In Person Meet-Up With Heathersmoo: July 2022 (Part 2)

 (Picking up where Part 1 left off)

Anyone who follows Heather regularly on Livejournal knows that she loves My Little Pony. In her efforts to get a complete set of G5 My Little Pony blind bag clips, Heather bought up the remaining stock from a bookstore she shops at, figuring that she could give away any duplicates to her friends. She wrote on Livejournal that she did manage to get all 11 clips in the series. The duplicate pony that she gave me for my keychain collection is named Zipp Storm. I've got to say, I really like her hairstyle/mane situation for some reason.

Next, we have this surprise pet blind box, which I still need to look at in depth. I was planning to write a full review and upload it as a separate post. But I've fallen way behind on my posting, as you can obviously tell.

The last gift that Heather brought along on the lengthy drive from Florida was this keychain advent calendar. I didn't even know that such a thing existed. Heather also bought one for herself, with her idea being that the both of us could open our individual calendars over the holiday season and then show off what we got.

The location chosen for our meet-up was the thrift store near my neighborhood. Heather has heard me mention this store a lot in blog posts and emails. I gave her a few pointers for shopping at this particular store, such as which departments to check for keychains and where that day's special offers would be posted. Unfortunately, Heather visited me on a Tuesday, which is one of the worst days for shopping at this store location.

Every day, one color tag is supposed to be 50% off and a different color tag is 1/3 off. The colors are rotated twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, with the 1/3 off color going 50% off and a new color going 1/3 off. This helps to clear out older stock and make room for 'new' items. However, due to space limitations at this location, the tag color that goes from 1/3 off to 50% off on Sunday will only be available for purchase at 50% off on that day. Any remaining items with that tag color after the store closes on Sunday night get pulled from the racks first thing Monday morning, presumably to make room for fresh stock. I've seen store employees doing this.

There is another location of this store chain that I shop less frequently, because it's further away, that does seem to leave stuff on the racks for the duration of the discount period. However, that location is much larger, inside of a former Babies 'R' Us. I've gotten the general impression that pulling discounted items off the racks early must be a management decision, rather than a corporate policy. Regardless, I shared what I knew about the situation with Heather as we were shopping. And like me, Heather found the store's 'policy' frustrating.

I did manage to snag a decent 'grab bag' of keychains at the thrift store that day, although not at 50% off, obviously. Still, the price wasn't too bad. And I just couldn't pass up on Alice Snuffleupagus, Snuffy's little sister from Sesame Street, even though the clip needs to be replaced. Also, the Disney Goofy flashlight and the Marvel Comics Spider-Man clip that came in the bag are pretty fun too.

Speaking of Sesame Street, it so happened that Heather's friend/driver for the trip, Josh, works for the corporate parent company that operates SeaWorld and a variety of other theme parks, including Sesame Place. As an employee, Josh can bring a select number of guests into any company owned park with him for free. Since it was within a reasonable driving distance, Heather and Josh suggested that we all go to Sesame Place. Heather had actually brought this up as a possibility via email before leaving Florida, so I knew ahead of time that it might be happening.

I hadn't been to Sesame Place since I was in the Girl Scouts. But I was pretty sure that, unlike the Disney parks, Sesame Place as a whole was primarily aimed at young children, rather than people of all ages. Still, if Josh and Heather could get me in for free, then why not have a look around? Besides, as long as we got to check out the gift shop for keychains and any other fun Muppet goodies, I'd probably be happy regardless.

All in all, Sesame Place was a pleasant way to kill some time. The park itself had some nice themeing, as far as the buildings and the 'set-dressing' went. Heather and I even took a spin on the merry go round. And Heather and Josh let me hit up every gift shop in the park before we left, searching for unique Muppet items. Josh even let both Heather and I use his corporate discount to each pick up a souvenir keychain for our collections.

I'd like to send a big thank you to Heather, and Josh, for making time to come and see me in their already packed trip schedule. The fact that Heather made visiting me one of her priorities, and the fact that Josh was willing to spend time hanging out with me when he didn't even know me, really means a lot. And I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get this write-up posted. One of these days, I have got to get myself a decent camera that works well, but that isn't too complicated for me to use. Auto focus just isn't doing it for me.

But at least Heather got the thank you card with keychain that I sent to her.

Signed, Treesa

P.S. Heather also promised to pick me up a keychain from the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant on her way home. But I'll save that package for another post.

In Person Meet-Up With Heathersmoo: July 2022 (Part 1)

 This past July, I was fortunate enough to meet face-to-face with Heathersmoo of Livejournal, known for her "Keychain Of The Day" posts. Heather had already made plans to visit some family members in Pittsburgh over the summer, and she asked me ahead of time if I'd mind her stopping by on the way to see me. Now, Pennsylvania is a deceptively long state, so my hometown is technically nowhere near Pittsburgh. The fact that Heather was willing to go out of her way just to meet me in person really means a lot.

In the time leading up to Heather's visit, I got to work gathering up and packing the various keychains and other small items that I'd put aside for Heather for Halloween (her favorite holiday), her birthday, the winter holiday season, etc. I figured that, if I packed everything up neatly and gave it to Heather when I saw her, she would be set for the rest of the year and I wouldn't have to pay rising postage costs on multiple, holiday themed packages.

Heather brought a number of fun goodies with her for me as well. Some of them were things that she had promised to make for me or to set aside for me, while others were a complete surprise.

Like these knitted flag keychains. Heather, remembering a previous blog post that I'd written about my ancestry, handmade this set of small, knitted keychains, based on the national flags of every country that makes up my combined heritage. Since I'm not as familiar with my ancestors' home countries as I probably should be, I had to refer to online images when photographing these, just to make sure that I didn't have any of the flags upside down.

While we're on the subject of knitting, Heather also sent me several emails discussing the possibility of making me a knitted scarf. I got the definite impression that all of her family members, her friends, and anyone else who has been part of her life for long enough eventually receive a handmade scarf. Heather had been emailing me for suggestions of what color schemes and/or patterns I might like. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble coming up with a scarf concept that I felt would work for what I had in mind. I wanted something that was Disney inspired, but I didn't want the Disney influence to be too obvious. If I wore the scarf out, I wanted other Disney fans to recognize it as the signature colors of a particular Disney character. But I didn't want strangers 'not-in-the-know' to brand me as a Disney dork. I considered having Heather create a blue and black and yellow pattern based on Dory's coloring and markings from Pixar's Finding Nemo films. But Heather was worried that the end result would look "too collegiate". In the end, I gave my approval to the idea of using Figment colors, which was something that Heather had suggested.

For those of you who might not know, Figment is a character from the Journey Into Imagination attraction at Epcot in Walt Disney World. The little guy has quite the fan following among Disney parks enthusiasts old enough to fondly remember the original, 1983 version of the attraction. There have been a couple, controversial refurbishments to the ride since then, starting in 1999. But Figment is still prominently featured on a lot of official Epcot merchandise.

Heather not only made me a scarf in Figment's signature colors. She also made me a matching hat and coordinating fingerless gloves. The hat is loosely knitted, which is nice because it means that, if I ever make it back to Walt Disney World in Orlando, I can wear the hat at the actual theme parks without worrying about getting too warm in the Florida heat. Also, I've learned from experience that fingerless gloves are extremely useful when browsing outdoor flea markets in autumn. The weather then can be too chilly to leave my hands exposed to the elements, but it's very difficult for me to pick items up to check for maker's marks and/or small areas of damage if I'm wearing full gloves. Fingerless gloves are therefore the perfect middle ground. That's a little shopping tip for any of you who buy keychains secondhand.

In addition to the other knitted goodies, Heather also made me these two knitted keychains. One is in 'Figment' colors, and the other is predominantly purple, my favorite color.

Since Heather is an Orlando local, she picked up this set of Disney-themed, souvenir Orlando Florida keychains for me. It is my personal belief that one can never have too many Disney keychains, and Heather knows this about me.

Heather also knows that I do papercrafts, primarily handmade greeting cards, as well as some scrapbooking. In late April, I emailed Heather to request a favor regarding one of my papercrafting projects. I told her how I'd been personalizing some partially filled Disney parks autograph books that I'd bought secondhand, one of which was a combination autograph book and photo album. Since I wasn't the one who'd originally collected the character autographs, I didn't have any corresponding photos of the characters to put in the album. So I'd been filling the photo sleeves with character postcards instead. I'd asked Heather if she could keep an eye out for a couple of specific character postcards, to help me finish up the project, since she lives much closer to 'Disney territory' than I do.

Although Heather wasn't able to find what I was looking for, she did get me a Disney-themed Florida postcard, thinking I might be able to use it in my papercrafts. I actually have a growing collection of Disney postcards, organized and arranged in standard photo albums. So I'm happy to add this one to my collection. I really like the cheerful colors, and the window frame style grid layout.

To continue on the Disney train of thought, in February of this year, Heather told me about a McDonald's Happy Meal promotion featuring Disney Stitch plush toys that could easily be converted into keychains. I don't really keep up to date with fast food toys anymore, despite there sometimes being interesting keychains in the assortments, so this was the first I'd heard about the Stitch promotion. Heather promised to give me "an extra" that she'd gotten. This plush is number 4 from the assortment, "Sippin' Stitch". There appear to have been 8 in total to collect. Heather even taped a spare split ring to the back of the packaging before giving it to me.

(To be continued...)

(Signed, Treesa)