Sometimes I do resolutions, and sometimes I don't. I want to get back into reading more. I didn't do much this year. I see if I can get into volunteering too. I need a reason to get out of the house more and donate my time to helping others.

Do you have any resolutions this year?

By the way, Happy New Year!

I had seen the Dragon movie first, I believe. I had a VHS tape back in the day that I wore out. I never thought it'd come out on DVD but a few years it finally did. I prefer it to the Unicorn movie although I like both. TLU felt a bit anti-climatic to me. When she started pushing back at the bull and he backed off, that was pretty much the turning point of the story. I remember thinking, "that's it?" Maybe the book feels a bit more dramatic so perhaps I'll get it someday.

The Stomper clan uses their furnace and thermostat to keep warm. At least during the day. At night, a metric ton (well, almost) of blankets on our beds. Mr. Stomper and I even have a mattress warmer when the chill is too much.

That said, I'm hypothyroid, so I'm cold 80% of the year.

I wear sock/slippers and a sweater in addition to my usual layers, pretty much all the time. It's not often that my feet are bare.

How do you keep warm? 

You can't. So I'll turn the function back on. I'm trying to turn them on slowly to see if the Arena starts acting up again.

Sourdough Stompers was the name of my square dancing group in Whitehorse, Yukon. I did learn to square dance, but having been nearly two decades since I've done it now, I have forgotten 99% of the maneuvers.  Don't know if the group still exists. Square dancing isn't much of a thing these days. I wonder if they ever found out I pinched their name for an online forum?

"Sourdough" is a Yukon word for gold hunters back in the Klondike gold rush. The seasoned stampeders usually carried sourdough bacteria/starter with them so they could make bread with it. Gotta survive those harsh winters. Apparently, you could earn the title if you survived your first Arctic winter. Until then, you were known as a Cheechako.

The irony now is that I gave up eating wheat and all grains about 6-7 years ago, so you can also picture me as someone one who is stomping the crud out of bread products. I might have to get someone to draw that for me someday.

After I joined, I designed a character based on the name. I made him male, because Stomper doesn't sound all that feminine. Perhaps he can be considered my first persona, but he doesn't really represent me. He represents the Yukon more than me. The Yukon and I parted ways nearly 11 years ago.

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He's not a mere yellow color, but he is gold. His hair colors are the colors of the Yukon flag.

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He has blue eyes to contrast with the gold. His symbol comes from the Yukon license plate. The little character is known as "Klondike Sam."

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He is down to earth and humdrum, like myself, so he's an earth pony. (That applies to all my personas, now that I think about it.)

Shortly after I created him, I gave him a mate. Since I tend to love flower-related ponies, I picked a logical flower to represent a Yukon pony. Her name is Fireweed. It's the provincial flower, too. (You should try fireweed jelly. Interesting taste. It's probably good on sourdough bread. )

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Nothing too flashy to explain about her. She just has fireweed colors. Pink is not really my favorite color though.

This thread is more about screen names than personas, although for me they are linked. I eventually made myself a true persona. That would be Sunflower. But I never changed my screen name as SourdoughStomper is very unique. Chief once told me that a quite a large number of search engines results would lead people to the Arena because they were looking up my name. So I've kept it all this time. There was a period of time when I would even refer to myself as Stomper in my head, even when I wasn't online.

If I ever did change it, it would probably DesertSunflower or SonoranArizonan.

I've been using the image album in my LiveJournal. I know that others use their Facebook album.

I'm staying home for Christmas. If I could go to mom and dad's, I totally would.

For those of you who are celebrating any upcoming holidays, are you going anywhere to do it?