Celebrate polka dots (and squares) from CathyG and Chuck

 Ah, yes. The August exchange. That was the one where I posted the option to use the polka dot celebrate stamp to see how wildly creative we could be. I was underwhelmed with my own ideas. I kept thinking that I wanted to make some really big dots, but I did not want to use those template things. I can't remember what they are called. Maybe template is the right word. Anyhow. I think that CathyG made the biggest dots. I really like that they are freehand. Her card is below and I am also reposting the inspiration for the celebrate theme which was Chuck's. He sent me a photo of his envelopes without names. 

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A couple days ago I said I'd have a little rant about pens and markers. 

I don't like to buy pens and markers that are in open shelves where you can test them because if people have not put the caps on tightly, they might be half dried up. Or, in the case of gel pens. once they have been used, they might not last long - the ink is there, but it *gels* and the pens won't work.

I had an envelope addressing job where the really sweet client who provides so many fun jobs and who is a dream to work with - but this year she forgot to mention that she ordered dark green envelopes. I found some gold Sharpies in my stock pile that worked - but they had been opened - and ran out after about 10 envelopes. 

I ran down to OfficeMax and they had 3 4-packs of gold Sharpies on sale. Bingo. But when I got home - they were dried up and hardly wrote at all. The next day, I ventured out after it had snowed to exchange them and luckily they had gold gel pens. That was super lucky because gold can be very hard to find during the holiday season.

Then, my car spun sideways on the way home and I could not get home and had to leave my car on a side street and carry all my stuff 2 blocks home. It was the maximum amount of weight that I could carry that far and it was icy and scary. Oh, I forgot -- a nice guy came out of the apartment building and pushed my car while I was sitting sideways so that I could go park. I did not want to even try making it up the icy hill again.

So - it was a traumatic outing. I'm not sad about the inevitable end-of-running-around that is coming. In many ways, it will be simpler to just tell people that I can't address anything unless they bring me the pens, too. 

This all happened on Monday after the marathon to find a post office where I could find a parking place, stand in line, indoors. I can tell that my ranting-rate is going down. That's a relief. 

Or, is it just a lull before the next storm?

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There is a question in the comments about why I did not want to use templates and Blogger will not take my comment -- so here is the response:

I don't like to use templates with markers because they chew up the markers and it is also necessary to clean the templates after each color or you get a lot of smudging and color blending that might be unpleasant.