Heather Dixon Wallwork's Blog, page 8

Haunted Mansion Mary winners!

The random number generator has spoken!

Congratulations to Kamara (blog comments) and Kate Rufener (subscriber drawing)!  I can’t wait to send the print to yous guys ^_^  I’m overwhelmed by the awesome response from everyone.  Ya’ll make me want to draw Mary Poppins all day!

I apologize for the shorter post today.  Wordpress is giving me a really hard time with uploading pics this morning!  I’m hoping to have it figured out by next week.  In the meantime, enjoy binge-watching this ’60’s TV show I discovered on Youtube.  (It’s super cute.)

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Haunted Mansion Mary (#2)…+ Giveaway!

About a year and half ago I made a Mary Poppins-themed Haunted Mansion portrait.  At last, I’ve created a #2 in the series!

(Took me long enough, haha.)

Here’s Mary!

And here is the whole picture :)

I don’t know what it is about Mary Poppins, but drawing her sure cheers me up.  I guess it’s just like they say in the song–“When the day is grey and ordinary…Mary makes the sun shine bright!”  I hope this picture makes your sun shine bright today :)

Would YOU like to have a print of this stretching portrait?

My friends, you are in luck, because I’m giving away two prints of it!!

There are two ways to enter–First, you can comment on this post with the word, “WANT!”  And you’ll be entered into a random drawing ^_^  Or, you can also enter by entering your email into that sidebar “Stalk Me More” box, and be randomly drawn from that list!  —->

(Entering you email address there just means you’ll get story-monster blog posts to your inbox.  I never used these addresses for evil, though many times I have wished to.  Never fear; you are safe in my hands.)

If you both enter your email and comment “WANT!”, then you have double the chances of getting this tasty li’l print!

Winners will be announced when I post the next blog post next Monday  ^_^

 

 

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Ghost Riders in the Parking Lot

When I was in college, I worked an early morning custodial job.

Every morning, I’d wake up at 3:30 AM, get ready, head to the school, park in the Y lot (where students were allowed to park) and make my way across campus to the bookstore, where I cleaned toilets and mopped floors and replaced lights and was thrown in the dumpster by my coworkers.  (They did it because they loved me.)

Not to brag or anything, but I’m still really good at cleaning toilets.

Anyway.

One morning, I was trekking across the long and lonely parking lots.

When the weirdest thing happened.

This is me, minding my own business:

And then…

GUYS ON BIKES.

Except they weren’t on regular bikes, they were riding little kid bikes.  Like, green and pink and red ones.  What??

Silently, they rode past, saying nothing.  They looked at me, I looked at them.

As silently as a dream, they moved on.

And so did I.

3 hours later…

What had I just seen????????

Fast forward to years later.  I’d never told anyone about this weird incident, because it was…weird.  In fact, I’d been so sleepy, I half-wondered if it was a dream.  But last week I was talking to a couple of friends…

Both of these girls go to BYU, and we were talking about flash mobs.  So I told them the story.

ME:  …It was, like, 4 in the morning and whole bunch of guys on bikes came riding past…

TRISH:  Wait…were they riding kiddie bikes???

ME:

ME:

ME:  …What?

TRISH:  Because our friend was walking to her early morning custodial job, and she saw that exact same thing in that same parking lot!!!

Keep in mind, this is years after I saw them.  YEARS.

WHO ARE THESE MYSTERIOUS BIKE RIDERS????

Who indeed…..

*cue twilight zone music*

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Disneyland Secret No. 1

You guys all know I’m a HUGE Disneyland fan.

I’d live there, if I could.

I’m not sure where, because there’s tons of people and security cameras everywhere.  But it’s still one of my dreams.  (Up there with inventing the foldable waterbed.  I forsee very high market demand for that.)

Anyway, because it’s been on my mind, the last time I went to Disneyland, I decided to ask an INSIDER.  An actual CAST MEMBER (!!!!)

THE TOONTOWN BACKDROP!!!  OF COURSE!!

It makes perfect sense.  No one ever goes to Toontown (or as I like to call it, Abandonedland) so logic says, there’d  be even LESS people behind it!

The waiter said no one ever really goes back there, it’s just full of storage and old props that no one cares about anymore.

(I’m sorry to ruin the magic for you.)

I thanked the waiter profusely and told him he’d probably be seeing me a lot more often.  Me, and my lice.

He was like:

ROAD TRIP!  Grab a cardboard box and come along!

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Spider Season

Mother’s Day is good every year, but this year it was especially good because we got to Skype my little brother.  Adam is serving an LDS mission in Iquitos, Peru, teaching the gospel, helping the people there, cleaning houses with machetes…(this really did happen.)  We don’t get to chat with him much–just one email a week–but on Christmas and Mother’s Day, we get an hour to talk and he tells us how he’s doing and goes on about how awesome Mom is and, on the whole, makes the rest of us look bad.

This is a picture of him, burning a shirt on his halfway-through-the-mission day. (This is a missionary tradition.)

This is a picture of the fire quickly getting out of control.

He looks a little creepy in those, so here is a better picture of him.  Or at least, a picture of him where he’s not the creeper.

On a sad note, Adam’s been pretty sick lately with a mysterious fever.

They thought it was the dengue (jungle fever) but the tests came back negative.  Then they thought it was a disease spread by a feral cat.  (Adam has a thing for cute little animals…he was in the middle of digging a ditch, and stopped to play with a nearby kitten.)

The kitten was, actually, diseased.  And feral.

But the sickness wasn’t from the cat, either.

They finally found out what it was…

…it was…

TYPHOID FEVER.

Thankfully, antibiotics cure this (he’s feeling better already!).

I’m totally getting this t-shirt for him for his birthday:

He was pretty much better by the time we chatted on Mom’s Day.

We also got to talk to my sister, who’s just started a mission in Holland!  Here’s a picture of her with a stroopwaffle (whatever that is):

She had interesting things to say, too…

I guess spiders are a problem there.

She says the spiders are so bad there, they have something called “Spider Season.” (September-October.)  Millions of spiders come out and spin webs EVERYWHERE.

Last Spider Season, two missionaries were knocking on doors.

One guy didn’t want them around.

So he

(rip)

THREW SPIDERS AT THEM!!!!

WHY??  WHY??  WHY WOULD ANYONE DO SOMETHING SO TERRIBLE???

Let me warn you, you people in Europe who are reading this blog.  I am a mostly nice person.  But if you throw spiders at my sister, I will find you.

I MEAN THIS.

Anyway, why would you want to throw spiders at missionaries?  Most spiders aren’t even deadly.  If you really don’t like missionaries…there are way more effective things to throw at them.

*looks both ways*

 Listen.  I’m gonna clue you in on a few Mormon secrets.   But you have to PROMISE that what you read on this blog stays on this blog.  Ok?

Ok.  Here goes.  THINGS YOU SHOULD THROW AT MORMON MISSIONARIES.

Thing #1:  $20 bills.

Take a few thousand out of your bank account and keep it by your door, just in case you hear them knock.  Then, THROW.  It may look like they’re grinning big and stuffing them into their pockets, but $20 bills are made of filthy lucre.

It will slowly melt the flesh offa those squeaky clean missionaries.  Trust me, you throw $20 bills at them, and the next morning, they will look like this:

(Side note:  Mormons always sleep with their Sunday clothes on, no exceptions.  If you see a Mormon sleeping in pajamas, you’ll know that they’re a BAD MORMON.)

Thing #2: Fudge.

Fudge is especially toxic to missionaries.  Is it not written “He who defileth his flesh with the tender goodness of fudge shall surely not entereth into heaven?  Especially rocky roadeth flavors and raspberry sea salteth?”  There’s a special place in outer darkness for missionaries who eat raspberry sea salt fudge, it’s a theological no-no.  Just so you’re aware.

(Be sure to cut them up into bite-sized cubes (about 2″ x 2″ though 1″ x 1″ is acceptable as well, I suppose.)

Thing #3:  Pillow Pets.

Because Pillow Pets are not good for anyone.

Thing #4:  Rocks.

But only if the rocks look like this:

Of course, you’ll be able to throw them much further if they’re set in 24 carat gold or possibly platinum.  It makes them quite a bit more aerodynamic.  Here is a scientific graph to illustrate what I mean.

This isn’t just effective on missionaries, you can also throw them at regular Mormons.  Like me.  Mostly me.  Only me.  Feel free to throw this stuff at me anytime.

(I like pearls.)

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Kids Do the Darndest Things (+ coloring contest results!)

My mom read last week’s blog post, and reminisced upon a tale of a teeter totter, giant cacti, and my older brother Tom (3 years old at the time).

When I was 2, we lived in Tucson, Arizona.  I don’t remember much except that the spiders were HUGE.  (You don’t forget things like that.)  But mom said there was a teeter-totter in the backyard, which I imagine looked like this:

One day Tom was playing on the teeter-totter

and got his leg twisted beneath it.

He had a good cry, and then refused to walk after that.  Mom had to carry him everywhere.

For a week she carried him, and then worried that he might have actually broken his leg, she took him to the doctor.

The doctor looked at Tom’s leg, then went to his drawer

where he pulled out an uninflated balloon.  (Hahaha.  Those were the days.)

He said:

You guessed it.

I hear kids will do this to you your WHOLE LIFE.

 

Thank you so much, everyone, for entering the Mary Poppins coloring contest!  There were some beautiful (and very creative) entries.  My coworkers here at Disney Interactive were kind enough to make a decision:

Ages 0-11:

1st place –  Leong Ton Yan

Honorable Mentions –  Lucy S. & Anna Stein

Ages 12-19:

1st Place – Annie Anderson

Honorable Mentions – Vivian Vriend & Ruth

Ages 20+:

1st Place – Dale McCarthy

Honorable Mentions – Elizabeth Muennich & Patrice

We have a bonus honorable mention at the end for Chad Jemmett, everyone loved the Tim Burton-esque Mary Poppins.

I loved seeing so many different takes on Mary Poppins…we MUST do this again soon!

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The Devil’s Playground

When I was a kid–back in the Cretaceous Era, you know, before all these fancy phones and ipods and gaming tablets–we really knew how to have fun.

Sometimes we put on our swimsuits and swam in the ditch (which was a blast).

Sometimes we flew kites into power lines (happened all the time)

Sometimes we adopted animals that “followed” us home.  Animals with various sundry diseases, fur melting off, their mouth foaming.  They all needed love.

These beloved pets always ran off after being with our giant family for only a couple of hours.  Too much love, I guess.

Let’s not forget “bizzing”!

“Bizzing” is a winter activity where you crouch down, hang on to the car’s bumper, and the car drags you along the ice-encrusted road.  It was something my dad did as a kid, and he taught us.

We weren’t very good at hanging on, and we’d be sent spinning out into the snowbanks along the roadside.  It was the best.

Side note:  I was uploading this blog post at my parents’ house (because not only do I mooch their food, but I also mooch their internet) and my mom saw these bizzing pictures.

MOM:  Bizzing?  Glenn, you taught the kids how to bizz?

DAD:  I, er.  I don’t recall.

MOM:  I can’t believe you would do anything so dangerous.

DAD:

ME:

DAD:

ME:

ME:  Can I have seconds?

Anyway.  All this was great fun.  For scientific reasons of course.  (I made a graph to prove it):

The higher chance that you might die or lose a limb, the more fun everything is bound to be.  So things like climbing to the tops of trees, leaping from the roof of the house onto a trampoline, sliding down the stairs on a mattress…golden.

And then, there was the mother of all mothers of playtime precariousness.

THE PLAYGROUND.

Playgrounds were different when I was a kid.  Playgrounds were cool.  They were dangerous.  They had sharp corners.  They were SUPERSIZED.

They had blisterbars.

Giant tires.

Ooo…the strato-slide.  They don’t make slides this tall anymore!

Wheeeeeeeee

eeeeeeeeeeeee

eeeeeeSPLAT.

That was back when playgrounds had asphalt instead of woodchips, of course.

And of course, the slides were made of metal!  The local playground had a south-facing slide that could roast a pig.  We all called it The Griddle.

sssssszzzz!

It was the best.

There was also playground equipment that made no sense.  I remember a weird funnel thing at the corner of the playground.  No one knew what it was for.  Maybe sandcastle-making?  We’d pour sand in it and it would make a pile underneath.  I’m sure it was for something else, but sure beats me.

It might be one of those playground toys that requires “imagination.”  Who uses that??

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention tetherball.  Us kids, we all knew what tetherball was for–you’d hit the ball and try to get it wrapped all the way around the pole.

And I’d pay you some big money if that’s how you actually thought we used it.

Of course, the rope could never support 40 lbs of Kid, and tether would always snap.

So now no one could play it.

So kids, when you see a lone pole with a broken rope attached, take it as a symbol of my generation’s selfish desire to steal an ounce of fun from you in exchange for a pound of pain tomorrow.  Kinda like the national debt!

YOU’RE WELCOME.

  Oh.  And the teeter-totter.  Teeter-totters were (and are) my favorite playgound toy.  You don’t see these anymore FOR GOOD REASON but it’s also a shame, because I learned more about physics from teeter-totters than I did in my entire college and high school career combined.

They were great when the person on the other end was your same weight.

But if there was an older sibling at the other end…

MAY THE ANGELS HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL

And then…the Mephistopheles of the Devil’s Playground.

THE WIDOWMAKER

This was a metal contraption that would spin round and round…

…which would cause you to slide to the edges…

…and be thrown off by the centrifugal force…

(Onto the asphalt, of course.  Heh heh heh.)

This wasn’t the dangerous part, though.  The dangerous part was when you tried to get back on.

So many concussions.  So many.

It was

AWESOME.

WE DID.

Things have changed since then.

Kids nowadays, they don’t have a healthy fear of mortality like I did.  They think they’ll live forever.  And grown-ups are encouraging this!  They’ve gotten rid of all that great old stuff like the blisterbars and the widowmaker!  It’s really sad!!

My sister and I go running at 4 am, and we run past our childhood playground.  Sometimes we even sneak into the playground.

(Which is totally against the law because the playground doesn’t open until eight.)

(Tee hee)

(Tee hee)

(Tee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!)

They’ve changed out all the giant metal cement stuff and have replaced it with small plastic equipment, all with rounded corners.

Now where’s the fun in that?

They’ve added fancy electrical doohickies with lots of buttons and stuff.

I’m pretty sure no one breaks their bones on it.  It’s tragic.

They have the same swings but they’re different than I remembered.  They’re…smaller.

It feels like Thighmaster™ made them.

So even those aren’t much fun anymore.

When I leave the playground, I shed a small tear for the upcoming generation.  Never will they know fear like I did.  Never will they know true pain, or sorrow, or the sight of a bone sticking out of the skin, or the feeling of your brain bouncing against the skull…

Tragic.

But then I remember one thing that causes me to raise my head in hope:

TRAMPOLINES

We will always have trampolines.

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Adventures in Dating

Episode 5,628:

 

Episode 287:

 

Episode 1,422

 

Episode 8,947:

 

Episode 7,554:

 

I have the WORST luck in dating and I can’t figure out why!!

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Nutcracker Illo

Here’s an illustration I meant to get done before Christmas, but, you know, life.

It’s finished now, and was great fun!

Here’s a detail.

I love drawing so much

In unrelated news, I realized yesterday that I made the coloring contest deadline on Sunday, April 13th.  There is no Sunday April 13th this year.  This is yet further proof I shouldn’t be allowed near numbers.

Anyway, the coloring page deadline is now Wednesday, April 13th.  Wear those crayons to the bone, my friends.

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Fire Escapades

My mom is pretty much perfect.

…Except last week she set the house on fire.

(It was an accident.)

She’s not quite sure how it started, but here’s what we think.

In my mom’s kitchen, she has a cupboard she keeps small appliances in, like bread mixers and toasters.  It has an outlet, so the toaster always stays plugged in.

The cupboard also has a sliding door.

Anyway, mom was cleaning the kitchen (as she does every hour or so), and made this cupboard good and squeaky clean.

What we think happened was the door caught on the toaster lever and forced it down.

Here’s a diagram.  (I know this is fascinating.)

So however long later, mom was tucking my niece Sarah into bed for naptime.  (My mom’s been watching Sarah while Katie’s in for a bone marrow transplant.)  (Update on that at the end of the blog post.)

The fire alarm went off.

You know what the weird thing about fire alarms are?  They go nuts whenever you try to boil water, but for some reason don’t go off when things are actually important.

They’re just jerks, that’s all.

Anyway, mom got downstairs to find:

MY MOM DOESN’T MESS AROUND!

She grabbed some hotpads, threw open the cupboard door

Grabbed that fire

Shoved it onto the floor

And started batting it out!

Meanwhile, upstairs:

Meanwhile, on the porch:

(That’s the UPS man.  In my family, we affectionately call the UPS guys the Brown Santa Claus.  Except they’re even better, because they come every day.)

The UPS man saw all the smoke and beeping and RAN INSIDE TO SAVE THE DAY!!

He threw on the faucet and began pouring cups of water on the fire!

He was.  I hope UPS makes him Employee of the Year!

Things settled down a little.  My mom’s next-door-neighbor came over to help out (West Point, UT is Niceville, USA.  I’m not even making this up, my family moved when I was 11 and we were like, Why is everyone here being so nice to us??  I haven’t met one mean person yet.)  (Granted, I don’t ever leave my house…but still.)

Anyway, the neighbor was like, “We should probably call the fire chief, I think it’s regulation or something.”  The phone call went kinda like:

NICE NEIGHBOR: We had a small fire kitchen fire here, it’s out now, you don’t need to send anyone, but we thought you ought to know–

FIRE DEPT:  Really???!  You had a fire???!?!

NICE NEIGHBOR:  Well, it’s out now–

FIRE DEPT:  HOT DOG!!!

The Department came down like the wolf on the fold,
Their firetrucks gleaming in crimsons and gold;
And the sheen of their lights was like stars on the sea,
When the red trucks rolled brightly in West Point City.

They sent aaaaaall the firetrucks with alllll the sirens!

Everyone had a good time.

The demolition crew came and removed her burnt-up cabinets.  They were also, oddly, quite impressed with her china (which I’ve only seen once in my life.)

My mom was having a hard time with it all.  She was mortified by the whole scene it caused, sad about her kitchen, worried because my dad was gone on a business trip to the Middle East and she was alone to take care of everything, and to add to all that, she was scared to death of the insurance adjuster because he’s kind of a crab.

And then, suddenly everything was okay….

My mom says she’s not going to give up her hopes…but I follow her on Pinterest and I’ve never seen so many nice kitchens in my whole life:D

In other news:  My sister had her bone marrow transplant on Wednesday!!

Here’s my sister, the donor:

(She’s okay!  The Okayest!)

It’s really interesting how they did it–they gave her a big shot every day for five days in a row, then stuck a needle in each arm and pulled blood from one side, sorted it, then put it back in the other side.  Somehow they were able to get stem cells from this.  Crazy, huh?

The transplant went wonderfully :)

The doctors and nurses all came in and gave her a balloon and birthday card, because it was her Bone Marrow Birthday.  This means when she’s 60, she’ll only be, like, 20!

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers…right now she’s recovering well, though these next few weeks will be dicey.  We are so grateful for all your help!

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