catiecake.

Fifth of November

Kitten Christmas Tree Ornaments (available at www.catiecake.com- very limited quantities)

Dear Kittens,

It seems like we're having our Indian Summer late this year. The mornings and evenings are chilly and the afternoons are warm. I can't say that I'm a fan, but apparently there is nothing to be done about it. Apparently so-called weather does whatever it wants.

One item of note before I go on- there is a giant pile of leaves at our curb (the gardeners were here this morning) and I am dying to go out there and kick the leaves so that they go all over the place. I will not do that only because it will lead to me raking and sweeping the leaves back into place. I think the best part of fall is all crunching as you walk on sidewalk.

So my plan of awesomeness has to do with recommitting to my basics. I'm pretty sure at some point I mentioned that this plan is much more interesting to me than it would be to you. So, you cannot read the following and then blame me for it's lack of complete fascinatingness to you. You little baby Kittens think that EVERYTHING is about you, don't you? When I started with Life Coach, she had me come up with a Well Being Check list. The title makes it pretty obvious what it's supposed to be, right? She suggested coming up with 10 things to do every single day that made me feel good, strong and healthy. I think 10 is an arbitrary number and really, if you wanted to do this you could come up with 4 or 5 super strong basics. Life Coach suggested that the first three on the list should be eating healthy, getting enough sleep and exercise. I think most of us can agree that those three things are the foundation to feeling your best. I've changed my list a few different times because in the beginning there were items on the list that just didn't end up mattering that much to me. So nowadays here's my list:

1. Go to bed at 9pm (I don't actually go to sleep at this time, but I do get ready for bed and read for a little while before I go to sleep)

2. Eat healthfully (avoiding low fiber, high carbohydrate foods)

3. Exercise (daily walks, weights 3X per week)

4. Morning Routine (mostly is about getting certain things done before I start Internetting)

5. Time w/Andy (dates, game night, etc)

6. Creative time (which happily is also my work)

7. Read for at least 30 minutes

8. Meditate for 15 minutes

9. Sitting (I need time where I do absolutely nothing but sit and look.)

10. Friends (wherein I take care of correspondence, have friend dates, make new friends, read friend blogs)

I never abandoned my list, but I also haven't been minding it like I want to. If you are a person who finds it difficult to do everything she wants to do in a day, I recommend coming up with your own list. It doesn't need to be 10 items, although it probably shouldn't be more than 10 (you want to keep it manageable). The important thing is that it includes things you can do to so that you always feel your best. How you implement this sort of thing is that you keep an actual checklist with you at all time and refer to it often. In addition you choose these things every single day. You do not wait for "motivation" or whatever. You say to your Kittenself, Kittenself, I am choosing to play with string for 10 minutes everyday. And then you do it.

In cooperation with Andy Anchev (my husband), it has been decided that Mondays and Fridays are either game night or date night. I am very pleased with this mutual decision. Tonight is pho and a movie. Yipee!

Love,

Catie

Fourth of November

Dear Kittens,

The flea market today was disappointing. I managed to buy a gorgeous glass footed compote bowl and an empty picture frame. I've got quite the collection of serveware going. I should have a party or something.

Today was good because I was outside, with my mom and I was walking. It felt really good to get away from the house and do something completely unrelated to my work. I truly love what I do, but the last week has been extremely stressful for me (my own fault) and getting away was good. Speaking of which- all of my holiday stuff is up. Cards, artwork (makes a great gift), ornaments and stockings. www.catiecake.com

We started on our yearly review of Firefly. Sometimes we watch the whole series more than once a year. Man alive, even though I know every episode by heart, I still love the series so very much.

Last week I was supposed to start a new program of awesomeness or whatever I was calling it, but it's for sure starting this week. I've been advised by my trusted advisor, Craige, that maybe my initial plans were a bit much and I should start slower. So slower is what I'm going to do. I do everything Craige tells me to do, which is remarkably easy since she pretty much never tells me what to do.

I have a full week of productivity, awesomeness and fun ahead of me and because of that I am going to bed early! Two nights in a row of a decent bedtime. Thank you, Fall Backwards time change.

Love,

Catie

Third of November

Sneak peek of things to come at www.catiecake.com

Dear Kittens,

I am so irritated that there should be a name for this level of irritation. Like Super Major Really and Truly Irritation. Or something. I am certain it's because of lack of enough sleep over what seems to be a very long period of time. It's getting better, the sleeping a proper number of house, but it's not ideal yet. Wah. Wah. Wah.

Here's what you really need to know- my website has been updated. Go visit www.catiecake.com To see part of of what I've been working on. Right now you can see cards and artwork, but very soon Christmas tree ornaments and stockings will be up. Kittens, if you would please do me the favor of passing on the URL of my website on to people you believe would be interested, I will be very grateful.

My webgirl is the most amazing webgirl ever in the world. Her name is Kate McMillan and her website is www.outboxonline.com . If you want an amazingly designed website, Kate is your gal. She has been an invaluable partner to me. Truly, I do not know anyone that I would trust more with my website. Her asthetic is spot on. Her work ethic is awe-inspiring. I'm lucky enough to be friends with Kate. Seriously, pass her name on to people who need a kick ass website.

In non website news- tomorrow is the flea market. I'm meeting my mom there and we are going to walk and walk and walk and walk until we feel like dying. Then we'll go out to lunch. We might even buy some stuff. We're both always on the lookout for religious things like crucifixes, icons and rosary beads, various small pieces of furniture (I have a thing for small tables and chairs) and I'm going to be looking for beads for to make necklaces with. I really need a day like what tomorrow is going to be.

You are loved!

Catie

The Zig. The Zag.

I realize that I should probably write descriptions for these photos I post.

This is a fence in Yosemite National Park. I liked the lines.

Dear Kittens,

It should not come as a surprise to you Kittens that I sometimes keep secrets from you. Not for the joy of secret-keeping, but more because you are Kittens and just babies and do not need to know everything about everything. It is out of love that I keep these secrets. You can thank me later.

This is the part where I tell you that I've known about the destination of our anniversary trip for a couple of weeks now. I sort of guessed it immediately, but my guess was confirmed when I was looking through the American Express statement looking for suspicious charges. The airline tickets were listed with their destination. I didn't say anything because, you know, when you plan a surprise for someone, you would like for them to be surprised. Finally, 2 nights ago, Andy told me and I admitted that I already knew. It's not that big of a deal, but I am sorry that the surprise got ruined. I'm looking forward to this trip, but I admit I'm a tiny bit tired of travel. There! I said it! I know for sure it will be good and I'll be so glad we did it (did I already say all this?), but after this trip, I'm pretty much planning on staying home A Lot.

So, we're going to Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. I'm looking forward and I hope the weather cooperates. We've decided to come up with indoor and outdoor activities so we're sure to have a good time no matter what the weather is doing. 

There are ideas for blogs I've come across in the last 2 days that I love. One is an encyclopedia of your home. Based on a book that I love called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Elizabeth of A Browner Brown is doing it. It's one of those ideas that you (and by "you" I mean "I") wish you had first. That won't stop me from copying her, though.

The second idea is from Zena. She's taking at least a month's worth of daily photographs of the things that bring her closer to her spirituality. The Sacred Life Project. That might be a tiny bit too hippie for me, but I love the idea of taking a small moment each day to recognize the beauty around you and to find inspiration in something simple.

I find such inspiration from these two ideas that it sort of kills me a little bit. Mostly because I am trying to be smarter about making commitments, I'm not sure which idea I actually have time for right now or if they both should wait until a later date.

I realized yesterday that I've been sort of stalled out in progress lately. I'm still having sessions with Life Coach and they continue to be very good and helpful and generally speaking I feel very happy most of the time. Also generally speaking, I feel like I could be Doing More. I think I need to start pushing myself to go a little bit deeper in this whole personal growth thing. Mostly I think I need to turn up the exercise a notch and the productivity on my creative endeavors. One really good thing that life coaching has taught me is how to follow through. Before life coaching, I was very good about coming up with plans, but not so great at implementing them, but nowadays I feel pretty secure in my ability to make things happen for myself.

Also, I think this is another reason why I am less than Totally Excited for our trip. I feel like there are things to be done at home and being gone so much is preventing me from gaining momentum and that's frustrating. Because, it's not just the actual travel. I don't know if most people are like this, but I find travel wholly exhausting. The whole process of figuring out what to pack, how to pack it, going to their airport, stressing about security and then the actual flying and settling in and then coming home and the being tired and endless laundry and loving the cats and trying to get my schedule back on track and GAH! It takes up a tremendous amount of space in my head. I cannot say that I love travel. In fact, I do not love travel. Seeing new places is a lot of fun and the almost always seems worth it (Sorry, Florida, except for the Everglades, I hated your guts.) but the process is something that wears me down.

And now my day must begin with sort of a running start because we're leaving tomorrow evening and so you know, that's not that far away.

Love!

Catie!

Rub a dub dub.

Dear Kittens,

The thing where we get Roo to stop yelling at us (mostly me) to turn on the faucet in the tub is going barely okay. You may or may not know this, but cats are amazingly stubborn. And they like to make habits. So if you do something 2 times with a cat, that's it! You've started a new tradition that needs to be honored OR ELSE. Roo is losing his teeth, but he switched to canned food so he can keep one side super sharp and available for biting me at a moment's notice. Anyway, this morning I sat on the toilet and Roo came racing in and I blocked him with my hand from jumping into the tub. When he saw my hand pop up, he would turn around and run out of the room. We did that five (5) times. Just between you and me, that's a lot of times. On the last time I snatched him up, rubbed his head for a little while told him, "I know this is hard, but we don't do this anymore. You've got to drink water out of a bowl." He said, "Meoooow. Mer. Mer." And then he sighed. I put him down and he went into the kitchen and drank from the new fountain.

That was a nice exchange and all, but I don't believe it's over.

Last night I went out to dinner with Stacey. We had sushi. I cannot imagine the person who does not like sushi. That must be a remarkably sad life you sushi haters live. No deliciously sweet raw fish, no sticky sticky rice, no wasabi opening up your nasal passages and making you think you might die, how you sushi deniers live? We had a nice time munching and catching up.

After dinner I went over to Whole Foods to pick up a few things (Lara Bars, kefir, apples and a red pepper). What amazes me about Whole Foods is the number of SUVs in the parking lot. It's way more than at any other grocery store I visit. Which, honestly, seems kind of weird to me. The self-important yippies (Yuppie+Hippie) strut around Whole Foods as if the entire world rotates around them. Last night a woman ran into my cart, gave me a dirty look and then said, "an apology would be appreciated!" This is where I thank Little Baby Jesus for my fast wit. I says, "I am very sorry that I was standing here and you ran into my cart." She huffed away and the dude that was standing near me laughed. This is the exact reason I need to start carrying a paint pellet gun. Certain people need to be marked as morons. Think of how much time it will save everyone! If this law passes, I suggest carrying an extra set of clothes, you know, just cake you are..hahaha...mismarked.

Also, I hate my highlights. HATE THEM. I was wrong about them being pretty. They are really lame. They're too obvious, too brassy and too many of them. What was my girl thinking? I really need to call her, but I haven't. My next appointment is on Halloween, but I do not want to go through the majority of this month with same lame, tired looking highlights on my head. I love my dark, dark, luscious brown hair. Wah! Wah! Wah!

The two photos I used in this post are from the self portrait project I'm participating in. The top one is me holding a paper flower I made from a kit and the last one is me washing my face at night. In case you little Kittens could not figure it out. After all, you're just babies.   

Love! Catie

There! I said it.

Dear Kittens,

I did not mean to let so much time pass inbetween posts. I don't know what happens sometimes. The stories are there, I just don't write them out. I'ma list it out so we get to everything. You guys know that you can click on any of my photos and see larger versions, right? Well now you do.

1. I went to my mom's class for the first time this school year. She's got another lovely set of kids. A little while ago she had a horrible bunch and it made her life so miserable. The nice thing about this group and last year's group is that they're fairly creative and so doing crafts with them is a lot of fun.

2. For the last several months Roo has gotten into the habit of meowing very loudly for me to get up and turn on the water in the tub to the perfect amount of trickle. And then sit on the toilet and keep him company. It's been going on for so long that my body had been trained to need to go pee at 5 am. A full hour before I want to be up. Andy finally decided to get a kitty water fountain that simulates a faucet. HAHA. Roo wants nothing to do with this "kitty water fountain" and had turned up his assholery to a whole new level. Instead of making him go cold turkey, I'm weaning him from the tub water. Today I put a fresh bowl of water into the tub. The best thing is that he kept looking at the bowl of water, then at the faucet, then at me. Like. "what the fuck do you think you're up to?" He did finally drink and I admit to feeling a small triumph over the smallest member of the family.

3. My sister came down over the weekend and we did Catie's Girly Package of Fun. Which means manicures and pedicures, lunch and shopping. We were celebrating her birthday a little early. It was a lovely day and I'm so glda that we got to do it. I meant to take photos of our Girly fun, but I didn't. 

4. I've been doing a number of paper crafts lately. It's all in an effort to spark my creativity to finish my line of Christmas stuff for my business. This year has been particularly frustrating for me because, Kittens, the ideas just are Not working out. My dead line is Oct 20th (set by me), so I really need to get the show on the road and what not.

5. I should write about my family history. I worry about you Kittens getting confused.

6. This weekend we're going to Yosemite. We're staying in a hotel just outside the park, at the south end. We're celebrating my mom's 60 (!) birthday. When I was a kid we went to Yosemite every year in the fall. The last time we went was when my parents were camping there for 2 weeks and we visited them one weekend. During their camping vacation they had a bear peel down their truck door and steal some food AND there was an earthquake. That was something like 10 years ago, so we're long overdue for a visit to Yosemite.

7. So, my mom is turning 60, which means I am turning 40 and neither of us are particularly thrilled about the whole thing. I remember HER 40th birthday like it was just a few years ago. My grandpa died 5 months before her birthday and in total Grandpa Geoge style, his dying wish was that we throw a surprise birthday for my mom's 40th. So my grandma, her sister and Danny and I planned a surprise party for her. She was surprised and deeply touched by everyone who showed up to celebrate with her and she also let me know, in no uncertain terms, that there would never be another surprise party. And so, you know, there has not. Instead we go on trips or have tea parties and go shopping for antiques.

8. When people talk about cats being aloof and self sufficient- I know immediately that this talking person has never had cats. We have three cats, none of them are aloof or self sufficient. They all need huge amount of affection RIGHT! THIS! SECOND! and while I believe Petey and Seamus could keep their bellies full by hunting, Roo cannot. Speaking of hunting, there was a dead, headless baby squirrel on our walkway yesterday. When I asked Seamus what happened to the head, he said he had no idea what I was talking about. I'm pretty sure he's lying. Petey is absolutely my kitty boyfriend. He loves me so much, neither of us can barely stand it. In fact, as I sit in this chair and type, he is on top of me mushing my boobs and then my stomach and looking up at me wondering how I can continue to type with a fluffy black love machine on top of me. Seamus is more like a massage client. A few times a day he comes around looking for a particular amount of love, but he does not give love. Seamus believes his orange stripy presence is enough. Roo is a tiny furry human. Bacon and shrimps are love to Roo. And Andy. Roo loves Andy so very, very much. (Not in a gay way, though)

9. I'm participating in a group on Flickr where you take a self portrait every day for 7 days. I've been having a very good time playing around with my photo editor and even though I fully admit to such when I post my photos, there are members of this group who do not bother to read descriptions of the photos and so they're all- Your eyes! Dudes- my eyes and dare I say, nobody's eyes, are that color! C'est Impossible!

10. Do you feel updated? You LOOK updated. I do my best to be better this week with the updates.

Love, Love, Love,

Catie 

And now you get to see a small sampling of my favorite photos of our kitty cats.

Dear Kittens,

Man, getting up when it's dark SUCKS BIG HAIRY ASS. I feel very sorry for you people who have to do it every day because of your job. Even if you love your job, it is not good to wake up in the darks. I'm struggling today, Kittens. I do not want to walk. It's a beautifully crisp morning and what I would really love to do is to sleep in until about 8 am and then have my (imaginary) spa boy, Clive Owens, come over and bathe me and massage me and fetch Starbucks for me and then make me a very healthy breakfast and put me down for a nap. Yes. I would like to go back to my newborn baby schedule. Except without the crying.

Yesterday's Life Coach meeting went very well. She had me do this exercise that I resisted for a long time. She wanted me to write out my life story. I didn't want to do it. It kept coming up and finally I just did it and e mailed her and then she told me all these things about life that made me sound so totally awesome! When it's your life you just see these things as details, but when someone else reads it, they're like Awesome #1, Awesome #2, etc. It's one thing for your friends to be all, hey- we like you. But when someone knows the facts of your life and says, here is exactly where you are awesome it's a very nice feeling. Kittens, you are just babies and so maybe you don't understand this, but sometimes when you are approaching a birthday that begins with a whole new number it's gets a little difficult to see your greatness. Mostly you see the areas in which aren't so great and you lament how you life coulda/shoulda/woulda been so much better if you had just followed that plan your 10 year old self had laid out for you.

I am making and official declaration. Wednesday is Treat Day! Today is the day you do something really nice for yourself. It can be anything that makes you feel good and happy and you know, treated. For me it's going to mean a trip to Starbucks to get some delicious iced tea and a trip to the art supply store where I will spend no more than $40 on supplies that I don't exactly "need", but will all the same make me feel energized and excited about creating something new.

Today I'm getting my hair done. I'm schedule for highlights, but I feel like I'm doing them more for my hair girl than for me. Here's my problem, I see people with highlights and exactly 8/10 of them look so dated and awful that it makes me not want to participate. My instructions to my girl today will be to make them TINY and SUBTLE and practically invisible and then I think it will be my last time highlighting for a while. Also, I would probably like to change my haircut, but my super sonically straight hair is really a pain in neck because it's is super sonically straight, which is code for very straight and no body whatsoever. You know that hair you had when you were 4? I still have that hair.

Today is talk like a pirate day and I am not participating. Mostly because I think it zooms right past silly and dives head first into stupid. And also, I don't really want to encourage the idea of pirates being cute and charming. You know, like Coca Cola has done with one of the most viscious, brutal mammals on the planet? The Polar Bear. There, I party pooped on your pirate party and also on your polar bear obsession. You can thank me  later.

Love,

Catie 

Don't Spam me. I will cut you. (Although I kept typing "cute" instead of "cut" so whatever)

Dear Kittens,

I can't exactly remember when we got our first computer, but I know it was in the early 90's. I think it was about 10 minutes after we first got online that we received our first piece of spam e mail. I mention all this only to make the point, that truly I should be over it. I'm really not bothered that much by spam that I receive from strangers. It's nothing personal. Typically it's easy enough to identify spam and you usually don't even have to open it to know that it should be automatically deleted.

The spam that I cannot wrap my brain around is the type your "family" sends you. I have a cousin who e mails me at least once a week with some little nugget of bullshit. An e mail with several animated graphics of cartoony animals hugging, advice about how to always have a good day and my all time favorite is the threatening ones. The ones that say, send this e mail to 10 people in the next 10 minutes OR YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE WILL DIE!!!!!!!! Always with the multiple exclamation points. Why would you send something like to anyone? Also- the "inspirational" or whatever stories? Guess what? I do not give a shit. I'm one hard assed broad and I am not inspired by some sappy piece of shit story in freaking mass e mail. I haven't done this yet, but I'm on the verge of asking her to cease and desist with the mother fucking e mail.

I have a bunch of things to tell you today, Kittens. I hope you're settled in.

1. Oil of Olay Regenerist eye stuff is so very awesome. I was hesitant to buy it because it's a tiny bottle and I may have been harboring the idea that unless something is expensive it's not going to be any good. Firstly, you don't even need a whole pump of this stuff to take care of your eyes. Secondly, it's inexpensive and works beautifully!

2. Arm & Hammer's whitening toothpaste is awesome! I love that's not it's overly sweet and it truly does a very good job whitening.

3. Whole Foods is selling these ginger cookies that are huge and chewy and taste like ginger brownies. They are so delicious that I went out of my way (not by much) to get some more today.

4. It's been my experience that when you allow a creative type person to do their things you will have a much better result than if you put a bunch of restrictions on said creative person. For example, my hair girl knows my limitations- I like a bob, I do not like bangs. Inside that bob/no bang parameter, she's allowed to do whatever she wants. Every week my nail girl asks if I want a flower on my toes and every week I say sure! I let her do whatever she wants mostly because I don't really care what's on my toes and every since I told her to do whatever she wanted to, I've been getting really cute and unique designs. Also, my website girl is the same way. I give her very little input because I trust her aesthetic totally. She has never once disappointed me.

5. I have completely given up nagging. No more. Done and also done. My new policy is that I will ask/remind/inform one time and after that I'm letting it go. I had my nagging under control for a while, but it's gotten bad again and I realize I really hate my nagging self. It doesn't feel good to be a nag and I can't imagine it feels good to be nagged. I've had to literally bite my tongue several  times since I made this decision (Monday), but it's worth it. Because already I feel better. I don't know how Andy feels, and really while it's absolutely better for my marriage that I don't nag, I'm doing this more for myself than for him.

6. I was organizing my jewelry box the other day and I found two silver bracelets that I used to wear all the time. One was from this kid I was friends with in 5th and 6th grade. His name was/is Steve Albers and he gave me his ID bracelet. STEVE is engraved on the front of it. We weren't boyfriend and girlfriend or anything ridiculous like that, just friends. It's really not like to me to keep something like this, but I have.  The other silver bracelet was one among many that I bought during one of my many visits to Mexico as a kid. I'm not sure how old it is, but at least 25 years and I've started wearing it again. I sort of want to wear the Steve bracelet too. I hesitated at first because obviously my husband's name is not Steve, but as I'm writing this out now, why shouldn't I wear it? Who cares?

7. It turns out I don't have that much to tell you. Except that I love you and you're pretty and I think you look like you've lost weight.

With Love,
Catie

Dear Kittens,

If you are new to this blog, you will notice that I use a lot of numbered lists in my writing. I also go from subject to subject without warning. Stay close, you don't want to miss a thing.

I do not understand Daylight Saving Time or Standard time or why we switch or why when we switch has been changed. Alls I know is that I'm ready for the time to change back because at least for a little while, it would mean that I wasn't taking my walk in the dark and that would be good.

Yesterday a woman came to the door passing out flyers for missing kids. Talking about how many children were kidnapped every year and look at her badge, which proves she's authentic. I ended up looking at the badge for a really long time and thinking that the badge meant she had a badge. Not that she truly belonged to any sort of organization. When I said something to that effect she was startled and didn't really know what to say. Then I really lowered the boom. I told her that I didn't buy into this whole "kidnapped" kid thing and while there was no doubt in my mind that these kids had undoubtedly been taken from one parent by another parent, to call them "missing" or talking "kidnapping" in a way that suggests that every day millions of children are snatched up my strangers is wholly irresponsible and that I would never support an organization who did that. She sputtered for a second and then left. I should definitely stop answering my door during the day.

Saturday my sister and her family are coming over so we can celebrate Breenana's 13 (!) birthday on the boat. We're going to the lake for some zooming around and then we're coming back to our place to do a Mexican style grill. I'm looking forward to it all.

Every year since we've had the boat I think it would be awesome if we took the boat out on the lake in the fall. Mostly because I think it would be beautiful and peaceful. I'm realizing now that we don't ever end up doing that because fall turns out to be an exceedingly busy time of year. Already October is completely booked.

I just reminded myself of something funny. A very long time ago Andy and I were in Rhode Island with my parents at a dinner celebrating Andy's sister's first marriage. The new in-laws wanted to come over to Andy's parents house for breakfast the next morning and my mother-in-law was hesitating agreeing. She wanted to sleep in, they wanted to get going early- it was a dilemma. So my father-in-law says, "Yes! Come for breakfast. It will be good." And my mother-in-law shoots him a look like, "WTF, Homey?" And then, in a fit of pure genius, my father-in-law turns to Danny (my step-dad) and says, "You (meaning the man) must set the tone (with the little woman)." And everyone who heard it started laughing so hard no one could breathe. A little bit you have to know my in-laws to appreciate the ridiculousness of such a statement. Ever since then it's become a joke in my family.

In closing I would like to tell you that Andy and I have put ourselves on an allowance schedule. It hasn't been fine tuned yet, but we're using those Visa Buxx cards designed for teens, to dole out the money. We decided that our allowance money would be for "non-essentials". This descision has meant there's all manner of dicussion over what is the difference between essential and non essential items. We're defining what is non-essentials for ourselves, but it's been pretty jokey lately about what counts and what doesn't. For right now all my regular skincare stuff and basics of makeup are essentials. Extras like new lipsticks and eye shadows are not. Books and CDs are non-essentials and however sad it makes me to say this, so do shoes. Unless I'm buying a new pair of shoes to walk in, that is. Haircuts are essential, manicures and pedicures are not. And so on until it makes you feel like crying.

Now it's time to finish up designing the Christmas cards I plan on selling this year. Yesterday was a very bad card day. None of my sassy ideas ended up working out. It's very annoying when that happens.

Love,

Catie