B-Movie Star

I've been busy here lately making and baking. I think I could apply to be one of Santa's elves. Well, I certainly don't meet the size requirement, but hey it's not like Santa and his wife are Skinny-Minnies either!

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Remember how the only thing that Ralphie wants for Christmas is "an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model BB rifle with a compass in the stock." Remember how important things like that were when you were a kid? Well in honor of that materialistic obsession, I am now going to give you the list of Christmas gifts I always wanted as a kid but never got. (I know! This is probably one of the roots of all my current problems - I was so deprived!)

Okay, first off, one of the gifts I most wanted - wanted really badly - but never got was the Vincent Price Head Shrinker Kit.  Yes, I was a morbid child, you all know of my Halloween obsession, still - I didn't INVENT the thing, I just wanted one for Christmas. I guess my parents didn't see the value in a kit that allowed you to create shrunken heads. Later, I heard that it wasn't as fun as it looked. Still, I've never really recovered from my disappointment that Christmas.

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We used to make this candy for Christmas when I was a kid.  When we made it, we also dipped toothpicks in the cinnamon oil to make cinnamon toothpicks. I love those things.

Okay, well here's the Cinnamon Candy recipe: [More]

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Over at Re-Nest they asked the question, what's the best gift you ever received that wasn't a "thing."  I think that's a really good question.  My answers might be kind of sappy but I can think of two.

The first gift was a word. When I was in college one of my friends gave me the word "Elysium" for my birthday. He had pasted the word onto a piece of cardboard and made a little collage with the definition of the word and some images. I was very touched by the gift because it seemed like something he had thought about and spent some time putting together. Whenever I hear that word, I think of him and I think secretly that it's "my" word since I got it for my birthday. [More]

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As a kid I was always weirded out by people in costumes - I know this goes against everything I love about Halloween, but what I'm talking about is different. I love to be in a costume when everyone else is dressing up. There's a camaraderie about the whole thing. We're all agreeing to share in this fantasy which somehow makes it okay. Now, on the other hand, clowns, Santa Claus, large creatures at amusement parks . . . all those weird me out. I don't know why. I like the idea of Santa. If he stays in a book or on TV - great. But the minute he gets too close to me, brrrr . . . and you want me to SIT ON HIS LAP?! No, freakin' thanks.

I'm neurotic, I admit it. I never lured you to this blog with promises of being well adjusted.

Anyway, here's a site that shows that I'm not the only one afraid of the real life Santa. You have to laugh at some of them, c'mon - especially this one, classic:

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For an early Christmas present this year I thought I would give you the gift of eyesight. I've known for a long time what a pain in the butt it is to read white text on a black background but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about it.  Should I just change the theme of the blog all together? Could I just change the background color? How would the header look with a different color - you know all those burning questions.

Finally, I could stand it no longer and I forced my husband to help me look through miles and miles of code so that we could change the colors to something more retina friendly. My apologies for all these months of eye strain while visiting my site.  Anyone subscribed with a reader - come on over and check out the new colors! Whee!

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So, it's supposed to be the biggest moon of the year, but it still looks pretty tiny to me.

Here's a more spooky shot of it. There was a ring around it that made getting a clear photo difficult with our camera - or our skills - one or the other.

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I just read the most amazing thing at Pink Tentacle

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep . . . [More]

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I've been busy working on some Christmas projects. I can't show them to you yet since certain people read this blog and cannot find out about my top secret plans until Christmas morning. I will give you a hint though, it does involve this:

and there's also been some of this:

I wonder who invented glitter? That person was a genius, that's all I have to say about that.

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I forgot to tell you that while we were out shopping, I discovered that I've passed my obsession for decorated paper to my daughter.  We spent 20 minutes at Hobby Lobby looking at wrapping paper - narrowing our choices from all the ones we loved.  Then at Target when we rounded the wrapping paper aisle, Gabby was pleading with me, "Don't make me go down this aisle! NO, please! Oh look at this one! Gasp - look how CUTE this one is!" We bought two more rolls of paper there. We didn't even need wrapping paper really. We still have some from last year. It's too beautiful though, and some of them can be used anytime - not just at Christmas. (That's the excuse we make to buy them) [More]

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