Some folks say there ain't no bears in Arkansas. Some folks never seen a bear at all.

In December, colleency ran a cookie decorating and exchange party, for the third year running. (The previous year it was hosted a friend's house, but it's still basically Colleen's project.) Everyone brought a batch of 36 cookies, and the cookies are divided up and taken home to share. We also decorate sugar cookies, and this year colleency made gingerbread for making and decorating little houses. Her invitation looked something like this

I will attempt to provide small gingerbread houses for decorating, as well as snacks for snacking.

What you should bring:

1. You (And your spouse. They pout when they're left behind.)

2. Other gingerbread or sugar cookies for decorating, if you so desire.

3. Small candies or other decor that you think would be groovy on a little gingerbread house or on cookies.

4. Are you crushed at the lack of cookie exchanging? Let me know if you want to exchange homemade cookies or candy (candy must be prepackaged by you before you get to my house, ie sealed in small, ready-to-exchange ziplock bags). If you want to exchange, you must tell me by Thursday, so I can tell everyone how many cookies to bring.

So those pictures are online now. Click on the picture of colleency to see them. It was a nice little party -- there were 7 of us, the usual suspects for this sort of thing. When it came time for dinner, we went out to celebrate Maria's birthday. She's not a teenager anymore... she received several purses (including a heavy-duty one full of Craftsman tools), a nifty art history book, and plastic kitchen storage tubs.

In other news...

Ribbons --I recently received the new "JAILBAIT" ribbons, using the Stencil font*. I've sent a few various ribbons off to some friends who'll be at Eastercon and Minicon. zyxwvut has asked me for more eric_in_elevatr ribbons; my next ribbon order goes in soon, right after after ConDor. If there's anyone else who wants ribbons -- chriso, how's your stack of "friend of johno" ribbons doing? -- now's an excellent time to let me know.

TAFF voting deadline is coming up real soon now. If you're a fan, and other fans know you, and find the reference requirement intimidating, it's not really that tough... but you're running out of time to vote for Suzanne Tompkins, Curt Phillips, or myself.

*Fonts: My default fonts for most of my ribbons are the Clarendon family, Blado, and Marigold. But occasionally a ribbon text will cry out for a particular special typeface...