Quarter Century

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what
they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten,
and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and
three, and two, and one…

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion
or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden
dolls that fit one inside the other,

each year inside the next
one.

—Sandra Cisneros

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Always Be Here

Chocolate, Cherry, and Cacao Butter Cake | La Pêche Fraîche

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing.
You don’t have to do anything to earn it.
Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success—none of that matters.
No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

Ram Dass

Chocolate, Cherry, and Cacao Butter Cake | La Pêche Fraîche

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You Were Together

“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map.
It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together.
Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”

Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

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Santa’s Workshop

“This place reminds me of Santa’s Workshop! Except it smells like mushrooms and everyone looks like they want to hurt me.”

—Buddy the Elf

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Carry Down A Present

Then their father Israel said unto them,
“If it must be so, do this: take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present—some balm and some honey, gum, laudanum, pistachio nuts, and almonds…”

Gen. 43

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