Celebrate!!

This date always creeps up on me but I never forget it.

Today my Exploding Doughnut blog turns seven!

Visions on how to celebrate danced in my head.

Buy a designer doughnut or get a cake. A layered cake! (Chocolate of course).

But in the end I went and bought myself a ticket to see Beautiful, The Carole King Musical. So good!!!

What better way to celebrate this blog, all of your support, and the future than with a story about love, creativity, and finding your way in the world.

**Happy Birthday/Anniversary, Exploding Doughnut!!**

The end of an era.

Oh how I look forward to this. This time of year means breaking/keeping New Year's resolutions, embracing winter, and cats with mustaches.

Yes. Cats. With. Mustaches.

It's now become a tradition at the crafts store I work at to "decorate" the yearly cat calendar that hangs in my workspace.

Here's the best sharpie embellishments of 2015...

Growing it all out.

Work it, girl.

Beard.

Breezy.

Romance.

Lovely.

Pouty.

If only I could find a job that pays me to do this. So fun!!

Sadly though, by the time I went to "store-use" a cat calendar for the coming year, all the feline-themed ones were already sold.

I'm now using a Zen-inspired calendar with inspirational quotes on it. Can't draw mustaches on a quote. Sigh.

It's the end of an era. Perhaps a bit symbolic too as I planned on finally leaving the arts-and-crafts store once-and-for-all at the start of the new year.

So for 2016, the cats are spared!

(You're) so far away.

This song and its lyrics accurately convey where my head...and heart are at right now.

*sigh*

"So far away

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

It would be so fine to see your face at my door

Doesn't help to know you're just time away.

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood

Holding you again could only do me good

How I wish I could

But you're so far away.

One more song about movin' along the highway

Can't say much of anything that's new

If I could only work this life out my way

I'd rather spend it being close to you.

But you're so far away

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

It would be so fine to see your face at my door

Doesn't help to know you're so far away.

Yeah, you're so far away.

Traveling around sure gets me down and lonely

Nothing else to do but close my mind

I sure hope the road don't come to own me

There's so many dreams I've yet to find.

But you're so far away

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

It would be so fine to see your face at my door

And it doesn't help to know you're so far away.

Yeah, you're so far away.

Hey, you're so far away."