A few random things I’ve been meaning to tell you:

1. 50,000 Shoes in 50 Days – only seven days left to get in on the action, and this would be such a cool thing to do with your kids. I love the idea of giving your kids ten minutes to run around the house and find five dollars in change – then gathering all the young’uns around the computer and showing them how spare change can provide two pairs of shoes for children in need. I’d say that’s a mighty fine lesson.

2. A couple of months ago I asked if any of you might be interested in blogging for the new Praise Baby blog. And then about 70 people emailed me, and then my computer died. Many of the original volunteers emailed me again once my computer was up and running, but if you haven’t emailed me and you’re still interested in writing a couple of posts for Praise Baby, let me know (aye, and quickly). The PB blog is going to be up and running at the first of the year, and I’m about to start working on a posting schedule. And yes, there is free music involved.

3. I have a post up over at AllAccess about how a cake made me all teary-eyed.

4. Thank y’all so much for all your great suggestions for our Christmas Day pizza. I’m making marinara tomorrow, and we’re going to make pizza crust from scratch – even though I may rue the day I decided from-scratch crust was a good idea.

Here’s a fun fact: I DO NOT ENJOY USING A ROLLING PIN.

But in the interest in MAKING SWEET MEMORIES, I’m going all in.

5. I haven’t forgotten about Daily Linky Interwebby Awesomeness. But I am taking a little linky-hiatus until after Christmas. In case you were wondering. Which you probably weren’t.

But still.

This is downright embarrassing, really.

SEVEN MONTHS between podcasts.

We hang our heads in shame.

And you’d think that between May and December we might have come up with a little, you know, THOUGHT-PROVOKING CONTENT. But oh no. We’re still talking about movies from the 80s and breakfast foods we enjoy and word games we like to play on the interweb.

Riveting.

Click here to listen on the web. Or, you can go here and then click on the speaker next to Episode 13.

And you may want to wear your headphones. Because 1) the podcast is much easier to hear with headphones and 2) headphones will save you the embarrassment of anyone knowing that you’re listening to a couple of women in their late 30s talk about Jake Ryan from “Sixteen Candles.”

Thank you and have a lovely Christmas.

Edited to add: you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes right here.

For the last few days I’ve had a touch of the winter blues. I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly affected by the absence of sunlight, but let me just tell you: two weeks of dreary, muggy, rainy weather? Two weeks of nothing but gray outside?

Oh my word. If my disposition has been any indication, all that gray takes a toll.

Friday morning I was running errands, looking Gray Day #13 dead in the eye, and I found myself thinking that a bright turquoise sky and a bright yellow sun and some bright green leaves would be a welcome change from all the wet-leaf dreariness that has enveloped us lately. Several minutes later, when a brief little patch of sunlight peeked through the clouds for all of two minutes, I stood in the dead center of that little patch and looked up at the sky.

I couldn’t get over how much I’ve missed the sun.

I couldn’t get over how much I’ve missed color.

I told my husband that I think the gray days would be easier if it had at least been cold enough for us to build some fires (fires are orange! and red! and blue!). But since last week was about seventy four kinds of muggy, fires weren’t really an option.

Late Friday afternoon the boy and I hopped in the car for a quick road trip, and about ten minutes before the sun was supposed to set, it popped out from behind the clouds in one of the most glorious displays I’ve ever witnessed. Even the five year-old piped up from the backseat and said, “Mama! THE SUN!,” and we oooohed and ahhhhed as we made our way down the interstate.

Then I pulled out my phone (WITH BOTH EYES ON THE ROAD, OF COURSE) and snapped away.

You wouldn’t believe what those colors did for my mood.

There was pink! And red! And turquoise! IN THE SKY!

And I thought: funny how the gray days make you more appreciative of the colorful ones.

I think there just might be a metaphor in there somewhere.

All righty – I’m running a little late, which is SHOCKING, I know, but I did want to announce the winner of the Engraved Euniques door prize.

Engraved Euniques is a business that makes wonderful customized tiles. You can pick the size and the finish that you like, and you can have your tile engraved with your favorite verse or quote. You can even have a plaque made for your front door, and I think the tiles make wonderful, one-of-a-kind gifts.

See?

Aren’t they great? You can see even more neat designs right here.

I asked Kaye at Engraved Euniques if I could give away one of her tiles after the tour of homes, and she was sweet enough to say yes. So a few minutes ago I drew a random number from the tour of homes comments (the comments, NOT the Mr. Linky), and the winner is…

…commenter #38, also known as Moriah at Please Pass the Salt. Moriah, if you’ll email me, I’ll put you in touch with Kaye so that y’all can figure out your customized creation.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Hey internets -

I know that my presence here is sort of inconsequential right now (which has worked out beautifully this week, what with all the not writing I’ve been doing), but I wanted to tell you three things.

No, four.

1) I have been astonished by your response to Ye Olde Christmas Tour. And y’all totally get the credit for the number of people who participated, because you are the ones who got the word out. You posted the button and told your readers and mentioned the tour on Twitter and who knows what else. Then you showed up and linked to your beautiful pictures and shared all your wonderful ideas. Thank you. I cannot say it enough.

2) Friday morning I’m going to close Mr. Linky to any new links. The list is huge, and once that post rolls over to a new page, it won’t be so easy to check and make sure the links are legitimate. So the current links will remain active, but you won’t be able to add a new link after about 10 AM central time tomorrow.

3) Also, I’m doing a random drawing from the comments on the tour post, and one of the commenters will win a personalized engraved tile from Engraved Euniques. I’ll post the winner sometime after lunch tomorrow.

4) After our unfortunate post-Thanksgiving run-in with Stomach Virus ‘08 (I haven’t blogged about it because quite frankly I don’t want to think about it EVER AGAIN IN MY WHOLE LIFE), I’ve decided that there is absolutely no way I can cook cornbread dressing or sweet potato casserole for Christmas dinner. There’s really no good reason to share the specific details that led me to this decision, but suffice it to say that I HAVE MY REASONS.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to make homemade pizzas for Christmas dinner (it’ll be different! it’ll be fun! it won’t be anything like cornbread dressing!), then use the leftover marinara sauce to cook chicken parmesan the day after Christmas when my sister and her hubby come to town.

So. If you happen to have some good homemade pizza recipes and / or pizza ideas, would you let me know in the comments?

Gracias.

Or gratzi.

And, you know, thanks.