New Wallet

I haven't had a new wallet in years! I knew it was time to get one, especially since I needed to fit my passport into it!

Taadaa!

MoMo and Jack were really into it too. They almost stole it!

Sweaters!

see more Daily Squee

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

I wonder how long they kept those on.

Letters to Children

Dear Jack,

When the vacuum cleaner is on, its okay to stay away from it.

But I do want you to know that it is not a monster and it will not eat you.


I will never ever let the vacuum cleaner eat you up because I love you so much.

Love,
Mom




 

Dear Mom,

Okay.

Love,
Jack







Dear MoMo,

Do not stick your head in the vacuum cleaner. For God's sake, what do you think will happen? It will eat you, that's what will happen.

I'm telling you this because I love you and I don't want the vicious vacuum monster to come and devour your soul. Seriously.

If you are hungry, there is some fresh kibble in the bowl under the Ferretopia building next to the couch.

Love you,
Mom





Dear Mom,

You're not my real Mom! My real mom would let me stick my head in monsters all I wanted! Don't tell me what to do!

Also, thanks for the snacks. They are delicious.

Love,
MoMobella



Dear Rudyard,

When was the last time you ate?
You are so skinny.

I've prepared a special dish for you full of ferretvite.

Don't tell the others, especially Jack.  I need you putting on as many pounds as you can before you go on vacation with Natalie and Eli.

Remember to eat while I'm away!

Love,
Mom






Dear Mom,

Yes, I saw the treat and securely devoured it up.
Please do not worry about me, I will be fine.

We are very excited about our vacation, and I will promise to eat everything Auntie Nat and Uncle Eli give me. I will also make sure that Jack is left alone to his toys and keep MoMo company. 

On another note, I was hoping you could set aside some money just in case we need anything you or our dear family has forgotten. In addition to that, will you leave me some puzzles for me to solve in my spare time? I do enjoy solving puzzles.

Much Love,

Rudyard

New Art

Steampunk is the summer theme apparently.

Made Audrey a Steampunk Dragonfly and a Victorian Llama Necklace.

You can have one too if you want! Email me your colors of preference, and we'll see what magic I can come up with. The Dragonfly will be about $25, the Victorian Llama (or any critter of your choice) will be $20.



You can click the image to enlarge it; below is a close-up of the Victorian Llama Necklace.

Many thanks to my bootiful model, Audrey.

Remember, all artwork is hand-made and unique. No piece will look the same! So if you ask me to make something EXACTLY like something else, it won't happen. Because I need to be entertained while I'm working and copying is boring. :)

Email me at mustymongoose@gmail.com if you are interested.

No Good

I want to curl up close my eyes and disappear.
I want to be in a different world and in a different story.
I want evil to be known and good to be obvious.
I want everything to work out in a storybook fashion.

Maybe I should re-play Dragon Age.

A St Simon's Weekend

I got to help chaperone the middle school kids from St. G's this weekend on a trip to St. Simon's Island (sweet!). We used the Preston beach house and spent the majority of our time at the beach.

We got there Friday night. I played Once Upon a Time storytelling card game with whoever wanted to play with me, and we came up with some awesome stories.

The first one, I just pulled out a random four cards and an ending. It was my example story of what kind of stuff we could come up with and how the whole thing worked. This is what I got:

There once was a child who was cursed with ugliness, but it was okay because she was very happy. However, her family was distraught with the ugliness so they sought to end the curse. They went to a witch who turned her into a wolf. But it did not work, so they ate her at the feast and it was delicious.

The best story told was about a fat, well-to-do cook (but he didn't work for the king, he was just well-to-do) who was out of firewood. He couldn't go chop any because it was illegal in this world to chop firewood, and he couldn't sneak it either because of the tower-with-a-laser.

So, the cook went to his parents to ask for their advice and they told him about a little place that the laser tower couldn't find him and he could chop wood freely. He did and everything was great until he ran out.

Eventually he found out about this place that had an awesome magical forest that was in a cave somewhere, but it was guarded by a giant sleeping witch. So the cook went to go get some firewood. Amazing and awesome ninja-like things happened (I'm shady on the details) and the cook fought the witch, knocking her unconscious by making her run her head into one of the magical trees inside the cave (by the way, the trees are sentient magical mushrooms that grew a barrier around themselves because the elves--who are now extinct--had enslaved them).

He gathered this firewood and began going home, where he was attacked by a happy insane dwarf. The cook killed the dwarf, who was the last of his kind, and ate him. When the cook arrived home, he took the magical wood and speared it through the tower where--lo and behold-- the extinct elves lived! And he exterminated all of them. Everyone was happy.

When the cook returned to the magical cave, the sentient mushrooms had left. But he was not worried because the laser was gone and he was free to chop wood throughout the land.

I will be honest, this is not the whole story. I can't remember it all. I don't even remember what Ending Card we had. I do know that I gave you the extremely abbreviated version of the back-story about the magic mushrooms being enslaved and all that.

The rest of the weekend involved a lot of beach-tastic fun. I made a face in the sand, met a puppy-dog who wanted me to pet her but was too shy to ask, and also helped the kids build one of the biggest sandcastles they had built as of yet.

I also took the boys on a scenic route by accident when I was trying to drive us back to the beach house. We ended up in a fancy pretentious neighborhood that had no signs to indicate what road you were on. We were told eventually when neighborhoods that do that, it means something along the lines of "if you have to ask, you don't belong."

Bah. Pretentious pricks.

While we were lost, we all had an in-depth conversation about the zombie apocolypse. I found out that everyone expects to be able to acquire a double-barrel shot gun and never run out of bullets. When I asked what would happen if they ran out of bullets, they informed me they would simply "go buy some more."

Ah me. Those kids.

 This is me when I wake up in the morning. Everyone thought it was funny and kept calling me "Mary."Then they took a picture. All I wanted were pancakes.

 Our AMAZING castle that we all worked on together. It is AMAZING.

Poor Darcy!

My poor Darcy!
I did research on why he has been unable to retract his penis and it's something called paraphimosis. Essentially. Darcy can't retract his penis, or its very difficult to. It's either stuck or is dried up. I started applying antibiotic ointments yesterday.

Today, I accidentally pulled on his little guy and made him terribly uncomfortable. Ack! So upsetting! At least it is not a tumor issue or anything.

He's got to be soooo uncomfortable right now. :(
I might have to transfer him into a solitary cage just so his brothers don't harrass him. They wanted to lick the antibiotic ointment off, which was not their job. But do they listen to me? No. No they don't.

Put That Thang Away

You know that thing boy horses do when they get hot?
Yeah, well, Darcy is doing it. And its big and long and freaking me out.

Too Stressed Out

Apparently, I was more upset yesterday than I realized.

I got to work and paused for the longest time before opening the door into the Library world. When I dropped my stuff off in the office, I felt awful still. When Aleta dropped in just to make sure I was there and ready for work, I burst into tears.

Poor Aleta. I'm sure that's not what she wanted or expected, but she asked how I was doing and that is such a dangerous question when you are not doing well.

So Aleta let me bawl for about thirty minutes. I cried and told her about my Grand-Pere and how he wasn't doing well at all; how I thought I could keep it together at work; how stressed out I was about life.

In the end, Aleta encouraged me to go home and relax. I am very glad this happened. When I got home I burst into tears all over again, but when I was done I was at home and I didn't feel the need to hide myself.

Sam and I went to his parents house and tromped about in the woods. It was very nice. At some point we belted off into a run and that was really fun. I started laughing like a little kid while I was tripping over myself trying to keep up with Sam. Hermes (previously known as Ritter) was quick at my heels, running with me and as happy as could be.

Later, Hermes and I snuggled during a Star Trek episode. I felt good at that moment.

When Sam and I were coming home, my heart became heavy again as I realized it was time to step back into reality. But it wasn't an unbearable heaviness, like before. And I didn't feel like crying. It was a good thing I did for myself.

I think I can definitely keep it together now.

Troubles

We are going to France in about a month now.
I am very nervous and stressed and have recently heard that my Grand-pere is in the hospital. I don't know if I will get to see him when I get there. And if I don't, I don't know what that means in terms of the visit.

I am scared; I have always admired him and loved him, even if I never got the chance to know him very well. I just remember him as always being a happy guy and always making jokes. And then when I grew older and found out what kind of life he had.... well, how many people do you know who have rough lives and can still make funny jokes?

A Letter from Rudyard to MoMoBella

Dear MoMoBella,

It makes me happy when you like me enough to wake me up and ask me to play, but you don't have to bite me. And you don't have to accompany me down the stairs. And you don't have to watch me while I poop. I'm not going to runaway or anything, so if you just go downstairs and wait on me that will be fine.

Anyway, I thought writing this letter was worth a show.

Very much love,
Rudyard

Have you ever Licked a Lamppost in Winter?

I can't get over how much I enjoy Dragon Age. It's got multiple stories in a story, its got complete character development, and its got what all individuals who adore reading want to do--the chance to get involved!!

I have officially finished Dragon Age: Origins, and Dragon Age II.
I have to say, I liked the first one much more. But I still enjoyed DAII, especially when I got over all the changes.

I just wished in DAII that my decisions made more of a difference. There are some things where there was no way in hell the story would go any other way, no matter if I were diplomatic (I played the diplomatic character) or aggressive (Sam played the aggressive character who also told a lot of jokes).  And I do definitely wish there were more moments to interact with my companions, like having a questions menu.

BUT but but. My palms were just as sweaty when I was making the finals decisions in DAII as in DA: Origins. My heart was a flipper-flapper-pitter -patter. I wanted to say the right thing, agree with the right people, and not lose anymore of the companions I had already lost.

And I'll tell you why:
Bioware has the amazing skill that most video games lack in this day and age-- story telling.
They can tell one helluva good story. And they can make you give a damn about what kind of person you want to be.
They do it Dragon Age. They do it in Mass Effect.
They just do it.
It's amazing.
And I just can't get over it. It's like reading the best book ever and playing your favorite character. I love it! Woohoo!


Now I should go do some Chemistry homework.
Sigh. :(

Presents!

I'm going to tell you about how cool my sister is.

She told me earlier this week that she was going to the Ren Fest, and I was sad because I had work the same weekend she was going. So I told her, "Get me a present. Take pictures of some gypsies or something. Or if they have bellydancers, take pictures of those."

Lo and behold, there are dancers there. And through much research, I find out who they are and all that jazz. I posted the pictures on my belly dance blog, The Slinky Snake.

My sister is the pretty gal in the middle... no wait. That's a pirate. She's the shorty on the right. :)