Birthday Loot and How Guitar Hero Gave Me Chapped Lips

The first of the three (and a half) orders made with my birthday money is in. My parents and sister gave me a Loopy Ewe gift certificate and on Friday night (yes the instant I saw the gift certificate . . . why do you ask?) I placed an order with Sheri for some pretty pretty roving.This is "She Sells Sea Shells" from Enchanted Knoll Farm available both at Loopy Ewe (yarn here, roving here) and Etsy
This one's "Tanzanite" from The Dyeing Arts (roving only). Both are merino superwash and weigh 4 0z.

My shipment was packed in a clear vinyl Loopy Ewe tote bag with a little note welcoming me to the Loopy Groupies.

and as I looked admiringly at it, I realized that there was more in it than there ought to be.

See that red tissue paper? Evidently the tote was not the end of my Groupie goodies. I pulled everything out and found all of this:

Two skeins of Regia 6 ply in "1133", a crampon style key chain, and five starlight mints (Loopy Kisses . . . . I hear they're a little more chocolate oriented in the cooler weather).

After I took everything out and played with it a little bit and then put it away I noticed that Tachi was behaving more oddly than usual. It turned out that a little friend had come in with my package and she'd caught him under one of our end tables. It was a very small green anole and she left him alone when I told her to. I caught him, grabbed the camera and then we went outside for a photo session (blurry hand photo included for scale). I last saw him on one of the Dwarf Ixora in the front garden.

Mathboy and I spent Saturday celebrating the July birthdays. There are three of us within a week of each other (well actually four, Mathboy's cousin has a two year old who was born on Mother of Mathboy's birthday but she lives a few hours away so her celebration was another time) so we all get together and have one happening for all of us. Bro in law brought Guitar Hero for Wii with him and we all had a go. I found out that I'm guitar hero challenged and in spite of being right handed am forced to play lefty. If you look at the photo of my hand above, you might be able to see a scar in the center of my hand. I was born with a hole about the size of a dime in my palm and it caused some permanent nerve damage in my left middle finger. Anyways, Mathboy liked GH so much that we picked up our own copy the next day and we've been playing it together a little each day. This is where the chapped lips come in. Turns out that when I'm concentrating really hard I pull my lower lip up over my upper lip and if I do it often enough . . . well, pass the Carmex please!