OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.

Yesterday was a bit hectic; after work I had to pick up my girls as usual, drive us home, get changed for a company dinner for my husband's insurance agency, fly out the door, go schmooze with folks, and get home to do laundry. I hadn't had time to get the mail before 9 pm! When we pulled in the driveway I ran across the street to the mailbox, which was stuffed full. Keep in mind, we have the largest available postal mail box, and I have to cross a major highway; I don't get to check the mail every day, so it gets full. :)

There was an enormous box, which initially just made me go, "Oh, maybe this is from my Secret Santa!" But then, in the dark with only the headlights from our car, I saw them; the rarely-seen Lonkiponk characters of The Netherlands:



I squeeeeeed, grabbed the other boring mail, looked both ways across the highway, and sprinted toward the car (which, is to say, I ran; if I'd been getting chased by a tiny newborn kitten, I'd have been torn to shreds halfway across the street). I hopped in the car (our driveway is a good quarter mile to the house) and as soon as it stopped in the garage I hopped out (yes, I do hop quite a bit), ran into the kitchen, paid the babysitter, and took pictures of the box.





Then, I hit a terrible realization; I couldn't open it. I promised my girls when Secret Santa's gift came, we'd open it together. I must have had The Look on my face, because dear hubby said, "How can you wait?" As the girls had been in bed for over an hour, I knew it wouldn't be good to wake them up; they need their sleep. I decided to wait. I left it on the couch for the morning.

I shaved 2 minutes of my shower time this morning (screw it; who needs conditioner?), threw on clothes, and ran for the great room. Both girls woke up and came out; I told them, "Secret Santa's box came! Go get clothes! As soon as you're dressed for school we'll open it up." They were dressed so quickly I think I might use this phrase again in the future to hurry things along in the mornings.

Soon they were dressed and drooling (or was that me?) and I carefully tore away the masking tape that held on the pretty pictures. We set the pictures aside, and I promised the girls I'd make photocopies of them to color. Look what was under one of the pictures!


Yes. Yes, I am enamored of anything in a different language, especially ones that do not use a western alphabet. LOL

Then, I sliced through the packing tape and opened the box.


Pink bubble wrap, people. PINK.


An owl postcard!!!!! I'm a little obsessed with owls. I don't think I could've outrun an owl across the street, either. Just sayin'.


Lonneke's sweet message to me. :) I have her SO TOTALLY SNOWED. She thinks I'm better than I really am. She even let her Mountain Gnome add some things to the box!


I had a heart attack, stroke, brain aneurysm, and loss of speech at this moment. I now own a Lonkiponk sculpture guy.

Recovering from my horrendous medical maladies quickly, we found a beaded lizard keychain/fob:


A rainbow hanging decoration (Jodie insisted it had to go on the little Christmas tree by the front door, to make people happy as they come in):


A Lonkiponk pin:

This now resides stuck to my cubicle wall, since I'm sure if I actually wore it whilst running across the highway, I'd lose it or it would be swiped by passing by owls and newborn kittens.


This tiny figure is so cute; I couldn't figure out how to better take a pic of it without you being able to see ME in the gold band at the neck. You do NOT want to see me. You want to see the cute, beaded, banded, braided figurine. I will probably bring her to work tomorrow to live with my other cubicle dwellers.

A Disney deer!!!

Check out this four-faced, four-armed, tiny guy riding a tiny goose:

He went on the small Christmas tree, too! I can't tell if he's wood or something else, but he's tiny and AWESOME.


Yep. I knew you wanted to see the back of the goose.


I love this keychain. This keychain loves me. It will keep away swooping owls and feral newborn kittens.

It's a freaking Lonkiponk shirt, y'all!!!


It fit Jodie great!


At this point, Auburn was still clinging desperately to the lizard keychain. She announced she wanted to string it on a necklace. Being the Good Parent, I told her it was hers. It ended up being rather heavy for a necklace, so we put it on her zipper pull on her lunchbag. :)


Here's one last view of the sculpture; he's standing next to the small Christmas tree, looking as though he's pondering whether Secret Santa is real. I assure you, little guy, Secret Santa is real. Her name is Lonneke.

Um, yes?

Here's where I'll keep track of my Thread Knits ideas, just like telaine and chelly!


This was my first thought. It would be like a stuffed animal or fiber sculpture, knit and then needle-felted to give it a "fuzzy" look. Charley's already given me his blessing to use his design! :)


This one would be just a fiber sculpture; it's kind of an "easy" knit and depending on how much time I have after knitting Christmas presents, I would like to tackle it as well.


Urg. I really want to do this. I have it in my head as a sculpture consisting of knit phoneline poles with yarn wires, and needle-felted birds and the cat. Maybe for next year on this one.


No, I wasn't planning on knitting all of these critters, but I thought about trying to make my evil jelly sandwich.


This is another "are you kidding me?" possibility. I want to do this. I think it could be done and made flat, like a small rug, using i-cords. We'll see.


No idea how I'd do this. No freaking clue.


Fun i-cord wormies and a knit-then-felted bird.

This slogan, as a scarf. I'd like the pant legs to be like the "front" of the scarf, hanging down on the chest, with the waistband and fire hanging down in the back.

This slogan, as a few things; maybe a potholder, with the word "potholder", in quotes, knitted into the front, things like that.

This slogan, made into a knit kitten, inside a separate knit "stomach".

My fave artist, Kurt Halsey, designed a cute little tee for a vegan grocery, and if y'all are interested, take a gander!



Hope this is okay to post. :)

I missed the scoring on this design by like a day. I'm so glad to see it printed!!!

My Etsy shop has some fun Halloween hutches (miniature-sized!); take a look!!! :)

I know I overreact to a lot of things, but normally I can keep my overreactions internal. Last night this changed.

As a brief background, here's what's been happening; back in June my mother-in-law (whom I'm very close with and lives right across the street) heard from a COMPLETE STRANGER that Brent and I were getting a divorce. That stranger heard it from an antiques dealer the next town over. We don't know the dealer, either, though we know of the antiques store. We laughed it off, considering we've been together 15 years and friends for 17, and we're closer to each other than any other couple we know personally.

In July, we found out that an agent in his insurance office had been cheating on her husband of 25 years with a claims guy (who is also married). For the sake of ease, let's call her Jane and her husband John. Claims guy is just Claims guy because he's not that important. Jane blindsides John with "I'm leaving you for this wonderful Claims guy whom I've been having a sordid affair with right under your nose". John is devastated, Jane leaves to shack up with Claims guy (whose wife is... moved out? Gone to her mother's? I dunno).

Life goes on. The weird part about Jane and John is that they live right across the cul-de-sac from our good friends, Tom & Ava (their real names LOL). John is frequently talking with Tom about how horrible things are. Cut to last night; Brent came home and since our daughters were outside playing, he said, "Hey, wanna hear something funny?" This type of question usually leads to office-based hilarity where we get to pick on one of his co-worker buddies. Instead, I got, "Apparently I've been sleeping with Jane!"

Don't get me wrong; I KNOW Brent would never do anything like this, and Jane isn't exactly... well, I don't care much for the way I look, but she's somewhat... undesirable to most dudes (thinks she's hot but is rather large and dresses like a teenie-bopper). So, this IS something rather laughable. But when I ask who told him this lovely bit of information, he tells me Tom told him, and JOHN told Tom. John continued to defame Brent by saying "That asshole slept with my wife" and other untruths; Tom tried to back him off, stating that not only was that not in Brent's nature, but that if it had happened Tom would've been the first person Brent would have told. John then moved on to other guys in the office.

My husband isn't a "public figure" in that he's the mayor or whatever, but he's well-known in the farming community because he farms, and well-known in the business community because of his expertise in insurance with highly-rated customer feedback. I'm freaking PISSED that John, who knows Brent (John and Jane came to our annual 4th of July party last year), would slander the hell out of him and the other guys in the office and possibly damage their reputations. Why didn't he just whine about his soon-to-be ex-wife, who was OBVIOUSLY THE ONE AT FAULT?



Brent was upset with himself for telling me after I got angry; I'm not mad at him, obviously. He and I are always good; I just want people to leave us the hell out of their retarded gossip that they pull out of their asses.


If you read all of this, you are a superhero. I'm way too wordy. But I had to put it all down before I lost my mind.

Just because I need a place to vent at the moment. If you feel like posting your own whiny, ranty, life's-not-fair stuff, feel free.

So as some of you are aware, my little sis got married in June of 2006 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November of the same year. One ovary had to be removed, and she is now in remission (will be three years in May). Her hubby had a little son from a previous marriage and so they weren't intending to try for a child of their own for a couple years anyway, and they started being intentionally "careless" about six months ago. Two weeks ago she called me and excitedly told me she was preggers, but it was way early (like 5-6 weeks), so she was only telling me and my parents and her in-laws (plus two close friends). She wanted to pass that 12-week mark before announcing it fully.

Yesterday my dad emailed me, telling me she was lightly spotting, and she had called the doc's office. She went in for an ultrasound with my mom at 1:30. They said she should've been around 8 weeks but the sac measured more in the range of 4-6 weeks, which was way underdeveloped. Due to the pregnancy being so early, the heartbeat couldn't be detected (usually happens at 10 weeks), so they had to draw blood for lab tests, which I'm sure will be an agonizing wait all weekend.

I don't WANT her to go through this. What, it wasn't enough that a 26-year-old amazing person had to have ovarian cancer 5 months after her wedding, lose an ovary, be told pregnancy might not be possible, get pregnant, and lose it??? Why? Why do all the ghetto trash, welfare-hogging, morons out there get to have piles of babies left and right, when my amazing sister gets kicked in the ass and slapped in the face?

World, you can go fuck yourself.

trefsyui and uynoplsd
are spammers and need to GTFO.

stupid fartknockers.

/angry bacon rant

This is basically rad.

:D