Happy Birthday My Friend!

I've had an old friend in the back of my mind all week, especially through all the snow. You see, he loved the snow and would have relished in a blizzard of Epic proportions falling on Chicago. As we all grumbled and mumbled about the inconvenience, the closed schools and businesses, the shoveling and the emptying store shelves, my friend Brian would have been relishing in a state of perma-grin. Wonder in his eyes and excitement in his heart as he blazed a trail through the snow.


Yes, I said would have. We lost our friend 18 months ago to the ruthless disease of Cystic Fibrosis at the tender age of 18. You may remember me writing about it then. Well, today is his birthday, and what a day it is. Superbowl Sunday, with his most favorite Green Bay Packers playing in the big game. Two feet of snow on the ground and more fresh stuff falling as I write. What a perfect day he would have thought it to be. Somehow, I know he smiles and roars with that infectious laugh of his as he watches over us today.

So, Brian, my friend, I thank you for continuing to touch my life. I will never look a snow the same way again. I can't promise anything on the Packers, but for the first time in my life, I can smile just a little inside if they win, knowing how happy it would make you.
Happy Birthday!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

Blech! Enough already. Today, January 11th, Chicago will surpass it's average snowfall for the winter. 39 inches. It's not even mid January yet. We have been known to get snow as late as Mother's Day (on rare ocassion, but it has happened). A foot yesterday and more on the way tomorrow and several days this week.

After clearly marking our territory, Chicago style
(see the chair that says, don't even think about parking here. I earned this spot!)

I was relishing the excuse to stay indoors and make jewelry. Of course there's always bitchwork to be done, but I can multitask. I'm a mom, I am wired for multitasking. We could eat out of the freezer (a good hot bowl of homemade Chili) and we had some wine. No vodka, but some good red wine.

It worked. I made some cool, new favorites.




Ran a sale that wasn't as productive but that's okay. We still have plenty of time to shop and ship for Valentine's.


Now, if I could just get the kids to stop bickering. Why are they not out snowboarding, sledding and snowball fighting? UGH! Kids today!

The Follow Up that wasn't

At the end of my last post (if you canremember that far back) I mentioned a host of future posts. My head was spinning with ideas and not enough time for my fingers to express them all. Good thing this is a written and not oral venue or my fingers expressions could take a whole new meaning, eh?


The snow is piled high and I have no (urgent) need to leave the house today. I perused that list of ideas and though it brought a smile, no real story began to flow. Time must have rested my creative juices on those. I did crack a little gigggle at the Grandma kicks butt story though. How can you not love an 82 year old family matriarch that responds to questions with a sarcastic wit you thought had been stolen by her years and struggles. Ordinary conversastion can be difficult at best thanks to the devil that took her word retrieval, but ask her to comment on Christmas dinner or her desire for a cocktail and you might want to put on some body armour. I can only imagine the zingers that would have flown if we had had that bottle of bitters needed to make her a Manhattan.
She is one fantastic lady. The mark she has left on my life is deep and passionate. How lucky I am to have her. If I ever figure out how to extract some photos from the slideshow dvd of her 90th, I wills hare them here. It is chocked full of great ones.
So, I must move on with my day. The usual litany of bitchwork that with any glimmer of hope will be peppered with some jewelry creating. We will live with what we have in house becasue I am just not trekking to the grocery in this weather. Sledding hill maybe, grocery on a Saturday in a snowstorm, I think not. If push comes to shove maybe those meanagers of mine will hike to the Polish store for milk or bread.
If you too are looking for a diversion, you can always stop by etsy for the SNSs sale tonight too. I will have a few secrets to give away for the cost of shipping only as well as a great discount on my entire shop. There will be a multitude of other shops doing the same, so stop on bye and say hi! Mention you read about it here and get free shipping on your order.