Wow, Christmas is practically here! Thank goodness I finished printing the holiday cards. I also designed matching return address labels. I still have to address the envelopes since I go all old-school and do NOT print the "to" address labels like so many people seem to do these days.

Can I just say that I'm a bit saddened by the trends in holiday cards that I am seeing. First of all, I'm all for adorable photos of kids, truly I am. And I'm VERY understanding of being busy this time of year. But there are two trends that really bum me out:

1) Holiday cards printed by places like Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc. with no handwritten note, no holiday letter giving me info on what people have been up to, and printed "to" and "from" address labels on the envelope. It feels so impersonal. Some of these people I don't get to see regularly at all, so a little bit of "hey, here's what we've been up to" would be SO NICE! Maybe that's why I still hand-write the address on the envelopes myself. For that personal touch. Don't get me wrong -- love getting the cards. But I am bit bummed when that's all there is.

And as I said earlier, I understand being busy. I know this is as a result of that. But still... send 'em later and let me know what you've been up to! Please!

[Edited: I just want to say that every year, Mike and I send out a two-sided extensive holiday newsletter with multiple photos. It's quite the undertaking, but we continue to do it every year because we actually get a ton of requests and/or "can't wait to see the holiday" newsletter notes from people this time of year...]

2) Holiday cards printed by places like Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc. that are photos just of the kids. People exempt from my ranting on this topic are: people I see on a regular basis AND people who blog and thus show me photos of themselves on a somewhat regular basis. Now, here's why this bothers me. I'm friends with (or Mike is friends with) the person sending the card. Not the kids. Actually, it would be REALLY creepy if we were friends with the kids in the photo and not their parents, right? See, I want to see what YOU look like now IN ADDITION to seeing your kids. Seeing your offspring is cool -- I get to do the old, "Oh, junior looks so much like his daddy!" routine. This amuses me.

But I also want to see what my friends look like now, too. If I haven't seen you in a few years, this is important to me. Mike and I have both moved around a lot, so we have friends scattered all over the place. I don't care if you think you look old or fat or worse-for-the-wear. I do too, and I show you what I look like in my holiday card, so I want to see you in yours. Take a FAMILY photo, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(And throw a quick xeroxed note in there about what you've been doing, too, while you're at it. A pox on people who make fun of holiday newsletters -- I don't live in the same place as most of my friends, so I value newsletters highly... even the ones where it's all roses and puppy dogs and happiness and kids that excel at everything they do... [ok, I would, just once, love to get a holiday newsletter that was totally honest like mine always are... do it, people! C'mon!!!! A few of Mike's friends send holiday newsletters that are witty and real and I love reading them every year.])

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When we were growing up, there was a long-standing family joke -- I have no idea where/when/how it started, that we would send a parcel of joke cards to my aunt. My mom would save the freebie sample cards that came in the mail with faux names printed in them. And we'd gather around the table, the four of us, and write faux holiday notes in each of them based on a completely fictional family. We'd end up giggling like maniacs as we composed them.

They were hysterically funny -- the kids were always screwed up, as were the parents, and the notes talked about their foibles and follies and fake achievements too. The sorts of things you'd never tell people about were always fair game in these cards, and we'd spin yarns and more yarns about these faux people. This amused us endlessly, probably even moreso than it did my aunt who received them in one envelope in the mail. We stopped doing that when my brother and I graduated and moved out of the house, but maybe next year I'll surprise my aunt and send her an envelope full of faux cards with fictional families' years documented therein. And maybe I'll send some to my brother and my parents too, for old times' sake.

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I'm making GREAT progress on the one remaining holiday gift I am making. I can't say anything else here about it because the recipient does read my blog on occasion. Suffice it to say, I've known I wanted to do this for months now and am FINALLY getting it done. I have a little bit more to do on the computer, and then the rest is all hybrid, baby! Break out the glue and the scissors and the ribbon and doo-dads. I hope to finish the digital portion in the next few hours, print all of the pieces, and then assemble it tomorrow afternoon. Thank goodness I'm officially on vacation today! So I can do this without any day-job guilt.

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The Altered Art Chicks first annual holiday extravaganza Wednesday night was a blast! I cleaned my house for the chicks, set a table with placemats, Santa napkins, holiday plates and bowls, and everything. Yeah, I know... craziness. I'm sure they thought they were in the wrong house. Our usual gatherings are more along the lines of going over to somebody's house, no cleaning done beforehand, eating off of the paper plates, etc. So I glammed it up a bit and would have gone all Martha and decorated the table if I'd had easier access to holiday decor items. Instead I put a lovely Christmas spice candle on the table and a poinsettia plant our neighbors gave us. Very festive.

Audrey brought firecracker favors, but none of us could get ours to do the loud "pop" sound they were supposed to do. Darn! Still, they were filled with goofy little surprises. It's a toss-up who had the best thing: Melissa's wacky whistle or Audrey's pirate tattoos. All of the favors had paper crowns in them, which we all decided was very altered, so we wore them for dinner AND for photos later. You didn't think we wouldn't photograph the event, now, did you? Yes, here are the chicks, crowns and all (left to right: Melissa, Krista, Audrey) -- how cute are we? (Rhetorical question!)

I had a LONG list of holiday stuff I needed to get done over the weekend, and I made a really good dent in it. Right now, I'm printing the holiday letter/cards. This is quite the endeavor because the double-sided matte photo paper I love (Staples brand) refuses to feed in my printer. So I have to HAND-FEED. This gets REALLY tedious when you have 150 double-sided cards to print. So I reach over every minute and push the next sheet in. I think I'm getting a great workout in my left arm. Maybe I'll have to sit with my back to the computer when I print the other side so that I don't have much larger muscles in my left arm from all of that reaching and pushing I'm doing.

So, I still have to do a major craft gift. I won't get to it until Thursday at the earliest, so I'm a wee bit freaked out by the fact that I will be putting it together so late. I never do things this late. I simply haven't had time to get to it sooner. I almost finished the other craft gift over the weekend, so I am making some progress.

The reason I won't get to it sooner is because tonight I have a holiday party. Wednesday night I have a holiday party. And tomorrow night I will be cleaning and baking cookies since Wednesday's party is here.

I'll probably still be printing holiday cards at that point. It's a loooooong process. So, if you are expecting a card from me, it'll likely be late. And if you get a card from me, you are a very lucky individual because I cut my list down a bit this year to save a few trees (people I hadn't heard from in years? Off the list...).

On a somewhat related topic, my brother got his cards on Friday and he said they turned out AWESOME! Like really really really super great. So I can't wait to get the one he sends me in the mail to see the results. I'll probably go that route next year -- I just have to have myself in gear earlier on that particular front is all. So, here's some free advertising for the company who printed them: Overnight Prints. They printed full-color, full-bleed, double-sided cards (only place I could find online who would do that)... outside is glossy, inside is matte. And apparently gorgeous. So use them!!!

Yes, I'm here, serving a warm slice of life, a la mode if you want it.

What I am doing right now, in the midst of the excitement that is my life:

1) eating a Braeburn apple with a little peanut butter on it for lunch.

2) listening to aural yumminess on my iTunes in the form of Neil Finn (HUGE surprise, that, huh?), The Tragically Hip, Gomez, Collective Soul, and lots of others. Great soundtrack. My iTunes is scarily Neil-heavy though, so I'm slowly rectifying that even though I have no more room on my Nano. I listen to iTunes all the time during my work day now, so I need to stock it more/better/deeper. I also linked it to Last.fm for when I want someone else to give me some musical surprises based on stuff I like. Fun!

3) contemplating what I'm going to write for the holiday letter... still need to do that.

4) contemplating the two crafty gifts I still need to finish VERY soon.

5) going through a few work emails and glancing at my long to-do list for the rest of the afternoon.

6) listening to the rain/sleet combo hitting my window and hoping the power stays on in this ice/rain/snow storm.

7) charging my cell phone (in case the power does indeed go out so I'll have a fully charged phone).

8) trying to decide what treats to make for the Altered Art Chicks holiday party next week (Audrey's bringing the penne with vodka sauce, Melissa's bringing the salad, and I'm in charge of "treats").

9) wondering when I'm going to have time to do my part of the next SBG collaborative kit (I have started my portion, but when will I finish it in time for the deadline?????).

10) trying to get over the fact that Madonna is being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame next year when Rush hasn't even been nominated yet. Don't get me wrong, I like me some Madonna (especially early stuff), but Rush has egregiously been overlooked for the Rock Hall thus far. That's all I'm sayin'...

Hope your a la mode hasn't melted already. Eat up.

And share your current slice of life in the comments... What're you doing right now/thinking about/concentrating on?

The "h" is in the subject line for a reason... I'll get to that in a few...

But first, I wanted to answer Rachelle's question, who asked where we had my brother's holiday cards printed... I went with Overnight Prints, as it was the first and only place I could find online (and we didn't have time to research local options) that would print both sides full-bleed and full color. Most other places would print the front and maybe one panel inside. But that left a good bit of the design out in the dust. Never used this place before, so we'll find out soon if it was worthy or not. My brother should be getting his cards early next week, I believe.

I'm still working on my card. I got the lion's share of the design done, but I still have to write my portion of the letter, and Mike has to write his portion as well. A few years ago, when I started designing my own stuff, I combined the card and the letter into one piece. So it's a holiday card... but wait, there's more... it's also a holiday letter. Two great tastes that taste great together. Yeah, we do the old holiday letter routine. I still get a ton of "can't wait to read your letter" comments from friends, so I hope we're not annoying everyone with them. I know people who find holiday letters obnoxious. Me, I think they're a great way to catch up with people we don't see that often, so I like them and continue to send them.

Although this year's letter is bound to be a little bit of a downer, but it can't be helped.

Ok, now on to the topic at hand. I've actually had this topic in my back pocket for a while now. Just waiting for the day that I would unleash it on my poor unsuspecting blog readers. (Kidding.)

I don't mean to go off on a rant here (yes, quoting my man Dennis Miller!), but what is up with everyone adding an "h" to words where it doesn't belong? Since when did "straight" come to be pronounced "shtraight"? When did "strong" segue to "shtrong"? And on a similar topic, when did "forward" drop the first R to become "foward" in pronunciation circles????? This is a pet peeve of mine... this H adding and R dropping. I feel like one of the only people on the planet who still keeps that first R in "forward." I have noticed both of these things many, many, MANY times on TV, radio, in movies... it's everywhere, it seems. I notice it because it drives me batty.

I'm sure I say things that other people think sound weird or stupid. I'll be the first to admit that I use the word "like" entirely too much when I... like... talk. My Dad busts me on that one regularly. But please, people, I beg of you, don't add extra letters where they weren't before this when you say words!

Hands up who does this H adding and/or R dropping. I know there have to be some of you reading this who do. When did you start and why? I'm very curious how this happened...

**Special note: Anyone from Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland are exempt from the above. Many of you have always said an "h" in those words for as long as I can remember. Apparently your friends in the United States picked it up within the last year or two as well... It doesn't seem to be a regional thing either -- I hear people from all over the country doing it...**

Rant over.

You know, I spend so much of my day job reaching out to press people, only to get no reply back. No acknowledgment, no response, no "thanks, but no thanks." Don't get me wrong, I hear back from plenty of folks. But at the same time, there are those who just don't give me any indication of whether they have an iota of interest in the artist I'm contacting them about.

It's fine. I'm used to it. It's part and parcel of what I do.

Aside from getting to babble on a daily basis about music and get paid for it, I think the most satisfying thing about my job is when a really great press placement happens. I get almost giddy when I see my band's name in print and know that I am responsible for it being there.

So imagine my giddiness when one of the bands on the label I work with, a band called Psychostick, was mentioned in USA Today today (4th paragraph). Ah yeah, pretty darn happy!

That is my satisfaction in my day job. Stuff like that. So today was pretty groovy day job-wise.

My brother would probably not admit it willingly, but I really do rock. I spent a large portion of my weekend working on a holiday card for him and my sister-in-law (third year in a row). This is no simple only-the-front-is-decorated card. No, no, no... it's the front, it's the back, and it's the entire inside. A double-sided masterpiece. I finished and got final approval (after three drafts) last night.

And then because I'm even cooler, better, and more awesome still, I found a site that would print them and uploaded the order for my brother (because the site I'd originally sent him to to print it wouldn't do full front/back and full inside printing that he needed). I did all of this before I even THOUGHT about my own holiday card/letter.

I am an awesome sister. I say this here because I fully intend to send a link to this blog post to my brother and he really SHOULD leave me a comment telling me, in a public forum, how awesome I really am. I deserve it.

I won't share the results of my hard work here, though, because it's his to send out. But it turned out really sweet. The inside looks like a gallery with all of the photos in frames.

So, I still have to do my own card. And then, maybe, just maybe, I'll get back to the kit I started designing last month and deserted due to holiday insanity and busy-ness.

In the interest of sharing some eye candy today, though, how about some goodies from my Creative Team chickadees?!?!?

First up is this gorgeousness from Melinda Staley:

(full credits here)

And then there's this beauty from Lilian:

(full credits here)

Yes, I realized recently that I'm getting old. Don't get me wrong... I still feel like I'm 25 most days. But I'll get these occasional smack-me-upside-the-head reminders that time marches on and stops for nothing and nobody.

No, no, I'm not ready for AARP... yet. But in my quest for healthier living, I've been trying to find some additional exercise things that float my boat. Besides walking and Pilates. Things I can do at home, because I am just not the type to go somewhere to exercise. Well, I thought to myself, "Self, what do you like to do?" Besides swimming, that is, which requires a pool. Don't have one of those. I used to love to do stuff like cartwheels and gymnastics on the lawn when I was younger. Somehow, the thought of trying that now gives me visions of emergency room visits, so probably not the best idea. I used to love jumping rope when I was younger, but then puberty hit, and well, suffice it to say, jumping rope isn't the most comfortable endeavor anymore.

So, what was left? Hula hoop! (Sometimes spelled Hoola... either is considered acceptable -- I checked.) I used to be REALLY good at hula hooping when I was younger. I could hula hoop for a really long time. And I thought it would be a really good ab workout. Hula hoop in front of the TV for a half hour. Fun and almost not like exercise, I thought. I tried to buy one in September, only to find out that they are considered a "seasonal" item and they were out of them after what was a apparently a big summer rush on hula hoops. So I asked my Mom if she still had my old hula hoop. She said she did. Score!

Well, when I was home for Thanksgiving, I was playing in the basement with my nephews. Saw the hula hoop. Tried the hula hoop. Realized very quickly that the herniated disc I had from a car accident over ten years ago (which occasionally gives me grief but is usually fine) was NOT going to allow me to hula hoop for more than about 20 seconds without doing some serious damage. So, I quickly hung up said hoop and called it a day.

Goodbye, sweet hula hoop. We had so much fun back in the day, didn't we? I'm afraid we can't hang out anymore like we used to though. Sad, really. I would have liked to be friends again.

And I'm still seeking another workout option... Too bad my Mom doesn't have my old Lemon Twist.

So while we were driving to Boston on Saturday, a song came on Sirius that I've heard a gazillion times... I adore it to pieces. It's called "Alex Chilton" and it's by The Replacements. And part of the chorus goes like this:

They sing I'm in love
What's that song
I'm in love
With that song

And as I watched the landscape of Connecticut slide past the car window, I pondered those lyrics. They've always resonated with me. I've blogged about the way some music makes me feel... like I have a serious crush on the music. And then there are times when you just love a certain song so much.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was going to Boston to see the band I'm going to talk about here when that Replacements song just filled my ears and my mind with thoughts about how there are certain songs I love so very much. I've known Sister Hazel for years now -- I was their first publicist and I worked with them during the "All For You" era. You know the song... you've probably heard it a zillion times over the years. I always felt like they were my brothers. We're all a similar age and I always had a blast when I spent time with them.

Fast forward to last year, and I got the chance to work with them again (and still am). There is a certain comfort level there, having known them for so long... there is a lot of mutual admiration and respect between them and me. I realized that night at the show that, even though I have always liked Sister Hazel's music a great deal and adore the guys in the band, there are two songs of theirs that have crossed the line for me: they are songs about which I could say "I'm in love with that song."

Which ones are they? The first is a song called "Champagne High." I first heard that song live long before it was released on an album. I'd flown down to Nashville just for a quick overnight trip to take the booker for Conan O'Brien's show to see the band. And I remember being utterly gobsmacked by that song the first time I heard it. Like jaw on the floor, "I can't believe how good this song is" sort of thing. I still prefer the song live to the version that ended up on their album "Fortress" (although I do love the strings on that version and hearing Emily of the Indigo Girls on backing vocals is pretty darn sweet). Somewhere in my office I have an even earlier demo version of the song on a disc, and I played it over and over and over again. That song still, to this day, gives me all sorts of chills to hear it. I'm in love with that song.

The other song is called "Your Winter." The song also first appeared on "Fortress" (and was also in the movie "10 Things I Hate About You"). The first time I heard the song, I was driving home from my last day of work at the label, ready to embark on my indie publicity career, and the A&R guy for the band had dubbed a copy of the album for me to hear super early. I remember being blown away by the song the first time I heard it, but this one was a bit more of a grower too and really got under my skin on repeated listens. It would be safe to say I am very much in love with that song.

So while I was at the show Saturday night, I videotaped the performance of that song. I'm sorry to say that the people in the row in front of me talked during part of it, but it's still a great video and the audio turned out pretty well considering I shot it on my point-and-shoot Canon.

I also took some still photos at the show... here is a slide show of them:

Any other Sister Hazel fans out there?

Not much new and exciting out this way. Had a whirlwind of a weekend... VERY fun, but I came home from my trip utterly exhausted. Was still tired yesterday...

Right now, I'm waiting for a work call. You know, when you are expecting the phone to ring any second and you just know if you start something else, the phone will ring and you'll be interrupted. So I'm doing puttering stuff until the phone does ring. With my luck, it won't ring. At least I'm being remotely productive (does blogging count in the productive realm?).

I finally feel like I have a handle on my holiday gift list after doing some online shopping (only have a few more things to get). And I'm wondering what books my Mom got me for Christmas because she has called me five times in the past few days to ask, "Do you have this book?" And she's asked about so many at this point that I could be getting virtually anything (well, anything in the scrapbooking/altered art/ATC/hybrid crafting categories). I'm pretty sure she didn't get me "War & Peace." Very exciting stuff!!