The Best Five Dollars You'll Spend This Season

Today is my brother Jesse's birthday. (Happy birthday, Jesse!) He's in a band called Herod the Fink. And his band is a Christmas band. (How cool is that?) It's all original music about Christmas and the ideas and feelings---silly and serious---that fill our hearts this time of year. The album is so good. It's my personal Christmas soundtrack this year. Here is my favorite song; it's called Back to 337, which is also the name of the album. (If you're reading on Google Reader, you'll have to come on over to my actual site to get the link.)



People, you can download the entire album for only five piddley dollars. You should skip that combo meal and buy this album instead. It will enrich your entire season, I promise.

And one more cool thing? Jesse and his band mate Jason are putting on free concerts this season. Their dates are filling up, but if you live in Utah, you should look into having them come and rock your Christmas party. We had them rock Ryan's family party on Saturday night and it was the highlight of my trip. Find out more information on their website.

Happy birthday, Jess, and Merry Christmas to everyone else!

Out of Focus

It's two weeks until Christmas and all the rush and hustle has me feeling a little blurry. I just returned from an expedition to the local post office. I was holding one large box, one large bag full of smaller packages, and shuffling two other boxes along the floor with my feet. When I finally got to the desk, the postal worker wondered why none of the packages had names or addresses. Oops. One minor detail. He didn't think it was very funny.

I think it's people like me who inspire postal employees to go, well, postal.

I sat in the dusty corner and quickly labeled all seventeen packages while seven hundred people went ahead of me in line. It was also a balmy 325 degrees in the post office. I was dripping hefty drops of perspiration onto the packages. It's like spraying the packages with perfume, only the exact opposite of that. My apologies to our giftees. The good news is that I showered today. Had I shipped these on Tuesday, I couldn't have given you that assurance.

In other news, this morning my inbox brought me a very nice email from a reader who has been anonymous until now. Her short note was so nice, it gave me a little boost for the whole day. In fact, it got me to thinking about how much power the nice little note (or email) can have.

I think I'll pull the season back into focus and write a nice little note of my own to someone else. Thanks, Heather, for starting a chain reaction.

(Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the Herod the Fink Christmas album. Leave your comment here before midnight!)