On Care Packages From Soul Sisters

Since we started IGGPPC not two months ago, things have come along in leaps and bounds! This morning I received a package from my co-founder and soul sister Darling Stewie <3

Here is a photographic breakdown of pure, unadulterated joy

Brown paper is the best kind of packaging
So this morning the postman delivered a package to me from my IGGPPC Co-Founder, Darling Stewie aka Stewbs

SEND ALL THE THINGS!
This is what awaited me when I opened the box!

Swag Laid Out
This is the sum of almost everything in the box

She knows me well
…And I actually am that delightful!

Seaweed and Incense and Wolves Oh My!
Included in the package was a bag of spicy fried seaweed, some green tea incense and a surprising amount of wolf stickers

SO MUCH WIN!
Not only did I get some AH-MAY-ZING Darling Stewie stickers, I also got some rad chop sticks, a wooden cat, some halloween greeting cards, a load of IGGPPC stickers and postcards and a super cute air freshner…which maybe Stewbs trying to tell me that I smell!

So this suspect looking package is actual tea. I am assured that it’s very similar to green tea and is chinese in origin.
International Tea Smugglers

I almost cried when I opened this, which was wrapped separately from the other items.
The note reads: “This is one of my favorite knick knacks, he is a frog and I know how much you love them. It is a salt & pepper set and I have the other one!”
Fit. To. Burst.
<3 <3 <3 <3

Here is a bonus photo of the letter & gifts that one of our members, Arielle, sent me.  Butterscotch Tea, Companion Cube, Letter, Perfection.

Yes I am a supreme leader…

I am so lucky to be surrounded on a daily basis by such supreme magnificence….
I better start writing my letters back! No way I can top this though!

On Creating Something Out Of Nothing And The Phenomenal Response To The International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club

Could this be the beginning of something magical?

The last 72 hours have been crazy. The rise of the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club (IGGPPC) has, to paraphrase Eric Cartman, blown my fragile little mind. But before I get too ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning and explain how this idea became a behemoth. Now I may veer off on tangents, but stay with me kids, I’ll get to the point eventually.

Farquharson Fact: I am a hoarder. Not to the point of being one of those people who live in houses full of empty bean cans and stacks of old newspaper, but by most peoples standards I own A LOT of stuff. Clothes, books, pictures, snow globes, jewellery, nick-knacks, baking equipment, DVDs, CDs, bags, stationary etc, etc and so on and so forth. So much so that we have one spare bedroom that we (The Boif and I) refer to as “The Shit Room” because it’s full of boxes that have things in that I don’t want to throw away but don’t really want out on display either.

On Winter Blues, Demon Children and being the Grand Dame of Hot Chocolate Construction

Sometimes all you need is hot melty marshmallows and ice-cream infused milk.

So it is almost winter again and up here in the Sky Castle we have two temperatures: ‘Sweet Jaisis this is like being in a damn sweat shop’ and ‘Creeping Jaisis I think hell has frozen over’. Right now it is the second of the two. That is the price we pay for living in a draughty listed building, but comme ci comme ça, this is of no consequence to you.

I have been toying with a blog that I wrote three weeks ago about my strong dislike of children. Every few days I reread it, tinker a bit, then leave, as every draft makes me come across as a sanctimonious, self serving know it all and/or a psychopathic child hater. Neither of which I am (not totally anyway).  Most women are born to be mothers; I am not one of these women. Children, as a sub-species, generally disgust me. Working in retail for the last two and a half years has taught me that the majority of children are horrible, little germ factories. I am not a child friendly person.

On universe abandonment, job hunting and why sometimes I think I have a case of arrested development.

What does Ariel know? She abandoned her family, culture and her whole damn species at sixteen!

This isn’t where I thought I would be at twenty-eight (eleven weeks from being twenty-nine).

While most of my friends are spawning their own little germ factories, getting married, climbing up some corporate ladders, buying houses and the like, I am sat in an over-sized cookie monster sweater and joggers, half watching cartoons and searching for a new job. I mean, I am employed, but a dead end retail job in the scum centre of the universe isn’t what I thought I would be doing at nearly thirty years of age. Don’t get me wrong, I have never been the career-marriage-babies-death sort of gal, but this? This is like being stuck in purgatory.

On Facebooks never ending ticker and the pros and cons of stalking….

So, get your knees flexin, and your arms T-rexin’

Facebook’s scrolling ticker at the side of the screen is turning me into a habitual stalker and I just can’t stop myself.

Since the introduction of this feature around 6 months ago, it has been a constant stream of so-and-so likes this status and Person A is now friends with Person B and so on and so forth like a never ending list of the generally mundane. I find myself clicking on them quite frequently, and 9 times out of 10 it is someone I know commenting on the status/photo of one of their friends (who I don’t know).

On meeting your heroes, book signings and why I sometimes shouldn’t be allowed out in public

Thankfully there were no rabid fans in Cleckheaton.

So, on Monday night (Sept 17th) I got to meet a literary hero of mine, Mr John Connolly. Author of the Charlie Parker novels, The Book of Lost Things and the Samuel Johnson books, he was speaking at an event at a Kirklees Library event at Cleckheaton Town Hall. I entered the Wrath of Angels contest on his site some months ago and was one of 11 winners, so I was very excited to meet the man himself (and so were the Boif and my good friend Sam).

On welcomes, hellos and the joys of a fresh new blog

Aloha. Bonjour. Hola. Hello.

Starting a new blog is always awkward, like the first day of a new job or walking into a party where the only person you know is the host. But never fear, I am not about to drag this out.

For those who don’t know me I go by the name Emily Frogmella Farquharson (but Farquharson is just fine). Having started several blogs previously I decided to give myself one last whirl into blogging and if it doesn’t stick this time I am going to give up and go back to just incessantly posting photos of cool stuff on my tumblr. As well as trying to string sentences together I am also the co-owner of House of the Fickle Queen and owner of FROGMELLAINK.

My aims for this blog is for it to be a place where I can unabashedly make observations on geek subculture, being a girl, baking, my dog and quite frankly anything else that takes my fancy. I will hopefully be interviewing some of the super people I have met through working on HotFQ and maybe, just maybe, get some guest contributers too.

So there you have it. Welcome, to FROGMELLA SPEAKS.