Happy New Year, you guys! As of this moment, I have been blogging for five years straight! Every single day! Isn't that CRAZY?YES, THAT'S CRAZY.Thank you all so, so much for following along for all these years. I know at times it's been sad, boring or maddening. But at other times I think it's been a lot of fun, and I'm so glad you have stuck with me.Today I worked my tail off and then cooked a bunch of stuff. I can't really tell you what I made just yet, but you should know that it's for a big project I'm starting in 2014, and you will benefit from it all. Oh yes, yes you will.This is the first New Year's Eve that Jamie and I have stayed home in years and years and years (I think about 10 years at least). But I have a shoot tomorrow, a wedding to shoot on Thursday and I'm teaching my full day workshop on Saturday (which I am SO EXCITED ABOUT!!). So I think I should be on my A game for the rest of this week, and staying out late drinking in the freezing cold won't really help with that. Yup, that's me, making all these Adult Decisions. It's interesting how much more that matters when you are running your own business instead of working for a corporation (or newspaper).In the spirit of saying goodbye to 2013, I'm going to send you to my buddy Brian's rdio playlist featuring his favorite music from this year. He has a great ear, and I agree with him 99% of the time, so I think you should go give it a listen while you eat a big-ass greasy breakfast and bring in 2014.
Poor Magda hates the bath. But she hadn't had one in months, and she was scratching a lot, so we thought even if it was just dry skin, we would use some moisturizing shampoo and hope it helped.Merlin hasn't had a bath in YEARS, but he never needs one. The collie absolutely hates getting dirty. He'll step around puddles and avoid mud and he cleans his paws constantly. And he hates baths and takes about a week to dry, so we leave him be with lots and lots and lots of brushings.Magda, on the other hand, loves to roll in the dirt and mud at the dog park as well as anything dead she might find on a walk (like birds or squirrels). So even though her coat is oily and the filth appears to come off easy, I want her clean since she has a habit of crawling into my sheets at night. But boy, does she hate it.At least she looks adorable, eh? Much more adorable than the photo I posted on Saturday, which I'm afraid may have scarred my dear mother for life.For my internet share of the day, I'm sending you to 
One of my very favorite parts of winter (besides the snow, hibernation and epic television catch-up) is the fresh grapefruit. I am a huge fan of eating it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert or whatever. But! It has to be Texas Ruby Red, as those are the best. And no sugar -- that would ruin the thing completely.Today I learned that someone else likes the grapefruit as well, and that would be Magda. I shall guard it much better from here on out.For your internet share of the day, I'm sending you over to some 
Ah yes, our little demon dog.Magda had a lot of energy to burn today, and the high here in Minneapolis tomorrow is SIX BELOW ZERO, so we took her to the dog park where she literally ran like the devil.The rest of the day was spent snuggling under warm blankets and watching Orange is the New Black.For the internet share of the day, I'm sending you to an artist's rendering of 
Today was full of dear friends. I started with lunch with my buddies Matt and Bryan over at the Walker. They were in town from D.C. and it was soooo good to catch up. When I was standing up to leave, they mentioned that Bryan is watching Buffy for the first time, and man, I could have sat back down and discussed that for another four hours! Instead, I will just have to plan a trip to visit these guys later this spring. To see their lovely faces, you can scroll down.Then later tonight, I met up with a bigger group of buddies for a delicious greek dinner (hellooooo musakas!). We were wrapping up this meal and there was a touch of wine left that no one was claiming. Luckily, Alicia up there let me grab my camera as she grabbed the bottle. My favorite part of this photo might be how she's holding her gum on her finger. Classy!
For my internet share of the day, I'm sending you over to 
Oh man, this guy is so dang cute. I photographed him at the humane society last week, and he had been there ALL WEEK LONG and no one had taken him home. Are you kidding me? It took THE MOST self control to leave him there.Anyway, I was processing a ton of those photos all day today, so I thought I would blog this image.The rest of the day was spent at the financial adviser's office (JOY! But really, he helps answer tons of my small business questions), working on photos I took earlier this month and then over at the Walker for the British TV Advertising Awards, which has become a bit of a holiday tradition around these parts. It's always so interesting how much more bold those ads are than ours here in the US. One of our favorite ads was 
How cute is my boy in the snow here, eh? Today, after delicious sweet potato latkes for breakfast and a wonderful, slow morning of opening packages, we took Magda and Merlin for a walk. It was 23 degrees out, and after yesterday, it felt balmy to us natives. We decided Mags might need to burn off some energy (putting it mildly) so we took the dogs to the nearby park with fenced in tennis courts and let them run off leash for a quick bit. Since Magda gets her own photo day each week, I decided to feature Merlin here instead. Plus? SO HANDSOME.The rest of the day we spent cooking beef stew, watching old episodes of The West Wing and reading. Pretty solid.How was your holiday? Cookies? Wine? Gifts?For my internet share of the day, I'm going to show you guys this new website I found called