2012 Buffyfest Ornament Swap: The Grr. Argh Monster

I got my first Buffyfest Ornament to post!




The Mutant Enemy logo!  It's the Grr Argh Monster and it talks too!

Thanks to Tara of Buffyfest for my first ornament!

Soccer Saturday

We spent last Saturday with one of David's first cousins, his wife and their 5 kids, who were down in central Florida for a soccer tournament for their twin daughters who play in a college team at a Christian University.  It was fun to see them after like 6 years or so.

That's one of the girls in the white

Both girls in the picture, wearing headbands.  One in the
 back left, one in the foreground.  They won this game!

Isabel and her cousins.  Aren't they beautiful?

Isabel and her cousins.  Twin girls, one boy, twin boys; all siblings

After the game, we headed to the resort for some pool time.  When I say we, I mean the kids.  :)

Yep. The pool in December

Then we ate a quick meal and headed to Downtown Disney, a place they had not been to and which we love.

The carousel spinning

Buffyfest Ornament Swap 2012

It's that time again! Time for the Buffyfest Ornament Swap.  This is its 5th year and my 4th time participating.

My first time, I carved Whedon-based stamps and made them into ornaments.

My second year, I played with shrinky dinks, which was actually a lot of fun. I need to do that again.

Year 3 for me had my eyes all cross-eyed.

I also received some fantastic ornaments in return.  The posts are in most recent order, so go all the way to the bottom to see from oldest up to newest.


For 2012, I had no idea really what I wanted to do. I thought about carving stamps again but that is time consuming and I am running out of carving material and did not want to use up my last complete slab and half slab of PZ Cut.  (Yes, fellow letterboxers, I still have an unused slab of white B Pz cut and a half slab.  No, I am not selling. Hee hee.)

While perusing Ebay (I sell random things I don't need on Ebay) I decided to buy a deck of 90 Buffy cards, The Women of Sunnydale set and see what I could do with those.  When they arrived, I did the old Goooooglay searching for something to do with these cards and stumbled upon this tutorial from a site called Tally's Treasury.   Beyond excited.  I sat down at my computer desk and had a go at my first one.

Here are my 3 cards lined up.  This one is a Buffy-themed ornament

It's detailed but not hard to do at all.

I had to make ornaments for 4 people.  I decided on two ornaments per person, so 8 total.  I hauled my loot downstairs where the family was watching watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and tried hard to not drool all over the cards (Aragorn!)

I tried to "theme" them.  This first set is Willow and Tara.

The next set is a mixed bag; Faith, plus some baddies: Darla, Drusilla and Harmony.  I went with an evil theme for this set.

This set has one Buffy and one Dawn ornament.  A sister set.

The last set has one Cordelia and one Anya ornament.  They're both such funny characters; blunt, honest and  unapologetic.  I think combining them was neato.

I attached beads, buttons and whatnots to them.  It was pretty much stuff I had in the house in craft bags and boxes.  I really like how they turned out, so I made myself an ornament for our tree too.  I'll post a picture of it later.

I grabbed a card form the deck for each person and wrote a little note on each.  These were mailed off last Tuesday, so they should be at their destinations by now.

I am VERY excited to see what I get from my group.

BFF's are hard to make

One of my best friend's (since high school, we went to college together too) dad passed away overnight.  Thankfully for me, this friend knows I am rarely on Facebook and sent me a message.  She was too choked up to call but wanted me to know.  I immediately started crying and was grateful that I was alone in the office.

Her dad had remarried and lived in Georgia.  Eventually she and her mom moved up there as well, to a different city.  I remember when her parents were married.  I would go to their house to eat or hang out.  When Paul had a beard, he eerily looked like my dad looks like with a beard.  It was crazy.

We had several messages back and forth today (she'll call me tonight, she can't sleep, etc.) and then she told me how much she loved me, and misses me.  She told me that even though I have tons of sisters, I was her sister (she's an only child) and she missed me.

And I was crying again.  In her time of pain, she made me feel so loved.  It's so very hard making true  friends when you're older.  Usually you end up making friends at work (I work with 6 men), or at a gym (don't go), at church (sadly, don't have a church) or at kids' school events (never really happened for me.)  The only close friends that I made after high school and college were when I first moved back to Florida when Jacob was under two.  I made some fantastic gal pals who then moved to Alabama and Minnesota.  Go figure.

I have wonderful work friends who came to my wedding 10 years ago and with whom I still talk to every day.  Their locales?  Boston, DC and Seattle.  All over the place.

Locally?  Nobody. I live in a rural community where no one else I know lives.  My sisters who I love are in S. Florida (2.5 hours away) or Tampa (2.5 hours away).

Jacob's aunt is still a good friend and wonderfully keeps in touch with me, but she has her own close-knit group from when she was in school, and we usually see each other 3 or 4 times a year.

Neighbors?  I has some cool ones 6 years ago who moved 6 months after we moved here.  The rest hide in their homes and the ones I do talk to are really more of a "wave hello" kind-of thing.

An old co-worker and his wife moved back a few months ago from Miami.  I was ecstatic.  She and I used to hang out a lot, but I'm so very afraid to scare her off by latching on to her.  She has tons of family and friends.  We talk about hanging out, but because I live in a rural part of northern central Florida & she lives in southern central Florida, it's about an hour one way to each other's homes, so this has not happened yet.

It's easy to say "It's easy to make friends" when you've never left the hometown area you went to high school in.  As an adult, making real friends is so hard.  (Maybe that's why I adore the Yada Yada book series, not classic fantastic literature,  with these women who make these amazing bonds as adults; because I really want that too.)

I have amazing friends.  They're just so far away.

I love you Kelli-Kelli-Elliot (not her real name; college joke) and I am so sorry about your daddy.

Sangivi

I hope your Thanksgiving was as good as ours.  We enjoyed our time with two of the 4 sisters, our dad, one brother-in-law and one niece.

There was a good amount of food and an INSANE amount of desserts.  I made a carrot cake, pumpkin pie, potato chip cookies and cake pops.

(Pie not shown.  Was cooling still.)

My brother-in-law was craving pecan pie.  My sister was texting me as they drove up and I told her I had everything I needed for the pie except for the pecans.  They stopped and purchased some and while the turkey finished cooking, I made a pecan pie.

Dad arrived with three tres leche cakes.  Tres Tres Leche.  We were sweeted out!

These are potato chip cookies.  There are potato chips in the batter.
They are AWESOME.  I made that JOY cookie too. 

The chef carves the turkey

Brenda brought roasted pork and "arroz con gandules,"
a Puerto Rican rice dish.

We enjoyed our turkey, roast pork, stuffing, rice, green bean casserole, candied yams and rolls.

*EYE ROLL*

Little Miss Ava was napping and pulled her hair ties out.  Check it out.

We then sat down to watch Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring.  If you know Vicky, you know this is a miracle.  

Meanwhile, Brenda and Isabel did each other's hair. 

We had a Happy Sangivi!