My grandmother made German cookies called lebkuchen, referred to her couch as a davenport, and hated when her grandkids wore their hats backwards. “Makes you look like hooligans,” she’d say. She was also famous for saying, "Raspberries to ya!” I’m pretty sure this witty comeback was a polite (yet colorful) alternative to saying “screw you." So that’s where this art came from, painted on the top of a grocery store flyer. At first glance, it appears to be a negative departure from my more optimistic work. But it’s only really negative in a certain context. There comes a point in our …

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One time Kim and I spent a couple hundred dollars on a two-day craft show. That was a big chunk of change for us at the time -- about two months worth of groceries. We were next to a booth where a guy was selling knockoff Garfield tchotchkes. Meanwhile, we moved a grand total of $7.92 worth of greeting cards. It was rough. Then we drowned our sorrows in sirlon steaks at Outback, which made our negative profit margin even worse. I have a lot of stories like that from the early days. Happy times. Sometimes I feel like this hippo. Barely off the ground, just trying to get some lift, with …

[Read more...] about For Those Who’ve Ever Complained That This Is Taking Too Long