I am not toothless

...but I am one tooth less now. Haven't had a tooth pulled in oh so many years and it really wasn't so bad. Back tooth with no chewing partner, that's what the dentist named it. So give me the gas (whew! bring it down to one martini-level only please) and pull away, is what I said. The olives were quite tasty. 

This 2018 Calendars are now also available on Etsy for those who prefer to shop there. If you missed it, do go back a couple of blog posts and see a video of Hula Hoops and Howdy Doodies, available in the just-opened shop. 

The dogs are coming along! Soon to be immortalized in the 5 x 7 calendar coming up. It's a two-calendar year this year because I was too excited to put the dogs off another year. They are so much fun to draw and paint! 

I would like to recommend a couple more books I have recently discovered, neither of which was on my radar  until I spotted them. 

Bibliophiles will love Dear Fahrenheit 451. I promise. Librarian and book lover Annie Spence writes short letters to books in the library who are scheduled for removal for age, appearance, or quantity. In doing so, she identifies why to keep some and why to let them go. 

Have you read Stephen King's Misery in your life? If you did, you know that your life was probably shortened a few heartbeats as you read one of the scariest books in print ever. (And it takes a lot of good writing to make WORDS  not images make a scary scene, don't you think?)

This page made me laugh out loud because it's so TRUE! This is exactly how I felt around the time the foot came off. 'Nuff said. 

The other book is Chasing Slow by Erin Loechner.. It's a cross between a self-help book (slowing down, appreciating small things and everyday life), a memoir (beginning with a decision to marry a man with a brain tumor and not a long life ahead of him), a journal of lists and small lessons learned, and another thread I'm still putting my arms around, but a captivating one...I do not regularly pick up books meant to advise me out of my lifestyle of news clippings, funny stories, essays, opinions, art I love, random and stranded pieces of ephemera and daily souvenir...oh you get it. Sometimes even I have to call it clutter. So I entered this book figuring to see if I could make it any distance without just. feeling. guilty. And couldn't put it down. It's really a wonderfully-delivered story of Erin's experiences as a woman, wife, mother, and lifer.