The Dynasty Continues!!

Once again, team Karma DOMINATED the Costume Contest at the Pevely Flea Market! Seriously, I don't know why anybody else even bothers to show up.

First, I should mention that Pie Potter took 3rd in his school's Trunk or Treat contest on Friday night. We've gotten GREAT milage out of that costume.


Tito wore his pirate costume, and Beebie was a Spa Girl. That's a Lush mask I put on her. It smelled really good.

On Saturday, I wasn't really feeling as gung-ho as I normally would prior to a Pevely Flea visit. I knew I wanted to go, but I just wasn't into it and I didn't know why. Then I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't go back to sleep.

R asked me what was wrong, and I told him that I didn't like the costumes the kids were wanting to wear. THESE are the things that keep me up at night, people.

Pie wanted to be the bloody surgeon Beeb was last year, Tito wanted to wear a store-bought Thomas Train costume (I hate store-bought costumes in costume contests), and Beeb wanted to be the Spa Girl again.

Here's the thing about me. I'm a FIERCE competitor. To a fault, perhaps. I know I've mentioned this.

I love the rush I get from working really intensely at something with the goal of blowing away the competition and leaving everyone gobsmacked in the wake of my genius. And when I have a vision, either get on board or get the fuck out of the way. I get super-focused, super-efficient - I feel superhuman. I love it.

Believe it or not, it's not even about the prize part. If it were, I might be tempted to cheat, which I would NEVER do. There's no satisfaction in a hollow victory. I genuinely enjoy pushing my own limits and giving my best effort - competing with myself, in a sense. I get myself all fired up and the competition itself makes ME stronger and better.

And if I'm not satisfied with something I'm working on - any sort of project, knitting or otherwise - even in the 11th hour I will trash everything I've done to that point and start all over. Nobody would notice one way or the other, and it was probably good enough before, but if I'm not happy with it, then I'll scrap the whole thing.

So obviously this costume contest thing was coming up. We placed in two of three age groups last year, click HERE to refresh your memory, and I wanted to put each Ape in a costume that could be a first-place contender. And I didn't think what we had was going to cut it.

At 4am I was obsessing about it. To any other human being alive, including my kids - the ones who would actually be participating - this contest is no big deal. But to me, it's an opportunity to showcase my talent. And I want my best work on display.

R totally gets it. Who else would put up with me when I'm like this? In fairness, though, when I take on a project and I am finally 100% confident about it, R knows it's gonna be a good time. Or else it's going to be a really funny disaster. Either way - memorable, no?

Once again, my R proved his devotion by voluntarily getting out of bed and Google-ing "Quick Easy Costume". We found three projects, all of which required items easily available at my 24-hour Walmart, and at 5:40am I left to pick up:

A black long-sleeved shirt
A plaid flannel shirt
A black hat
A camoflage hat
Purple sweatpants
Black sweatpants
Black tube socks
Fishing line
Tape
Purple Balloons
Polyfill Stuffing
And some caffeine to get me through the day.

Here's what we came up with (we took the individual pictures when we got back home because we were in too much of a hurry to take them before we left):


A spider (note the googly eyes, a last-minute addition)

And yes, I know he has ten legs, but it looked weird with only six arms on the sides.


A bunch of grapes



And my favorite, Larry the Cable Guy.

I even taught Pie to say "Git'R Done" and "Got'R Did".



If you're not familiar with Larry's work, check this out (unless you're at work), so you can see how spot-on Pie really was:



It's all about playing to your audience. To give you a sense of my target demographic, the costume contest judges were NXWA wrestlers Gravedigger and Hellfire. Could I possibly make that up? And Pevely is located in Jefferson County, Missouri - home of NASCAR's famous Wallace family.

So here's what the three of them looked like when we got there:


Brilliant, right?

The kids were in different age groups, which was cool, but instead of three winners in each age group, there were only two. Tito didn't place in his age group. The kid that placed first was really cute, he was dressed as a Juice Box, and he deserved to win, but Tito lost out to a little girl in a store-bought pirate costume, which was total bullshit. Tito was robbed, but he was a really good sport.

Then came Pie's category. Pie took second to a girl dressed as Strawberry Shortcake. Again, store-bought. Grrr. My favorite part of the whole day was when Pie was announced as a winner, and Tito gasped and said, "We won!!!" I was so proud of his attitude. I commended him on being a great team player.

After the 7-8 year-olds came Beeb's age group. FIRST PLACE, baby! BOO YAH!!! And the prizes were buckets full of candy and McDonald's coupons. Again, I don't even care what the prize is, I just like to smoke the competition.

I know I'm not normal.

Why I Love My Husband - Volume 8,471

First, I have to apologize to the Blogstalkers. This week we're supposed to document a typical day in our lives, and I'm kinda unable to have a typical day. But I'll come up with something by the end of the week, I think.

So anyway, we're almost done moving all the crap out of the old house and into the new house. We have until November 14th to be all the way out, so we're in good shape, other than the boxes all over the new house waiting to be unpacked. I even moved the dirty laundry out of the old house, by stuffing it into six suitcases. By the way, did I tell you that I moved dirty dishes from my old sink so I could wash them in my new dishwasher? I'm so white trash.

I'm almost caught up with all of the laundry now. Really not my fault I got so behind, either - the washer and dryer got moved to the new house before I had all the laundry done. And I still haven't told you the story of Moving Day, and I swear I will. (Of course, now that I've built it up to be some awesome story you're going to be disappointed when I finally tell it. Oh, well.)

Yesterday I was in the basement doing laundry, and when I picked a pair of R's socks up off the floor, I found a spider as big as my head. Seriously. It was like one of those giant killer rainforest spiders that drop on your head when you're walking through the jungle, and, while you're unconcious from the impact, suck your brain out though your ear. (I have some really fucked up dreams.)

Not only does my husband remove freaky spiders from my house very delicately without killing them (which obviously requires more effort and patience on his part, since just squishing them would be so much faster), but he never ever complains about what a pain in the ass it is for him to locate an empty jar, (or some other method for the humane removal of unwanted spiders) coax the critter inside, and then release it into the wild where it belongs - even if it's -17 degrees outside.

Y'know what, though? It just occurred to me that I don't ever actually follow him when he takes the spider outside, so for all I know he could be pulvarizing them as soon as he leaves the room, but if that's the case, at least the man goes through the motions and allows me to believe that he's really putting them outside. And that's almost as good.

Sure, it would be easier to just smack it with a rolled-up magazine and be done with it, but I truly believe that when you kill a bug, three more will come to the funeral, like when you pluck a grey hair and three more pop up in its place. R lives with my hang-ups every day.

So the man's my silly English kuh-niggit in shining armor, for sure. And in addition to The Medal of Honor for Humane Spider Rescue in the Face of Extreme Peril, R can also boast the dubious honor of being my very favorite photographer. He never bats an eye, no matter how ridiculous a picture I want for my blog. He's my own personal Annie Liebovitz, for cryin' out loud.

Look how he so lovingly captured my virgin Spotted Dick experience. (Note: We added vanilla custard per Yorkie's suggestion.)








Yorkie, your Dick was delicious.

To the Victor Go the Spoils!

So I recently took top honors in Yorkie's famous Caption Contest. It came down to a Caption-Off between me and my beloved Poops. If you haven't seen it, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. Here are the links:

Original Contest

Contest Part Deux

Contest The Grand Finale


Anyhoo, my prize was THE BOX. If you're not familiar with her work, Yorkie has the most deliciously wicked sense of humor.

So I captured the opening of the parcel in photos:

Whatever could it be????




Tito was pissed that it wasn't for him, so I asked him to model the contents. Including...



Aunty's Spotted Dick. I should warn you that I do plan to take photos of myself eating Aunty's Spotted Dick, so plan accordingly.



The kids and I have munching on Nobby's Nuts all afternoon. Dontcha love Tito's cherubic smile with the evil glimmer in the eye? He gets that from me.



These are Parma Violets. I wasn't sure whether to bite them or suck them, but they kinda taste like soap.


And finally -


Awesome, awesome yarn! It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in the Black Purl colorway I'm so fond of. I'll have to make something fabulous with it. Thank you, Yorkie!!!


In other news, we're still unpacking and cleaning out the old place, but we should be done by Monday if we bust ass this weekend. I still haven't told you about Moving Day with FIL, MIL and Reverend Aldi, but fear not, I will.

It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood!

Told ya!

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

And by the way, here's what R got -

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Quizzes are fun.

Your Score: Ceiling Cat

42% Affectionate, 50% Excitable, 24% Hungry

You are a master of stealth. They never see you coming. But you always see them coming. HEY-O!

To see all possible results, checka dis.

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Catching Up!

I have officially arrived!



The first thing I moved was my stash. And I figure, if it can fit in a van, then it's really not that much, right? I've got it taking up about 30% of my new walk-in closet right now, and I don't think I've unpacked it all yet. But yes, my yarn is settling in quite nicely, and so am I. Not that I have any time to knit.

R's been working me like a rented mule. I ache everywhere. We moved most of the furniture already except for the computer desk, washer and dryer, and the entertainment center (which, sadly, doesn't fit in my bedroom). We moved all of the beds, the sofa, the bedroom furniture - ALL that shit - in the van. Wow, thank God I wrecked the Mazda!

I'll give you all the Grand Tour later. I just have a minute to put up the Blogstalking assignments. Last week was Three Things I Love and Three Things I Hate. I've been spending all my time at the new house, so all of the pictures are things that I love and hate there.

I love my garage door opener. So does Beeb, my former Garage Door Opener.




I love my new refridgerator because it has a little space just for frozen pizzas!




I LOVE LOVE LOVE my king-size bed. Note that I was so excited about this bed that I took this pic before I'd even taken the headboard out of the packaging. And yes, it's been christened, thanks for all the inquiries.




And I know we were only supposed to do three, but I thought I should mention that I also love my dishwasher and disposal.






They keep my mind off the fact that the former homeowners had Duran Duran Album Cover wallpaper in the kitchen.




They also had some scary shelf paper, and I haven't decided yet whether or not it's just so awful that I actually like it. It's such a fine line between Kitschy and Tacky.




And finally, these little fuckers are ALL OVER the place. I've probably seen about twenty of them. Or maybe the same one twenty times.




This week's assignment is to find a sculpture or work of art that you find interesting. So here's a work of unusual art, I think. I opened a brand-new jar of peanut butter and it smiled at me! I bet no other Blogstalkers are using Jif as their medium of choice!

Quick Update

I'm taking about 30 seconds to let you guys know that everything went great with the closing, and R and I are now ho-moaners!

I'll post pics as soon as we take a break from packing. The goal is to get as much crap moved as we can by ourselves, that way, when FIL comes over to help, it'll mostly be done and he won't have to stay so long.

Oh, and we're going out to Chez Inlaw for a hayride on Saturday night. The Aldis will be there. Should be good.

How I Get From Point A To Point B. And Point C. And D.

This week's Blogstalking assignment is How Do I Get From Here To There?

I'm gonna take a pass on this one and direct you to the last two weeks of blog entries, in which I wrecked my 2000 Mazda Protege and subsequently purchased a 2001 Honda Odyssey. Or, if you'd like the overview, just read my loving tribute to the car I totally totalled.

So instead of showing you my sweet new ride, I thought I'd share a picture of the vehicle I would drive if money were no object.



This lovely thing is parked right in front of City Hall. Seriously.