laughter in the darkness

Linked up at Mis Papelicos Blog for Share-in-Style: Christmas

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The dark cloud has finally been lifted from the Ramsey household. The fevers are gone. The congestion is clearing up. The kidneys are healing and I've declared my overheating laptop to be dead... er, rather dead to me. 

I'm mad at it. We're not speaking right now. We might get a divorce. 

I've already moved on and starting seeing a younger, sexier computer.

These days I'm enjoying finally being financially stable enough to do Christmas as we please. This is me and the husband's third married Christmas and for the first time, there is a tree, decorations and presents.

Our first Christmas, we were so broke that I drew a Christmas tree on a piece of paper, put it in a frame and set it on a small table with a bundle of stringed lights I found.

Back in those days, the fridge didn't work. The stove would electrocute you (happened to me twice) and the lights were often shut off because we couldn't pay our electric bill. 

But we were ok with our situation and knew that things would get better. And they have!!

I'm also enjoying being cute... and having my hair pulled back so that I look like a sweet little... onion.

My head looks like an onion.

A strange long onion...

Ok, that's not very cute.

I'm enjoying our simple Christmas tree, a thrifty sheet music and brown paper wrapped presents. Yeah, you've all seen it before but look! More presents!! 

This will be River's first Christmas so we're making it special by having him "give" presents as well.

Not everyone uses Facebook, or has fancy phones to receive photos, so I took the "old fashioned" route and had photos of him with family members printed off.

He decorated the envelopes himself...

Well folks. That's it for now. Time for me to neglect my Saturday housework by getting caught up on my blog reading. Have a good weekend and always be nice to zoo keepers.

Cardigan: Walmart

Dress: Ross

Leggings: Etsy

Boots: hand-me-downs

blue Christmas

EDIT: before I begin with this post I just want you all to know that I've been making my rounds this evening, reading blogs and commenting on posts but it seems as though my comments aren't showing up for some reason and on some blogs I don't even have the option to leave a comment- not even on my own blog! Weird?!?!? So I just wanted to inform you all that I'm reading! I really am!!!

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When December rolled in, it brought along with it some strange bad luck for me.

 Or rather, more bad luck than what's been accumulating since last month.

For starters my laptop has been overheating and shutting off several times a day despite sitting on a cooling fan. I've cleaned it out the best I could inside and out but all to no avail. That actually seemed to make it worse.

So now I have to sit on the floor of the living room, hook up a keyboard to our touch screen PC that mostly serves as our "television" to get things done. Well, I am grateful that at least I have that option since my husband has banned me from using his laptop for fear that my bad luck with electronics might come his way.

Our first Christmas tree!

 An ice storm threatened the area last week and I was not able to even leave the house for days due to the pending weather conditions that could strike at any moment. The ice storm never came, but the whole city panicked and began to shut everything down at the first sight of sleet anyway. See, we've been hurt before by a tremendous ice storm that hit the area about thirteen years ago. In some counties, power was out for weeks. The heavy ice that accumulated brought down whole trees right into the roads and on people's houses. It was pretty rough. 

I've also been dealing with what seems to be a kidney infection for the past three weeks. I'm not sure if that's what it is and I can't afford to go to some lazy quack doctor to find out since we have no insurance. All the doctors do here is listen to the first two things you say, either shrug and say "I don't see anything wrong" or give you some bull crap quicky diagnoses and write you a prescription for some super expensive meds you don't even need. So I'll give it another week.

Oh, and on top of that, I caught a cold and started one of my earth-shattering monthlies.

I'm in sorry shape over here.
(update: now my husband has a cold... and you know how men get when they get sick. Ugh.)
WHAT HAVE I DONE TO ANGER YOU, XENU!!?!

The new (to me) camera I received as an early Christmas present had to go bye-bye. It was devouring batteries. I was able to take photos for about ten minutes and the batteries would just go kaput. No bueno. So my husband took it back and got my a super nice point and shooter with a RECHARGEABLE battery. 

Hey, there's some good news!

I've also lost my faire's website. It's floating around somewhere far away from me in cyberspace. 

I spent all day yesterday taking photos of vintage clothing I wanted to list on Etsy, only to find that they ALL are in desperate need of dry cleaning (something I just don't bother with) and now I'm all out of gin!! What's a girl to do??

 I've been struck with several more tiny little tragedies over the past few days, but nothing really worth blogging about. 

So here! Look at my pretty rustic gift wrapping:
Old sheet music from my husband's piano lessons when he was a little boy and mailing craft paper lovingly bundled with jute twine. More about my wrapping adventures to come.

Well that's enough for one afternoon.

Now it's time for me to have a stretch, settle back on the floor and get caught up on my blog reading. 

Only 68 more posts to read!

it's the devil!

Last night me and my crew marched in the Texarkana Christmas parade.

The parade route was about a mile long and there were THOUSANDS of people there.

 A few weeks ago I sent out a public invitation inviting our supporters and cast members to dress up and march along with us. We had about eighteen participants, which was actually more than I thought would show up. There would have been more participants but several people that had to drop out at the last minute due to a nasty stomach bug that's been floating around. 

We even had our loyal friends from Middlefaire Renaissance Festival in Hillsboro, TX join us!

Oh, and the devil.

Well, here's the story behind that. This guy down here makes and sells leather armor. I hear tale he's made a few pieces for the big leagues in Hollywood. I wouldn't doubt it. His stuff is ridiculously awesome.

Well, at the beginning of the parade I realized how cool he would look marching in front of the banner. A supreme Christmas warrior with a candy cane sword leading the way, right?

 Little did I realize that he had pulled down his face mask which makes him look rather... um... demonic...

Like this:

Soon after he took his place I heard people in the crowd shouting: It's the devil!!

I look up ahead and sure enough our menacing Christmas warrior had accidentally gotten waaaaay ahead of us and is now trailing very close behind a poor innocent Nativity float with a little baby Jesus and all.

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Well, despite all of that we won FIRST PLACE in the marching category of the parade!!

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EDIT: Found these two photos on Facebook

 Ah! There's nothing like stripping down after spending hours in layers and layers of 17th century craziness.

I'm out party people!

Have fun and always wear safety goggles when you run with scissors.

Ramsey Thanksgiving

Cute autumn socks, fresh out of the package!

Thank you Just a Dollar. You're my only friend.

We spent Thanksgiving this year at the husband's parent's new home in Nacadoches, TX. 

Heh, I thought the photo above would be a good way to bring up this next pic. Get it? Buns in the oven? GET IT?!?!? DO YA!?  The husband's sister and her husband came down from NY. It's always a joy to see them but it was an extra special visit this year since they have a little one due in the spring.

 Little River had a blast. He finally got to swing and play in leaves for the first time ever.

It's been miserably wet and cold in Texarkana so all of our leaves are limp and soggy and the ground is ridiculously muddy everywhere.

 The leaves at his Granny's house were so crunchy and perfect, everyone wanted to play in them. 

  We had a decent and relaxing time even though I was pretty dang tired the entire time from lack of sleep due to a poor mattress and a possible kidney infection. 

We ate, we played games and there was lots of flatulence....

No kidding. After the Thanksgiving meal, we all sat around in a small room and played a game. There were a lot of farts that were not being claimed that evening and I didn't appreciate that one bit.

And what's worse is that they were ninja farts: Silent but deadly.

So how was your Thanksgiving weekend? (Or you know, for most of you just the weekend...)

soupy twist

First of all, welcome to all my new blog followers! 

You're going to regret your decision. 

Hope you have fun!

 Autumn is by far my favorite season but it hasn't been the vibrant crispy colorful autumn that I've been longing to see here all year long...

It's so friggin wet and soggy. I've never seen an autumn produce so much dadgum rain.

At first the rain was wonderful because it would chase away the lingering heat from summertime... but now after a month of the wet stuff, I'm ready to scream. 

Oh, well. I guess I should make the best of it.

Time to roll up my sleeves, find some wood and gather two of every animal...

Now that it's cold I can wear my favorite coat. It's a handed down double breasted military style wool coat with a high standing collar. When I got it last year, it was too big. Now I can't even button the dang thing which sucks because when it's buttoned to the neck, I look and feel like a militant gothified high priestess. I like that look.

Sweater: Thrifted 

Skirt: Old clearance rack find

Leggings: Etsy

Boots: Hand-me-downs from mom

But seriously, who cares? I know I don't. I just wanted something to put in this space between these two photos.

  Here's one of latest fascinators I've been working on. I had to stop working on it because I ran out of materials so it's not finished. It's gonna be huge and stupid! Yay!

 Alright folks, I'm off to finish my ark.... so here's my... face. You know, because I have a face and I want you to look at it.

 BYE!

you're not the boss of me

A couple of nights ago my husband surprised me with an early Christmas gift. He got me a new camera!

I've been needing a new camera for years but I'm not the best at saving up to get what I want so he did it for me. He's been stashing away money here and there and went out to find me what I've been needing and wanting for so long now. Sweet, sweet dude.

The new camera is used, it's only 14.1 mp and it's missing the lens cap but compared to the duct taped piece of poop I was using before, this new camera is gold.

I've been going around the house snapping shots with different settings, in different lighting to see how it works and what I need to do to make it work better for me.

I figured it would be cool to show you a few of the shots, not because I think they're stellar pics (because they're not, sunlight is rare these days) but because I wanted to share with you a little bit of my home decor.

In the three years we've been married, my husband and I have spent less than $500 on home decor and furnishings. Almost everything you will see was found, thrifted, handed down, upcycled and even recovered from abandon trailers here in the park and dumpsters. If it's something that actually came from a retail store, then it most likely was a wedding gift.

And here's the fridge, because you know... why not?

 Alrighty folks. I'm out like Vanilla Ice. It's time for me to go work on my Christmastime fascinators.

Have a great Sabbath and never sneeze with your eyes open.

2+2=5

Silly me, I totally forgot to share with you guys this wonderful little gift I got from everyone's favorite gal pal, Ally from Shybiker. It's a massive and extremely fashionable mug and an awesome card featuring her very own Spy Girl  fashion sketch. I wish I could have gotten better photos, but it's a webcam sort of evening.

If you're not familiar with Ally's blog then... too bad for you. You're missing out on something wonderful!

Well lately I've been swept up in a rare but severe hurricane of family drama for a couple of weeks now. It has nothing to do with me but I've been thrown into it in the worst kind of way.

I've been assigned to be peacemaker.

It's a family war that's been going on for about four years so far and now everyone is at their breaking point.

They're coming to me, desperately seeking help because I'm neutral ground.

Now I've got to grab my whistle, put on my referee shirt and pray that I come out of this alive.

 In between the constant phone calls that deliver nothing but more bad news, I've been working on my line of fascinators for a new online shop I will be opening some time next month (hopefully). 

 The fascinators and headdresses will be large and unusual with a few quickie lower priced barrettes and bobbies that I've made out of leftover materials.

I know you've already seen this autumn piece before, but I just wanted to share it again because I loved it dearly!! I sold it on eBay last week so I can start on Christmas shopping for my husband.

Sometimes when I make crafts I like to do a few pieces fast and without any specific planning just to see what I'll come up with - I guess you would call it "free association crafting". You know like free association writing but with feathers and a glue gun. I came up with this piece in just a few minutes.

Apparently there are some strange things running around in my brain...

I don't know what this is supposed to be.

Hmmm...

{source}

Here's a better photo of the autumn fairy headdress I started on a couple of weeks ago. Now it's hot glue cobweb free and ready to wear.

  I'm trying to make a piece a day, but with all the drama, much needed deep house cleaning and a teething ten month old baby, it's just not happening.

Welp, back to work. I'll post more pics of the new pieces soon.

Thanks for reading and always wipe from front to back.