Hindsight is… - Tortured Soul

My favorite quote was yelled by my favorite English contractor.

“CAN YA’ SEE, CHILD??? CAN YA’ SEE???” My three-year-old daughter was RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and jammed them nearish her eyeball. Luckily, she COULD see.

That reminds me of the time in 9th grade when I thought it’d be helpful to shovel our walkway. Using proper shoveling-form, I scooped and filled my shovel full of heavy snow, threw the snow off the shovel, AND hit my four-year-old sister nearish her eyeball. Luckily, SHE could see and her snowsuit and a snowdrift broke her fall and her scar only shows up if she cries. PHEW!

Fast-forward to the present-day and she forced one of her kids to “play” with the Manger Magnets I generously bestowed upon my siblings.

Oh, ALSO and very unrelated… My son-in-law (I’M SORRY!!) has spent the last few months rebuilding my upstairs. It’s not like it’s a piece of heaven on earth or whatever.

   Oh, AND also very unrelated here are some new cards to kick off the New Year:

16 years ago Millie flew here from Colorado because there are no Border Terriers in Minnesota. Why a Border Terrier in this day of upcycled/adopted pets from the Humane Society?? Umm, because I am a dog-racist AND I was told, via online quiz, that breed of dog would be the perfect match for our family. They were right! They knew we needed our floors all peed on and all of our shoes peed in! Besides being AKC certified, Millie (short for Mildred Pierce) taught us how to be humble and patient… without her we will all revert back to our old ways of being lofty and brash.

Sigh. She DID inspire many things 

and will be missed. 🙁

DO YOU HEAR ME??

THIS. IS THE. SEASON.

I’ve been anxiously weefweshing weather.com in case there are any updates on the IMPENDING snow storm. Why do you care?? You aren’t a bus driver?? You rarely even drive your car!! SHHH. HUSH YOUR MOUTH. 

My son-in-law risked life/limb (AGAIN.) to climb up on the roof to hang the Christmas lights – making our house the most festive on the block.

Sorry neighbors!

AND I (and Sticker Mule) made a MAGNETIC manger scene 

that will be added to our shop as soon as I feel like it or as soon as I am visited by the Christmas Spirit. STAY TUNED.

But what could be more Christmassy than Current Political Events?? Nothing puts me more in the mood than speculation on homicide vs. suicide by serial pedophiles! 

Did you know that a three-year-old’s collar bone can be broken with just a spinning tire swing?? IT CAN!! In 1988, old-fashioned fun quickly turned into a nightmare. Sure, I might have had impossibly bronzed skin,

and kissable Zinc Pink lips, but that didn’t prevent me from absent-mindedly spinning that tire swing straight into my little sister and knocking her to the ground.

That reminds me! A collar bone is just one of the 206 bones that a person can break and I only broke ONE bone in her little body! DO YOU HEAR ME, ALICE??

RSVP (the Art Licensor), wanted us to make a birthday card:Luckily, I carried that teeny incident with me for 32 years!

Didn’t we JUST release new cards?? Is it already October?? Was that blur-filled season actually Summer?? WHAT HAPPENED??

Jen, #oldestintern, and I have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow – I had a serious talk with the Franimals about not interrupting. I’m sure they will still interrupt though because they don’t seem to understand that I hold all of the power over their pathetic little lives. (Ugh, they know they’re in charge.)

If this whole letterpress thing stops being such a lucrative money-maker, I’m gonna invest all of my time and energy in creating dioramas like I did in the 5th grade. Who else could turn a Nike shoebox into an homage to fishing at Lake Calhoun, complete with construction-paper-created boys standing atop a construction-paper-created fishing dock, wielding cane-poles complete with real monofilament fishing line leading to construction-paper-created Carp that, like an illusion, float in the waterless interior of the Nike box??

NOBODY COULD. That’s probably why the older boys smashed it to smithereens. I’M NOT BITTER ABOUT IT AND BARELY REMEMBER THAT EVENT BECAUSE IT HAPPENED 37 YEARS AGO.

Oh, I almost forgot… Sally Struthers has a birthday message to share:

Dan the Man (number one) knocked on my door and brought me a heaping pile of curried potatoes on a paper plate, introduced me to the music of Tori Amos, and listened to our kitchen-conversations because our windows were so close. (HOW COULD HE NOT?!)

Dan the Man (number one) also played classical guitar, had a big belly, long curly hair, and wore red suspenders. With OR WITHOUT a stained white t-shirt.

I used to babysit for my baby cousin when Dylan was also a baby (Note: I knew he ate the cat food over there because his poopy-diaper smelled like a litter box). We were picked up in a taxicab three mornings per week

by a hippie named Dan the Man (number two),

and while we buckled up in the backseat (carseats were for suburbanites), he would tell me all about the best items to eat at the Old Country Buffet. Thanks Dan the Man, that IS useful information!

Oh, I carpe diemed like crazy in those days.

Aww! Look at our deck covered in Millie and sunshine!

Spring is here!

Wait… what is that falling from the sky??

Oh, Minnesota… YOU TRICKSTER! You get me every year!

I tried to escape Minnesota’s clutches for one of my birthdays years ago… The cabin-pressure reminded my uterine lining that it should exit via my lady-parts posthaste. As I tied a sweatshirt around my waist, I reminded myself that I should have known better. 

I know Winter is almost over because I’ve watched everything on Netflix and am now forced to look at my neighbor’s roof because their house is so close that when windows are open on quiet Summer nights, I’ve heard a stream of urine meeting a toilet-bowl full of water.

Oh, and another reason I know Winter is almost over is that Jen and I (and #oldestintern) are picking cards for the Spring release! It only took me two hours of meditation and four Xanax to kill my darlings! And by darlings, I don’t mean house pets or 4th trimester babies. I mean designs that I have birthed and cherished as if they were a sliver of my soul. As the kids say, #NBD. Maybe someday, my little friend.

Oh, this one DID make the cut!

Sometimes Winter digs its filthy, ragged nails in — refusing to allow the next season to sashay over snowdrifts and SOMETIMES pantyhose must be filled with Ice Melt and arranged like giant caterpillars on the roof to dissolve the glut of ice-filled flashing. SOMETIMES.

Did my new son-in-law know that he was going to spend so much time on my roof?? (TOO LATE NOW!)

 Ohh, I will give up… WHEN PIGS FLY. 

Doesn’t Winter understand that it takes more than a little water running down walls to derail Zeichen Press?? MUWAHAHAHA!!

Remember that Winter when I dipped my ice-cold hands in 25¢ Tom Thumb coffee? WELL, I DO BECAUSE MY ICE-PICK LOBOTOMY DIDN’T WIPE OUT ALL OF MY MEMORIES/WHY DIDN’T I JUST HAVE THE ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY LIKE THE DOCTOR SUGGESTED?? #regrets

THIS Winter

I won’t dip my hands in 25¢ coffee (OR WILL I???) because I need dry hands for clickity-clacking away at my keyboard. I tried googling “craftsman bungalow second-floor remodel” and realized I need more expert advice. Sorry, Google.

AND just because I love a challenge, and because I love WWII-era technology, AND because I believe pencils should express their pithiness via hot foil, I tested my fire-extinguisher and will try my hand at this: (I @#!$-ing <3 Zeichen Press.)