The cooler temperatures and the fact that it's getting dark much earlier put me in the mood to work on holiday stuff. Yes, I'm insane, but for us retailers, it's that time of year. I'm currently adding new Christmas Cards - I'm not yet done so I won't post any official announcement yet (as if anything is really official!). But if you're bored, pop on over and check 'em out! And don't forget, there's more to come!

The first time I saw examples of infrared landscapes, my jaw dropped and I got a goose-bumpy feeling. You see, in the springtime when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, I love the look of the landscape when there's a big storm rolling in. The white cherry blossoms just seem to glow against the black storm sky with turbulent, angry clouds. And for a moment I can forgive the fact that the wind from the storm will shower those little cherry blossom petals all over my car so they can stick there. And even driving 75 mph is not enough to unstick them from the various parts of my car's exterior. Believe me, I've tried.

But I digress...

So when I discovered infrared photography, I immediately thought of those cherry blossoms. Green foliage becomes white and glowing, the sky is darkened, and the whole photo just looks, well, almost ethereal. I also learned about false-color infrared photos - I personally have used it so far to add blue to skies and/or water, giving the photo an almost-but-not wintry feel. I've seen other photos that keep the magenta/red color associated with IR photos. Keeping that color scheme almost gives some photos a cool, sinister, post-apocolyptic feel.

Lately, everywhere I go, I pack up my camera, IR filter, and tripod and hope I can find something interesting to shoot. So keep a lookout for even more new photos in our Photography section in the coming months!

The whole "one style" for all of puppytoes.net came about after registering our new domain, puppytoespoker.com. In hindsight, it was an "impulse buy", like the Three Musketeers bar I had to buy yesterday while I was at the store. It was there. In the checkout aisle. Looking at me. Well, same thing with the domain name. Except the candy bar was much better tasting.

I thought it would be way too confusing to have different domain names for all of the different aspects of the puppytoes.net store - puppytoespoker, puppytoesgeek, puppytoespuppy (!?), ad nauseum. So instead, there's one entry portal - puppytoes.net. It'll take you everywhere you want to go in Cragar's world - my own personal blog, Cragar's Photo Gallery, our Shop (of course), and this wonderful and fabulous Shop Blog. That's a lot of blogs for me to update. I'll try to do my best.

You'll find our Shop hasn't been updated with the new layout. I've been torn on that front. I think I'll keep the color scheme the same, but keep the layout a little different - just for fun. Or until I get bored. Or until I realize I should really have made it the same and change it all anyway. I'm used to changing things now here in Movable Type, but I'm afraid if I start messing around too much with my Shop's layout, things will Go South quickly. And then I'll end up redesigning everything from scratch. Not too smart at this point, considering this "insomnia time" is the only time I've found to mess around with layouts and designing much since oh, the end of April or so!?

I always thought my best ideas came after midnight. Too bad I didn't think of that before plunking down money on the new hosting account.

Our most popular designs at the puppytoes.net store reside in our Poker Gear section. In fact, our store was founded on two poker designs - "Poker Bitch" and "No Offense". These ideas were born in a semi-delirium after countless hours at the poker table. In fact, the puppytoes.net store is now the official home of The Original "No offense, but I hope you lose" tshirts. Yes, they've been copied, but that's a post for a different day.

Given the popularity of our Poker Gear, we've decided to brand it as part of puppytoespoker.com, a new-but-not-yet-finished entry portal to our Poker Gear Section. We'll have direct links to all our great designs plus links to and news from the Poker World. Maybe even a interactive area for bad beat stories.

But it's all still in the design phase, so check back every now and then for updates!

And now the smell of warm sugar is wafting through the house.

My parents were the ones to tell me about it several years ago, and then I just kind of forgot about it. But this past week a bunch of us were planning a luau-themed party and it just jumped right back into my head.

Besides being absolutely delicious, you want to know the best part about it? It's easy to make, low in calories and fat free*!

So here's my gift to you - a fat-free*, low-cal, delicious summery treat. And if anybody asks, you can tell them, "As a matter of fact, I CAN eat that!" Better yet, follow the link and grab yourself one of the shirts - maybe it'll stop anyone from saying something in the first place.

OK, so here we go...

Ingredients:
1 16 oz. box angel food cake mix
1 20oz. can crushed pineapple in juice (not in syrup!)
1 container cool whip topping*

* The cake without the cool-whip is entirely fat-free. To keep the entire dessert fat-free, use fat-free cool whip!

Directions:
Mix the entire can of pineapple and the cake mix - don't use the water as the recipe calls for on the box! Only use the cake mix and pineapple with juice. Also, don't use a mixer as the back of the cake box will direct, simply stir the two together well with a large spoon or other stirring utensil. Make sure you don't grease your pan(s), then bake and cool (upside down) as directed on box.
You can "frost" the cooled cake with the cool whip, or simply leave it unfrosted and serve it with a dallop of cool-whip on top.

That's it! A nice, light, fat-free, sweet summery treat. And yes, you CAN eat that!

I've seen that particular presentation several times before (in fact, I've even presented Safety and Warning Signs training before), so instead of focusing on the actual training, I found my mind wandering. I began taking the signs out of context and realized they would be really funny on t-shirts.

The first one I thought of was of course, Irritant, because seriously, don't we all have someone irritating in our lives? Someone we could just go up to and say, "You know, I was shopping online today and I saw the perfect shirt for you!" Frankly, I know a lot of people I could give that t-shirt to.

So we started adding more of these standard warning signs - the ones that when taken out of the laboratory (or any workplace, for that matter), would elicit a good chuckle when seen on a t-shirt.

But last week I guess I started to get the itch for the dramatic. Maybe dramatic is the wrong word - but specifically, how could I incorporate some of these safety warning symbols in a more stylish way?

I started thinking some of the warning symbols would look really neat if they were done in a runny and splattered spray paint effect. After going through several prototype designs, I didn't like the effect. But I came up with a new idea.

What if these warning symbols were done in a negative-spray-splatter-stencil type effect?

What the hell am I talking about? Well, read on...

So I'm back - germ free this time, although I do have a nasty little case of whiplash... don't walk down a wet, grassy hill in flip-flops, kids. Trust me.

And now that I'm back, I'm officially announcing the launch of our new line of Diet and Weight Loss designs at the puppytoes.net store.

If you remember from my teaser post last month, I hinted that the designs had to do with the seven wretched days I spent with the Norovirus. Out of those seven days, I spent the first four days unable to eat anything and the next three eating only bananas, apples, and toast. As I was getting dressed that last day I realized my jeans felt a little loose. I hopped on the scale and saw I lost about 10 pounds.

Even though the time I spent with the Norovirus was hell, I looked at it as an opportunity to get my butt back in shape. I was in great shape several years ago, then an ugly knee injury forced me to basically sit on my butt for almost 9 months. As my energy dwindled away, I slowly gained weight. I figured there was no way on earth I was going to be able to motivate myself to get back in shape again. For a long time I was looking for some kind of activation energy to get myself moving again.

Well, thank you, Mr. Norovirus. You became my activation energy.

Yes, my last post was on January 22, and I promised to resume posting once the norovirus vacated my system. Well, it took about 7 days for it to do so. Count them - seven. That was seven days of wretched misery and I haven't been sick like that since I was a kid.

Then, lucky me, I was healthy for about one and a half weeks before I came down with an upper respiratory infection. That little bastard hung around in full force for about 3 days, and I felt the after effects for another week.

But wait! It wasn't over! Fast forward another two weeks and say hello to bronchitis and a sinus infection! These little gems left me with a 102 degree fever and the feeling that I was going to cough up my lungs right there on the living room floor.

Presently I'm in the recovery stage of the bronchitis and sinus infection - still in recovery because I still need to dose myself with the lovely cough syrup with codeine so I can sleep properly at night (you know, without hacking up a lung). Hey, at least I'm well rested.

You might think that all this sickness has been the reason I've neglected posting. For the most part, it is. But, one thing being sick did was inspire me to come up with a brand new section at the puppytoes.net store.

Wait! Before you run off to check out all the new stuff - it's not there yet!

That's the other reason I've neglected posting - I've been designing, uploading images, slowly populating the new section with products, and redesigning the store's home page to include links to the new designs. I'm still working on it, but I hope to have all the great new stuff ready to roll out in about two weeks.

But what is the new stuff all about? Well, you're going to have to wait and see, but I will say - besides being great inspiration for new designs, being sick so much has had one more benefit - I can actually fit into my skinny jeans!

Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for all our new stuff!

The stomach bug is back, and this time it's pissed.

I've just passed the 48 hour mark with all the symptoms of the norovirus. So hopefully this will clear up soon.

On the bright side, I've apparently started the diet I should have started at the beginning of January.

New design postings will resume when the rotten bastard has vacated my system.

Anyway, on to important business:

Day "4", Design 4
"Hot Chocolate"
Men's, Women's and Kids' Apparel, $14.99 - $39.99
Mug, $17.99

One of the most successful designs at the puppytoes.net store has been our "Chocolate" design. It's another fun tribute to the periodic table, with our familiar spin on the word "element". They were so popular over this past holiday season, I was beginning to think there was a bug in our order reporting system! If we owned a brick and mortar store, I'd imagine little tshirts with wings just flying out the door.

One night as I was getting ready for bed, it hit me. Hot Chocolate. Everybody loves our "Chocolate" design, so why not come out with some Hot Chocolate? Of course we couldn't spell the word, "Hot" with the periodic table, so we just added the word itself along with some chocolate-y flames to the existing "Chocolate" design. We also replaced the wording.. it "protects me from the elements"! You know... the cold, bitter, winter elements.

So the new Hot Chocolate design was born. It's available mostly on apparel, but you will find one sweet little mug to hold your favorite hot chocolate.

And before I wrap up, let me add one more thing about hot chocolate. I usually have a very difficult time falling asleep at night. My average falling-asleep-time is usually somewhere between 1AM and 3AM, regardless of when I have to get up. It's not on purpose, I just can't fall asleep sooner, no matter what I try. Since the weather has turned colder, however, I've found there are some nights when I can fall asleep faster than others. After trying to establish a pattern, I realized they were the nights I had a cup of hot chocolate before bed. So after doing a small bit of reading (nowhere near comprehensive, mind you), some research indicated that hot chocolate consumed before bedtime promoted better sleep.

Whoda thunkit?

In My Element
Men's, Women's and Kids Apparel, $14.99 - $39.99
Mousepads, tiles and buttons, $5.99 and up

I've been involved in chemistry for a very long time. When I was quite young, I was always interested in science of some sort, and it just turned out that chemistry was the direction I chose. I'm not saying those years in college were a piece of cake, like I chose chemistry and it was all a breeze from there, because it wasn't! Things like Calculus, Physics, and even Physical Chemistry kind of put a kabash on the whole doing well thing. But I've always been "in my element" around science-y stuff.

So, the science geek in me started spelling out stuff with the periodic table. I'll write another post on those designs later, but the lastest periodic-table inspired offering is "In My Element", featuring none other than Indium. See, get the whole In, element, periodic table thing... I told you I was a science geek! I thought it was pretty funny.

I'll continue tomorrow (Day 3) with yet another new periodic-table inspired design!

Until then...

But that doesn't mean I've been slacking in the shop department. In the last month, seven new designs have been added to the puppytoes.net store, and at least two more are currently in the works.

But yes, I've neglected you, my dear internet. And as a token of my apology, I will be personally announcing our seven new designs over the course of the next seven days. Yes, I realize I've just committed myself to seven straight days of writing. But I'm fully prepared to accept the consequences of my slackerishness.

So without further delay, I present the first of our newest designs:

Day 1, Design 1
"I'm Drunk"
Mens and Women's Apparel from $14.99 - $39.99

This design was inspired from personal experience.

See, in the beginning of December, I broke my cardinal poker rule - don't get hammered when playing poker. I must have been in "one of those moods" or something, because the alcohol kept finding ways to slosh down my throat. After awhile, I noticed my chips were getting dangerously low. I didn't think I was playing bad - I didn't start playing junk hands and I wasn't really making any donkey calls - maybe I was just chasing a little too much, but it shouldn't have been enough to decimate my chip stack! So I shook my alcohol-rattled head a bit and took a good look around - as good a look as my slightly blurry eyes could see, anyway. It seemed like others at the table were playing better than usual! Not that I ususally play with a bunch of donkeys or anything, but even the loosest player at the table seemed to be exercising some restraint.

I was mystified. Do some other players really play better when I'm drunk? Perhaps the alcohol was inhibiting my aggression? Who knows? Maybe I really was just playing poorly! Either way, towards the end of the evening (no surprise I didn't cash in that particular game), I started giggling. No, it wasn't the alcohol making me giggle, it was the idea for this shirt. I imagined wearing it while sitting across from some poor donkey to advertise the fact the only way he'll end up beating me is if I'm drunk. Probably in poor form to wear in while playing with strangers, but it can give friends a good laugh!

How on earth could we possibly accomplish such a task, you may ask?

By sharing a recipe for Kiffles (pronounced kif-fulls), our favorite holiday treat. And you may also be wondering how we're possibly spreading Holiday happiness with a cookie recipe. Well, make them. You'll be happy.

Misery has been the name of the game in recent days, what with the sore throat, clogged ears (exactly when are they going to un-pop, anyway?), and the tendency to sleep 18 hours per day, so we apologize for our delayed posting.

But don't worry! You can still get great stuff from the puppytoes.net store in time for Christmas! Just order by the following shipping deadlines:

We're probably on the upswing of our head cold (well, hopefully - at least we're out of bed!), so stay tuned for postings of our newest designs!

Happy Holildays!