The Magpie in the Willow

We've enjoyed having Willow drop in over the past couple of months with her supportive comments.

Now she has come up with a great idea -- a virtual writing group through her Magpie Tales. Ours will appear on schedule Tuesday, February 16, and we hope to keep up with the weekly challenge. Write a fictional post about an object in your possession or do the same with one of Willow's offerings. A great idea, and I look forward to the others' offerings come Tuesday.

Cadillac Christmas

I'm going very light on decorating for the holidays this year, using at most 10% of the decorations that I have in off site storage. Were I to use all of them, it would take at least two trips with my car filled to the brim.

My sister's packages arrived today, and as usual there were a couple of "open now" gifts. There seems to be a new pattern of holiday pillows coming from her. Many really loved this one from last year, and now there is this Cadillac pillow. I'm not sure of the entire story yet but assume the script is from our grandfather's early 1960s fin-mobile. I'm using the excuse of being concerned about Bow eating too many of the decorations for a reason to not put up more this year. Maybe it's appropriate "in this economy" (most abused phrase since "maverick").

Enjoy Gift Bearing Strangeness

Even more than gifts that come on time or early, I love those that come late. Above is a photo I received yesterday honoring my 20th year at work commemorated on September 15 and below a creation made by my sister who is becoming gloriously more eccentric with age. It is made with fabric from drapes in the house we grew up in. I've asked her if it has a name.

UPDATE: An explanation from my sister. The "north 40" is the name for the family land and house we recently sold.

Her name is Norty II. You will find a little ID card in the back of her coat. Of course everything is symbolic. Her "heart" is my key to the North 40, a fan from one of Mama and Camille's Christmas angel projects that I found on my last walk thru of the house and the blue bead was by the side of the porch when I left the last time.

Her hair is from the roll of baling twine in the barn. Her coat is made of various fabrics from the archives. The majority of the pieces are from the living room drapes at the farm and the original drapes at the North 40.

To me the most symbolic pieces are the two urns, the three "webs" representing the three homes that now hold Mama and Daddy's treasures and on the back notice the two birds from the farm house drapes. You only see the wing of one as it flies off into the unknown and you see the other complete bird as it follows.

The day before she was completed the little butterfly appeared from somewhere and I thought it was Mama's, but later Camille said that it was hers.

This was my first opportunity to use my Dremel to drill the holes for the eye hooks in the arms and legs. Its smallest drill bit is the size of a needle.

Interactive Monday - And Where Do You Blog?

Since my pantry shot got such an enthusiastic reaction, I thought I'd pull the camera back a bit and show this view of where I find myself increasingly spending my blogging time. Since I work from home, I try to keep my paid work station free of the blogging, vlogging, personal email distractions. So I tend to flit around the house with the VAIO but find myself increasingly ending up here on the bar stool that I bought after the holidays with a gift card from my sister. The kitchen has some of the best light in the flat and speakers to the system where I can stream Airtunes. It's a wild, wild, wild, wild wireless world, so this seems like a logical spot to blog.

What's your blog station look like? Post a link in comments if you are so inclined so others can be inspired by your example.

Interactive Monday Assignment - Make Mine Male!

Happy MLK Day everyone. I hope you're all off work and thinking about how LBJ contributed to your civil liberties.

Since it's technically a holiday, I thought I'd give you a slightly more complex assignment since you may have a little more time to work on it.

Write an introduction -- a sentence, paragraph, headline, teaser, whatever -- to one of the three cover stories. If you choose to write an entire article, you might get a special little something from Junk Thief.

Since there is a pretty large circle of followers down in New Orleans, I hope some of them write about those shocking Mardis Gras parties as the season is imminent. You don't have to be male to fulfill this assignment, but I think you have to have certain fondness for them to do it justice.

The Mark of the Thieves

Too often, too much is made about how I am so "different" from the rest of my family. Though I respect their privacy by not talking to much about them here (or am so self obsessed that I don't want to share the limelight), I was pleased to receive a box from my sister and her family yesterday. As usual, there was a "open when you get the shipment" bag that was a seasonal creation. Here is her creation for the season, typical of her fondness for quilting, primitives, animals and...well, a sort of Junk Thief sense of humor. When she was a newlywed, she pulled a wretched couch from a creek and had it completely rebuilt and recovered at easily three times the cost of a new couch simply because it had the perfect lines. She finally parted with it this summer, a good 35 years on. I don't plan to part with the pillow anytime soon.

INTERACTIVE MONDAY: Let's All Raise Our Voices in Song

Good morning class. You did so well with your assignment last week, and Professor Junk Thief is very proud of his students. It's not too late if you didn't participate or if you just want to see the outstanding work from last week's students which is here.

You did so well with your short stories that were moving, engaging and amusing. Now as we enter the advent/Kwanzaa/Channakuh season, it's time to start stirring the egg nog and standing outside our neighbors' windows and belting out such classics as "Dancing Around My Kwanzaa Bush". But don't you sometimes get tired of those old standbys like "The Twelve Days of Ramadan" and "Here Comes Channakuh Harry"?

Why don't we have some fund and bring some new cheer to the season by composing our own lyrics to bring a new verve to the season. Feel free to have blank verse, sonnets, rap, or whatever pleases you. Don't be ashamed to write new lyrics to a familiar melody or come up with your own beats. To get you started, here are three --- count 'em three -- pieces of photographic inspiration that you can use for the cover of your 45 r.p.m. single for your holiday tune. Write about any of the three as you please, or weave a sassy ditty converging all three.

Sign Post Ahead

As a Jew-itarian, I've always had the luxury of being able to nibble on a relatively guilt-free spiritual smorgasbord. Yet, those megachurch marquees have always fascinated me.

So in the spirit of JunkThievery, I thank fellow bloggers Bryce Digdug for alerting me to the shortest verse in the Bible and Scot for making me aware of this nifty DIY web resource. It's sort of the evangelical version of playing paper dolls or holy roller take on Mr. Potato Head. The only limit is your own creativity!