Links, Links, Links

 Hello Link Clickers,
I know I said I was going to do another Thrify Geek's Library, but I got some time sensitive links here. So I switched them. I'll do my final Library post of the year on New Year's Eve. In today's post I'm going to be sharing my favorite links of things I've come across.

For Your New Year's Eve Celebrations:
These links are ideas you can do to send off 2020 and welcome 2021 in style.

The Captain shared this link by Amy Ever After on how to make a "Gingerbread Dumpster Fire".  I know Christmas is over, but I figured you could still make this then at midnight on New Year's Eve you do like Bobby did LaurenZside's 2020 Gingerbread house. I kinda feel bad for Lauren, I'd so Jethro Gibbsed my Hubby.

My mom makes a lemon pie for Christmas. I'm thinking I'd maker it for New Years or Summer, but anyway I saw the lemons laying out and it reminded me of this Atlas Obscura post about Lucky Lemon Pig for New Years. I love this! On mine I'd put wings on it to make it a flying pig, cause flying pigs are more awesome. I'd probably make these year round.

Nerdy Nummies' Rosanna Pansino chick just shared a video of her making Star Beignets for New Years. If I make beignets anytime of the year I'm making them this way. I love stars!

Geeky Things:
These are links geared toward the geeky side of life.

When I was a kid and received the American Girl catalogue, I'd pour over that catalogue. I think the doll I really wanted back then was Molly McIntire. My grandparents bought me her Christmas story for Christmas one year. I used it as my oratorical contest piece. But sadly she's no longer available to purchase, unless you slum through what will be over inflated used offerings. But they do offer a new doll I would not mind having in my toy collection, Courtney Moore. As a child of the late 80's/early 90's I think she's totally awesome. She even has a working PAC-Man™ machine that you can get.

This Wonder Woman trainers look so cool. If they had them in my size I wouldn't mind them. Another super powered link that has been of use is Entertainment Weekly's article about CW's upcoming line up. I was able to make my viewing schedule, something I usually do in the Fall. Most of the weekly shows I watch are from CW. I have a few on other channels I watch stuff from, which I've looked up to see when their going to start if they haven't already.
 

I was perusing the Virtual Ninja Turtle Museum. I love seeing the old toys and ones in my collection, it helps to see what went with what and what I need to buy that my sister took with her. It's here I discovered some of my turtle stuff was second hand cause we only got a piece of one of the role play sets as kids, which bites cause I didn't get my katana. ><

Ok I first heard about KFC's console on Geekologie but I felt they weren't sure if it was a gag or not, but according to Geek Native it's an actual think that's pretty powerful, and apparently heat your chicken. I guess it'd be a great way to reheat chicken strips I bring home.
 

I love reading Epbot, you never know what geeky thing she's gonna have. Well her husband and her do themed Christmas decor each year. Well one three foot tree was Alice in Wonderland themed. I think the card flowers are so cute. I wanna make some!

Personal Links:

Every so often I like do a rundown of the other places you can find me, which are usually on the right of the page.

Twitter- Sometimes I only need a few words to get my thoughts out, so I send it out in a tweet, you can keep up when I post new blog posts here.

Tumblr- Yes I still have a Tumblr called my Brain Dump. This is where I make post for thoughts I wanna get out of my head, but isn't long enough for a blog post, plus my Tumblr shares. I also post links to new blog posts here.

Instagram- This is where I post photos of my life. 

Facebook- This is mostly another place to share post updates, but I do share my favorite Facebook posts here too.

Deviant Art- I'm a creative person. I take artsy photos, drawings, poetry, a bunch of stuff, so I display it here.

Pinterest- I love this site. I pin crafting ideas, geek stuff, stuff I can use in books, it's great, and yes I post links to the blog here.

Six Word Memoirs- Can you tell your life in six words? I do.

Amazon Idea Lists- Yes I still shop here, mostly gift items I can't find elsewhere, but I'm not happy with it's creator, and mostly I shop the third party stores instead of Amazon itself. But these are some of my lists if your looking for gift ideas.

Youtube- I mostly watch videos, but I have posted two videos of me doing readings of my poetry.

Well that is all for my links post. I hope you all have a good week, stay safe, and God bless.

*Thrifty Geek*

Jesus' Birthday Gift 2020

 Happy Holidays my Friends,
I'm coming to you a few days earlier, because my usual post day is Friday, most the time, and this Friday is Christmas, so I don't wanna be thinking of blogging. Well we're in the home stretch of Christmas and I'm barely holding on to my sanity. As all families we have traditions in our house that we try to do every year. Putting up the tree close Thanksgiving, my parents start playing just a Statler Brothers Christmas album in October, I prefer to start listening to Christmas music after Thanksgiving and decorating the tree. My parents get into the spirit early. Late in December traditions include my Momma's Christmas goodies, I just ate the left over dipping chocolate she used to make "suckers". We also go Christmas light looking, which we did last night. I also have personal holiday traditions that I do. Every year I use my creative powers and make a gift for Jesus, that way He has a gift just for him, since to me this was the day chosen to celebrate his birth. I also do a tradition I learned to do from Reba's Happy Birthday, Jesus on her Merry Christmas to You album, before you open a gift you wish Jesus a Happy Birthday and that your opening this one for Him. Well this year I decided to write another poem one that involves the various trials we have faced this year. No point sugar coating it this year was a dumpster fire, and even though we were battered and bruised, and in my case low on faith, we came through. I actually contemplated not doing it this year, cause I was, and still am that low, but the morning of the 21st inspiration struck.  So here is my poetic birthday gift this year:

Jesus' Birthday Poem 2020
This has been a dumpster fire year
But you've still been here
Through the chaos of a pandemic
You've remained stoic
As we treaded a crazy election
You've kept us in your recollection
When the mental health ills grew bolder
I'm sure you were at my shoulder
In the bleakness of our push and shove
You continue to show your never-ending love
So, I take a moment to remember all you do
On the day we choose to say "Happy Birthday to You"

I actually decided to make a small video of me doing a reading, that I also made the same day, I took pictures of frost on the truck for visuals. In the audio, you can hear my Mom doing Christmas cooking. I was going to rerecord it, but I'm like this is what my Christmas sounds like, so what the hey. So please give it a watch and a like.

Hope you all have a good Christmas, enjoy your eve, and God bless!
*Thrifty Geek*

Thrifty Geek's Library: The Unusual Suspects

Hey Book Friends,
Well, since I was crappy at blogging this year, I have a couple library posts I need to do before the year ends. So here's the first. This post is going to be unusual books or books with
unusual things in it that I read this year.

The Lightning-Struck Heart by T.J. Klune
 

This is the first book in the Tales from Verania series. It follows a wizard in training, Sam, who has to help his knight crush, Ryan, save the kingdom's Prince, who Ryan is dating.This was the weirdest and funniest book I read this year. I was literally laughing out loud. If this book could bleed it'd bleed sparkly rainbows. There are so may gay characters, which I'm happy to see even though I'm straight. My favorite character has to be Gary, the hornless unicorn. He has no filter when it comes to talking about sex, and also spews glitter when he's angry. That being said it does have sexual themes so avoid if you don't like.
I was telling Fangirl about this book, and she started reading it like when she'd be waiting for her food or in line at places and she couldn't read it in public, because she'd be laughing at it.
Overall this was an awesome book, I hope the library gets more of this series. It was a perfect read in this pandemic, it really takes your mind off the dumpster fire that was this year. I totally recommend you guys read this. I definitely want to add this to my books to add to my library permanently list. Which I really actually need to start making.

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag
 

This is the tale of Alba who is dealing with problems in her life and finds herself on Hope Street at a beautiful house, where she is welcomed to live 99 days and in that time turn her life around. The house apparently has had many famous tenants and is very helpful in many ways. There are also the house's keeper, Peggy, and other tenants who are on their own journeys.
This was an interesting book. I love we had so many characters with their own stories playing out along with the main character. I was surprised at some of the reveals at the end. I love the house itself. It sounded so beautiful, and there's plenty of pictures of famous people around who've stayed there. If you are down in life, this house will totally kick your butt in gear to turn it around. I also have to say "dang" to the family drama, I thought my family had some drama going, I think Alba's family might surpass us, maybe.
If you love writing and books I think you might like this book. Books and writers do get mentioned if I'm not badly mistaken. Been a little bit since I read it. So check it out.
This was another pretty good read this year and I'm probably going to add this to my permanent book collection at some point.

Well that's all for this post of Thrifty Geek's Library. I know for sure there's going to be one more before the new year. I'll probably post that Monday. In the next post I'll be revealing my annual Christmas tradition that I do that involves me making a gift for Jesus.
Wishing Happy Yule a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate those holidays, and a belated Hanukkah! Have a good holiday whoever you are, hope it's good, and God bless you!
*Thrifty Geek*

2020 Tales: Ginseng,Snakes, and Gratitude

Happy Friday my friends,
Well we are creeping closer to Christmas. This year has been meh right now. My mental health loves to take a dive this time of year, this year has been bad. I'm just not really feeling it, I had a spark, but then more mental health problems came and spat on it.  But I'm dealing the best I can.  Well one thing people love to do this year is look back over the year. Although as many have said this year has been a dumpster fire. I was actually looking through this year's photos and was reminded of a time when my folks managed to pull a laugh out of me when we were still quarantined up. This was when you could only go out for the essentials. My folks were going for a supply run and asked if I wanted anything. I said my usual joke "a big cookie", well they comeback later with a dang big cookie cake. I also remember flymagedon. We had a surplus of flies in the house for some reason at one point this year, and I would have to go through the house with the fly swat getting flies. It's funny I can squash a flying mosquito with my bare hands like nothing, but getting flies with a fly swat, not my strongest skill.
 

 Ginseng Hunting

The most I did this year till things opened back up a bit was reading and Supernatural binging, but despite being holed up in this year we've still managed to go on adventures. My Dad and I went ginseng hunting for the first time in many years. We use to do it a lot when I was growing up to get a little extra money, well this year my Dad decided to do it so we'd have some extra Christmas money this year. I went with him in case there was problems. I found two on my own without any help for the first time ever*, one my Dad missed, in his defense it was in the middle of the dirt road, and he wasn't expecting one to be growing their, he was focusing on getting to the places in the woods where they do grow. Well we decided to go one Sunday. That was a mistake, because the mountain above our house was like I-40, very busy. Turns out we weren't the only ginseng hunters out, and the guy who does horseback rides, who I will not blast in this blog, had some riders, and there were two dogs with the riders. We were up in the woods with our dog. So my Dad decided to get further in the woods, so we ended up high on a steep bank. Now picture this from my point of view: I'm scared of heights and my ankles and feet hate banks, and we're high up on a steep bank, plus I'm trying to keep my balance and not fall while holding onto a beagle mix dog who's pulling at the leash, because he wants to say "Hi". I was not a happy human for a few minutes as we scaled that. But it was worth it in the end I found my second ginseng plant.

 Snake Problems

This year involved way too many close encounters with snakes. We had one snake climb up the outside of one of our living room window and I had one cross this trail I walk. Back in August maybe after our Church Decoration day, my Mom comes home with two trash bags of flowers. My Mom and some other ladies of the church like to reuse the flowers they toss out in the special bin they have up at the graveyard, plus we retrieved our flowers that we reuse every year, cause we too broke to buy all the flowers we need each year to decorate everybody we knows grave up there. Well anyway back to my story, my folks brought back some bags of these flowers and asked if I'd unload them. So I go to do that and I move a bag and there is a graveyard snake that must have hitched a ride. I couldn't help of think of that episode of Most Scariest Places On Earth where they talked about St. Louis Cemetery Number One. It's where Marie Laveau is buried and they say you sometimes see a snake there. I'm not a fan of snakes, I know not all of them are venomous, but I'm not an expert in which are or aren't, so I'm creeped out by them no matter what. Well I go to grab a hoe if anything to get it out of the back of the truck, I don't think I have the heart to even kill a snake. So I go to get it and I think I saw it go, or assumed it went, into the wood we still had in our truck from our last wood haul. It eventually must have found it's way out, because when we got the wood later it was nowhere to be found. And finally the most scary of my snake related stories. My Mom was chilling in her comfy chair in the living room when she felt something on her arm, she moved and sitting there on the chair arm running it's tongue up my Mom's arm was, you guessed it, a snake. Yeah, I think I somehow slept through that mess. Ok, done with the creepy crawly stories.

Gratitude

Finally I'm gonna take a gratitude moment. I've tried to keep gratitude sections in my journals, but they never really work for me. I either would just be grateful fro the same things or when I tried doing it Jewel's Method, I found it hard to pull different things to be grateful for each day, because I couldn't find things to be grateful for besides my usual daily things I'm always grateful for. Last night I started thinking of things I was grateful for during this dumpster fire of a year, also I was watching a bit of this video when I was writing this section and felt it was appropriate for here. Anyway here is my list:
 

1: During this pandemic there has only been three members of my family, that I know of, that has had Covid two have recovered one was just diagnosed and their still doing good.
 

2:That we didn't have certain people living with us anymore. It was rough enough living with certain people during normal election years when their candidate won, I'd hate to be living with them during this pandemic and their candidate lost.
 

3: Grapes, yes weird thing to be grateful for, but I am. See my parents have been buying fruit lately and I love green grapes. So they've been buying a not, which has been good for me, because I'm prone to stress eat when I have anxiety and this gives me a healthier option to munch on.
 

4: Candy Cane Peppermint ChapStick®, last Christmas in my stocking I received like five of this kind of chapstick®. Well my lips were getting really chapped and I couldn't find the lip balm I'd use on occasion, which I just found. But I'm keeping them next to my computer tower to reapply every so often cause I drink a lot of drinks. The burn of it feels good on my lips and it smells so good.
 

I hope you all reflect on the good things that happened to you this year. Tell me what your grateful for in the comments. I hope you have a good weekend, stay safe and God bless!
*Thrifty Geek*

*When we went ginseng hunting as a kid my sister and I would follow behind my Mom mostly. Well one time she pointed at an area and said there's a ginseng plant in here see which one of you can find it. I found it. It was my first find.

What We Need Now: Gifts, Chocolate, Music, and Love

 Happy Monday friends,
This year has been a dumpster fire I know. I actually did a dumpster fire drawing for my friends' comic in their Christmas cards this year. Well I've decided to share some things we need this year.

What the World Needs Now: Friend Gifts
My friends have been generous with geeky gifts this year. While not necessary it is nice they think of me to do this. The Captain even decided to send gifts year and we haven't exchanged gifts in a few years. So I decided to do a friend gift haul.
 

Captain's Gifts:
Since the Captain has Cystic Fibrosis and is on the list of people who really can't afford to get Covid she's been stuck at home during this time, except on the rare occasion and she has to take extreme measures to keep herself safe. So she got my Amazon wish list from Fangirl and got this Doctor Who Three Item Set:

 The mug is such beautiful colors, very galaxy ombre. Definitely have to have me some hot chocolate or tea in it. I was so excited to get another sonic screwdriver for my collection. It's the 12th Docotor's second sonic screwdriver , which I didn't have yet, actually I don't have a lot of them yet. This one just isn't a toy it's a flashlight, which made me very excited for some reason... It's currently hanging out with the other sonics in my fez.  The last of the trio is a pleather journal that looks like the TARDIS on the outside. The front cover has beautiful blue foil Gallifreyian writing. Can I just say inside of this journal smells awesome, yes I'm a book sniffer and proud of it. I told the Captain I was still huffing it on Facebook and Fangirl's like "That's the nerdiest thing I've heard her say."

Fangirl's Gifts:
Fangirl's gifts all centered around D & D and Funko Pops® this year:

 The first one is my favorite characters I had in my party from Baulder's Gate II Minsc and Boo. Boo so cute up there on top of his head! My other two are from the Critical Role line. One is Grog Strongjaw and Percy De Rolo III, no I'm not gonna try to type out his full name. Fangirl hinted there maybe more Critical Role ones coming. So I may have to get or build a shelf for them.

My Gifts to Fangirl:
While I can't tell you what I got Captain, cause I haven't got them to her yet, I can tell you  Fangirls, I got her a Shoto Todoroki from My Hero Academia magnet at Hot Topic, from Goodwill I found her a knitting loom set with a couple yarn skiens in it. I'm gonna get her to make me a slouchy hat from one of them. One girft came from a I guess you call them gumball machine, yes I still get stuff from those. I frequently rock jewelry from them. It was a red "crystal" that was more Fangirl's aesthetic. Lastly I got her this cute Castiel sticker. She has a few hamsters and a guinea pig that have crossed the rainbow bridge so I thought it'd be perfect for her.

Food the Word Needs Now: HOLO CHOCOLATE!
Cristine of Simply Nailogcal is the Holo Queen, we all know this, but she's upped the holo level with Holographic Chocolate. Her boyfriend Beyyyn and her used this holo film from some holo sunglasses she made as a mold so the chocolate would be able to refract light like the film does. The final result is the most beautiful chocolate I've ever seen. What more could you want it's got chocolate, rainbows, and science as a device for fun!

Musical Moment: Songs the World Needs Now
Every so often I've come across some songs that I think the world needs to hear. So I decided to put together a list of songs we all need right now:
 

You Need to Calm Down by Taylor Swift- Oh my Jack people need this song right now. Not just the problems mentioned in the song, with all the drama going on now people just need to calm down. Even on a local level the government's got problems going on. It's crazy.

The World Need A Drink by Terri Clark- I have this on her Definitive Collection album. This song was written by Eric Church and originally released in 2004 for an unreleased Honkytonk Songs album, and what's sad is 16 years later a lot of the the things mentioned in this song is still relevant. Yes once this pandemic dies down I think we all need drinks, be they alcohol or non alcoholic, for peeps like me. We all get together and hash out the problems.

Bring It All Back by S Club 7- I feel like we just need some feel good music right now. So I dip back to the music of my teen years for this. This song just always puts me in a good mood. It has great advice bout never giving up, going for your dreams, and when life gets a little rough bring it back to you.

Bells, Bows, Gifts, Trees by Toderick Hall- Even though I'm really not feeling the holiday this year, you got to have a little holiday, and Toderick Hall released the perfect holiday song for 2020's Holiday season. It's another parody to his Nail,Hair, Hips, Heels song from his Haus Party, Part 1. It has what we're all wishing for this year, and our new Scrooge! I think it will be a good reminder in what I hope is years to come what we endured in 2020. Let's all prance a little this season. This has to be my favorite new holiday song this year.

Let There Be Light by Point of Grace- For me the most hopeful Christian music that I think expresses how a Christian is suppose to feel is been Christian Pop. I was raised in a Gospel and Bluegrass household, and while there is some songs I love from those genres I just felt they were sad sounding and not hopeful. Point of Grace has made some of the most hopeful songs that inspire me. I've not been feeling Christmas or my faith this year, and this song played on my Spotify Christmas playlist and I felt hope, a reminder what this season is suppose to mean to me. It's to remember a being of hope and love came to give us those gifts.

We Need Love
I'm going to admit this year I've gotten away from my faith. I know with everything going on you figure it draw me closer, but that's not been the case with me. My early anxiety triggers were religion related, and even when we were attending church I still wasn't feeling connected and I guess with all my bad anxiety this year I haven't really felt blessed. I also don't feel like the best of Christians cause some of the things in the Bible makes my stomach turn or gets my anxiety going, and I don't feel at home with my fellow Christians, I love them and are good friends, but I don't feel myself around them. I'm also best friends with Pagans and people in the LGBTQ+ community. I believe love is love.

I'm also not happy with the way some Christians do others. The thing I agree with the most in the Bible is our Lord and Savior showing us and telling us to love, no matter who they are or what they've done just love. And I'm seeing so called Christian companies discriminating in who they help. That's not right, Jesus helped and loved everyone. He ate with sinners, defended those who transgressed against the Law, and healed those who came to him. I think my fellow Christians need to open their hearts to love again, we all need to open our hearts to love, especially now.

I hope your week is good, remember to love, and God bless you.

*Thrifty Geek* and Vampire >vv< Kitty

Silly Walks and Supernatural Plushies

 Hello Friends,

It's that time to regal you with another tale of an outing with Fangirl, cause you know we're always getting into something. The mental health hydra was raging this day, but it was beautiful day. I had an errand to run to Walmart, so Fangirl decided to lunch at nearby Huddle House where she's gone so often they know her. I was a littler wary of dining in with the latest increase of Corona cases (yes I wore my mask and used hand sanitizer).
I ran my Christmastime errand, which I thought was going to take forever cause every open aisle had a line. I managed to find an open self check out. Which made me uneasy touching, I have anxiety with a bit of the germaphobia side of OCD, I'm sorry. After that we headed out to Asheville to take in some geek culture, aka comic book stores.

In Transit Part One 

As we were on our way to the first comic store, we stopped at a red light, and as I was sitting there and a guy decided to walk across the four lane and as he started to walk he had this weird long gait that put me in the mind of "The Ministry of Silly Walks" skit by Monty Python. He made it across quicker the last two lanes.
As we walked the street to Morgan's Comics I came across some sticker graffiti that makes me wonder if they took lessons from Keri Smith's "How to be a Guerilla Artist". 

 

 Morgan's Comics or "The Nerd Sanctuary
I love this store. It hits all my geek areas. Merlin who works there came in and he had been there the last time we were there, but saw us and greeted us like old friends and he's only talked to us once. Morgan was rocking a thrift store Legend of Zelda shirt, which I had to complement her on. They have a TV in there that they play geeky YouTube music videos on and Fangirl got excited at one they played for Christmas called "Sammy, Baby" a Supernatural parody to Earth Kitt's "Santa, Baby." Speaking of Supernatural the store had a new display with plushies. They had some Sams and Deans, and Fangirl made off with one of each, I told her they were just early Christmas presents to herself. Had they'd had a Castiel she'd bought one of those too. My purchase was a Doctor Who comic. It's of the Thirteenth Doctor number 11 (In which 13 shows her 10 a bit, you Whovians I know followed that).

In Transit Part Two
*There will be Supernatural Season 15 spoilers is this section so avoid if you haven't seen it.*
As we were driving away from Morgan's we were in the turn off lane and some guy who apparently didn't know there was a turn off lane came up behind us like a mad person, about hit us, then honked at us. After we turned on to the interstate I heard Fangirl breath a little heavy, and of course I made sure she was ok, and we talked about it. I said the good Lord must have been looking out for us, to which my friend replied "Thank you Jack!"
 

As we turned on Merriman Avenue I looked across the road at Loretta's Cafe and the was a sign that said something along the lines of "Sandwich worshiping wrong?" With the way I was putting away turkey sandwiches after thanksgiving I was doing some sandwich worshiping.

Comic Envy
It was mostly looking at merch at this comic store today, there was nothing I wanted in my price range. I did see a K.K. Slider plush, some Studio Ghibli stuff, and a cute Stuff Jiggly Puff. It's one of my favorite Pokemon. I actually have one as my buddy in Pokemon Go. The topic of discussion at the store that day was The Art of Seduction that I first heard about on Geekologie. It's a KFC sponsored Lifetime mini movie, that I think spoofs both on Lifetime movies, and KFC. It looks hilarious I may actually have to watch it.

In Transit Part Three
Fangirl and I took one of our adventures through the back roads to avoid  traffic. We went through a tiny home community. I'm always fascinated by these homes. I myself have a kinda maxi tiny home I have in my dream homes.  We ended up near a dance studio, and I got a glimpse of a dancer performing inside.

Thrift and Dollar Stores
We hit up almost every thrift store in the county, but shopping wasn't with me today. Most of my purchases were Christmas or birthday gifts for other peeps. The only things I got was yet another pair of headphones from Dollar Tree, I'm so gonna invest in a better quality, and at one of the Goodwills a Buffy the Vampire Slayer™  called Spike & Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row by Christopher Golden for the Buffy collection. I did see a couple pens at Family Dollar I'd love to have. They looked like scepters but one had a diamond on top and another a pearl, all fake obviously.

We ended our day doing curbside service at Ammon's Drive-In. Fangirl made me hungry for her shrimp skewers. And the warmth of the day turned chilly. I got to see some Christmas light displays, so that was cool.  Got home and had a good night sleep. And that was about it to my day. Pretty full day and only one anxiety break down, well one outward break down. I hope you all have a good weekend, stay safe, and God bless you.

*Thrifty Geek* and Vampire >vv< Kitty