Greetings From Another Fellow Junkie

I’ve been checking the site off and on for ages, ordering, and I think once upon a time I had a PYO gallery back on the old software, but I’ve never said hi or really posted anything on the forums. I’m not shy or anything, I just never really realized there was a whole host of junkies out there just like me.

I was watching the site, looking over things, and happened to hit upon the grab bag unicorns and was amazed at how gorgeous they were. Amazed is the wrong word, because everything Ms. Pena does is amazing. But I love love loved the unique colors and bright brilliant color schemes of the grab bags! They just made me happy in a way that a collector finding a prize for their collection sighs and finds happiness over material things. I hit the ‘notify me’ button about when they were back in stock, and was lucky enough to get in on the small second wave. When mine came I was thrilled. I told everyone I knew – even those that had no idea what Windstones are. My online bestie was like – What in the world are you talking about Jen? And I showed her the site and she’s hooked too. We run another forum together devoted to fantasy writing, so this sort of things is right up our allies. She’s hooked and can’t decide what to start collecting first. It’s only a matter of time – truthfully its too late – and she’ll be hooked too. Daily she shows me new ones she’s found.

Her online name is Phoenix. Guess what she gets for her next present from me? Oh yea.. PYO Phoenix. I’ll start a gallery here one of these days and show some of the stuff I’ve painted.

But onwards… my mother got me started collecting Windstones back in the mid 80’s I believe? We had one of those cool mall cigar shops that sold statues and the first time I saw a peacock dragon I just about died. I got one for graduation, one for junior achievement, one for getting a scholarship, etc. They were unbelievably cool rewards. My parents got me the whole peacock collection finally and it meant the world to me. I had other collections as well slowly over time. I especially love anything horse and griffon related, though the dragons were my first.

When I moved out on my own later in life, my home got broken into and vandalized. I lived out in the country in an old renovated vet clinic and everyone on my road got hit in one weekend by a band of kids that did things like tip refrigerators over and write on the walls with yellow mustard and ketchup. I had gone camping that weekend and was devastated when I came home and found them gone. I plan on collecting the peacocks back again, I just haven’t done it yet because now one of my parents is gone, and in many ways its not the same to have a statue verses THE statue your father bought you when you got into who’s who etc.

I do have a currently nice collection with a few emperors and lots of pyo and a few misc unicorns, dragons, and oddities like flap cats. Am I the only one that loves flap cats like a loon?

I went on to college, had a great time, and degreed in Wildlife Biology. I love animals – always have – real or fantastic, and lost myself in the wilds of Montana for a great while. Later, I moved back to the west coast as an adult and stopped moving around for study after study etc. Now I have a more mundane job, one I traded the glorious (but poor!) life of a scientist for in order to have my dream hobby farm complete with geriatric draft horses, mini donkeys and a million cats.

I married a man that simply smiles when I start going off about my crazy obsessions like Windstones and defends my sanity to all his buddies when I tell him I want to start doing things like raising bees. He’s a ‘Okay hon, if that makes you happy…” Type guy. And besides, he owes Windstones a great debt. Back when he was still in college to be a teacher, he blew the engine in his truck and I had to sell some of my collection (A full set of black unicorns with the grand!) to buy a replacement for him. It’s kind of a good thing because every time I want a new windstone, he doesn’t argue. Thank you Ms. Pena. Inadvertently you are strengthening marriages out there!

So, what else? I’m a crazy gardener. I am an artist as well, though of the two dimensional kind and with photoshop. I run a large forum for fantasy writers, so if anyone loves to roleplay and write with other adults that love to write, let me know and I’ll hook you up. And most exciting of all I am starting my apprentice beekeeping class for WSU next weekend. My bees come in mid april so that should be an awesome experience.

Wow.. I got kinda long here. But anyhow, that’s what intro posts are for right? I also want to say thank you to all the forum members who always are so kind, interesting, entertaining, and have such great humor. I enjoy these boards very much even if I am not an avid poster.