Rabid Hedgehogs & Christmas Whimsies...

*Mr. Pipps Goes Courting...*

Mr. Thelonius Pipps has been courting Miss Selma Hoganswarter for 42 years this Christmas Day~~and, he may just finally get lucky (when he asks her to marry him--dirty!!) And why may his luck improve? Because 42 is a multiple of 7...everyone knows that.

(Sevens are especially important to gnomes...)

Mr. Pipps is on his way to Selma's mushroom cottage~~he's wending his way through the winding, frosty, paths of Christmas Forest. Granted, he does this every Christmas day~~at least for the last 41 Christmases~~but this year...THIS year...he's bringing Miss Selma a nutmeg latte (along with the berry bouquet, candy canes, mushroom, and pine cones...). I have high hopes for Mr. Pipps! ~~and for the coffee shops as well.

But what will Miss Selma say??? What will she do?!

The first Christmas Mr. Pipps approached the topic of gnomish nuptials, Miss Selma dumped a pot of oatmeal upon his noggin (but we can all agree he deserved it--courting for only one year before a proposal?! That would be an engagement entered into with haste and ill breeding. Miss Selma made an extremely wise choice in her declining...) The fourth Christmas involved a snowbank--the 13th a rabid hedgehog (13 is unlucky, after all...thus, the extreme response on our young lady's part.) There are 36 other unfortunate tales of Christmas Proposals and their ensuing heartbreak~~but I'll spare you Mr. Pipps' annual misery. His leg has healed just fine~~barely a limp~~and the scar on his...well. It simply adds to his roguish charm.

And so, Mr. Pipps wends his way along...softly singing a tune from "Cabaret"...

"Maybe this time,
I'll be lucky....
...Not a loser anymore

Like the last time

And the time before..."

Ah, the winsome hope of Sally & Mr. Pipps!

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PS~~I really must cite the "Cabaret" reference...
Musical Play by Joe Masteroff.Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Music by John Kander.Based on I Am A Camera by John van Druten and Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood.Original Production directed by Harold Prince and Choreographed by Ron Fields
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Mr. Pipps is available on eBay...as well as the rest of this week's offerings!

*Lucinda Stars*

A tiny star pixie to flit about your tree~~but beware!...*Lucinda* has been known to turn harmless candy canes into deadly sharp holiday weapons...
...no frisky Santa for this pixie!
(and is it just me or is she somehow reminiscent of Lori Petty in "Tank Girl"???)**************************************************************Happy Christmas Forest*...a wonderful 10" Doll Wreath...my favorite figure in the wreath is the wee owl at the top~~***************************************************************And let's see...what else?? *Winter's Queen*, *The Frost Moon*, and a tiny winter owl... ....allllllllll on eBay*****************************************************************

Thank you all so much for your consideration of my work~~

blessings,

meg

In Christmas Forest...

.....you might find a wee gnome~~or, perhaps, a tiny mushroom pixie! A woodland frosted with whimsy can hold many a wonder indeed! Aloysius Gnome and sweet Winifred Owl are just two of the many small stewards of Christmas Forest~~

Together, they live amongst the sparkling pine cones and spotted mushrooms...and the spotted mushroom pixies (which are not very well behaved, to be dead honest).

...softly floating above the snowy Christmas Forest trees~~a tiny star pixie...bright and aloft, just below the winter moon (he's for next week!!!).....

Well, it was just time to make some dollies...and the EHAG Artist's Challenge for November was absolutely inspirational!! Please click the banner (below) to visit all of the Eclectic Halloween Artist's Groups' auctions...you may visit our blog as well!

I'd already been dreaming of little gnomes...and with an owl! Oh my! (and did you know, there actually is such a thing as an "elf owl"~~it's true!)

*Aloysius & Winifred* are my offering for the EHAG challenge...*Wintry and Spooky Owls*.

All are on eBay this week~~and many more to follow!

Thank you for your consideration,

and,

blessings~~

meg

*Jolly Holly Snowman*

...and Christmas Muzak!! Yippeee!!!!

I'm so excited to show you my latest primitive style hooked rug...a folky snowfella:

*Jolly Holly Snowman*... he's on eBay this week.I've also been dabbling a bit in wool applique~~ these little *Sewing Trees* are a brand new design for Christmas 2008~~whimsical, functional, art...my very favorite!

All on eBay this week...click here to visit the auctions.

And, be sure to visit Blestb's Christmas launch,

Old Tyme Christmas

(just click our banner to visit Blestb's listings...)

And now, to address an urgent "current event" here in the nest~~no, really, I simply cannot make another snow pixie!! By the time all of the orders were shipped last Christmas I was having p.t.s.d. nightmares about mean little pixies whacking things with candy canes...as well as an astounding amount of glitter on and around my personage. I just can't, I'm so sorry! but...here's what I'm thinking...maybe a "woodland collection", all from wool felt with wee embroidery details? Mushrooms and acorns, pine cones and birds...tiny nests all frosted with---DARN! there we go with the glitter again...(sigh) I'll start this eve' and post the collection within the next few days...

I'm off to the winter forest--

until next time,

blessings,

meg

PS--if my pictures are "twacked", i do apologize--they weren't when i hit "publish post"...does this happen to you????

hope won

"...in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope...."

Barack Obama

blogs are buzzing...there's celebration...there's hope...when General Colin Powell endorsed President-elect Barack Obama, I began to get excited!!! and lo and behold, hope won....

tuesday night, joe had to work an over-night...i sat up, alone, eating wayyyyy too much halloween candy--i was a bundle of nerves...the first few electoral wins were Kerry alllll over again. i knew i shouldn't get crazy-mad-excited....finally, i put in season one of the x-files. then joe called--Obama won! we won...chloe woke up the next morning and the first thing she said:

"mom! did Rock Obama win????" (maggie "voted" for Bush...sigh.)

this was a shoe-leather, $5 donation campaign--somehow, we combated the non-sense in our inbox (snopes is a beautiful, beautiful, thing!)...somehow, we spoke truth...even to angry family members & friends...somehow, we stayed the course and ducked the "spin"--somehow, hope won!

i am 33 years old--this is the first President I've voted for who won. this is the first election that, when it was allll over, i feel it's only just begun! instead of "oh well..." (that's the delicate way of putting it!) i am asking....

what next? how can i help? what can i do? what's the first thing we are going to change??? and to allll of you naysayers who think that's just an idealistic, naive, "young" hope---YES WE CAN! because we did.

blessings,
meg
ps--i may need an invite to holiday dinner. :)

VOTE!!

This has been circulating, around the web, for a bit now...the author is Connie Schultz of "The Plain Dealer", Cleveland. It's true ladies and gents...all true.
snopes.com: Why Women Should Vote
(And, there's an excellent article from About.com, on the "Brutal Treatment of Women Suffragists at Occoquan Workhouse".)

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE.
"This is the story of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of “obstructing sidewalk traffic.”
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting, and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the “Night of Terror” on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food — all of it colorless slop — was infested with worms.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat, and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because — why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie Iron Jawed Angels. It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was — with herself. “One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,” she said. “What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.” The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her “all over again.”
HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies, and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. "

Connie Schultz

(hopefully i have quoted intact, etc. ...this is what i dug up from other blogs and snopes--my apologies if anything is incorrect, mis-quoted, etc.)

I confess, my voting habits were a titch whimsical until the infamous Bush/Gore election. And even after 9-11, when our leaders were "deliberating" the Iraq invasion (though we were already in Afghanistan, where Osama oft' resides...)--even after all of the spin and all of the tragedy, as a working mama, and then a pregnant work-at-home-mom, life grew very busy and the wonderful chaos of children and family drowned out the tremendous action the United States was taking. I can't remember when I "woke up"--I know I had "Inspections Work" posters in my admin. assist. office...but at some point my concern and passion faded. I'm a mom. That's my very first job--but I have to remember that being informed and voting my conscience, sorting through the spin and carefully harvesting the facts, VOTING, is one of the most important things I can do for my girls. There's a dialogue in our home, and Chloe asks questions now--and not just Joe and I...she asks her grandparents too. And that's a wonderful thing--though she was a bit miffed that, at 7 years old, she will not be able to vote!

Since 2000, there's been only one state election I did not vote in--my mom and i went through the ballot, and knew we would precisely cancel each other out on every candidate, and every issue! Though i did torment her with "i voted" calls the rest of the evening... :)

Anywho. Get out there. Go do it. If your willing to sacrifice your own "voice", please consider the kiddos...our decisions now will impact them forever, on every issue, every front. And, if you must write Ron Paul in, I do understand--it's too bad that fella didn't go farther.

"Snopes" your inbox, watch both news channels, go to wiki (you can read a TON of speeches there!!!...it's always interesting to see what the candidates have to say when it's NOT an election year!)...you've got allll weekend to research. Be informed and GO VOTE!!

See ya at the polls~~
and blessings,
meg