I don't mention it very often in this blog, but my lovely wife and partner Lyssa Heartsong has been both knitting and spinning her own yarn for the past few years. In recent weeks, she has been setting up her own Etsy store to sell her work. Right now she has some of her private stash of hand-spun yarn up for sale as well as a few jewelry pieces and more will be on the way shortly.

If you'd like to take a look at what Lyssa has for sale, here's a link to her store. She would appreciate it …

Lyssa and I started off our Valentine's Day by getting up far earlier than should be allowed by law on a Saturday morning to go to our local H&R Block office to finish getting our taxes done. That morning marked our second trip to get our finances straightened out in Uncle Sam's eyes. I'm sorry to say that our combined medical expenses for FY 2008 weren't enough to earn a deduction, though the repeated trips to the thrift store to get rid of stuff appear to have come in handy. There is a question these days over how many …