The "Before" shot - look at that pretty pretty yarn - Malabrigo Chunky in Marine.  And so many cute packages wrapped and sealed with adorable little stickers!

LOUDER THAN BOMBS by The Smiths!!!  This was my absolute favorite Smiths tape when I was in high school (Yes, tape.  I'm old.  Ha ha.)  And it was apparently Laurie's too!  Now I have it in beautiful CD format.  I can listen to "Half a Person" and "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" any time I want!

This was my very first Ravelry swap, and I had the great good fortune to be matched up with Laurie, aka Trumom.  I am not kidding when I say I cried.  I think every karma point I have earned thus far in my life was cashed in on this Magic Yarn Ball.  I had an absolute blast unwrapping it, discovering treats and opening packets along the way.  Laurie clearly chose every single tidbit carefully and specially for me, and I can't believe how well she was able to get right to the sort of things I love.  And the liver-related goodies, well, those are priceless.  As the proud owner of a "gently used" liver, no other organ is quite so close to my heart (har har) and I love to remind the world I'm a liver (and) a fighter!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I love it, and I love you!

*Items I didn't get great pictures of, but are fantabulous nonetheless - two packets of delicious-smelling Assam tea (my absolute favorite), four super-cute teeny-tiny apple magnets, a little super-kawaii hamster eraser (?), a fantastic little Japanese figure, and I wish I'd gotten a better shot of the stitch markers - they are many and they are fantastic.  There're "candy heart" ones with cute sayings, ones with beads spelling out "DIY", "knit" and "purl," beautiful beaded ones, just any kind of lovely stitch marker, I have at least two of them here!)