July 2009 Issue

Planet Nilknarf

July 2009

Message from the Editor

Welcome to the July issue of Planet Nilknarf! I hope you are all having a good summer so far. July is always a busy and exciting month for me. For one, it is the month that Dave and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. We were married on July 13th, 2002. Here are some pictures of the happiest day of my life:

And of course, later this month I'll also be celebrating my birthday. I'll be 25 with 20 years experience...or 15 with 30 depending on how you look at it, ha-ha! All in all I've always been a big kid at heart and probably will be forever. Here are some pictures from birthdays past:

Above: left: celebrating my 40th birthday riding the carousel at Port Dalhousie in St. Catharines. Right: Janette and I at the Parkwood Estate. I can't remember whether it was my 41st or 42nd birthday.

In other news, now that I have a new scanner (AGAIN!!!!) I can show you the amazing free

souvenirs I was able to make for myself to take home from my trip to the Sandusky Merry-GoRound Museum!!! These are Crayon Rubbings!! Situated throughout the museum were six of these podiums with raised metal line drawings where paper and crayons were provided. Too bad I only had time to do two!

Pretty cool, huh? They also had one of the ostrich but I forget what the others were. If I win that horse on New Year's eve I'll have a darned good excuse to go back there and do the other ones as well as take better pictures of the famous Cedar Point and Euclid Beach horses! I didn't know my flash was not turned on! (blush!!!) More good news! Special thanks to my good friend, Richard Concepcion, for transferring my video of my TV news interview on Mid Day! You can watch the interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGSDBcDOk94

Autism Awareness Carousel Update I now have a committee and we are planning to have our first meeting on July 7th or 8th. We still don't know yet. Committee members include, besides myself,and Tiffany MacDonald, her friend Christina, Mark LaFlamme, Alan Burns, and Aliya Siddiqui. The more the merrier. My friend, Janette designed these two horses;

and you can have a go at ordering my colouring book from http://margaretfranklin.netfirms.com or decorating this one here:

I will also be appearing at various events throughout the summer where I will have these pictures available for free. Sometimes I may have an art table set up. Stay tuned for details. I often mention them in my FaceBook groups, especially, “Autism Awareness Carousel Project.” Participants are required to provide me with some kind of contact information so that I may be able to enter it into my database and send everyone who enters a FREE FREQUENT RIDER PASS good for when the carousel is finally completed and ready to open to the public. It won't be for a few years yet, so keep your card in a safe place. Winners whose animals are chosen to actually be on the carousel will get FREE RIDES FOR LIFE!!! There is no age limit and no right or wrong way to do things. Use any materials you wish: paint, markers, crayons, pencil crayons, stickers, fabric scraps, sequins, glitter. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination. And you don't have to use my colouring pictures either. Feel free to design animals out of your own imagination if you so desire. Here are a couple of my newest ones:

On Saturday, June 13th, I had a table with most of my goodies for sale at Wind Reach Farm's 20th Anniversary Celebration. It was a wonderful event! I sold at least a dozen carousel ponies, two ladybirds, two clown and one cat puppet, one set of emotional puppets, at least six teddy bears and three T-shirts, including the last two “Ewetopia” sheep T-shirts I had available. Sheep herding was one of the big events at this festival. There were also free performances by the Famous People Players. I would have loved to have seen their act if I didn't have my table to tend to. My aunt and I saw their show in Lindsay many years ago and they were awesome! There were also various live music performances throughout the premises. I enjoyed hearing the girl behind me playing her classical violin. The children's performance, however, got to be kind of repetitive and irritating. KIDEO and the Doodlebops are a dying breed. Kids performers don't actually sing anymore. It seemed to be all about drumming and chanting. I don't know about you but 20 minutes of “I like peanut butter, I like jam!” was more than enough for me. Once again, my Walkman was my best friend not just because of this but because no day is complete without the usual kid having a 20-minute grand mal temper tantrum. I did, however, learn that babies aren't quite so scary when I can make them laugh and smile with my puppets! :) My art table wasn't quite as successful as I hoped it would be, but that's okay. Even though it was right behind me, I couldn't quite be everywhere. It was to be expected that the few

participants who took part basically just scribbled a bit and didn't leave any contact info, however there was one exception:

My first Frequent Rider Pass will be sent to Jenny-Ann Gale. We will have more participants at Kerry's Place 35th anniversary celebration on Saturday, July 18th. I won't be selling anything that day so, hopefully I will have more time to devote to tending to the art table myself and demonstrating examples to inspire would-be carousel horse designers. However, I may not even be there myself, just my stuff and perhaps somebody else who can give directions in my place. Wind Reach Farms wants me back because they are having another event on the same day. Here's a picture of me with my stuff from June 13th:

Go Google Yourself One day, just out of curiousity and the idea that it might make an interesting story, I decided to do a Google Search about “Planet Nilknarf”. Besides links to my own newsletter, here are some choice nuggets I've unearthed and thought I'd enjoy sharing with my readers! http://www.fireangel.biz/v-LA+FONDA+AND+NILKNARF+VOLUME+1-dDnS8ROaono http://linnendar.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8FC8411D4CB3D70F!1416.entry http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=271136 http://foad.org/asd/log/297/21497.html An interesting note about a dayplanner: http://www.strategicprofits.com/effectiveness/what-are-you-trying-to-accomplish-today/

http://www.gamechangers.com/index.html/?p=393 which led me to this even more specific link: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://frankanollie.com/images/OlliesTrain.JPG&imgr efurl=http://frankanollie.com/Ollie.html&h=253&w=320&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&sig2=YAsl9EQ uzh8oqML9cZKMgg&tbnid=mbNHSjMYxyQrxM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=118&ei=YmUGSIeLLZfiigG w0uTJAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dollie%2527s%2Btrain%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa %3DG Sidekicks for "Nilknarfs": 1. La Fonda 2. Revilo "Revilo is impetuous, eager, quick to get ideas, and impatient. Revilo is more like the young people of today who are excited but do not spend enough time on the things in front of them. They want to get going on everything at the same time. Nilknarf is well organized, likes to see things working properly, makes lists and takes notes." Nilknarf's Bar & Grill! http://news.tootoo.com/Apparel_Fashion/Garment_Accessories/20080718/141598.html

I also noticed that the first date on link is July 17th. There's another story about that! The number 26 has its significance too, but that's another story. I also found a page with the following links which I found quite bizarre “Meet married Women” and “Christians Crawling Out of Their Comfort Zones.” Talk about a contradiction. I disapprove of links and businesses encouraging people to have extra-marital affairs. As for the latter, part of the reason I don't attend church as often as I used to or watch Joyce Meyer as much is that frankly, I get tired of all this talk about coming out of our comfort zones. As an Aspie whose sensory issues have sadly increased over the years, I honestly feel like I wish I had a comfort zone to CRAWL INTO!! And that's a whole other kettle of fish...!!! However I did read the 'blog associated with the latter and found it quite interesting after all. It's easy to come out of your comfort zone when you're just typing stuff out on your computer as opposed to just coming out and actually, physically talking to people. I remember my friend Veena back in Lindsay speaking words of prophecy over me; “One day you're going to lead a lot of people to the Lord!” Exactly how, I do not know. I don't usually set the best example and I definitely don't want to scare people away by being over-zealous either and trying to cram my beliefs down their throats. The best I can do is have people see how happy I am and make them want what I've got. Then I also found this young lady's interesting MySpace 'blog> I love that door covered with so many colourful pictures! http://www.myspace.com/rosannajoy Actually, it's probably not a door after all, but an enormous collage. I love making collages but I don't really have any magazines around here that I'd be willing to cut up. I have nearly 20 years worth of “Carousel News & Trader” magazines and I choose to save them all intact. Hokaaaaaaaaaaaaay....! http://wetmonkeytounge.livejournal.com/ I also looked up “Images” on Google, but didn't really find anything all that interesting, not even covers of my own newsletter. However, I did see a good picture of Kermit the Frog, if that's got anything to do with anything. An image search on “Margaret Franklin” led me to the usual pictures of my logo and me in my wedding dress. However, the list of links led me, not only to thousands of other people named Margaret Franklin, but the pictures I was looking for that my friend Richard has of Rapid T. Rabbit and Louella Snugglebunny riding carousel horses from my “Design Your Own Carousel Horse” colouring book! I am happy and relieved to discover that this link is still there! http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rapid_t_rabbit/margaretfranklin.htm

A Special Place in Heaven One night I had a very strange dream. It was shortly after my Aunt Annette, or Pastor Norm Wiley, passed away. I forget which one died first. Anyway, in this dream I was standing outside of Wal-Mart, only everything looked so perfectly white and squeaky-clean. I then happened to meet my Aunt Annette, who invited me to come and see her in concert with her chamber orchestra. I found myself sitting in the front row at a church where Aunt Annette was on stage with Pastor Norm Wiley, and Janette's mom who had died in July of 1993. The three of them all had kazoos! And they played a well-known fugue by Bach! And they actually sounded mighty good! I told my mom about this dream. Playing kazoos in the glee club were among many of the activities Aunt Annette and Uncle Roy enjoyed participating in here on earth. So why not in heaven too? And as for Wal-Mart, I wouldn't be surprised if that part of my dream had been influenced by something I'd recently heard on the news at that time. A woman who had recently passed away at that time wanted her tombstone to say “Gone to Wal-Mart.” She must have really loved shopping. I guess for her, Wal-Mart was her idea of heaven on earth. It certainly isn't mine. However, it's not unusual for me to dream of loved ones who are no longer with us here. I still dream about my dad often. Especially going on road trips together. The last time I saw him was the day Dave and I got married. As long as I live here on earth I will never understand why God had to take him away during our honeymoon. He died on July 17th, 2002. Janette's mother died the same day, different year. Both times I was riding a carousel. When Janette's mom died I was at the grand re-opening of the Roseneath carousel. On the day my dad passed away, the police were trying to find my husband and I when we happened to be in North Tonawanda at the Allan Herschell museum. What makes this tale even eerier is the fact that I was expected to be born on July 17th but I was 11 days late! I don't normally go for New Age stuff but I find it interesting that July 17th is “Fire the Grid” day and you're supposed to think about something pleasant at exactly 11:11 a.m. Last year I totally forgot. Not that it would have made much difference anyway. I no longer try to shove my religious views down people's throats but I do believe that I will go to heaven when I die simply because I asked Jesus into my heart to forgive my sins. Therefore, I am a Christian. I confess I haven't been a very good one. I haven't been reading my Bible as much as I should, nor have I been to church in a long time, but over this past year or so, I've learned a lot about giving and receiving unconditional love. Especially when it comes to the people I've gotten to know at the clubhouse and my fellow Aspies, and the regular readers of my newsletter. Always remember that God loves you very much and He has a special plan for your life.

Upcoming Events: Saturday July 18th: Kerry's Place 35th Anniversary Celebration. 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, Aurora Town Park. Register by Friday, June 26th, 2009. Contact Jeniffer at 905-841-6611 or email to

[email protected] for more information. Saturday, July 18th: Wind Reach Farms Eco Farm Fair. 10:00 am to 3:03 pm, 312 Townline Road, Ashburn, Ontario, L0B 1A0, 905-655-5827

Continuing Adventures of the Traveling Dolls

Eric has had an amazing time in Calgary and Rural Alberta. I'd like to thank Sharon Dleleske for sharing her photos with me. More pictures to come in future issues. Meanwhile, Janette came to Oshawa where she visited with Margaret, and they went cycling and bought new clothes:

Ewetopia

Last Words: I will be having yet another one of my fabulous craft sales outside my house on Wednesday, July 1st (Canada Day) and Saturdays when I don't have to be anywhere else, weather permitting. Stay tuned. I've been discussing the idea with my friends and colleagues of putting together calendars and a big beautiful coffee table book about the Traveling Dolls and all the wonderful and exciting places that their owners and customers take them. Until next time, stay cool and stay tuned!

Margaret Franklin