Tag Archive

KDE, Kubuntu, Debian Qt6 updates plus Kubuntu Noble .1 updates.

Posted on August 12, 2024 by sgmoore

Another loss last week of a friend. I am staying strong and working through it. A big thank you to all of you that have donated to my car fund, I still have a long way to go. I am not above getting a cheap old car, but we live in sand dunes so it must be a cheap old car with 4×4 to get to my property. A vehicle is necessary as we are 50 miles away from staples such as food and water. We also have 2 funerals to attend. Please consider a donation if my work is useful to you. https://gofund.me/1e784e74 All of my work is currently unpaid work, as I am between contracts. Thank you for your consideration. Now onto the good stuff, last weeks work. It was another very busy week with Qt6 packaging in Debian/Kubuntu and KDE snaps. I also have many SRUs for Kubuntu Noble .1 release that needs their verification done.

Kubuntu:

Debian:

Starting the salvage process for kdsoap which is blocking a long line of packages, notably kio-extras.

  • qtmpv – in NEW
  • arianna – in NEW
  • xwaylandvideobridge – NEW
  • futuresql – NEW
  • kpat WIP – failing tests
  • kdegraphics-thumbnailers (WIP)
  • khelpcenter – experimental
  • kde-inotify-survey – experimental
  • ffmpegthumbs – experimental
  • kdialog – experimental
  • kwalletmanager – experimental
  • libkdegames – pushed some fixes – experimental
  • Tokodon – Done, but needs qtmpv to pass NEW
  • Gwenview – WIP needs – kio-extras (blocked)

KDE Snaps:

Please note: Please help test the –edge snaps so I can promote them to stable.

WIP Snaps or MR’s made

  • Kirigami-gallery ( building )
  • Kiriki (building)
  • Kiten (building)
  • kjournald (Building)
  • Kdevelop (WIP)
  • Kdenlive (building)
  • KHangman (WIP)
  • Kubrick (WIP)
  • Palapeli (Manual review in store dbus)
  • Kanagram (WIP)
  • Labplot (WIP)
  • Kjumpingcube (MR)
  • Klettres (MR)
  • Kajongg –edge (Broken, problem with pyqt)
  • Dragon –edge ( Broken, dbus fails)
  • Ghostwriter –edge ( Broken, need to workout Qt webengine obscure way of handling hunspell dictionaries.)
  • Kasts –edge ( Broken, portal failure, testing some plugs)
  • Kbackup –edge ( Needs auto-connect udisks2, added home plug)
  • Kdebugsettings –edge ( Added missing personal-files plug, will need approval)
  • KDiamond –edge ( sound issues )
  • Angelfish –edge https://snapcraft.io/angelfish ( Crashes on first run, but runs fine after that.. looking into it)
  • Qrca –edge ( needs snap connect qrca:camera camera until auto-connect approved, will remain in –edge until official release)

Thanks for stopping by.

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KDE, Kubuntu, Debian: Weekly progress report Qt6 updates.

Posted on August 4, 2024 by sgmoore

Thankfully no tragedies to report this week! I thank each and everyone of you that has donated to my car fund. I still have a ways to go and could use some more help so that we can go to the funeral. https://gofund.me/033eb25d I am between contracts and work packages, so all of my work is currently for free. Thanks for your consideration.

Another very busy week getting qt6 updates in Debian, Kubuntu, and KDE snaps.

Kubuntu:

  • Merkuro and Neochat SRUs have made progress.
  • See Debian for the qt6 Plasma / applications work.

Debian:

  • qtmpv – in NEW
  • arianna – in NEW
  • kamera – experimental
  • libkdegames – experimental
  • kdenetwork-filesharing – experimental
  • xwaylandvideobridge – NEW
  • futuresql – NEW
  • kpat WIP
  • Tokodon – Done, but needs qtmpv to pass NEW
  • Gwenview – WIP needs kamera, kio-extras
  • kio-extras – Blocked on kdsoap in which the maintainer is not responding to bug reports or emails. Will likely fork in Kubuntu as our freeze quickly approaches.

KDE Snaps:

Updated QT to 6.7.2 which required a rebuild of all our snaps. Also found an issue with mismatched ffmpeg libraries, we have to bundle them for now until versioning issues are resolved.

Made new theme snaps for KDE breeze: gtk-theme-breeze, icon-theme-breeze so if you use the plasma theme breeze please install these and run

for PLUG in $(snap connections | grep gtk-common-themes:icon-themes | awk '{print $2}'); do sudo snap connect ${PLUG} icon-theme-breeze:icon-themes; done
for PLUG in $(snap connections | grep gtk-common-themes:gtk-3-themes | awk '{print $2}'); do sudo snap connect ${PLUG} gtk-theme-breeze:gtk-3-themes; done
for PLUG in $(snap connections | grep gtk-common-themes:gtk-2-themes | awk '{print $2}'); do sudo snap connect ${PLUG} gtk-theme-breeze:gtk-2-themes; done

This should resolve most theming issues. We are still waiting for kdeglobals to be merged in snapd to fix colorscheme issues, it is set for next release. I am still working on qt6 themes and working out how to implement them in snaps as they are more complex than gtk themes with shared libraries and file structures.

Please note: Please help test the –edge snaps so I can promote them to stable.

WIP Snaps or MR’s made

  • Juk (WIP)
  • Kajongg (WIP problem with pyqt)
  • Kalgebra (in store review)
  • Kdevelop (WIP)
  • Kdenlive (MR)
  • KHangman (WIP)
  • Ruqola (WIP)
  • Picmi (building)
  • Kubrick (WIP)
  • lskat (building)
  • Palapeli (MR)
  • Kanagram (WIP)
  • Labplot (WIP)
  • Ktuberling (building)
  • Ksudoku (building)
  • Ksquares (MR)

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KDE Snaps, Kubuntu, Debian updates and “Oh no, not again..”

Posted on July 28, 2024 by sgmoore

This week our family suffered another loss with my brother in-law. We will miss him dearly. On our way down to Phoenix to console our nephew that just lost his dad our car blew up. Last week we were in a roll over accident that totaled our truck and left me with a broken arm. We are now in great need of a new vehicle. Please consider donating to this fund: https://gofund.me/033eb25d . Kubuntu is out of money and I am between work packages with the ‘project’. We are 50 miles away from the closest town for supplies, essentials such as water requires a vehicle.

I have had bad years before ( covid ) in which I lost my beloved job at Blue Systems. I made a vow to myself to never let my personal life affect my work again. I have so far kept that promise to myself and without further ado I present to you my work.

Kubuntu:

  • Many SRUs awaiting verification stage including the massive apparmor policy bug.
  • sddm fix for the black screen on second boot has passed verification and should make .1 release.
  • See Debian for the qt6 Plasma / applications work.

Debian:

  • qtmpv – in NEW
  • arianna – in NEW
  • kamera – uploading today
  • kcharselect – Experimental
  • Tokodon – Done, but needs qtmpv to pass NEW
  • Gwenview – WIP needs kamera, kio-extras
  • kio-extras – WIP

KDE Snaps:

Please note: for the most part the Qt6 snaps are in –edge except the few in the ‘project’ that are heavily tested. Please help test the –edge snaps so I can promote them.

  • Elisa
  • Okular
  • Konsole ( please note this is a confined terminal for the ‘project’ and not very useful except to ssh to the host system )
  • Kwrite
  • Gwenview
  • Kate ( –classic )
  • Gcompris
  • Alligator
  • Ark
  • Blinken
  • Bomber
  • Bovo
  • Calindori
  • Digikam
  • Dragon
  • Falkon
  • Filelight

WIP Snaps or MR’s made

  • KSpacedual
  • Ksquares
  • KSudoku
  • KTuberling
  • Kubrick
  • lskat
  • Palapeli
  • Kajongg
  • Kalzium
  • Kanagram
  • Kapman
  • Katomic
  • KBlackBox
  • KBlocks
  • KBounce
  • KBreakOut
  • KBruch

Please note that 95% of the snaps are free-time work. The project covers 5. I am going as fast as I can between Kubuntu/Debian and the project commitments. Not to mention I have only one arm! My GSOC student is also helping which you can read all about here: https://soumyadghosh.github.io/website/interns/gsoc-2024/gsoc-week-3-week-7/

There is still much work to do in Kubuntu to be Plasma 6 ready for Oracular and they are out of funds. I will still continue my work regardless, but please consider donating until we can procure a consistent flow of funding : https://kubuntu.org/donate/

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day!

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Kubuntu, KDE, Debian: I am still here, in loving memory of my brother.

Posted on June 5, 2024 by sgmoore

I am still here, busy as ever, I just haven’t found the inspiration to blog. So soon after the loss of my son, I have lost my only brother a couple weeks ago. It has been a tough year for our family. Thank you everyone for you love and support during this difficult time. I will do my best in re-capping my work, there has been quite a bit as I am “keeping busy with work” so I don’t dwell to much on the sadness.

KDE Snaps:

Trying to debug the unable to save files breakage in the latest Krita builds without luck.

KisOpenGLCanvas
Renderer::reportFailedShaderCompilation\[0m: Shad
er Compilation Failure:  "Failed to add vertex sh
ader source from file: matrix_transform.vert - Ca
use: "

I have implemented everything from https://snapcraft.io/docs/gpu-support , it has worked for years and now suddenly it just stopped. I have had to put it on hold for now, it is unpaid work and I simply don’t have time.

With the help of my GSOC student we are improving the Qt6 snap MR: https://invent.kde.org/neon/snap-packaging/kde-qt6-core-sdk/-/merge_requests/3 and many improvements on top of that. This exposed many issues with the kf6 snap and the linking to static libs. Those are being worked on now.

Updated qt to 6.7.1

Qt6 apps in the works: okular, ark, gwenview, kwrited, elisa

Kubuntu:

So many SRu’s for the Noble release, I will probably miss a few.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ark/+bug/2068491 Ark cannot open 7-zip files. Sadly the patches were for qt6, waiting for a qt5 port upstream.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/noble/+source/merkuro/+bug/2065063 Crash due to missing qml. Fix is in git, no upload rights. Requested sponsor.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tellico/+bug/2065915 Several applications no longer work on architectures that are not amd64 due to hard coded paths. All fixed in git. Several uploaded to oracular, several sponsorship has been requested. Noble updates rejected despite SRU, going to retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sddm/+bug/2066275 The dreaded black screen on second boot bug is fixed in git and oracular. Noble was rejected despite the SRU. Will retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kubuntu-meta/+bug/2066028 Broken systray submenus. Fixed in git and oracular. Noble rejected despite SRU. Will retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plasma-workspace/+bug/2067747 Long standing bug with plasma not loading with lightdm. Fixed in git and oracular. Noble rejected… will retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plasma-workspace/+bug/2067742 CVE-2024-36041Fixed in git and oracular, noble rejected, will retry.

And many more…

I am applying for MOTU in hopes it will reduce all of my uploading issues. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/scarlettmoore/MOTUApplication

Debian:

kf6-knotifications and kapidox. Will jump into Plasma 6 next week !

Misc:

Went to LinuxFest Northwest with Valorie! We had a great time and it was a huge success, we had many people stop by our booth.

As usual, if you like my work and want to see Plasma 6 in Kubuntu it all depends on you!

Kubuntu will be out of funds soon and needs donations! Thank you for your consideration.

https://kubuntu.org/donate/

Personal:

Support for my grandson: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-william-billy-dean-scalf

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Kubuntu: Noble Numbat Beta available! Qt6 snaps coming soon.

Posted on April 12, 2024 by sgmoore

It has been a very busy couple of weeks as we worked against some major transitions and a security fix that required a rebuild of the $world. I am happy to report that against all odds we have a beta release! You can read all about it here: https://kubuntu.org/news/kubuntu-24-04-beta-released/ Post beta freeze I have already begun pushing our fixes for known issues today. A big one being our new branding! Very exciting times in the Kubuntu world.

In the snap world I will be using my free time to start knocking out KDE applications ( not covered by the project ). I have also recruited some help, so you should start seeing these pop up in the edge channel very soon!

Now that we are nearing the release of Noble Numbat, my contract is coming to an end with Kubuntu. If you would like to see Plasma 6 in the next release and in a PPA for Noble, please consider donating to extend my contract at https://kubuntu.org/donate !

On a personal level, I am still looking to help with my grandson and you can find that here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-william-billy-dean-scalf

Thanks for stopping by,

Scarlett

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Kubuntu, KDE Report. In Loving Memory of my Son.

Posted on March 28, 2024 by sgmoore

Billy and Mason

Personal:

As many of you know, I lost my beloved son March 9th. This has hit me really hard, but I am staying strong and holding on to all the wonderful memories I have. He grew up to be an amazing man, devoted christian and wonderful father. He was loved by everyone who knew him and will be truly missed by us all. I have had folks ask me how they can help. He left behind his 7 year old son Mason. Mason was Billy’s world and I would like to make sure Mason is taken care of. I have set up a gofundme for Mason and all proceeds will go to the future care of him.

https://gofund.me/25dbff0c

Work report

Kubuntu:

Bug bashing! I am triaging allthebugs for Plasma which can be seen here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/plasma-5.27/+bug/2053125

I am happy to report many of the remaining bugs have been fixed in the latest bug fix release 5.27.11.

I prepared https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/5/5.27.11/ and Rik uploaded to archive, thank you. Unfortunately, this and several other key fixes are stuck in transition do to the time_t64 transition, which you can read about here: https://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/64bit-time . It is the biggest transition in Debian/Ubuntu history and it couldn’t come at a worst time. We are aware our ISO installer is currently broken, calamares is one of those things stuck in this transition. There is a workaround in the comments of the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/calamares/+bug/2054795

Fixed an issue with plasma-welcome.

Found the fix for emojis and Aaron has kindly moved this forward with the fontconfig maintainer. Thanks!

I have received an https://kfocus.org/spec/spec-ir14.html laptop and it is truly a great machine and is now my daily driver. A big thank you to the Kfocus team! I can’t wait to show it off at https://linuxfestnorthwest.org/.

KDE Snaps:

You will see the activity in this ramp back up as the KDEneon Core project is finally a go! I will participate in the project with part time status and get everyone in the Enokia team up to speed with my snap knowledge, help prepare the qt6/kf6 transition, package plasma, and most importantly I will focus on documentation for future contributors.

I have created the ( now split ) qt6 with KDE patchset support and KDE frameworks 6 SDK and runtime snaps. I have made the kde-neon-6 extension and the PR is in: https://github.com/canonical/snapcraft/pull/4698 . Future work on the extension will include multiple versions track support and core24 support.

I have successfully created our first qt6/kf6 snap ark. They will show showing up in the store once all the required bits have been merged and published.

Thank you for stopping by.

~Scarlett

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Kubuntu: Week 4, Feature Freeze and what comes next.

Posted on March 1, 2024 by sgmoore

First I would like to give a big congratulations to KDE for a superb KDE 6 mega release 🙂 While we couldn’t go with 6 on our upcoming LTS release, I do recommend KDE neon if you want to give it a try! I want to say it again, I firmly stand by the Kubuntu Council in the decision to stay with the rock solid Plasma 5 for the 24.04 LTS release. The timing was just to close to feature freeze and the last time we went with the shiny new stuff on an LTS release, it was a nightmare ( KDE 4 anyone? ). So without further ado, my weekly wrap-up.

Kubuntu:

Continuing efforts from last week Kubuntu: Week 3 wrap up, Contest! KDE snaps, Debian uploads. , it has been another wild and crazy week getting everything in before feature freeze yesterday. We will still be uploading the upcoming Plasma 5.27.11 as it is a bug fix release 🙂 and right now it is all about the finding and fixing bugs! Aside from many uploads my accomplishments this week are:

  • Kept a close eye on Excuses and fixed tests as needed. Seems riscv64 tests were turned off by default which broke several of our builds.
  • I did a complete revamp of our seed / kubuntu-desktop meta package! I have ensured we are following KDE packaging recommendations. Unfortunately, we cannot ship maliit-keyboard as we get hit by LP 2039721 which makes for an unpleasant experience.
  • I did some more work on our custom plasma-welcome which now just needs some branding, which leads to a friendly reminder the contest is still open! https://kubuntu.org/news/kubuntu-graphic-design-contest/
  • Bug triage! Oh so many bugs! From back when I worked on Kubuntu 10 years ago and plasma5 was new.. I am triaging and reducing this list to more recent bugs ( which is a much smaller list ). This reaffirms our decision to go with a rock solid stable Plasma5 for this LTS release.
  • I spent some time debugging kio-gdrive which no longer works ( It works in Jammy ) so I am tracking down what is broken. I thought it was 2FA but my non 2FA doesn’t work either, it just repeatedly throws up the google auth dialog. So this is still a WIP. It was suggested to me to disable online accounts all together, but I would prefer to give users the full experience.
  • Fixed our ISO builds. We are still not quite ready for testers as we have some Calamares fixes in the pipeline. Be on the lookout for a call for testers soon 🙂
  • Wrote a script to update our ( Kubuntu ) packageset to cover all the new packages accumulated over the years and remove packages that are defunct / removed.

What comes next? Testing, testing, testing! Bug fixes and of course our re-branding. My focus is on bug triage right now. I am also working on new projects in launchpad to easily track our bugs as right now they are all over the place and hard to track down.

Snaps:

I have started the MRs to fix our latest 23.08.5 snaps, I hope to get these finished in the next week or so. I have also been speaking to a prospective student with some GSOC ideas that I really like and will mentor, hopefully we are not too late.

Happy with my work? My continued employment depends on you! Please consider a donation http://kubuntu.org/donate

Thank you!

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Kubuntu: Week 3 wrap up, Contest! KDE snaps, Debian uploads.

Posted on February 23, 2024 by sgmoore

Witch Wells AZ Sunset
Witch Wells AZ Sunset
Witch Wells AZ Sunset

It has been a very busy 3 weeks here in Kubuntu!

Kubuntu 22.04.4 LTS has been released and can be downloaded from here: https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/

Work done for the upcoming 24.04 LTS release:

  • Frameworks 5.115 is in proposed waiting for the Qt transition to complete.
  • Debian merges for Plasma 5.27.10 are done, and I have confirmed there will be another bugfix release on March 6th.
  • Applications 23.08.5 is being worked on right now.
  • Added support for riscv64 hardware.
  • Bug triaging and several fixes!
  • I am working on Kubuntu branded Plasma-Welcome, Orca support and much more!
  • Aaron and the Kfocus team has been doing some amazing work getting Calamares perfected for release! Thank you!
  • Rick has been working hard on revamping kubuntu.org, stay tuned! Thank you!
  • I have added several more apparmor profiles for packages affected by https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kgeotag/+bug/2046844
  • I have aligned our meta package to adhere to https://community.kde.org/Distributions/Packaging_Recommendations and will continue to apply the rest of the fixes suggested there. Thanks for the tip Nate!

We have a branding contest! Please do enter, there are some exciting prizes https://kubuntu.org/news/kubuntu-graphic-design-contest/

Debian:

I have uploaded to NEW the following packages:

  • kde-inotify-survey
  • plank-player
  • aura-browser

I am currently working on:

  • alligator
  • xwaylandvideobridge

KDE Snaps:

KDE applications 23.08.5 have been uploaded to Candidate channel, testing help welcome. https://snapcraft.io/search?q=KDE I have also working on bug fixes, time allowing.

My continued employment depends on you, please consider a donation! https://kubuntu.org/donate/

Thank you for stopping by!

~Scarlett

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Some exciting news! Kubuntu: I’m back!!!

Posted on February 2, 2024 by sgmoore

It’s official, the Kubuntu Council has hired me part time to work on the 24.04 LTS release, preparation for Plasma 6, and to bring life back into the Distribution. First I want thank the Kubuntu Council for this opportunity and I plan a long and successful journey together!!!!

My first week ( I started midweek ):

It has been a busy one! Many meet and greets with the team and other interested parties. I had the chance to chat with Mike from Kubuntu Focus and I have to say I am absolutely amazed with the work they have done, and if you are in the market for a new laptop, you must check these out!!! https://kfocus.org Or if you want to try before you buy you can download the OS! All they ask is for an e-mail, which is completely reasonable. Hosting isn’t free! Besides, you can opt out anytime and they don’t share it with anyone. I look forward to working closely with this project.

We now have a Kubuntu Team in KDE invent https://invent.kde.org/teams/distribution-kubuntu if you would like to join us, please don’t hesitate to ask! I have started a new Wiki and our first page is the ever important Bug triaging! It is still a WIP but you can check it out here: https://invent.kde.org/teams/distribution-kubuntu/docs/-/wikis/Bug-Triage-Story-WIP , with that said I have started the launchpad work to make tracking our bugs easier buy subscribing kubuntu-bugs to all our packages and creating proper projects for our packages missing them.

We have compiled a list of our various documentation links that need updated and Rick Timmis is updating kubuntu.org! Aaron Honeycutt has been busy with the Kubuntu Manual https://github.com/kubuntu-team/kubuntu-manual which is in good shape. We just need to improve our developer story 🙂

I have been working on the rather massive Apparmor bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apparmor/+bug/2046844 with testing the fixes from the ppa and writing profiles for the various KDE packages affected ( pretty much anything that uses webengine ) and making progress there.

My next order of business staging Frameworks 5.114 with guidance from our super awesome Rik Mills that has been doing most of the heavy lifting in Kubuntu for many years now. So thank you for that Rik 🙂

I will also start on our big transition to the Calamaras Installer! I do have experience here, so I expect it will be a smooth one.

I am so excited for the future of Kubuntu and the exciting things to come! With that said, the Kubuntu funding is community donation driven. There is enough to pay me part time for a couple contracts, but it will run out and a full-time contract would be super awesome. I am reaching out to anyone enjoying Kubuntu and want to help with the future of Kubuntu to please consider a donation! We are working on more donation options, but for now you can donate through paypal at https://kubuntu.org/donate/ Thank you!!!!!

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KDE: Snaps, KDEneon, Debian and my future.

Posted on December 15, 2023 by sgmoore

First I want to thank KDE for this wonderful write up on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kde_akademy-2023-over-a-million-reasons-why-activity-7139965489153208320-PNem?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop It made my heart explode with happiness as I prepped for my interview on Monday. I didn’t get the job ( Just the usual “we were very impressed with your experience, but we went with another candidate” ). I think the cosmos is determined for me to hold out for the ‘project’ even though it is only part time work, it is work and if I have learned nothing else this year, I have learned how to live on a very tight budget! It turns out many of the things we think we need, we don’t. So with hard work of Kevin Ottens ( Thank you!!!! ), this should be finalized after the first of the year. This plan also allows me time for KDEneon and Debian work. I am happy with it and look forward to the coming year and the exciting things to come.

My holiday plans are to help the Debian KDE team with the KF6 packaging, On-going KDEneon efforts, and continue to make sure the snaps Qt6 transition is a painless as possible. I will also be working on the qt6 kde-neon extension.

In closing, despite my terrible luck with job-hunting, I am in an amazing community and I am truly grateful to each and every one of you. It has been a great year and I have added many new things to my skillset and I look forward to many more next year.

As usual, it is that time of month where I have not raised enough to pay my internet bill ( phone company taking an extra 200.00 didn’t help ) If you can spare any change ( any amount helps! ) please consider a donation https://gofund.me/b74e4c6f Thank you!

I hope everyone has a wonderful <insert your holiday here> !!!!!

~ Scarlett

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