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Being married to Andy has come with certain adjustments.  For instance, I am now compelled to boycott things I once felt I could indulge in endlessly due to the privileged status God has given the American people in exchange for mentioning his name on public documents. A brief summary of the list is as follows: Wal-Mart, Santa Claus, gasoline, Valentines Day, McDonalds, the tooth fairy and anything else fun you can think of.   The list gets longer every day.  Evidently I do not  have the right to force other people's children to make my stuff all the while chained to their sewing machine getting whipped in the face. Who knew?  I just wanted my seven dollar skirt.

Obviously, I'm joking a little bit.  I would consider myself somewhat aware of the stress our affluent consumer culture has put on the rest of the world.  But Andy...On this issue Andy possesses the kind of discipline given only to a special breed of people I don't usually associate with because they are somewhere out there running marathons, eating carrot sticks and rice cakes while feeding homeless people and fixing global warming.  I tend to be sympathetic and occasionally morally outraged but my conviction often has trouble getting off the couch...especially when it's going to cost money.

The boycotts/cutbacks have become a joke amongst the family members.  A few days ago I was complaining about not being able to drink soda anymore (the result of a new years resolution) and my dad says, "Let me guess...the soda companies are oppressing someone now."  I"m sure they are.  Who isn't?

Despite the fact that Valentines Day is evidently just a corporate shell of a holiday rotting the teeth of people the world over, this year, I decided to take a little piece of my childhood back and throw a Valentines Day party complete with pink cupcakes, paper hearts, a pinata and a valentine-making station.  I stole some decorating ideas from my brilliant friend Liz Napolin and even amidst the massive snow storm plenty of people came and we all had a good time. 











My poor broken pinata :)

I hope you all had a fun holiday in your neck of the woods.

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Nauseated by either the two hour back seat ride to Canton or the McDonald's hot chocolate I drank that morning, I look up to see a bright yellow billboard with a cartoon elephant taking up nearly half of the space.  The billboard read: 

HAVE CONVICTION

STOP HEROIN

STAND STRONG LIKE AN ELEPHANT

Andy:  How many eight-year-olds do you suppose are confronted with heroin?

Jan:  How strong do elephants stand, anyway?

Andy:  Can you move one?

Jan: No, I suppose not.

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Do you ever have those moments when you realize just how old you are?  Last weekend Andy and I stayed at my Dad's house to avoid spending our children's college fund on gasoline driving from Columbus to Canton and back four times in one week.  In order to entertain us, I pulled out my jr.high/high school "note box."  You know the one.  You will recognize it from the blinding humiliation coming forth it.

For those of you as addicted to reading other people's webpages as I am, you may have run across Sarah Brown's site queserasera.org.  She has an entire section dedicated to the written teenaged word called "cringe."  She asks  very politely for "brave souls willing to share their old diaries, journals, letters, notes, songs, poems"¦ anything you wrote during the crushing misery of adolescence and then saved in a hidden box at your parents' house all these years."

I was inspired by reading others' submissions so I thought I would see if I had anything good in the box.  At first I thought we might be disappointed.  Nothing but, "Hey, January.  What is up or down (written in cutesy arrows of course).  Nothing here.  Just bored in study hall.  Miss Timbleton SUCKS. Well, bye for now.  I HEART DAVID CANNON.....blah, blah, blah. 

But then came some good stuff including some stellar relationship advice given by yours truly.  I thought I might share some of the good ones on here for your reading pleasure.  The following is a note I must have received secondhand somehow after it was delivered to its intended recipient.  On the back in maniacally traced and repeatedly retraced letters that have a bit of a serial killer kind of vibe, are the words, "DEAR JANUARY, HI HOW ARE YOU?  I AM FINE.  I MAY HAVE BEEN A LITTLE OUT OF LINE YESTERDAY BUT DON'T BE MAD AT CRYSTAL!!!!  I think it was from Jeff Connell.  He rode my bus and daily tried to turn my best friend against me (Crystal).  But I digress.  I thought this was hilarious.


Poor Pete.

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