The Fabulousness

Normally I am turned off by so many fonts, but I feel it works for this

Sat, 25 May 2013 17:30:38 -0400

Possibly because I went b&w with it?

Regardless, I am pleased with it.

If you’d like to get this FREE story that takes place between Troll Or Derby & Troll Or Park (and after the events in Let It Snow!), you need to be a member of my email list, because that’s the ONLY way to get it.

SIGN UP FOR MY EMAIL LIST

And, hey! How do you catch a unique rabbit?

Photo

Fri, 24 May 2013 20:30:04 -0400

Photo

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:30:04 -0400

Photo

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:00:21 -0400

Photo

Wed, 22 May 2013 20:30:16 -0400

One thing Yahoo could fix about tumblr

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:05:55 -0400

I follow a lot of people who appeal to me for reblogging to my Red Tash blog. When I follow them, they follow back Leslea Tash, which is a completely different blog altogether with a totally different tone.

I wish tumblr allowed me to follow people as Red, so when they followed me back, they might understand why I followed in the first place.

http://RedTash.com <~my other tumblr, the better one with a shit ton more traffic than this one.

Flamingos

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:29:32 -0400

Sometimes my mom did things to surprise me. She knew I liked lawn flamingos—initially because they were considered tacky, then eventually because they were pink and flamingos—so she allowed me to buy some to decorate my room.

During the brief period when I was away at college in Bloomington, before she pulled the blackmail move that would drive me away from living in proximity to her for nearly a decade, she missed me a lot. Once, she drove up with an antique aluminum flamingo for my yard. She had talked some old lady out of it, saying that her daughter just loved the things. I don’t know what other manipulation she used, or if she purchased it, but it was antique, with aesthetically pleasing faded, peeling paint.

I loved that bird, but that year when it came time to move, I was exhausted and I left it behind. For a moment I glimpsed it out the side window and just decided “No, I can’t keep everything.”

She was disappointed that I’d left it, after all the trouble she went to to get it for me. I felt pretty badly about that.

I’m not sure why I’m writing this right now. I feel sad that I left that flamingo behind, but not as sad as all the times my mother left ME behind. Just because she chose one day out of thousands to reach out to me with a show of love, why do *I* feel pain and loss? Probably only because she died first. Probably only because I wanted her to care for me every day—if not with flamingos, then with her heart. With caring in her heart would have come caring actions, caring words, caring deeds, an entire legacy that would remain with me for the rest of my life, instead of this legacy of sadness and, yes, anger & disappointment.

I know because she wasn’t the first parent I lost. She also wasn’t the last person I loved who gave me flamingos.

But that is another story, for another time.

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:30:31 -0400

oliviatheelf: ॐMy Hippie Blog!ʚϊɞ

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:30:14 -0400

oliviatheelf:

ॐMy Hippie Blog!ʚϊɞ

I saw a male cardinal in terror and pain, downed by an automobile in the center of the road. It...

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:16:39 -0400

I saw a male cardinal in terror and pain, downed by an automobile in the center of the road. It saddened me, but my only wish was for an end to its suffering, and soon. In my rearview mirror another car made my wish come true, but tears welled in my eyes. There goes another life. Another beautiful waste. And I wonder why I ever thought there was a point to this madness I call “paying attention.”

jaredchapman: Girl on Flickr.

Thu, 16 May 2013 20:30:25 -0400

jaredchapman:

Girl on Flickr.

This outline has been hounding me for months. Fine. Written....

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:34:10 -0400

This outline has been hounding me for months. Fine. Written. Still, wait your turn!

im-a-kittycat: “So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:29 -0400

im-a-kittycat:

“So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like a Disney Princess…We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world”

- Jaime Moore, Not Just a Girl

Photo

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:30:33 -0400

Mother's Day

Sun, 12 May 2013 09:18:00 -0400

Got the coolest Wonder Woman card from the kids. Plays the theme song when you open it! :D

Trying to decide whether or not to cook for myself today or let the crew hassle me through a breakfast out. This Mother’s Day restaurant thing is not for the faint of heart.

I want to share something else, too. It’s really personal, so if you hate that stuff, just scroll on by. Here’s the thing. It’s Mother’s Day and my mom is dead. With a few notable exceptions, my family of origin is dead. I feel no pain about it, either. Not anymore.

Every FATHER’S DAY, I miss my dad. For years after his death, the loss was unbearable. It wasn’t that he was the best father the world has ever seen, but he definitely got better than a passing grade for trying, and for actually being there for me. If he hadn’t have died so young I probably wouldn’t have been so traumatized that I bent myself around so much to try and please an abusive alcoholic mother. But it did happen, and I did do what any grieving child would do, I think.

I can’t help but think of my mother on Mother’s Day. Of the heartfelt letters I wrote her, of the cards, flowers, gifts, photographs…frankly, she never deserved it. Yes, she gave birth to me but why she made me work so hard to receive any sign of love, only God will ever know.

The point is, I RELEASE her. The only tears I want to fall on the baby in my lap are those of joy. I loved and needed my mother, and now my children love and need me. My needs were never met by my mother and I won’t even go into my present consternation with God, but I accept it in the way an amputee accepts a phantom limb. I don’t LIKE it, but I accept it. And I release her because eventually that’s what we all have to do when it comes to life’s biggest, most bitter disappointments.

I CAN’T steep in disappointment, betrayal, or pain. Not for long. Maybe for a dunk now and then, but then it’s time to crawl back up out of the soup, towel off and smile again.

It’s Mother’s Day today. I am a true mother. Might not be perfect, but I am heads & shoulders in aptitude above the parent my own was. I didn’t know my grandparents on either side of the family. I didn’t know my aunts. My older siblings were absent from my life. I grew up isolated and disconnected from parents of friends, as my mother jerked me around from one home to another. It was impossible to get to know any one kind motherly figure for long. It’s possible that books and movies informed my expectation of family relationships more than anything else. For many years I had to sort my expectations of what a family was SUPPOSED to be like from what I actually had, from what culture told me to expect. It created a very painful rift inside me, a lot of turmoil. When I became a mother, myself, I didn’t know myself anymore. I didn’t have a clue what to do other than love that little boy, then his brother, then their brother, too. Three little peas in a pod smiling up at one very bewildered woman. What brave souls they were.

By the time GiGi was on the way, I had found the kind of family that suited me. I had found a partner who supported my efforts to be the best mother I can be. In some ways, even though I have been at this for 12 years, I am still at the beginning of my journey.

This path does not confuse or frighten me. It excites me. It tests me, sure, but I love it. I love my family and I love my kids. I feel as though I am the first of my kind sometimes, a new Eve blazing a trail through the wilderness of parenting, with the apple and serpent and all that so far behind me, that all I can see now is the brightness of the future, of every single day.

This post would not be complete without mentioning the miscarriages this year. There were two, possibly three. I don’t know why I didn’t have those babies, but for a short time with each pregnancy, I was FILLED with the joy of expecting a new life to nurture and love, to raise with my awesome husband and our fantastic kids. I mean it when I say I don’t know what to think about God anymore…but I trust in whatever God is when I accept that these pregnancies weren’t meant to be. I can’t live in the pain and the angst of the loss and the disappointment. I waited 40 years for a mother that I wanted, who never showed. I won’t spend another day in disappointment and loss over the babies. I loved them, but they weren’t meant to stay. I wanted them, but there was nothing I could do to make them real. The same could be said of my mother and it’s not lost on me.

The more I release what is painful from my past, the faster I am present in joy and in love for my family today, right now. And HERE is where I want to be, building memories for tomorrow. Someday I will be gone and WhateverGodIs willing, I want to leave my four children some sort of blueprint for tomorrow. Even if they decide to do everything different, so help me, I want them to know I tried. <3

I’m no Wonder Woman, not by a long shot. But when the sun sets on my career as a mother, I hope my kids will know I by God tried.

oknope:

Sat, 11 May 2013 20:30:26 -0400

oknope:

redtash: Fell asleep reading, woke up all sexified. Reading is...

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:46:57 -0400

redtash:

Fell asleep reading, woke up all sexified. Reading is good for you, kids.

uxrave: Making shapes in CSS – A bunch of resources: The shapes...

Fri, 10 May 2013 20:30:15 -0400

uxrave:

Making shapes in CSS – A bunch of resources:

The shapes of CSS by Chris Coyier

Shapes with CSS – live code examples on Codepen.io

Neo CSS

How to create different shapes in CSS

FCBD The Steam Engines of Oz - Comics by comiXology

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:41:36 -0400

FCBD The Steam Engines of Oz - Comics by comiXology:

redtash:

Get a special sneak-peek at the upcoming re-imagining of Oz through a SteamPunk lens! Find out what happens 100 years after the witch is dead. In an Oz ruled by a once revered hero, salvation comes from the unlikely wrench of Victoria Wright, who dares to question the status quo and sparks a rebellion. This FCBD edition will give you an exciting extended preview of the upcoming graphic novel and a look at what else Arcana’s SteamPunk Originals line has in store for readers!

FREE online/downloadable comic, if you missed it at Free Comic Book Day. Proud to say my character The Messenger (co-created with Axel Howerton) is the well-dressed chick in the Steampunk Originals ad therein!

Getcha some!

halfghaninne: Men of the Alif Laam Meem / Alpha Lamda Mu...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:30:23 -0400

halfghaninne:

Men of the Alif Laam Meem / Alpha Lamda Mu Fraternity at the Men’s Rally Against Domestic Violence in Dallas, TX. 24 March 2013.