Midway Pie Day and Mug Exchange 2024

An image of the welcome table at the start of the Midway Pie Day Event

Hello Sockmonkeys!

I had hoped to get this post out to you sooner, but power and internet outages due to our midweek Bomb Cyclone, on top of my usual schedule challenges, meant I just couldn't do so until now. In any case, here is your pictoral and text-based update on what happened during this year's event.

Of course, Polly Esther and Pierson, along with the Sockmonkey basket and their smaller winter Sockmonkey friends were waiting on the welcome table for writers to come in. The tickets were used to both determine turns for the Mug Exchange and for a separate Door Prize drawing for a Sockmonkey mug (which is wrapped in a black bow in front of the yellow bag seen on the table).

Many Sockmonkeys arrived near the very beginning of the event and others arrived as time allowed,  but there was plenty of food and, as you can see from the photo of wrapped mugs next to the Sockmonkey bucket, there were plenty of mugs waiting to be chosen during the exchange. We even had a couple of Sockmonkeys who weren't able to participate in person, but who dropped off mugs and participated in the exchange virtually via our Discord.

As is our tradition, about halfway through our 2 hour gathering, we started drawing tickets to see who chose which mug. The photo above shows the end results of all of the unwrapping, with the now revealed mugs posed around the Sockmonkey basket. There were actually enough extra mugs so that seven of those present were able to choose a second mug to take home.

Above is a photo of Pierson the SockDog, who is propping up three of the lovely Sockmonkey keychains brought to the Pie Day event by Jessica Blacknall. It was so kind of her to take the time to make these to share with everyone! Thank you so much, Jessica! (Don't worry, there are extra if you weren't able to come to Pie Day - there will be some available at the Winter Potluck and Blind Book Exchange.)

And, just so you can see a close up of a few of the mugs, first I will share the photo I took to post on my social accounts. It shows two small Sockmonkeys with Reindeer antlers and scarves sitting on either side of a black mug with some small hearts and the words "You Octopi my Heart" painted on it.

I also requested and received permission to share screenshots of the following two social media posts here, in case you're not on the social sites where they were initially shared:

This post from Colin D shows a photo of his mug, which is black inside with a black handle and has a white background with the words "Keep Clam and Proof Read" on it above his Sockmonkey keychain next to the quote that was printed on the tag inside which reads "A writer's life and work are not a gift to humankind they are it's necessity. - Toni Morrison".  The text of his post reads: Some items from @sockmonkeywriters.bsky.social mid-month Mug Exchange writerly check-in. The keychain is hand-made!!!

This photo is a post from Jen aka Jexx which shows her purple travel mug above an open notebook with a pen in the middle, the Sockmonkey keychain and a plate of pie and other food on the right, with a closed notebook that has a Sockmonkey sticker, and I Voted sticker, a Hi my name is label and the upper half of a yellow duck sticker on it on the left side. The text above the post reads: At the Midway mug and pie celebration of SockmonkeyWriters! We don't officially do NaNo anymore, but we do a November writing month and meet for writing! And pie!

It was fun to see the familiar November faces again. Here's to keeping this bit of community going and hopefully building it up into something more robust as time goes on!