I have nothing deep or philosophical today.  No rants about big companies being bullies, or craziness surrounding the D&D table.  Today I am just tired.  I don’t know if I ever told you, but I switched up my work schedule a while ago, so instead of working 5 8 hour days, I work 4 10 hour days.  I have Wednesdays off, which means Mondays magically get turned into like a Thursday!  However, I do get a bit wiped.  I am also doing a half day project and half day regular job, so most of the time I am driving around to different offices.  It’s good though, opportunities come in all sizes, and this is a great one to be involved with.

Today, I am just going to tell you a really embarrassing story, that if I were not so tired I most likely wouldn’t tell you.  

This morning was like any other morning.  I stayed up a bit later last night then I usually do, so I guess I was a little more tired.  I did all my normal morning things – make coffee, go outside and check the weather (no internets can beat just going outside), make Girl 2′s lunch (same thing pretty much daily – peanut butter and fluff, crusts cut, then cut in half to make rectangles, juice box, fruit snack, fruit roll up and one surprise item).  She came down, get the breakfast, get her dressed, make sure Boy and Girl 2 have made an appearance, then get myself ready.  I was super proud of myself today!  Everything ran better than I could have hoped for; Girl 2 did not fight about anything, Boy ate without getting food on his face or clothing, Girl 2 was downstairs earlier.  I got myself ready and even remembered it was garbage day AND recycle day.  Not only that, but I managed to go inside and get the rest of the recycling to put in the bin!  Who is better than this girl on this day?  I thought no one.

I got to work and after drinking my who knows what number of coffee, I decided to run to the bathroom before a meeting.  I realized at that moment, my underwear was on inside out.  Ok, this isn’t a huge deal, it happens.  So I go ahead and fix myself because I knew if I didn’t I would be thinking about my underwear for the entire meeting.  I left the bathroom feeling accomplished.  

You would think that would be the end of it.  I am an adult woman, with three children, who I manage to get out the door daily, fully dressed.  Next time I had to go to the bathroom, it dawned on me that now they were the right way, but they were backwards.  Really?  Tiredness, my friends.  It makes even normal things, like putting on underwear, the most difficult thing in the world.

I have a date this weekend to see The Great Gatsby with my girl K, maybe Sister, but I know for certain Sister will definitely be over for a Flight of the Conchords marathon on Sunday, even if she misses the movie.  Next weekend is adult D&D group, which I am very much looking forward to playing!  We moved Tricksy DM last weekend, so it will be a new environment we are playing in.  I still have the last session to fill you in on.  I was sort of toying with the idea of doing a blog especially for D&D so this one doesn’t get so convoluted with all the different things.  I don’t know about that yet, but we will see what happens.

Until next time, dear friends, just remember the tags go in the back.

Tuesday, May 21st
Breakfast Club 9.30-10:30am
at MC Training Room

Thursday, May 23rd
Super Tech Day 9.00-12:00pm at SoCo

Wednesday, May 29th
SoCo, MC & KDP Realtor Night with the Cardinals
7pm at Busch Stadium

And, keep an eye out for June:

Tuesday, June 4th
City Tour at 11am
(St. Louis Hills, Southampton, Princeton Heights)

Tuesday, June 4th
City Night with the Cardinals 7pm
at Busch Stadium

Sunday, July 14th- Monday, July 15th
Market Leader Retreat at Lake of the Ozarks

O BOY Fightin’ Words: Stupid Things People Have Said to Me #7! Text reads: “He showed me photos of it even. I was 23. It was my first “Real Date”. I thought that’s how dates went. He was a really cool dude. Right before our second date, his ex girlfriend stabbed him then cut her throat. She lived, but we didn’t go on any more dates.”

We met in a church I was working at. I’d been in a long term relationship for almost four years and hadn’t really dated before. I thought some men just carried 3×4 glossy prints of their peens around with them? I actually felt a bit embarrassed that I didn’t have any photos of my junk (with a line of quarters to show scale) to slap down on the cracked plastic table of the shitty cantina we were at.

Now I feel nostalgic for a time before smartphones and Craigslist dick pics. Physical photos of penises have gone the way of the VHS tape, the girlie magazine, and the hand written letter.

We stayed in touch for awhile. I mean, not literally. We never even made out. Make out with a guy who thinks La Carreta is a ‘great place’? What kinda broad you take me for?

Ingredients:

1 cup almonds (that have been soaked overnight)

2 cups water (you may need to add more depending on how strong you like it)

1 vanilla pod

4 medjool dates (pitted and soaked overnight – you can also use normal dates)

Method:

1) Blend the soaked almonds, dates, vanilla and water together.

2) Strain into a glass bottle

3) Add the leftover vanilla pod skin into the bottle

– ENJOY! — lovely with fresh fruit, granuesli and fresh coffee!!

The leftover almond/vanilla/date pulp = FROOZE BALLS

–> Combine the pulp with 1 mashed banana, more vanilla and a dash of cinnamon. Roll into small balls and freeze on a tray! Delicious, nutritious, healthy bites to fight the sweet tooth cravings!

Find out if you have any organic farms in your town and shop there for all your healthy ingredients! This is a salad with Quinoa, Radish, Tomato, Spinach, Dates and a sauce of Lemon, Vinegar and Honey! You don’t really need a recipe for this meal. Just follow the instructions on the Quinoa bag and just fill your salad with as much of the ingredients as you like! For the sauce: just mix one spoon of Honey with a tablespoon of Vinegar and a couple drops of Lemon! Enjoy!

Here is a list of my favorite organic shops/farms in the Schoorl – Area:

De Lepelaar: This is my absolute favorite organic farm shop because it has a big variety of food and is very well priced. Not as expensive as the reform shops.

De Noorderhoeve: A great little farm shop for organic dairy products. Its not cheap, but you will get the best butter and yogurt there is in the area.

KAPOW!!!!

Is literally how i feel after just sampling my new smoothie creation. To be very honest the first attempt was pretty disgusting. Not the purple dream i’d envisioned. But in the true spirit of Leith, I persevered and oh boy is this the best way to start your day. I feel positive, motivated, invigorated and powerful.

Get this in your diet.

(Make 4 large glasses, Gluten free, Raw, Vegan- if you omit the Bee Pollen)
Theres a lot going in here, so you can easily adjust to suit your fridge/ pantry. I would advise keeping the beetroot, carrot, cabbage, spinach base though and working from there.

• stalks and leaves of 2 raw Beetroot, washed and chopped
• 1 Carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 leaf of Red Cabbage
• 2 yellow courgettes (the left over bits from juillienning)
• 1 1/2 Apples, chopped
• 2 handfuls of Spinach, washed
• 1 2inch slice of fresh Pineapple, chopped
• 2 tablespoons of frozen Red Berries
• tablespoon of Goji Berries
• 2 dried Figs
• 1 handful of pitted Dates
• 1 teaspoon of Maca
• 1 teaspoon of Chorella
• 4 cups of Water

1. Put the beetroot, carrot and cabbage in a few cups of water to soak overnight, then transfer this to a blender/ smoothie machine
2. Add the remaining ingredients plus 2 additional cups of water and blend until smooth
3. You can can more water at this stage if its still too thick for your liking
4. Serve with a sprinkle of Bee Pollen (optional)

This smoothie will absolutely set you up for the day. I take a bottle with me for post- gym fuel and it sees me right until dinner time. Full of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, fibre- everything good!