Sometimes, I can just *see* things. Like, really *SEE* that something is gonna be great. I have this idea, and I can just run wild with it, and everything is awesome & rainbows!

Other times, not-so-much.

Like the time when I was about 10 years old, and I was playing with a hole puncher. (I’m a little embarrassed to tell my real age here, actually. I’d love to say that I was closer to 5 years old, but if I’m already ‘fessing, I might as well tell the whole truth, right?)

Anyway. I was playing with the hole puncher, messing around with a sheet of leftover construction paper. Suddenly, I got a brilliant idea!

POLKA-DOT HAIR.

C’mon, like that’s not genius? I could just picture flipping my silky mane over my shoulder, the cool, missing polka-dots making all my friends “Ooooh!” and “Ahhhh!” in jealousy.

I set right to work. 😀

I brushed my hair a hundred times (Marcia Brady would be proud!), until it gleamed & was perfectly straight. I carefully portioned out a lock of hair, and I brushed it a few times more. I held the lock straight down so my hair was as smooth as a piece of wood. I meticulously positioned my hole puncher right in the middle of the hair, and I *punched* it.

And can you guess what happened?!

…

All the hair in the *punch* and below… FELL DOWN! Instead of a neat-looking polka-dot hole, I was left with a strand of hair half the length that it once was! I couldn’t believe it. Still, I failed to put things together, and so I made *another* punch.

The same thing happened!

And the lightbulb flickered a bit over my head. *fizzle*

I realized the error in my genius fashion idea, and I was SO SAD. Polka-dot hair was beyond my abilities, as I knew my mom would never go for such a dye job. (Nevermind that she might’ve killed me if the hole puncher had worked as I had dreamed! I’m sure she never wanted a little girl with ‘swiss cheese’-style hair!)

But sometimes, I really can see things! Like a snowman holding his teddy before bedtime. See?

My mom and I argued over this cookie cutter in the store. She said it was a beetle bug car, but I swore it was a bedtime snowman. While I do concede that she is correct, I could only see my own “vision” as I looked at it.

(Perhaps I should take a moment to clarify that those cookies were among some of the first ones I made. I look at them now & kinda cringe a bit!)

These next snowmen were more traditional. This time, I managed to NOT see something. Can you spot it?

Here’s a better shot of ALL the snowmen, in case you didn’t catch it:

Now, it isn’t the red hat, in case you noticed that. I promise that I had two racks of snowmen cookies: half with green hats, and half with red hats. But I forgot his BUTTONS! In fact, I *completely* forgot them, as I didn’t even notice when I was taking pictures of the finished cookies! I didn’t catch the mistake until I originally posted the cookies – whoops!

But I made sure I didn’t miss the buttons in my next set, as I detailed them in entirely in food color markers. 😉

(photo courtesy of The Northern Sentry newspaper)

In my next set of snowmen, I could *see* dimension. I wanted them to look different, and I wanted a pretty snowfall/wintry scene going on. I decorated this cookie in layers, and I think it worked well!

And I’d love to tell you that this last snowman was a brilliant idea I had this past Christmastime, I really would. However, the true story is that he’s simply a pleasant surprise spurred from Halloween laziness.

You see, he was originally a blank cookie intended to be decorated for Halloween. I ran out of time, and these blanks were tossed in the freezer. On the 23rd, a supreme case of “the lazies” hit me, and I didn’t feel like baking more cookies before decorating, so I pulled the blanks out to see what I could create with them instead.

Ta-da! A Frankenstein head became a really adorable snowman! See?

I kinda love him, to be honest. ♥

So I suppose all I’ve really shown you in this blog post is that I can *see* things that aren’t visible to everyone, but I *can’t* see things that everyone else does or would just generally know. Yeah, I’m kinda special like that. 😉