Today I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. This is Shelley. (Eat your heart out, guys; she’s married and loves her husband.)

Shelley is one of the Grammar Guerrilla Girls, and a spirited person; she took Jack and our shopsitter Andrew to see the Santa Train when it came through last month, despite having had life-or-death surgery just about six weeks before. (Shelley inherited a bad set of internal plumbing, and when it finally got fixed, the surgery almost killed her. When her friends and family say, “All I want for Christmas is you,” it means something a little more intense.)

As you can see, Shelley is well on her way back to health, for which we are all grateful–not least Shelley’s adorable daughter, Holly.

I think it’s an unwritten law that beautiful, feminine women give birth to tomboys. Holly is more rainbows than rosebuds. She plans to be a pirate when she grows up.

As her mom said when posting pix of Holly on her first deer hunt with Dad, “Be afraid, world; be very afraid.”

The GGs support each other in our various endeavors, so when The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap came out, Shelley and the others wrote about it on their FB sites, pinned it on Pinterest, and came with their families to get signed copies to give as gifts. Last week when our heat pump went out, Shelley brought a heater, and while with us encouraged Holly to pick out some books –setting in motion our favorite Christmas story this year.

Right after leaving our store Holly went with her Gran to see Santa. Holly plopped down on the big guy’s lap, held out the Little Golden Book of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas she’d gotten at our place, and said, “Santa, could you autograph your book for me?”

Holly rocks. (So does her mom. So do all the GGs – God Bless Us, Every One!)

That’s Heather, Shelley and Jessica, GGs and camera-shy sweet things.