well anyways, tonight when i looked up. i saw your truck and i swear you seemed like you were motioning to me like you do sometimes. so i nodded my head and smiled real big and mouthed, “okay.” i know you saw me because you looked directly at me.

but when you came back and parked outside of my store, you never came into my store. and now i realize you must have been talking to the guy sitting next to you in your truck, and the hand motions were most likely you involved in conversation, and when you looked at me with my nodding head, smile and mouthing “okay” i wonder to myself how crazy i must have seemed to you?

i hope we can put this behind us. 

sincerely,

7320 carroll ave. or crazy lady nodding head, smiling and mouthing “okay.”

i realize you all were just blown away with my wild side. 

new years meant nothing to me really, until i got married. that first year that was about to end. watching the garrison keillor show on PBS while emmylou brought in the new year with her beautiful voice, it suddenly hit me. i had gotten married. i had gotten married this year.

i begin to cry. i looked at my parent’s who were crying too as it seemed to hit them at the same time that their little girl had gotten married that year. suddenly this new year was confirming all the motions that had taken place in the last. suddenly it was closing that door. that forever door that held all those years of school, that little girl making cookies in reindeer pajama’s innocent to believe that new year’s eve was nothing more than a continued cycle of youth.  

suddenly it was ending all of that and opening something completely different. something i had actually never prepared for. all these feelings and emotions just came pouring out, and i set there just crying my eyes out, my parents came over and hugged me, as my husband nervously sipped his fake bubbly. 

and as i drove away at the end of the holiday. i realized i wouldn’t be coming home for summer break, those days were over now. i would be returning to the beginnings of a new foundation that my husband and i had already began to build. a little apartment with different colored walls. a chubby bully dog and a couple that were starting their own cycle, their own memories, their own outlines forming shadows on the new year.

and as this year comes to an end tonight. i feel there will be tears of complete astonishment of what has taken place. even though the store has technically been opened a year this coming march, i started working on it last january. i am sure i will repeat to myself over and over again, “i opened a store this year, and people actually came.” 

i have no idea what the new year will hold. but looking out the windows and watching the snow wildly blowing about, i am ready to welcome it in.

and guess which dog was ranked #3 for not so smart?  Bulldog’s!  not so smart better be the new term for stubborn and too awesome to care or someone is getting a letter from me! 

i can’t believe such lies are allowed to be played on the radio.

all this talk of collies and labradors, please have you heard how loud a bulldog can snore?  with volume like that a BIG and SUPER SMART brain is resting mighty heavily from all its use, wisdom and good towards the world.

oh what is that, your labrador can catch a Frisbee while swimming in water? Wow, big deal, so can i.

but can your oh so “great” and “smart” labrador run into a brick wall, and come away completely unscathed? yea, i didn’t think so.

can your smarty pants collie literally hold on to a piece of rope while being swung in the air for 10 minutes or however long it feels like it? yea, i didn’t think so.

can it eat an entire bag of organic fertilizer when it was only a puppy?

can it eat an entire bone in 2 seconds? 

does it have the facial expressions of a 90 year old man, and break your heart every time it lays on the floor while you are going to work, and lets out a long and exaggerated sigh?

does it have bad gas?

does it burp in your face?

does it love to sit on you because it still thinks it is a puppy and doesn’t weigh 60 pounds, but you can’t resist because those big cheeks, big lips, and big eyes?

does it snort when it gets excited?

does it remind you of all the large animals in the zoo like a hippo, elephant, and polar bear?

this is not a stupid dog by any means. this is a gentle giant. a child in bulldog clothing. a beautiful soul, and my greatest gift. a dog that needs LOTS of attention, LOTS of patience, LOTS of kisses, hugs, and snuggles. Rough playing and long naps. 

this is a dog that knows how to love life, cheese and peanut butter included, and because of that, it is the smartest dog i have ever met.

p.s. if you happen to own one of the “smartest” breeds, please understand that i am completely bias to all bulldog breeds. don’t take it personally.

If this is something that you feel strongly about, or just want to know more, please don’t hesitate to go to this link, and see what you can do to help!

The response so far has been wonderful!

she is SO adorable, that it must be shown to all, and by all i mean the 4 people that read this blog.  

enjoy it now though. enjoy these pictures of other kids, because as soon as i have mine, that is all you are going to see. mark my words. i don’t plan to have them doing anything either to have a photo up.

there will just be titles like, “so and so looks at feet” and “so and so is just staring at me.”

i will be “that” person, and i will pretend to be clueless that i am “that” person, and will hit upload with glee and complete confidence you wanted to see them all.

sunday - my iphone went loopy again! it did that same thing i talked about in my other iphone post. i started to panic, until the mac whisperer (my husband) picked it up and whispered something to it, and low and behold it’s fine. but i tell you if i have to go through what i had to again, i am going to cry on a “mac genius,” stomp on his foot with heels that i am wearing only for this occasion, and make his girlfriend break up with him. 

monday - my newsletter company actually re-signed up a person that had unsubscribed. luckily it was just one person, and even though there are barely a handful of people that have unsubscribed, i was thankful, because one of the people that did unsubscribed had “special k” as apart of their e-mail address, and that is a loaf that adventist make (me being an adventist) and yes a drug (not affiliated with adventists), but i have my bets that it was an adventist spy. not this time special k! 

tuesday - USPS website has completely crashed, and because of that messed with my online shipping, because that is who i ship through, so it was giving people checking out a strange message, and not allowing them to finish their orders online. luckily i got that fixed, but it did take me a good 2 hours while breathing into a paper bag to figure out what was happening.

wednesday (today) - USPS is still completely down which had me up until 1 a.m.  figuring out another method, thank goodness for endicia for macs!! i have been wanting to use this program anyways, but was putting it off until i absolutely had to pay the monthly fee, but i believe having an entire shipping website down during the busiest shipping season qualifies, and an added bonus a 30 day free pass. i should have switched sooner though, honestly, its gold. there are only 2 steps versus the 20 i was doing on click and ship, and it is just so much smoother, and i like to think more respectful.

so tomorrow if you see my computer spitting discs at me like ninja stars, no worries. its something we’ve got to work out. 

i am pretty sure it is because i said something about missing real mail, and social interaction not provided by facebook.

what a perfect thought. 

i sat down and just looked at that stool holding all things imaginary. all things simple and stripped. all things wondrous, free and light. 

in that spot creativity was capable of just about anything. the sun fell asleep. the moon came out and stretched its long arms. as stars drifted through clouds and fell on trees who were whispering to the grass.

suddenly stopping all things too busy to remember what it felt like to have tea with alice.

two sugars please.

In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to China and other developing countries violated the public’s trust. They were selling toys with dangerously high lead content, toys with unsafe small parts, toys with improperly secured and easily swallowed small magnets, and toys made from chemicals that made kids sick. Almost every problem toy in 2007 was made in China .

The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US ; so they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August 2008. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number. 

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and updating their molds to include batch labels.

For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers, however the costs of mandatory testing will likely drive them out of business, or prevent them from doing business with the US. 

A toymaker for example, who makes wooden cars in his garage in Maine to supplement his income cannot afford the (up to $4,000) fee per toy that testing labs are charging to assure compliance with the CPSIA.

A work at home mom in Minnesota who makes dolls to sell at craft fairs must choose either to violate the law or cease operations. 

And even the handful of larger toy makers who still employ workers in the United States face increased costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007.

The CPSIA simply forgot to address the class of toys that have earned and kept the public’s trust: Toys made in the US, Canada, and Europe. The result, unless the law is modified, will be small, innovative companies that typically make niche products, will be forced out of business, or forced to narrow their product range and sell to the mass market. Product availability and selection will diminish. Ironically, we will be primarily left with imported plastic toys from China.

What can be done to help?

Parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens: 

Write to your United States Congress Person and Senator and the CPSC to request changes in the CPSIA to save handmade toys. You can find a sample letter with links to representatives here: http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/how-you-can-help/

i had a woman call, that wanted to send a bag of gummy squids to her son in college who was going through exam week. it just reminded of all those times my mom sent me letters and little packages while i was in school.

how i loved to hear from home, and to feel that only kind of special that a parent can make you feel. even if it was just some candy, it meant so much. 

i heard the excitement of the surprise in the woman’s voice. how much it made me miss my mom. 

i have a terrible problem with being homesick for my parents. not a week goes by that i don’t have a pang of just wishing i could hug them. even as i write this my eyes are filling up with tears, and i need to pull myself together. 

its funny because i was never that child that was going to stick around. i left at 19 and never came back home, but not because i didn’t want to be with my family, it was because i had a lot i wanted to see and do.

but it was hard. especially when i left for england for school. while i was traveling it was fine, but as soon as i was back on campus, doing the routine of school, study, sleep, eat and find a job.

the routine would slowly eat at my realization at how far away i was, and then those homesick feelings would begin to show. 

my parents didn’t make it easy on me either. the kids i knew if they wanted to come home, their parents told them no.

when i wanted to come home it went like this:

me: hi mom.

mom: tiffany are you crying?

me: yes.

mom: rick pick up the phone tiffany is crying.

dad: hello.

me: dad…

dad: tiffany why are you crying honey?

me: because i want to come home. i miss you so much. i don’t like my english teacher, he’s boring and is using the class to fill his dream of being in hamlet. 

mom: oh tiffany, come home then.

dad: if you want to come home that is fine honey. 

me: WHAT? you can’t tell me that. you have to tell me NO and to STAY.

mom: do you want to stay?

dad: well if you want to stay…

me: No i don’t want to stay, i am suppose to stay. 

mom and dad: well okay honey. we sure miss you here though. but it is good for you to stay, we just don’t want you to be unhappy. 

me: i know. i love you. 

sob sob sob sob. mom makes joke. i start laughing. dad makes joke. i start laughing harder. i make jokes and we all are laughing (because we find ourselves hilarious). 

hang up phone feeling capable of finishing. until next month. cycle repeats.

home will always be wherever my parents are, and if i am lucky my brother is too. but until then, i’ll just keep finding people that remind me of what is truly important in this world.

candy squids in all. 

there is nothing like your parents love.

the pajama squid was mentioned in the washington post magazine on thursday, and the product featured was geemo!

i really love this toy! when i found geemo i felt like i was 6 years old again walking into a museum gift shop, which when i was growing up was the place that all the truly unique gifts were found. 

i don’t feel that way anymore about museum gift shops, and miss the way they use to be.

so to have that moment that is burned so significantly in my mind come flooding back, made this toy mean even more to me. 

i am so happy it has gotten the response it so deserves.