Per il secondo anno consecutivo, il Rat-Man Fans Club da il via all’operazione Caccia l’€uro 2009, un’asta di beneficenza di disegni originali su manifesti di Lucca Comics & Games 2009, con la collaborazione di Leonardo Ortolani (il papa’ di Rat-Man) e John Kovalic (autore del fumetto Dork Tower e delle illustrazioni dei giochi di carte della serie Munchkin).

Leo e John interpretano a loro modo il rapporto dei fumetti con la tecnologia ed il favoloso mondo dei computer. Il manifesto originale, illustrato negli stand della fiera lucchese, porta sul retro i disegni dei due famosi autori e sul fronte le firme e gli scherzosi testi dei membri del Rat-Man Fans Club, che anche quest’anno ha deciso di organizzare tutto questo per aiutare due associazioni: Changamano ONLUS, che si occupa di progetti di microcredito in Tanzania, ed Emergency, che con le sue sezioni lucchese e toscane stanno raccogliendo fondi per sostenere il progetto del poliambulatorio di Emergency a Palermo.

L’asta, a cui potete partecipare seguendo questo link, terminerà il giorno 1 dicembre. Un’altra asta si terrà poi a metà dicembre, con un’illustrazione (sempre su manifesto di Lucca Comics & Games 2009) di Leo Ortolani e Milo Manara.

Buon’ asta a tutti!

Somewhere around 1989 rumors began spreading that an actor portraying a Munchkin in the Wizard of Oz killed himself on the set while the cameras were rolling and the suicide was caught on film.
The rumor claims that you can see this alleged suicide in the scene where Dorothy meets the Tin Man, just as they are dancing and singing down the Yellow Brick Road.
What people are actually seeing is a crane that spreads its wings.
YouTube is full of videos of people showing the scene and claiming it … …

Shopping store: buy cheap & discount

The Munchkin Suicide Humbug

by TheBlueFlamingo (Category: Film & Animation)

So here is my obligatory, what I did for my Birthday post.

The Sunday before my birthday Josh and I, Courtney and Brandon (our neighbors), and Greg and Cheryl (Josh’s friends from Gretna) went out for sushi. We went to Saji-Ya in St. Paul. They have a happy hour from four to six on Saturday and Sunday nights. It was good sushi, but a little expensive even during happy hour. Though I am kinda biases, I miss Hiro a lot. Hiro’s happy hour was the best. After we finished stuffing our faces full of sushi, everyone came back to our apartment for cake and ice cream. The cake was an interesting concoction Josh found on the internet. It was a regular box yellow cake (with chocolate frosting, of course), but it also contianed beer and vanilla pudding. It was tasty. Following the cake we played a game of Super Munchkin Fu (for those not familiar, it’s Muchkin Fu and Super Munckin combined (if you don’t know what Munchkin is, follow this link). It was fun. We did discover that the traps are  more evil in Super Munchkin than in Muchkin Fu. Once Brandon won, again, the boys went over to Courtney and Brandon’s apartment (across the hall) to play the new Mario side-scroller Brandon bought for the Wii. The girls and I did what we do best, talk It was a fun, small Birthday part, but I appreciated everyone who took the time to celebrate with me.

I didn’t do a whole on my actual Birthday. Josh had classes all day. I cleaned the apartment and worked on job applications. Josh did cook lunch for me, it was tasty. He has a night class Tuesday night, so we couldn’t do a whole lot in the evening. I didn’t even get my Birthday cards from home on my Birthday; they came the next day, the 18th. Go Figure. Thank you to everyone who sent me a Birthday card or wished my Happy Birthday on Facebook. It really meant a lot to me, since I feel a little isolated from everyone up here.

Speaking of night classes, if you are wondering why Josh hasn’t posted lately, he is busy with mid-terms. He is excited for fall break next week, so he can finish sending out his CPE applications and relax.

Job Hunt Update – I have some exciting opportunities on the horizon. I will update you as things become concrete.

Okay I better go check on my green bean casserole. The Children Youth and Family program (which Josh is getting a concentration in) is having a Thanksgiving pot-luck tonight. Yeah! I really love Thanksgiving and all the food associated with it. I am really excited to go back to Omaha in a week for Thanksgiving. It will be nice to be back home.

- Rachel

Miles von Miles-Web haben aus einer kleinen Zeichnung von mir eine Munchkinkarte gemacht!

FLUUUUCH!!!!!

Tolles Bild, super Idee! Danke!

Wer Munchkin nicht kennt findet das jetzt nicht so lustig. Wer Munchkin kennt und es nicht mag, hat als Mensch versagt.

This is a video about Munchkin Cats.
Standards are short legs, that is the Cinnamon one, and a Non-standard tall legs, that is the mostly white one. …

Shopping store: buy cheap Nerf N Strike & discount

Munchkin Cats going to live in Russia

by sirrahirret (Category: Pets & Animals)

Like most parents of two year olds, we have been waiting, most impatiently, for the day to come when we could finally say goodbye to diapers. We’re at 33 months now and it seems like being potty trained is still a million years away.

At one point, we though that we wouldn’t have too much of a problem – the munchkin was waking up from naps and nighttime sleep with a dry diaper at an early age. She was also at in-home daycare with a group of older girls and wanted to be like them so she would regularly go in the potty. I was reminded earlier today that there were many days where she would only use one diaper. Then we started to get the house ready to be put on the market (aka packing up everything) and faced some really huge stressors as a family and she took a big step backwards, even stuttering for a short time. So we backed off and didn’t even consider trying to potty train until we moved. It was always there if she wanted it, but in the background.

When we moved to NC, she happily and easily transitioned to a big girl bed. She also got a much bigger bathroom that was all hers. So we tried to just put the potty seat out for her so she could get used to it. We were using the padded ring on the big toilet with stairs that were always there. But she didn’t really want to use it. She started daycare again six weeks after we moved here, and after a week, her teacher asked me to bring pull-ups because she was asking to go potty and it was easier for them that way. Looking back, I wish that I hadn’t done it, but I was thrilled that she was going regularly and I said okay.

She continued to do a great job at daycare and lousy at home. Then I pulled out a different potty chair, the kind that sits on the floor, and all of a sudden she started to use it. She wasn’t completely consistent, but it did seem like she was trying. Then all of a sudden it stopped. Whatever hope was there, gone. Not only did she stop going at home, but she stopped going at school.

So I decided to try another route. Someone at school mentioned waterproof covers to go over actual underwear because part of the problem with pull-ups is that they are glorified diapers. The munchkin will ignore a wet diaper if she’s too occupied with something else. Apparently, that’s exactly what I was like at her age. Thanks mom, but that doesn’t make this any easier.

Here’s the killer. I know that potty training is not something that you should push. It’s supposed to be that when your child is ready, they are ready. But our current parental/societal environment pushes potty training earlier than it used to be. I recently read in parents magazine that the average age for girls to be potty trained is 35 months and for boys was maybe 39 months, yet these days everyone pushes for potty-training by 2 1/2. Times aren’t what they were when I was being potty-trained. The two biggest differences and two huge obstacles for us are 1) pull-ups, the evil glorified diaper and 2) daycare.

The issue with day-care is that no program around here will allow a child to be in the three year old room if they aren’t potty trained. I actually think that we are getting a touch of pressure from the munchkin’s daycare program because she is ready to be in the three year old room in every way except potty training. I’m not being a biased parent, but she is a smart little girl. She’s actually so smart that I think she is playing games with us regarding potty training. Today I tried moving to cloth training pants as part of a new regime to get her to feel wet. We went through 3 of them in half a day. Actually, she peed in one pair maybe 5 minutes after I had changed her. She is at least getting the feeling of being wet, but ugh. I figured that we would “make” her sit on the potty every 2 hours regardless of if she felt she had to go or not. It worked for one time and then the second time, she went at about an hour and a half. So then, I decided I would turn on a timer and have her sit every half hour, I even showed her the timer and explained what I was doing. Unfortunately, she had just started eating when the timer went off, and I figured we could wait a few minutes to let her eat. At this point, I had wisely moved her back to pull-ups. So I gave her a much needed bath and read our bedtime books. She normally pees right after the second book but before she actually gets out of bed. I tried to cut her off and brought her to the potty with her second book. Nope, she had already peed. No child should be peeing this frequently! Even her urologist father thinks it’s crazy. I think she’s playing us.

It isn’t supposed to be this hard. I’m just ready for it to be done.

Totally un-jewellery-related, this post.

Yesterday, a trip to the local grocery store yielded some post-Halloween pumpkins. Among them, looking lost, was one solitary teeny pumpkin, called a munchkin pumpkin. It’s about 3″ wide. So I bought it, and today, I carved it.

Rawr!

RAWR!

What? I'm totally not scary with the light on. *waves*

So I have been busy the past three or four days…actually I have been busy all last week, and I felt like everything was going so fast and I was just wading in a boggy marsh. We had an excellent revival, it started on Sunday and went until Wednesday. It was great.

I helped out the day before Halloween at a kids’ fest that our church was putting on and that went well, I ended up painting faces. Which was so much fun. I love to paint faces. the funny thing was that my youngest brother wanted me to paint his face like Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker, from Dark Knight. It turned out pretty well, What do you think?

"Joker" lol

He so wouldn’t smile though. I guess that is just his way to get on my nerves… LOL

So on Halloween, I went to help some of the guys in our church who are planning to go to Mexico on a mission’s trip to help build a church. So we went to the Coliseum to help run a booth for the Goodyear family night thing. We had to help give out candy in the trick or treat line. There were so many cute costumes and some were a little weird, but the was a lil guy maybe three or four years old and he was dressed up as Micheal Jackson, an old school  a umpaloompa from Willy Wanka and the chocolate factory and a lil girl dressed up as Rainbow Bright  tied for my favorites! (^-^) There was a sea of ninjas, handy Mannies, Toy Story characters all over the place, and too many Optimus Primes to count. I saw my own little munchkin boy (my friend’s son) in his sock monkey costume. I was so happy to see him! I went with my friend to eat lunch at one of the many local Chinese food restaurants in town. Nothing could bum my mood!

UNTIL…….

Yes, you knew it was coming huh? LOL yeah, so the youth pastor of our church brought up the marriage /dating subject out of the blue! I was shocked. Grant it, it does bother me at times that I am still single. However I just chalk it up to not being time for me and the right guy to have found each other.  But this was ridiculous… He brought it up at youth convention, also out of the blue. Like I was so concerned with finding that person…. My heart is currently in a box labeled fragile. It just bugs me that he would bring it up when I was enjoying the moment and afterward it left me wondering and in a really bummed mood. I don’t think I wear my heart on my sleeve, but two or three times he has done this… What right does he have to but into my personal business like that? lol I know he was probably meaning it to boost my morale but it had opposite effects. So my thought on the matter, unless God says its time, I am not ready to be with someone.

Tonight’s experiment in the kitchen proved successful. I love sweet potatoes but haven’t changed the way I make them all that often. We don’t like them sugary sweet and I always thought that I didn’t like them at all since the ones covered in syrup and/or marshmallos do nothing for me. I usually just do something simple like roast them with other root vegetables and shallots, but as part of my menu planning I decided to try something new – Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Onions and Feta. Oh my goodness these were a success. Yummy!! And they smelled so amazing when they were cooking.

In other news, our Halloween weekend was a complete success. This was the munchkin’s first Halloween where we actually went trick or treating and the first where we let her eat candy. We spent the day with Nonno and enjoyed going to a Halloween parade and then later, after it got dark, we went trick or treating door to door. She loved it, but it was hard to have to tell her that she could only eat a few pieces of candy. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was drizzly in the morning, but by afternoon the sky was blue as far as the eye could see and the temperature was in the upper 70s. The munchkin’s costume wound up being perfect for the weather, even at night.

On Sunday, the weather had abruptly changed to fall so all three of us bundled up and went to the park. We were going to just let the munchkin ride her bike since the slides etc were wet, but we found a great hockey rink and she was able to play “soccer” on a smaller field and we spent a good half hour running up and down the length of the rink kicking the ball. She’s got pretty great coordination in kicking the ball…we could have a soccer player on our hands.

The girls and I bailed out of the cabin on Friday and went to my in-laws for the rest of the weekend.  I had made an attempt to clean some of the mold from the walls and floors, which taught me that this mold likes to give you an itchy sore throat.  With both of the girls sick with what seems like a sore throat/cold thing, I felt it best to get out of the cabin for a few days and search out a dehumidifier.

For the girls, their grandparents’ house is like going into a dream filled wonderland.  They are showered with attention, given too many sweets, allowed to watch TV on demand, and catered to in most every way.  Both of them absolutely love to go and be with their grandparents, and I love that I get to watch them develop the same type of relationship that I had with my grandparents and great-grandparents.  I also love the bit of letting go that I get.  Nothing pressing down on me insisting to be done.  I get to watch the History Channel too, which is always a luxury to me since we don’t have cable.

Halloween night came with a 90% chance of rain, and that it did.  The in-laws went to their church to do Trunk or Treat, and I was left to get the girls ready and walk them around the holler and on up to the church later on.  Deladis had gotten better in the day that we had been there, but Ivy was still sick.  I worried whether or not either of them were fit to go, especially since Deladis passed out on the couch about 45 minutes before time to start getting ready.  I couldn’t stand the thought of missing Halloween, so I woke Deladis and got both the girls ready despite the tears from a tired Deladis who was also very certain that she did want to go.

Taking their picture together before leaving the house was impossible.

Here you have Dorothy Gale from Kansas and a sick little flower munchkin from Oz.  After a few attempts to take a good picture and this being the best of the three, we set out to see the Wizard.

We went to a few houses before heading up to the church.  The rain drizzled on us, then sprinkled chubby little droplets, and I tried to make it quick.  There is a sub-division (of the mountain variety) in the holler.  It consists of about 15 upscale houses on both sides of the street.  They were obviously in competition with each other on the treat giving.  Whole chocolate bars, candy apples, and Capri Sun juice pouches soon filled our treat bag!  Deladis said when handed a Mr. Goodbar, “This is the best treat I’ve never had!”  Ivy waved hi and good-bye to everyone from my arms.  She didn’t feel up to walking, but she is always the people person.  The girls received many compliments on their costumes.  One woman even thought I had made them.  I wish I could, though I’m not as cool as Breedermama, I do take costuming very seriously.

Poor Snotty Nosed Munchkin

At the church, we went around to 17 cars with decorated trunks and costumed treat givers.  The church grilled hot dogs and gave out hot chocolate, chips,  and deserts.  Deladis ate like there was no tomorrow after almost fasting for the few days before.  I took the girls inside the church to eat, and Ivy took off her hat, relieved.  After eating, Deladis said she was ready to go home (the grandparents’ place).

So pleased to be called beautiful!

Today, I clicked my heals three times and we were back in Kansas.  I wish it were that easy.  I unloaded and reloaded the truck with our things and the new dehumdifier, drove a fair piece, and walked a bit in the dark to get back to the cabin.  The one thing that I love so very much is that though Oz is such a nice place to be that there is no place like home.  The girls even think so too, and that makes me feel like I’m doing a good job.

I’m the proud mother of a sweet 7 month old baby girl.  Naturally, she is the prettiest, smartest baby that has ever existed.  (Well, of course…look at her parents…)

Anyway, today I purchased a sippy cup made by Munchkin.  Munchkin actually calls it a trainer cup.  She seemed to like her first experience with it (only water). 

Some parenting books, magazines, and so on seem to think sippy cups are the devil, though.  What are your thoughts?

The munchkin and I are completely addicted to banana muffins after the last time I made them. This time I decided that it would be a good experience for her to make them with me. We had a blast and didn’t even make that much of a mess.

mashing the bananas

beating the eggs

mixing in the chocolate chips and pecans

the finished product

For anyone who doesn’t know what Munchkin is, go play it. It’s a card game and a role-playing game. If you’re a very serious person, drink a beer before you play. Or maybe six. The game will be fun.

My sister and I decided we want this game. Not just one package, but a lot. It’s more fun that way, especially when you’re with nine people. I can really see us buttpwning eachother all night.

But here’s the crazy idea, and I’m sure I’m not the first who thought of it. My writing isn’t perfect and need practice. So I decided to try to make a story of one of the games. If and when I finish it, you can find it here.