We all have friends. The people we chat with day in and day out that pepper our life with humor and friendship. Those are normal friends. Then there are oddball friends. They are people that you don’t talk to all the time but people you hold close to your heart from the random interjections in your life. They are people that always find you even after time passes (or you are stalking them lol).  When you talk to them it is comfortable like you just spoke with them the previous day. For some odd reason they just fit in your life.

My friend Paula (aka Flutter) is one of those friends. She is someone I met long ago in the pixel community. We fast became friends because she has such a twisted sense of humor. I love stalking reading her blog because I usually end up either howling with laughter at her strange ways or becoming totally smitten by her artsy fartsy ways. Despite her outgoing facade she is quite genuine and thoughtful. Did I mention she is an amazing artist too?

This brings me to yesterday. I was big time stressed. I was supposed to have 3 wisdom teeth extracted this morning. Needless to say, I am irrationally terrified of dentists so I was losing sleep and feeling badly worrying about it. Yesterday I went out to my pick up my snail mail and found a package from Paula. I opened it and found a handmade card that I had previously squealed over on her blog because it was so pretty. I also found an absolutely gorgeous fairy that she drew. Since I adore and collect fairies a massive squee-fest ensued.

The card she sent:

My beautiful fairy:

I just had to share them with you. They were so amazing and they came just at the right time when I really needed the smile. Thank you again Flutt, ya big donkey, I adore them and you.

Because I am twisted…

Because it made me laugh so hard that I started crying…

I am posting this.

Normally I have definite things I do when I pop on the net. Check mail, visit blogs, check out recipe sites, play WoW, etc. While I do always check my email I have found myself in a pleasant internet fog lately. I haven’t been to most of my normal sites. Instead I have been surfing places like Reddit, Imgur, and Pinterest. Reddit feeds my political and social side, Imgur is full of never ending absurdities and Pinterest sucks me in with all of the gorgeous scenery and food porn. The funny thing about it is I am quite happy to be in a haze. It’s relaxing and peaceful.

Anyone else get lost surfing and if so, what’s your guilty pleasure?

If you read this blog at all you know I tout the wonderfulness that is the dollar store. Most cheap stores are just that, cheap. They are usually dirty, filled with annoyed mothers, screaming children and messy shelves. Our dollar store is different. They have a ton of refrigerated items, fresh produce, school supplies and other seasonal stuff. All of it is in a well maintained, clean store. Since I do have 4 kids and one income, this store is a great source for us. On my last trip, I got bacon, brie cheese, huge jars of pickles and 1 lb bags of oscar meyer chicken lunch meat (the good kind) all for $1 each. Score! But I digress…

So the other day I took two of my kids and we were browsing as usual when the lights when out. All the power. Gone. I could hear an audible gasp through the store followed by lots of whispering. My oldest daughter was like “woohoo, shopping in the dark” but my son’s response surprised me. He turns to me with frightened eyes and asks me “what are we going to do?” I asked him what he meant. He said well the lights are out, so what are we going to do. I told him I was going to continue shopping and then hope they had backup power on by the time I was done. What really struck me was how nervous he sounded. He is 13 but sounded visibly shaken while my 10 year old daughter was hopping and bopping around the aisles in delight. Meanwhile back at my house my 14 year old was busy trying to convince my panicked 8 year old daughter that this was not a catastrophe and that Mom would in fact come home safe and sound shortly.

I guess the most interesting part was each individual reaction to the same situation. It reminded me how wonderfully diverse we all are. Needless to say, despite a few tears, everyone managed to live through the day the dollar store went dark. My oldest daughter is waiting for it to happen again… 

Today a lot of people, internet sites, companies and corporations are fighting back. New bills called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Internet Protocol Act (PIPA) have become a threat to the freedom of the internet. Have no idea what I am talking about? Read here for SOPA.  Read here for PIPA. Those are the “official” bills. Reddit and Mashable have outlined the bill in “normal” language. Take a moment to check them out.

So what does it all mean? It means in an effort to stop online piracy they want to censor the web… and possibly you. A whole new set of rules meant to stop online piracy that potentially infringes on personal freedoms. There is a massive uprising both online and offline to vote this down. Internet mega-giants like Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla , Reddit , Flickr and many more are blacking out or altering their sites today in protest of this. Of course there are all of us “little people” blogging our hearts out too as well as those protesting in person. Curious about who else is supporting this? There is a huge listing on Sopastrike at the bottom of the page.

So what can you do? Call your local representative. Tell them you want SOPA and PIPA stopped. Don’t want to call? You can go to many of these sites that are protesting and sign online petitions. Please take a few minutes to read up on this bill and just a moment to sign or call.

Online petitions: Google Petition , Mozilla Petition , Sopastrike , Reddit , American Censorship

In the USA, we have a democracy. Let’s not forget what an important part of that you are!

de·moc·ra·cy
[dih-mok-ruh-see]
noun
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.