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I scream that repeatedly the morning after a substantial snowfall – it’s really helpful and my family appreciates it so much.

When I’m done warning everyone on my block, I always feel inspired:

It was 1979, so he only needed short shorts, roller skates, headphones, and passion. He skated, nay, DANCED, around Lake Calhoun — it was a performance for no one, or was it for everyone??

I’ll never know what came through the cans on his ears, but it must have been something funky because he danced like the good folks of Soul Train.

Now here I sit, maybe someday I’ll don my roller-skates and boogie with my new headphones…

UNTIL THEN, I shall create. 

Don’t you hate when your Mom recommends movies crammed with compound fractures and skull-stomping

and you can only salvage your emotional health by writing/designing a Valentine’s Day card?

ME TOO.

Is it wrong that I was more concerned about getting a good photograph of today’s event than of my house being engulfed in flames?

And why was the fireman so happy?

I guess he just loves the outdoors as much as I do! -12° makes me smile and laugh, too — and I’m not even a sociopath!

After the smoke cleared (LITERALLY), I made a Valentine’s Day card and called 911 to give it to him:

FINGERS CROSSED.

Loretta modeled the gift we got for #oldestintern (to make sure it felt festive) and it sat under the tree until yesterday because she says her pipes froze.

Maybe Loretta can wear two of those Christmas stockings. 

We still have one present under the tree and if the recipient doesn’t claim it soon I’ll just have to keep it for myself. #MERRYCHRISTMAS

I wish I had a vintage Christmas tree stand that rotated and played music.

JUST KIDDING! I do! That music-box music fills me with Peace n’ Joy so I don’t freak out on Sears Customer Service for not hauling away my old appliances. JUST KIDDING! I still freaked out on them!

(24) YEARS ago (and a couple weeks before Christmas) my friend asked me how much I loved ornaments for the tree. I told her that I DIDN’T love ornaments for the tree. I just liked strings of lights. And MAYBE those glass balls. 

She tried to talk me into loving them, but I insisted that I did not. Fast forward to Christmas Day, and under my nearly-naked tree, she had placed a giant box filled with ornaments that she had lovingly gathered over the year. Let me repeat that last part: THAT SHE HAD LOVINGLY GATHERED OVER THE YEAR.

Am I the worst friend ever? MAYBE. One more thing: I also forgot her birthday a couple years later. WHY IS SHE STILL FRIENDS WITH ME??

Shhh… Forget that story and observe Tib hating Dinah for sitting in her chair:

ALSO, here’s a Christmas card I made after I was done yelling at Sears:

I’ve already not been murdered by a Craigslist poster selling firewood and done (most) of my Christmas Shopping via Amazon. If I were born 50 years earlier my house would be freezing and my kids would cry hearty tears on Christmas Morning. I can only praise newborn baby Jesus for my easy-peasy life. (Sorry that when He grew up He had to be tortured and die and stuff.)

ANYWAY, the fire is roaring and UPS is delivering whatever my warm-ish heart desires. Isn’t that what this Season is all about?? Between my online-obsession and stoking the fire, I channeled some important words spoken by the Virgin Mary:

I spend my days and nights writing and designing… Feverish and barely stopping to eat, I create.

If only I had my own Antonio Salieri. IF ONLY. I wrote a Christmas card. Or whatever.

Between stalking housepets

and watching scandalous/made-for-Netflix adaptations of Margaret Atwood novels,

I’ve been working on THE PERFECT thank you card to stuff in our online orders. Jen and the Intern keep rejecting everything I make and that’s really hard on my fragile ego.

It never bothered me that the lenses in my glasses were rubber cemented into place and the rubber cement collected sand. I ditched those glasses under a fold in my beach towel so I could run down to the ocean and freely forage for low-tide sea creatures.

It was a free-range life! I wasn’t tethered by social convention! Or hygiene! Fast forward 35 years and I’m still leading a free-range life. Not tethered by social convention! Or hygiene! Today, our press lurched and lunged as if possessed but it was nothing a plastic shim couldn’t fix. See, free-range living!

That’s a filthy, oil-soaked floor and Jen throws cards to the ground when she’s angry. She leads a free-range lifestyle too! THAT’S HOW WE MAKE IT WORK.

(FYI: This is how our beloved C&P looks when Jen isn’t angry:)

Speaking of free-range, I made a new card for all of you (non-vegetarian) LOVERS out there.