Queen of Hearts

Could she be the Queen of your heart?

Queen of Spades

Goofing around with playing cards. In my world spiders have wings and fly from web to web. This one is the Queen of Clubs.  One more to follow. Apparently I continue my spider theme. I am not sure what my thing is with spiders these days.

The Magician III

For some reason I thought I had posted these but I guess not. This is the last of my week series of Magicians. I did several series in the past. The images were too fun to work with.

The Magician Part Deux

Same images done a bit different.

The Magician

Honey Jars

Honey Jar Spells are very interesting. I like to listen to the Lucky Mojo Podcasts from time to time and often they will talk about doing a Honey Jar Spell. You know how I feel about bees and honey anyway. Speaking of which I recently added to my collection of Bee Pins a beauty from a designer called d Stevens. Beautiful design, color and craftsmanship. I will have to photo the pin and post soon. She is in the latest Somerset Studio magazine called "Where Woman Create". If you have never heard of this magazine I highly recommend it. Absolutely beautiful issues.

Wordart

With all the funerals going on in my area lately this quote on a recent Oprah show hit home.

The Sun

I think this is a good card for Joplin. In my sun card there is flower sprouting from Mother Earth. Mother Earth took a part of the city away and now she is re-seeding and she is going to let it sprout once again. That is after all the debris has been cleared and the earth can once again be seen.  Hopefully  and I think it will, Joplin will be a bigger stronger even more beautiful flower.

(I used images from Weirdtales. Again. Love them!!)

Where did the "Girl Toys" go?

For the past two weeks one of the topics of conversation was about a certain location on Rangeline near the Home Depot and next door to the best pizza place.  There is nothing left now but a pile of wood. But pre May 22nd this store was called Christie's Toy Box. Now mind you this was not full of children's toys by any means. Nope I am sure you are getting the picture. It was full of ladies undies and girl toys that need batteries. (I actually wondered in there one time with a bunch of crazy drunk ladies from a local courthouse. I must say that was a hoot.)

So my co-workers and I have all been rather curious as to what field these toys landed in. We imagined some old farmer finding g-strings hanging from the trees on his property or toys still in their boxes landing on someone porch like a gift from God. Yes it has been comical guessing where all these items had landed.

Well the mystery has been solved!! They ended up only a mile down the road scattered about in other tornado victims yards. Some didn't know what to do with the items and turned them into the police department. Some couldn't tell what these items were as if they were some crazy type of strange kitchen item they have never seen before.

So the police are advising anyone who encounters such "interesting objects" to take precautions when handling them and to treat them "to be blunt" like a bio hazard!! Yes folks you heard that right. Wear gloves for peat's sake. (Mind you these items had not been used prior to tornado.) Geez, I really do live in the bible belt. Gotta love SW Missouri!! (Mind you I am a Los Angeles transplant.)

Joplin cont.

The paper said 18,000 cars destroyed. And I would say 95% looked  like the the red one in this shot. Many have been removed but many still remain. Mostly because they disappeared from thier original locations and their owners are having trouble locating them. One such person posted on Facebook that if you found her car to please send it home. She was at the Stainglass Theater where my friend Randy died. Several died there in those few seconds of terror.

I honestly could not tell which fast food place this was. We lost so many.

Heartbreaking. I liked that someone sprayed the sign. Click on to enlarge so you can read it.

Most of the trees remind me of Hurricane Katrina trees. No bark.

Trip to Joplin

Click on photos to enlarge

These people were considered lucky. They actually had a part of their home left to loot. Mostly the looters who were arrested were arrested for stealing scrap metal and someone looted the Super Cuts. But for the most part looters are coming in from out of town.  It is rather disgusting to say the least and many bondsman are not bonding these people out of jail and judges will not go lightly on these vultures. There is a special place in hell for them.  

 This was once a very nice apartment complex. A lot of people lived here.

 I found this sign to be so true. This sign is sitting on two major corners of our worst hit area, I don't think it only pertains to identity theft. There is more than one way to lose everything in an instant.

As we drove around Joplin, it is so true what has been said over and over again. It is so much worse than it looks in pictures and half the time you have no idea where you are. It puts a horrible knot in your stomach.

How selective. It destroyed the Dish Network place and left the frozen custard shop in tact. Not too far behind this building it took out the Wal-Mart.

In the back is what is left of the Wal-Mart. That piece of brick wall still standing was our brand new huge fancy liquor store Macadoodles and it had a gas station directly in front. You are thinking what gas station? Behind that you can see what is left of Wal-mart. There was 150 people in the store at the time all huddled together. The roof completely ripped off and it rained on them but they were able to crawl out. Of course when they got out their cars were in a pile.

Rangeline Blvd. This was our Home Depot where so many lost their lives. It will choke you up. Rangeline is our major lifeline through Joplin. A lot had been cleaned up by the time I got these pictures.

 Our large Academy Sporting Goods store. Close to the Wal-Mart, Home Depot and liquor store. This was a busy place to shop. My dad practically lived in this store. We would drop him off and go down to Hobby Lobby.

As far as the eye can see. The houses are gone. This was a jam packed residential area on May 21st. And when you drive through and see this all you can think is "How did only 141 people die and not hundreds and hundreds?" How do you live through this in your home with no basements or storm shelters? The ones who survived this are so shell shocked and dazed. Want to put your life in perspective? Look at how easy you loose it all in a few seconds. This is when you come to really figure out what is really really important. I was talking to my UPS man who I have known for 18 years lost his home and cars. He held on to his closet as the tornado tried it's hardest to suck him out of his home as his home literally lifted and turned. Cinder blocks fell on him and broke his ribs but he is back to work. He told me that stuff that bothered him prior to seem rather petty these days. The guy who delivers my copy paper too lost everything. I have yet to see him. But I heard that he too is in a process of re-evaluation. Maybe I won't see him again.

Sunflowers

I could not figure out what to call this one. So I gave up and decided to post it anyway.

Odd Moments

What ever it was I ate for dinner I dare not repeat.

Always Loved Webs

I have been scanning old slides and came across this web. I guess I have always loved spider webs. This was taken over 30 years ago.