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 lives where rolling with the punches doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you need to punch back. Not always in a literal sense, of course, but in a way that shows the world the strength that lies within you and that you're not backing down. To all of the setbacks you’ve experienced on this long road: Raspberries to ya. To that mountain of debt that's enslaved you long enough: Raspberries to ya. To …

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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 very little progress to show for a heck of a lot of effort. But then I think of things like that craft show and I’m actually impressed and a little surprised by how far we’ve come. There is a great sense of satisfaction in what we’ve built and the things we’ve accomplished, regardless of how much distance there is left to cover. Anything worth building takes time. More time than you think …

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