I’d been dying to do this for about two years.

It’s a nice, lazy Saturday here at Howdygram headquarters, there’s nothing much going on, and I’ve been enjoying a pleasant movie called Keeper of the Flame (1942) starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. This is probably one of the lesser-known Tracy/Hepburn pairings, but it’s definitely a good one and I’ve always liked this film. Co-stars include Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball. As soon as it’s over I have to get back to binge-watching “Bar Rescue,” because more than 20 additional episodes are programmed to record on our DVR and if I fall too far behind I’ll never catch up. Oy, God forbid!

---

I’m still tweaking some of the Howdygram’s design features!

A NEW FONT SIZE. This morning, after finally accepting that the Howdygram’s font size is a really lot smaller than other websites and blogs that I read at all the time, I made a monumental decision to increase the size of my text font — it’s “Georgia,” in case you’re interested —two whole pixels from 16 to 18, and then I also expanded the line spacing … slightly. Here’s what the type size difference actually looks like in a side-by-side comparison:

This is Georgia 16px. This is Georgia 18px.

FYI, pixels are equivalent to points … and there are 72 points per inch. Therefore (you might want to take notes) an 18-point font size on paper would be the same as 18 pixels per inch, or “ppi,” on your screen. I hope you like the larger type as much as I do. It’s a lot more readable than before, and to tell you the truth I’d been dying to do this for about two years … but I was worried that the Howdygram would look like a children’s book!

A NEW FONT COLOR. Softer shades are easier to read, and I’m always attracted to blogs and websites with gray type instead of black. So … I just decided to lighten up the Howdygram! (Personally, I love the lighter color.)

OTHER TEENY “TWEAKY” THINGS. I also have: 1) increased the size of our photo captions; 2) darkened the caption font color slightly; 3) lightened up the color of my signature at the end of every post; and 4) I can’t think of anything else.

If you have a couple of free minutes, please send an email and let me know what you think of this big hoo-hah. Thank you.

---

While I’m on the subject — fonts! — I’ve got a nice herd of freebies for y’all right now, and most of them are Hallmark fonts (please note the “HMK” designation in the font name). For the record, I have many other Hallmark fonts as well, and I’ll show them off after the download links.

Grand • Wizards Magic • Chris Regular • Chris Bold • Twizot • Splint Regular
Splint Bold • Trots Light • Trots Medium • Hog Book • Hog Bold • Primrose
Sunset Skies • Philbats

Here are the additional Hallmark fonts I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I’ve had most of these in my arsenal for years, and you may even recognize a few. If you want any of them for your personal collection, please visit Best-Font.com and use the “search” feature, okay?

---

Recently I mentioned [see post] that my favorite torchière lamp, which I bought from Kirkland’s about six years ago, died peacefully in its sleep on January 23. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find the exact same lamp still available on Kirkland’s website. Who knew? Hysterically excited, I ordered it the same day for pickup at our local store on Town East Boulevard and assumed I’d either get a phone call or an email when it was in stock. Nope. Wrong.

Sick of lying here endlessly in the dark, I just checked my Kirkland’s account online and discovered that our new lamp has been waiting in the store since January 26. (WTF?) I’d be annoyed as hell if it wasn’t for one unexpected “plus” … a coupon popped up for 25% off any online or in-store purchase through tomorrow (February 3) at midnight! So if I can pester Sam to pick up our lamp tomorrow he’ll get $24.99 off, and that’s a huge incentive for damn near anybody. (Especially Sam. He dislikes Kirkland’s a LOT.)

---

It’s 11:45 p.m. and I just finished watching Baby Face (1933) starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent. What a movie! This was a classic “pre-code” soap opera about a woman with no education, no money and no future (she arrives in New York riding in a boxcar) who claws her way to the top of an international banking organization using sex and deceit. It’s an incredible story.

Barbara Stanwyck has a lot of on-screen lovers in this film, eventually slithering her way to a penthouse, furs, diamonds and romance with the bank president (George Brent) ... and one of these early “conquests” is a low-level bank employee played by John Wayne!

Check out that inset photo of John Wayne from 1930 in The Big Trail. Was he adorable, or what? He was only 22 years old at the time. (He looked great on camera, but unfortunately he had no talent whatsoever.)

---

Know what? It’s time to wrap everything up for tonight and design a few new greeting cards for The Howdygram Store. Thank you for reading this … and if you feel compelled to remember the Alamo for a couple of minutes please go ahead but stop whining about it already!