Sarah's Quirks
- sarahwilk24
- Jan 1
- 10 min read
Updated: Aug 17
The Butter Queen
55 pieces | Custom
Designed and assembled by Hunter Williams, March/April 2025
Interaction Rating: 4 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged, but use extra care)
If there's one thing Sarah is well-known for among friends and family, it's her love for butter. Due to her health-related dietary restrictions, there aren't many oils she can cook with. Actually, butter is the only one. There also aren't many spices she can eat, so in most cases, butter is the flavor of the dishes she eats. If she's traveling, you butter believe she's packing at least half a stick of butter in her purse. There's a reason her nephew, Andrew, has taken to calling her Aunt Butter. Her identity as the Butter Queen has extended beyond what's on her plate and into her closet, too. From butter earrings and necklaces, to hair clips and a butter sweater. She has even received three butter ornaments as gifts on separate occasions from three different people, plus a butter rug that's on display in the powder room. This Butter Queen recommends one butter above all the others: Kerry Gold's Irish butter all the way. Don't waste your time with anything else!
Flower Freak
253 pieces | LEGO: 40762 (retired)
Assembled by Sarah Wilkinson, March 2025
Interaction Rating: 4 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged, but use extra care)
The first time Hunter toured Sarah's house and saw the sheer number of silk flowers that she kept in her office and bedroom (not to mention the bright wall colors that those flowers coordinated perfectly with), his first thought was, Huh, this girl really likes flowers. They didn't put him off and came to think of flowers as being aligned with her personality. She is, in his words, "a very floral person." Hunter would like to note that there's irony in the fact that Sarah loves flowers so much, since she's also the type of person who gets caught up in "doing" to the point where she forgets to "stop and smell the roses." In the early days of dating, Sarah was frequently going over to her friend Vanessa's house to help her put together flower arrangements for her vow renewal. Despite having no floral design training, Sarah ended up creating the arrangements that adorned the arch for Vanessa's and Mike's big day. Vanessa has paid this forward by helping Sarah and Hunter put together numerous brick sets (including flowers) and officiating their wedding. All those silk flowers that used to adorn Sarah's living spaces (now Sarah and Hunter's living spaces) have since been replaced with LEGO flowers.
Book Nerd
285 pieces | Custom
Assembled by Hunter Williams, July 2025
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
Ever since she was a kid, Sarah has loved books. Even before she could read them, she liked to pull them out of her closet and sit among the stacks. One of her favorite places to visit during her middle school years was the public library, where she'd check out a stack as tall as her and devour them, especially during the hot summer months. Her love for reading has accompanied her throughout her life. By the time Hunter moved in, nearly all available shelf space was dedicated to her book collection (which has temporarily been moved to storage to make room for all the brick sets that have taken over their house). Since knowing her, Hunter has put together quite a few shelves for Sarah's growing book collection. Books are one of his favorite things to gift her, and there's always a stack under the Christmas tree. Sarah has loved building this Lego Museum for their wedding, but it did push reading to the back burner for the past year. She has shared her love of books with Hunter by reading several out loud to him. She looks forward to all the books waiting on her shelves to be discovered, and all the ones yet to be written.
Sarah-Dooby Doo
301 pieces | MINISO: 10430
Assembled by Sarah Wilkinson, May 2025
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
Wait, isn't there a whole table display dedicated to Scooby Doo at the wedding already? Does Sarah really need another set and story about Scooby Doo? She's not quite sure what triggered her to start re-watching old Scooby Doo movies and episodes as an adult, but it likely coincided with a time (even before COVID) when she was working from home and realized it was so quiet. Too quiet. She didn't want to turn anything on that she'd actually want to watch, since she needed to get work done, but also wanted background noise that made it feel like someone else was in the house with her. Music didn't quite achieve this effect, so that's when she tried Scooby Doo. And ever since, any time she works from home (which, with her current job, is every day), she generally has Scooby Doo on in the background on her little red portable DVD player. Her collection of Scooby Doo movies and episodes, while extensive, is not 100% complete. Yet. Put on just about any movie or episode, and there's a 98% chance she can quote the lines in perfect time and inflection with the characters.
The Sims
1 piece | LEGO: 854081 (retired)
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
Hunter may be way more into video games than Sarah, but he doesn't have a monopoly on them. Sarah grew up playing The Sims, a computer game where you can create families, build houses, and play through their lives. Early in their relationship, Sarah got the itch to play The Sims 3 on the family desktop, while Hunter made waffles in the kitchen. She wanted to build their family (the two of them, plus their pack of cats) and a home of their own. She didn't get too far, as the game kept lagging, but it's the thought that counts. Hunter thought it was sweet. The llama girl keychain from LEGO is meant to represent the llama mascot that visits all new university students in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 games.
Unkindness Art
121 pieces | JB Spielwaren
Assembled by Mike Alfare, February 2025
Interaction Rating: 3 / 5 (interaction with the set is okay, but only with help from an adult)
June 21, 2023 - October 30, 2024
Sarah got her first tattoo when she was 18, and by the time she was finished with college, she had two more. Sarah had been wanting to get a full sleeve done since before she met Hunter, but struggled to find the right artist. And once she found an artist, Faith Anne Butler, she had to go through two selection processes before she was finally selected by Faith to get a coveted appointment (she's that good!). Sarah started her sleeve, a mix of native and cultivated flowers, on June 21, 2023. It took seven full-day appointments and at least 49 hours under the tattoo gun to finally finish on October 30, 2024. Faith became a close confidant during this time. They commiserated about toxic work cultures, chronic health issues, family and friend drama, the state of the world, and also about finding joy in hard times. Hunter always took care of Sarah in the days after another round of tattoo work, helping her peel the protective "second skin" shield off her arm when she struggled to do it on her own. Completing such a large tattoo project and enduring so many hours of pain in the process helped teach Sarah how strong she is. It's a badass sleeve!
"I was so upset, I forgot to be happy."
401 pieces | SETBRICKS: A0992-95126
Assembled by Mike Alfare, January 2025
Interaction Rating: 4 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged, but use extra care)
Sarah couldn't resist this Eeyore set with the adorable little rain cloud, not because she is a huge Winnie the Pooh fan (she's not), but because when she was looking for a set to represent the moments when she is so in her feelings that she can't see past them, she found this set and resonated with it on an emotional level. Hunter is very accepting of Sarah's propensity to spiral into agitated or sad moods, which typically overtake her when too many stressful things happen in too short a time and her proverbial cup overflows. Hunter is wonderful at helping Sarah ground into the present moment, and he supports her efforts to take care of her mental health through nightly meditation. Hunter even (very occasionally) meditates with her.
"Relaxing will only stress me out."
99 pieces | Unbranded: CN00047-A03
Assembled by Sarah Wilkinson, June 2025
Interaction Rating: 4 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged, but use extra care)
Sarah has enough stress to warrant a second set about it, this one using a different Winnie the Pooh character and specifically representing the stress Sarah had to work through while juggling a new full-time job at Southside ReLeaf and health challenges, while also planning what spiraled into a very elaborate wedding with over 300,000 Lego bricks and an accompanying website with over 150 pages. The title of this set is a quote from Sarah, one evening in March 2025, as she contended with the amount of work still to be done to pull everything together for the wedding. Hunter encouraged her to relax. Sarah unironically responded that relaxing would only stress her out. Then Hunter was cracking up, and soon Sarah laughed at her ridiculousness. Hunter thinks that Sarah may be addicted to stress. Sarah is grateful that Hunter is such an excellent hugger, which helps her get through the worst of any stressful situation.
Headspace While Streaking
81 pieces | Custom
Designed and assembled by Hunter Williams, July 2025
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
Sarah has known for a long time that she struggles with stress management and is more sensitive to stress than most people. She has been meditating daily for several years, and completed a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course in 2024 as part of her journey to better understand how stress affects her and what she can do to support her wellbeing. As of this writing in April 2025, Sarah currently has a daily meditation streak of over 930 days (which would be longer, except they went camping out in the deep woods just over 930 days ago, where there was no signal, so she couldn't meditate through the app to maintain the previous streak she was on). The app she uses is called Headspace. Even if her mind is often racing during the meditation, she still sits for it each night. Hunter also sits through it each night, though he only participates in the part where you take a few deep breaths (and even then, he's guaranteed to be playing Runescape on his phone while he does it). He has improved in not trying to talk to her during her sacred meditation. His support is very sweet.
Did We Burn the Carrots Again?
360 pieces | Jarsant
Assembled by Vanessa Reyes, March 2025
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
Sarah has subsisted on a minimal diet for a third of her life. The biggest struggle is that all of her food requires some kind of preparation. She can't just open the pantry and start snacking. She's able to eat carrots, but only if they are cooked. The problem with cooking carrots until they are soft is that they take a long time, at least two hours. Because of this, Sarah has a bad track record of forgetting about the carrots while they cook, only remembering them when the kitchen starts to get smoky and the carrots are charring to a crisp at the bottom of a pot with no water left. After ruining two different pots, Hunter suggested that Sarah find an alternative method of cooking them, so she started using a rice cooker and a steamer tray. She's only forgotten about them once and ruined one rice cooker pot since starting this new method...so far.
Candle Crazy
167 pieces | Dumeca: D1315
Assembled by Mike Alfare, June 2025
Interaction Rating: 4 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged, but use extra care)
Sarah has a candle for every occasion. She has a collection of candles for every season. The entire top shelf of the couple's closet is full of candles (and those are only the ones that aren't scattered around the house at the time). Her coziest days always involve a scented candle casting a warm glow across the room, most often in a sweet scent, whether fruity or reminiscent of a dessert. Since she can't eat many of the sweet treats she grew up eating now that she's an adult with chronic health challenges, the candles help to satisfy, at least partly, her cravings for the real thing. The next best thing to a cinnamon roll is a candle scented like one. Hunter is very tolerant of her love for candles, and he even has one of his own that is part of their collection—the old-fashioned kind like the brick set on display: a chamberstick.
Maximum LEGO
1,880 pieces | LEGO: 21062
Assembled by Sarah Wilkinson, July 2025
Interaction Rating: 4 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged, but use extra care)
You may have noticed that this Lego Museum that Sarah masterminded and Hunter supported is, uh, intense and maybe a little over the top (but so cool, right?). This is another one of Sarah's quirks: her tendency to pursue something she becomes interested in to the fullest extent. It's why she wrote a book in college when she just needed to write a 15-page paper. It's why she has nearly the entirety of anything she's ever decided to collect (from Sims expansion packs and Sweet Street dolls as a kid, to Scooby Doo movies, candles, and now LEGO as an adult). One of her power words in college, which was chosen by people who knew Sarah well, was "thorough." Does the Trevi Fountain represent a story particular to Sarah and Hunter (other than the time they both watched The Lizzie McGuire Movie, separately, many years before they met)? Nope. Sarah just liked the set. She's been to the Trevi Fountain in Rome before and certainly hopes to take Hunter one day. But it's really just a cheeky way to nod to how "into" the Lego Museum concept Sarah got, and how much of a LEGO fan she became along the way. The fact that she put so much into the Lego Museum as a physical representation of the couple's love for each other is very genuine to who she is. It's something Hunter loves about her.
Turning a (Lego) Profit
96 pieces | Brick Loot: BL-153
Assembled by Andrew Deese, June 2025
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
While Sarah was acquiring brick sets to display as part of their wedding museum exhibit, she became skilled at finding deals on LEGO and alternative brand sets. She relished the sport of finding a good deal, but by this time, the couple was nearing the end of their acquisition phase for the museum and had invested a significant portion of their wedding budget. Sarah concocted a plan to use the hyper-specific knowledge she’d gained to enter the resale market and help recoup some of their costs. Plus, this provided a way for her to continue finding joy in the sport of deal-hunting, with the bonus of dopamine hits from making sales. It's no coincidence that another power word she was assigned in college was "enterprising." She quickly succeeded on eBay and Facebook Marketplace, earning over $4,500 in profit in her first three months. The post office set represents all the trips to UPS and USPS that resulted from this turn of events. Considering Sarah had never done a LEGO set in her life until a year before they selected it for their wedding theme, this was quite an unexpected evolution. Hunter thinks it’s cool.
