New year, new Sara. That’s right. It’s time for me to dust off this blog. It’s been too long, you know?

I was just going to post about how awful 2011 was and how I can’t wait for 2012 because maybe it will be better. But then I saw a very insightful post that my friend Wes, who had his house hit by the flood, posted. As poor as my health was this year, it wasn’t like nothing good came out of this year. 2011 was the year that beat some sense into me. And while I wouldn’t really want to go back and relive it, I think it had to happen to make me change.

And it wasn’t all bad. Not in the slightest. So let’s focus on the positive with this blog entry, shall we?

Sure, I’ve had a debilitating, stress-induced tooth and jaw problem, but what good has happened? Well, the answer is… alot.

I’m going to do my Top 11 of 2011 list. These are some pretty rad things in my life that made (and make) me happy, despite the tooth stuff. These are in no particular order.

1. Guinness Book of World Records Event:
Back in February, I got to go to the Guinness Book of World Records event and hang out with some guys from Media Molecule, and even get to meet some of my LBP friends.

Larry, Sara and Sackboy

2. Hansel and Gretelbot and the Game Jam that Almost Was:
Also, I got to work on this: http://www.mediamolecule.com/blog/article/hansel_gretelbot/

It probably beat me up more than any other creative project I’ve ever done, but when I search Hansel and Gretelbot, pictures I drew come up! And while there were parts of the project that were teeth-grindingly hard, seeing the finished project was pretty freakin’ awesome. Knowing that something that you did was out there and being enjoyed by that many people was just amazing. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And you know what? Seeing your name in the littlebigplanet 2 credits was also a pretty nice bonus:

My friends and I in the credits of lbp2

Not too many people know that I worked on Hansel and Gretelbot. I tried to sort of keep it on the d/l. I’m not entirely sure why. I was extremely proud of my involvement, but I have always been taught to be humble and not to brag (she says as she writes a blog entry which some may consider “bragging” :P).

But it’s not bragging, is it? Truth told, I didn’t even believe I belonged there, grouped with all these GOOD creators. But there I was. After Hansel and Gretelbot, I was even invited to go to a game jam in England to test the move controllers. I wasn’t able to go due to the fact that I didn’t have my passport, but just to be asked was a gigantic honor.

Some people said some pretty awful things to me after the Hansel and Gretelbot thing and after they found out I was invited to the game jam. It was mostly things like “She sucks, why was she invited, I’m much better than her.”… you know, that sort of thing… And that was very upsetting to me and probably contributed to my stress quite a bit.

Even though LittleBigPlanet beat the living crap out of me physically, emotionally and mentally… it made me learn a lot about myself. It made me learn that you can’t do group projects alone and that sometimes you NEED a group of people to get something done right. I also learned that I don’t really suck as much as I always thought I did. I wouldn’t have been chosen for Hansel and Gretelbot if the people in charge didn’t think I had something useful to offer the group. And you know what? I may not be one of the “top creators”, but being accepted by the “top creators” as one of their peers is good enough for me.

3. I’m Goin’ To Disney World!
I’m 33 years old and it was my first time there. And you know what? If it were closer, I’d go to Disney about a hundred times a year. It made me happier than I’ve been in a long, long time. Also, I got to meet Charles Cubbage (Cuz Feeshe from LBP) while I was down there, so that made the trip even better!

Me and Donald!

4. The Flood of 2011:
And let’s not forget that somehow, by the grace of God in Heaven above, my house survived this:

honeypot road flooded out

I have friends who weren’t that lucky. I remember getting home on the day they let us back into our house and just wanted to cry tears of joy. It was one of the scariest situations that I’ve ever been through in my entire life.

Sure, the Bloomsburg Fair was flooded out, and that was a major bummer, but at least I still have a house. And that’s definitely something.

5. Foofles!
And, because the fair got cancelled, I was able to go to NYC to hang out with my LittleBigPlanet friend, Jason (aka foofles!) We went to the Museum of Natural History and got to see a lot of crystals and dinosaur bones! It was a whole lot of fun, even though new york scares the hell out of me! ^__^

LiBiBPJoe, Foofles, and me

Okay, so the above picture wasn’t taken from my most recent NYC trip, but it was taken in NYC, and foofles is in the picture. So, deal with it! (I didn’t have a pic of us together from our most recent nyc trip)

6. Singing Lessons:
I’m going to be completely honest here. I hurt myself singing for Ungreth’s LBP level. Like REALLY REALLY badly. How embarrassing is that? It turns out that I’ve been singing wrong my whole life. Not totally wrong, but wrong enough that it’s caused unnecessary stress on my jaw. Anyway, the choice was either give up and say “i’m not going to ever sing again” or get off my butt and do something, so I decided to do something about it. As of sometime in November, I am taking singing lessons. I have no idea how long it will take to fix my problem, or if it will ever be fixed completely, but at least I have to try.

7. Wish Fulfilled

I have to put Wish Fulfillment on here. It’s on here because I finally learned that doing it monthly was pretty much killing me. Since I realized that, I’ve actually started working harder on it. It doesn’t feel like work anymore. And that’s why that needs to go on this list. ^__^

Wish Fulfillment comic

8. DeviantSara

I signed up for deviantart this year. I was REALLY scared to do this. I thought “I am a terrible artist… and this is probably a bad idea. People are going to hate my stuff!

Since I have signed up for this site, I have gotten such a boost in my self esteem that it isn’t even funny. I, in no way, think I’m good… but other people seem to like my stuff, and that makes me happy.

I’ve been featured on equestria daily five or six times, and … well, when you search pinkie pie, this is what you get:

Nonstop Pinkie Pie

The image I drew is the first to come up. I’ve never been first at anything in my entire life. EVER. I’m in no way being arrogant, I think the pictures that are below mine are much better than anything I can do. But it still makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. ^__^

9. Cats
My cats are by no means something new this year, but they’re awesome and I love them. So they go on the list.

Ghost and Shady

10. And then, of course, there’s always time to be thankful for PONIES:

Ponies!

These were made for me by hannaliten on deviantart. She did a much better job than I could ever do! ^__^

11. And finally: Friends and Family
You know, while I can’t say that 2011 was kind in the health department, it was kind in many other departments. I have a wonderful family, a loving husband, and some of the best friends I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Sometimes we search and search for the things that make us happy, and they’re right in front of us, but we can’t see them through our sorrow and the pain.

Friends

I’ve received thousands of messages on twitter and facebook from both online friends and offline friends cheering me on in this past year. I want to take this time to thank every single one of you. I have not taken you for granted, not one bit. From the kind messages I received when I was in the “hot seat” at the Guinness Book event to the get well soon messages I received in reply to my constant jaw pain… I appreciated every single one of them.

You are all a part of my life, whether I know you in person or if you are just text on a twitter page.

Thanks for helping make my 2011 great, all of you. Here’s wishing you all a great 2012!

So, I’ve been actually considering dusting off this old blog. I know it’s been a while. I’ve been writing some entries, and if I don’t hate them too much, maybe I will post them.

I want to talk a little about a level that I made in the Online Create Beta, now that I’m able to. I haven’t blogged about anything in a long time, but now that I’m back, I’d really like to talk about this one.

Most people made extremely huge levels in the beta, but, convinced that we wouldn’t be able to keep anything, Team CuzMorgKappatiers decided to make wacky, zany levels.

There were 3 in the series of crazy levels: The Evil Castle of Death and Stuff, Grab the Yellow Things, and the level I’m about to talk about - The Three Flamigos.

It all came about when Ccubbage, NinjaMicWz, Larry and I were taking apart story objects and putting them back together in weird ways. Ninja had taught me earlier that day how to dissolve a portion of a story object and keep the parts that I needed. We began doing experimentation on Rocket Cheetahs, but soon, it moved to Flamingos.

From what I remember, the Flamingo story object isn’t even used in any of the levels. People often forget it exists, much like the Zebra from the Savannah levels. It didn’t take much to make this abomination possible. A winch was added by NinjaMicWz, and several other modifications were done by Ccubbage and Larry.

It was completely goofy, but what we got in the end was the most stable vehicle I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t tip, it works in water, and it only breaks if it falls from very high. If it does fall over, it will immediately right itself after flailing around madly on the floor for a while.

Anyway, here it is in action. ^_^

Well, guys, the first comic is online. The second one is in the works. The site is still technically in beta cause Tony and I have some things to finish, but it’s live and you can read the comic. I”ll try to have the next one for next month.

http://www.kappacino.com/wishfulfillment

hope you guys like it. ^_^

He was a good little guy, but most of you don’t remember him as Lee. Most of you remember him as Santa Claus from the Atom Kappa Christmas animations. I miss him terribly right now.

I remember the day I got him. My iguana, Christa, had just died, and I felt really really bad. I drove down to the most ghetto pet store in the area, Fin Feather and Fur. It isn’t even there anymore. It is the kind of place where they’d be smoking in the store right in front of the animals. The kind of place where you just wanted to go and rescue the animals so they don’t have to deal with that anymore. The guy behind the counter was smoking when I walked into the pet store.

There was a tank full of lizards, and each were being sold in pairs. Skinks, Long Tailed Lizards and one other kind I can’t remember. There was a little guy in this tank who was being sold as a single lizard. He was brown with little white spots on him, and the guy behind the counter told me in a raspy smoker’s voice that he was a desert iguana, and he didn’t get much bigger than he was right now. Also, he was a vegetarian. This pretty much sealed the deal for me, and i bought him. The guy behind the counter threw him in a brown paper bag and stapled it shut, which was disgusting to me. He also talked me into buying some sort of corn meal stuff to put down on the bottom of the tank. Knowing nothing about these lizards, I bought it.

I got the lizard home and named him Lee, after Lee Rinaldo from Sonic Youth, my favorite band at the time. He was such a good lizard. He never bit anyone. He always looked like he had a smile on his face, and he ate NOTHING but romaine lettuce for 11 years and never complained about it.

His first year of life was very rough though. The corn meal that the man sold me was infested with these little red spiders that were some sort of parasite. They latched onto lee and got deep in his ears, in his eyes, and under the scales in his tail. I didn’t know what to do! They were hurting him. I’d give him baths, but I couldn’t get them all off. Completely at a loss, I called my neighbors who own Tropic Pet Center in Wilkes Barre. They got me a medicine that I started to use. It took about 2 months, but I got all of the mites off of him. For about two years I was still finding one or two stray dead ones stuck to his tail. I truly believe he would have died had I not gotten that medicine. After this ordeal, he was fine.

I can’t write anything bad about him, because it’s far too sad. He was very sick at the end, but like my cat Nelson, I only want to talk about the good. I remember taking him out of the cage one day and forgetting that I took him out, and then going to the store. I remembered while I was at the store that I had left him sitting on the counter in my basement. I ran home quickly and ran down the basement, and he was still sitting in the same position as i left him.

I remember how he used to climb Amanda’s hair and sit on her head. He liked to be on people’s heads for some reason and he loved the way hair felt.

For a few summers, we used to put his tank out in the garage and let him bask in the summer sun. He’d sit in the window all day.

In 2001, I decided to use him in a short stop motion animation called “The Atom Kappa Show”, starring a frog, a kappa, and lee, who was the only thing that was live action in the animation. It was making fun of Scary Movie, because I really really really really really really really really really hated that film with the white hot intensity of 1000 suns. Lee played Keenan Ivory Wayans, and he was defending his movie. After this, he went on to star in the very first Atom Kappa Christmas animation, and many others.

Recently, when I would come home from work early, I’d take him outside and walk around the pool with him. He was pretty weak and had a hard time hanging on to my arm, but he looked like he was happy being out in the sun again.

He was my lizard for 11 years. Every morning since he died, I wake up and I go to get him food out of the fridge, and then I realize that there is no need for that. It’s going to be hard to break that habit. His memory will live on though, because I don’t plan to take him out of the Christmas animations anytime soon.

Rest in peace, my little Beebs. I love you and miss you.