This is a truly liberating day: this post tests the feasibility of using an iPad, a Bluetooth wireless keyboard, and some Drupal wizardry to post updates to my Drupal web sites.Translation: FREEDOM! This blogger will no longer be chained to the desktop computer. Think Free Range Webmaster![Posted with iBlogger from my iPad]

To celebrate a dear friend's birthday--and dust off my papercrafting skills--I tried a palette of stamping techniques with this card.  Using markers to ink stamps makes the colors pop, while the bright red cherry at the top is embossed for extra punch.  Clear glitter-glue adds dimension to the cupcake's frosting--even if it's not visible in the photo:

Happy birthday, Cathy!

Last week, we had a rare occurrence for our area:  the sun came out!

All over town, bleary-eyed Pacific Northwest residents emerged from their homes, squinting at the sunshine and asking one another, "What is that round glowing thing in the sky?"

So many of my dear friends are having a challenging year. I decided to make extra-special Valentine's Day cards for these extra-special women, and here's the result:

Sometimes, I envy those people who manage to live their creative lives according to the syllabus.

You know what I mean: they decide what to learn, they sign up for a class, they slot it into their dayplanner. So efficient. So organized. So tidy.

I don't learn that way. I learn the way a snail does: by shedding my shell and jumping into an alien world.

It's something I haven't been able to say in a very long time: I had a GREAT work day yesterday.

Rebuilding the Organized Home network from the ground up, I'd reached the point where I needed to learn a new concept for theming. Putting in an hour here and doing a spot of reading there just wasn't cutting the mustard, so I devoted the day to mastering the 960 grid system.

Never mind the date stamp on this blog entry, the New Year is finally, FINALLY here.

Sure, the calendar sets that date as January 1, but that's never really when the new year begins. So long as Christmas lives around the house, my personal New Year has to wait in the wings. It takes "taking down the Christmas tree" (and cleaning up after) to mark the last day of the old year, and no matter when it falls, it's always a day of great anticipation.

It was a rough evening last night. To borrow a term from husband Steve's poker vernacular, I went "on tilt" after getting two irritating messages via the Web site's contact form in a single hour at the end of the day.

It's the last Poker NIght of the year,

Those of you who are writers will understand: my spouse's weekly poker game gives me a full 24 hours of silence, peace and absence of demands. Being an introvert to the core, I live from one Poker Night to the next--and no reflection on the merits of my spouse, who is the perfect writer's partner.

It's just the dreamy possibilities of One Day A Week.

One day a week to turn off the phones. To tune into my spirit. To ignore social obligations. To forego making dinner--or making dinner plans.

You know a writer by what they do: they write. Even on vacation, they just can't help themselves. Neither, it seems, can their stuffed teddy bears, if the bear in question has the writer's gift.

My bear does. His name is Perry Bear Ewer, and for many years, he was "cub reporter" for our local paper's children's page.

When husband Steve and I traveled with the San Francisco Symphony during the 1990s, Perry Bear went too, sending e-mail travel letters to his child fans.