Calendar Choices

9 Replies

The hardest calendars to choose this year were the ones for Rob/Edward’s room and William/Henry’s room. Rob (16) and William (14) like a lot of the same calendars; Edward (10) and Henry (8) like a lot of the same calendars. It ends up being “Which of Rob and William’s choices do Edward and Henry not mind?” But in a few years Rob and William will go off to college and then Edward and Henry will get the full power of choice. We ended up with mostly calendars that weren’t even on my original list.

This is the calendar for Rob and Edward’s room:

(image from Amazon.com)

Astronomy. This wasn’t one of the original list I showed them to choose from, but Rob said, “Are there any SPACE calendars?” and Edward said “Oh, I like space too!,” and so it was decided.

This is the calendar for William and Henry’s room:

(image from Amazon.com)

This Day in History. I was surprised they both wanted this one, but they did.

This is the calendar for Elizabeth’s room:

(image from Zazzle.com)

Walrus. Purchased on a 50% off sale with free shipping, because Zazzle is expensive.

For the kitchen:

(image from Amazon.com)

Kitchen Happiness. I was pretty sure this one would win, and it did.

For next to my computer:

(image from Amazon.com)

Guinea pigs. I didn’t realize how much I wanted a guinea pig calendar until I saw one. This one was such a hit with the kids, I considered getting it for our kitchen calendar—but that would throw everything off, because I didn’t want the Kitchen Happiness calendar for next to my computer.

For next to Paul’s computer:

(image from Amazon.com)

Vintage Patent Blueprints. I was thinking the older boys would like this, but they were both meh about it—and then Paul glanced over and said HE would want that one.

Reader Question: Gift Ideas for a Student with Cancer

17 Replies

Hi- I am in need of your gift giving expertise! I have read you for years, and know you are way better at this kind of thing than I am! Here is the situation. I teach 3rd grade and one of my students was diagnosed with cancer in November. I have a third grade son myself. He knows my student and this hits very home to me! My class knows that H has cancer. ( That was not a fun lesson – what is cancer, how does it spread, what treatments are, etc.). So, H is getting chemo at the hospital on and off until February and will hopefully be able to come back to school in March or April, which is an eternity for a third grader! We have taken photos and emailed, and my class and the other third grade classes send cards once a week. For a big Christmas thing, I went to Build A Bear, got 25 of the hearts they stuff in the Bears, had my class sign them and make a wish for H, took photos, brought them back to Build a bear, took pictures of my son stuffing them in the bear, bought a Star Wars outfit ( that the boy likes). I took pictures of the bear around school, went to Target and had a photo book made. It was cute and he loved it. But, he is out for three more months. I want him to realize we are all thinking of him without just sending photos of us having fun ( too bad you aren’t here! We are having a party without you!) and without being too expensive. I am sure he got plenty of Christmas gifts from family and friends, so I’m looking for smaller, meaningful gifts that tell an 8 year old boy to stay strong. Any ideas? Thanks so much!
Becky

This is a hard question to even think about, because it is so sad. Henry is 8 and in the third grade, so you and I both have a very vivid mental picture here. Trying to picture what Henry might like in this situation is…a challenge, on several levels.

My opinion is that you have already had the best idea. The Build-a-Bear-with-25-hearts-signed-by-fellow-students gift was inspired, and better than anything I would have thought of. It’s sentimental and thoughtful and a great group-effort project, and resulted in a comfort item for him to hold onto. And you are already doing my next idea, which is to send regular photos and letters. You are so on this, I feel as if any suggestions I make will be things you have already thought of.

I think at this point I would focus on the letters. If you would like to do more, I think a very nice idea would be to find some way to symbolically include H in your events and celebrations, and send photos of THAT, plus a souvenir when applicable.

Here is the sort of thing I have in mind. I can picture having a photo of his face enlarged to life-sized, and putting it on a life-sized paper doll (class project: trace another student who is about his size, everyone help color it in), and then including that life-sized paper doll in various classroom events. And then I’d take photos of it with the other students, and send those photos to him with, say, a cookie from the party, and a holiday card signed by the class.

At Valentine’s Day, he could receive a class-made mailbox filled with valentines, plus a little plate of treats from the party, plus a photo of his paper doll standing by the mailbox receiving the valentines, surrounded by fellow students. After field trips, he could receive a set of photos of his paper doll on the field trip, and brochures from the location. I am not sure, since I can’t count this experience among my own, but I THINK if I were him that would make me feel included and remembered and “We are always thinking of you,” and not “We are having fun without you.”

Another idea is to talk to the child’s parent and ask what might be appreciated. Perhaps his parent will say, “Oh, he LOVES getting mail!,” and you can set up a mailbox for him in the classroom and incorporate it into a lesson plan about letter-writing, and/or have everyone contribute a dollar toward a subscription to a children’s magazine. Or perhaps his parent will say, “He is SO BORED!,” and your class can brainstorm ideas for things to send him: puzzles, books, workbooks. Or maybe he could use another pair of comfy pajamas, and everyone could chip in and help choose them.

I have a feeling that some or all of the parents of the other children in your classroom will be eager to participate. I do have experience with THIS role, unfortunately, and I remember wishing there was a way I could DO something. If a teacher had said, “If you can, please send $1 a month for little treats and gifts,” or “This year we are all doing all of our Secret Santa gifts for H,” or “Please help your child write a letter,” or “We will be sending valentines to H,” I would have been SO GLAD to have something practical to do.

Update:

Hello
I wrote to you a few months ago about a student in my third grade class who was out getting treatment for cancer. I really appreciated all of the suggestions, and thought it was time for an update. The good news is that H is now considered cancer free and has returned to school!
He was gone for four months. Using Skype to keep in touch was useful, but it was kind of hard to arrange times when he felt well and it was good timing for us. We did send lots of pictures and cards. Each week one of the third grade classrooms send cards. He sent in his Valentines and we sent his home to him. He also had a birthday and we sent a video of us singing and holding up signs. He sent us a video of his how to speech that we did in class. I liked the idea of the ” flat H” and if he had been gone longer I would have done that too.
He had a pretty low immune system when he came back and no hair but I warned the class about germs and stocked up on hand sanitizer. He wanted to just slide right back into the rhythm of the class, but that took a few weeks. What really helped was having the Child Life specialist from the hospital come in and give a presentation about cancer, chemo, MRI’s and ports. I think it really made H feel better – that everyone else finally had an idea of what he had gone through.
Now his hair is mostly grown in, he is caught up both academically and socially. He still attends a lot of special events for cancer survivors, but otherwise is a normal third grader. Thank you so much for your help!
Becky

Swistle’s Wish List

9 Replies

Kate wants to know what I want for Christmas. World peace, Kate. And for my tulip bulbs NOT to be eaten by voles this year. Also:

(image from Amazon.com)

A Few of the Girls, by Maeve Binchy. This is a pre-order, and I LOVE to get pre-ordered books for birthday/Christmas: Amazon then ships it so that it arrives the very first day the book is available, and by then I’ve lost track of when it will arrive so it’s a happy surprise. I have low hopes for this book, since it’s YET ANOTHER book published after Maeve Binchy’s death, and so I’m wondering if they’re just sort of scraping together some half-formed notes and calling it a book, but whatever, I want it.

(image from Amazon.com)

Catastrophic Happiness, by Catherine Newman. Another pre-order. Her first book, Waiting for Birdy, is the kind I happy-cry all the way through. Strongly recommended for pregnant women, if you have any on your shopping list.

(image from Etsy.com)

Marmar Modern Daisy Earrings. I am slowly acquiring quite a collection of Marmar and Marmar Modern earrings. I love them so much, and the French hooks don’t bother my skin the way some do (I don’t know if I have a weird neck angle or a weird earlobe angle or what, but the ends of French hooks often brush lightly and itchily against my neck, so that I keep scratching and leaving big pink marks).

(image from Target.com)

Stud earrings. We are not forbidden from wearing dangling earrings at work, but we are strongly discouraged. “Accidents happen,” my trainer said darkly. But I don’t usually wear stud earrings, so I have the ones I got my ears pierced with and that’s about it.

(image from Walmart.com)

Scrub tops. This is a good moment to mention the winner of my gradually-increasing scrub top collection: the Scrubstar Premium Flexible. They have big stretchy black panels on the sides. I wish they came in alllllll the colors and patterns. Only hot pink and turquoise are available online at the moment, but when I went to the store the other day they had it in red and grey as well. I look silly in red, but I now own all three other colors. The pants, too, are superior: big wide stretchy waistband, so comfy. I plan to wear these as pajamas when I no longer need them for work.

(image from Kiva.org)

Kiva gift cards. Paul gets me a $25 gift card every birthday and Christmas now, and the more of them I acquire, the more often I get to re-lend. I love this.

(image from Amazon.com)

Lunch box for work.

(image from Sees.com)

See’s Candies. So expensive, so yummy.

(image from Amazon.com)

Traverse Bay chocolate-covered dried cherries. These would be on my list except that they went down in price and I pounced. Previously, the best price I’d seen them at was $7/pound, or $28 per 4-pound box. When they went down to $23 for 4 pounds, or ONE-FOURTH the price per pound of See’s chocolates, I SPRANG.

(image from Amazon.com)

Jewel: Let it Snow. Jewel’s Joy: A Holiday Collection (which is only $3.99 now, probably because of the new album) is one of my favorites to listen to while wrapping presents (I cry every time she hits the high note on O Holy Night, though I skip past her jouncy version of Rudolph), so I’m half-excited, half-nervous about hearing the new one.

(image from Amazon.com)

Kikkerland Retro Pens. My sister-in-law and I both have these and we both love them, and we both want MORE.

(image from Amazon.com)

Animal Box postcards. I really really really really don’t need any more postcards. I have, like, an 18-gallon bin FULL of them. But. Animal cards are a very common request on Postcrossing, and it’s fun to have the very animal someone is collecting.

Gift Ideas for 8-Year-Old and 10-Year-Old Boys

15 Replies

I keep meaning to make some nice orderly gift-idea post with all previous gift-idea posts listed by age, but here it is the 17th already. There is something I need to fix about my blog to make it more searchable by category, but that is low on the list right now, so in the MEANTIME, one thing you can do is scroll to the end of this post, and see where it says “posted in gift ideas,” down at the bottom? If you click “gift ideas,” I believe you will be taken to a big, messy, multi-page chunk of all previous gift-idea posts.

This particular post is based on the wish lists of Edward (10) and Henry (8).

(image from Amazon.com)

Kanoodle. I don’t know if this will be fun or frustrating, but both boys want it, and I love to buy things that more than one kid will want to play with.

(image from Amazon.com)

Laser Maze. What even is this. Apparently they saw a YouTube video about it.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Greatest Dot-to-Dot Adventure Book. Edward wants this, and he is careful and patient enough that I’m willing to buy it. Henry would be punching holes in the pages with frustration after about 30 seconds.

(image from Amazon.com)

Trapdoor Checkers. Another thing they saw on YouTube.

(image from Amazon.com)

Guinness Book of World Records 2016: Gamer’s Edition. They PORE over these records books.

(image from Amazon.com)

Strawz. This is probably a silly overpriced waste of money, but both boys wanted it BADLY, and both were pitifully saving their allowances, so I got them each a set.

(image from Amazon.com)

Minecraft Legos.

(image from Amazon.com)

Nerf guns. Sigh. I have mixed feelings.

(image from Amazon.com)

Plastic army men. Mixed feelings continue.

(image from Amazon.com)

Minecraft Story Mode. I don’t fully understand it, but apparently you can create the game yourself? Or something? Edward says it’s similar to Super Mario Maker, which is a game he wants very badly but we’re not going to buy a Wii U just so he can play it.

(image from Amazon.com)

Heated throw. Edward is often chilly in the mornings. The price is going up and down on Amazon; my mom and I found one for $29.99 at Target, on sale for $26.99.

(image from Amazon.com)

Twister Rave Skip-it. I did not pay what Amazon is currently charging: I got it for $20 at Target.

(image from Amazon.com)

Cool dice. Henry is very jealous of Rob’s dice collection.

(image from Amazon.com)

Space jammies from Target. Also got the lightning ones.

(image from Amazon.com)

Cuddlekins walrus. Walruses are a huge fad at our house right now, and you would not believe how nice this one is to snuggle.

Christmas Cookie Recipes

49 Replies

Matti writes:

I would like to request a Christmas cookie reference section, as we did for Thanksgiving vegetable side dishes. Only the proven winners we love and rely on. I want to try a few new cookies every year, but very quickly get overwhelmed when I start looking around online. “The 14 Holiday Cookies You Should Be Making!” “The Only 4 Cookies You Need to Make This Christmas!” “The 3 Million Cookies of Christmas!”

I would love some recommendations that come with reasons, advice, history. Alas, I have no real life cookie swaps to attend. :)

What a good idea! I would love this too! I will tell you one I make that’s really really really easy: I melt Andes mint-chocolate chips and dip Oreos in them. You can dip the whole thing, or you can do what I do which is to hold onto the bottom cookie of the Oreo and dip the top and sides, then quickly flip it over onto waxed paper, dry-side-down, to let the chocolate run down a bit and cover the part I was holding on to. I try not to stir the melting Andes too much, and then they come out a little streaky with the lighter mint part not entirely mixed into the chocolate part. They are so yummy and they SEEM fancy but they’re easy. You know, I’ll bet I have a photo of them somewhere… YES, I do!

This photo reminds me of another easy recipe. There are these chocolate wafer cookies (kind of like Oreos without the filling, and a little bigger) sold in the baking section of my grocery store rather than the cookie section. They’re called something unmemorable (“Famous Chocolate Wafers”), and they look like this:

(image from Amazon.com)

I melt some white chocolate wafers; I get the Wilton ones that look like this:

(image from Amazon.com)

I also crush up some candy canes. I spread some melted white chocolate on the flatter side of each chocolate cookie, then sprinkle it with the crushed-up peppermint. I let them cool/dry on waxed paper.

The M&M things in that picture are fussy but not hard. I saw the recipe on Pinterest, and I loved how you could change the M&M colors for whatever the season/event. And you can use dark chocolate Kisses, or milk chocolate, or you can use the Hugs, or whatever. At Christmas I like to use the candy cane Kisses.

And also I make these Chocolate Mint-Chip Cookies.

Gradually Improving Holiday Spirit

34 Replies

Okay, okay, things are going a little better now. My mom and I went out shopping yesterday, and seeing all the pretty holiday stuff in the stores put me much more firmly into the right state of mind. I bought some nice wrapping paper I absolutely don’t need at all, and four bags of a jalapeno kettle corn I’ve been keeping an eye out for (so far I’ve found it at HomeGoods and at Marshalls), and we had lunch at Wendy’s, and perhaps we are all going to make it through this season of joy after all.

so weird, so good

I did NOT take a picture of the kids as planned, because I forgot Rob and William had an after-school thing, and the Rob and I got snippy in the car on the way home, and so anyway let’s just postpone that into the full-on panic zone. It helped to think about what would I tell someone else in the same situation: I’d say, “Well, if people don’t get a photo in the cards this year, or if you don’t even send out cards at all, or if you send out, say, the half-dozen most important ones and no others, that’s really not a huge deal. You’d just do it next year and probably most people wouldn’t even notice or care. Your mechanic is not waiting by the mailbox for the Thistle Christmas card.”

I DID, however, put all the candy canes and chocolate ornaments on the tree (I did some while waiting for it to be time to pick up my mom to go shopping, and some while waiting for my coffee to reheat in the microwave) and, when combined with the few ornaments the kids have made at school, and the few ornaments I’d bought since last year so hadn’t packed away in the Christmas box, to my surprise the tree looks pretty much decorated. It’s sparse, and I still do want to bring up the box of ornaments and do some more, but we went from Sad Undecorated Tree to Pretty Much Decorated Tree in about five minutes.

decorated

The chocolate ornaments, by the way, are not exactly a CHEAP treat (I found a bag of them at HomeGoods for $10), but I plan to do them EVERY YEAR FOREVER. I bought them last year for the first time, on a shopping trip in which I was in exactly the right mood to spring for them, and I felt like they gave a lot of holiday bang for the buck. Every day after school I let the kids choose one thing (candy cane or chocolate ornament) from the tree, and it’s an easy way to do something festive. I wish I’d saved the package so I could show you what to look for, and so I’d know how MANY were in a bag, but it’s…a few dozen, I think, in a clear bag with a paper label stapling the top closed. And they look like this:

ornament

The package contains some silver ornaments, some red, some gold. At HomeGoods, they were in with the special holiday treats—all the fancier-looking foods you might give as gifts. They had a smaller bag, too, for $4, if you do not have QUITE so many people in your household.

Oh, for something else I can tell you about but have issues trying to link to, I highly recommend this Advent/countdown-to-Christmas tree by Melissa & Doug:

(image from Amazon.com)

I mean, I DID just link to it, but (1) it’s not in stock on Amazon until December 14th, which I think we can all agree is A LITTLE LATE IN THE GAME, and (2) it’s more expensive on Amazon than I paid. I found it at HomeGoods for $14.99. It’s a magnetic wooden tree, and the base is a little bin that holds 24 assorted magnetic wooden ornaments and a magnetic wooden star for the top. It works out nicely at our house (24 ornaments + 1 star = 25, 25 divides evenly by 5 children), except that then I never get to choose the day’s ornament, and I REALLY want to. Next year I think we will do something like 24 ornaments divided by 5 children plus 1 mother = 4 ornaments each, and then Paul can do the star.

ALSO, I remembered my Christmas EARRINGS! I can’t believe I’d forgotten them! Today I’m wearing the little metallic gift-bow stud earrings I bought at Claire’s last year in a multi-pack of assorted colors: PERFECT for work, since I’m not supposed to wear dangling earrings. If you want to spend a little more and/or want something for your wish list, may I recommend these?

(image from Amazon.com)

Sienna Sky Car & Tree Earrings. They are my top-favorite holiday earrings, especially since they feel right any time after Thanksgiving, and because “cars carrying home trees” is one of my favorite holiday-season sightings. They are rather SMALL and LIGHT; that’s either a warning or a selling point, depending on your preferences.

Drops in the Bucket, Holiday-Style

38 Replies

I am feeling sad and cranky and plain today, and my hair is kind of dumb and I’m tired of all my shirts. Paul and I had another argument, and whatever, the upshot was that I started cleaning out the basement storage area, and feeling about 10% satisfaction and 90% resentment-and-why-did-I-marry-a-jerk-who-was-such-a-jerk.

It HAS been satisfying to get rid of some things. I had two medium boxes of baby things I’d forgotten I still had—not particularly sentimental stuff, but the few practical things I’d kept Just In Case: the only front carrier I ever liked, the few receiving blankets that worked best, a hooded towel, the best play gym ever, the favorite baby toys. Time to get rid of those.

Also, do you remember the mother-in-law dishes? That was a long time ago and still so satisfying to me to think of. I swear those dishes made me more pleasant for my mother-in-law’s visits. But in the six years since my mother-in-law died, I haven’t opened the box a single time, or even thought of doing so. And so it is time for that box to go.

I’ve stalled on the basement project for now to give myself plenty of time to sit around fretting about Christmas. I always do that at this time of year, and everything always works out, but this year I am later on everything than I have ever been. That is, when I place orders, some of them aren’t going to arrive until after Christmas. I always at least get the Christmas card stuff up from the basement by this time of the month, and this year I haven’t even taken a picture of the children yet. The tree, which is never up long enough to suit me, is not decorated. And curses, CURSES on the earlier version of myself who thought it was a good idea to make gingerbread houses with the children, because they have latched onto that SO HARD that now I can never stop.

This morning I thought “Something MUST be done.” That is, I can’t just keep fluttering around being stressed and yet somehow not making any progress. And so I am going to take the drops in the bucket approach to this. If I hang one single ornament on the tree, if I order one gift, if I buy one single container of eggnog—all of these things bring us closer to what I’d like to have done, and make me calmer.

Yesterday I did TWO things: I brought the Christmas cards upstairs, and I brought a Christmas mug upstairs. I’d kept NOT bringing the mug upstairs, because “I can’t do that until I put away some of the everyday mugs, and I can’t do THAT until I bring up the whole Christmas box and take everything out of it so there’s room to pack away the everyday mugs.” But then here I was, every morning, not drinking out of a Christmas mug, and drinking out of a Christmas mug is one of my favorite things about Christmas. That mug can sit on the damn COUNTER if there’s no room in the cupboard, and today I put eggnog in there (purchased as the One Thing from the day before yesterday) with my coffee.

This afternoon I am taking a picture of the children. We were going to do one with all seven of us this year, but that’s not going to work out, and we’re out of time, so Just Kids it is. We haven’t changed much anyway. I will try to ALSO take the pictures off the camera, choose one, and order it, but that’s like three additional tasks so we’ll see.

Annual Calendar Post, 2016 Edition!

23 Replies

(image from Amazon.com)

Chalk It Up. I dislike inspirational sayings. I very much DO like warped inspirational sayings. “If at first you don’t succeed…skydiving is not for you.” “The early bird gets the worm…but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

(image from Amazon.com)

Color Your Year. Coloring books for grown-ups are everywhere. This is the calendar version. I like that you can FORCE it to match your kitchen. It appeals to me to think of having a can of colored pencils near the calendar, and coloring it a bit at a time, maybe as a family effort.

(image from Amazon.com)

Faerie Houses. Uber-twee!

(image from Amazon.com)

Chihuly. Blown-glass sculptures. But the cover image is by far my favorite one.

(image from Amazon.com)

Charley Harper. I enjoyed the Charley Harper calendar I had a number of years ago, and this one looks so colorful it tempts me to repeat. I appreciate the deer-butt on the cover.

(image from Amazon.com)

Lotta Jansdotter. It was down to this or 1950s Patterns last year for the calendar next to my computer, and I went with the latter. Maybe this year is Lotta’s turn.

(image from Amazon.com)

Kilty Pleasures. Perhaps someone on your list is a big fan of Jamie Fraser of the Outlander series and would like to…explore that subject further.

(image from Amazon.com)

Roald Dahl. Ohhhhh, I’m so tempted. I was very taken with Quentin Blake’s illustrations as a child, and still am. (You can see pictures of the back here.) [Update: sadly now sold out on Amazon. But the second link still has it in stock, if you don’t mind ordering from the UK.]

(image from Amazon.com)

Cats in Hats. I bought Elizabeth the Cats in Sweaters calendar last year, and it was a big success. This seems like a good sequel. I’m hoping for Cats in Pants in 2017.

(image from Amazon.com)

Super Mario Bros. In my cart for one of the kids’ rooms.

(image from Amazon.com)

Peanuts. This taps right into some strong childhood nostalgia.

(image from Amazon.com)

Little Golden Books. Speaking of childhood nostalgia.

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Pusheen the Cat. We had a Pusheen calendar for our kitchen last year. Normally I would be very disinclined to repeat the same type of calendar two years in a row, but it was fun having a calendar all seven of us liked.

(image from Amazon.com)

The New Yorker Covers. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride: every year it’s a finalist, but I’ve never bought one.

(image from Amazon.com)

Shepard Fairey. I like the look of this. I think what will take it off my list is that there are some months I really don’t like the picture for.

(image from Amazon.com)

Bike Art. My parents have gotten into biking this year. If they still used a wall calendar, this would be a good gift idea for them.

(image from Amazon.com)

Birds in Art. What I like about this is you’d get an assortment of styles: not just Sibley birds, not just Audubon birds, but a mix of a lot of different artists.

(image from Amazon.com)

See America! I love the style, I love the pictures, but I don’t like that they squished down the calendar grid to make the pictures bigger. I need space, SPACE!

(image from Amazon.com)

Every Day’s a Holiday. I think the children would enjoy this, but that I would get weary of the children enjoying it.

(image from Amazon.com)

Farmer’s Market. I had this one a couple of years ago, and it was one of my very favorite kitchen calendars. Paul bought me a couple of prints by the same artist for my birthday.

(image from Amazon.com)

Downton Abbey. I have just recently started watching this show, and I love it so much.

(image from Amazon.com)

Masha D’yans. I’ve had this one as a finalist for several years—and it sells out before I can order. This year I am going to try to make up my mind earlier.

(image from Amazon.com)

Rube Goldberg Inventions. In my cart, probably for one of the kids’ rooms, or maybe for the kitchen since that’s a good place to stand around and look carefully at something while Mother is trying to cook.

(image from Amazon.com)

Animal Portraits. So fancy.

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The Little World of Liz Climo. I am so charmed by this, I nearly bought it on the spot, mid-post. Fortunately I noticed in time that this is the kind of calendar that has no place to write. I do use a calendar for art, but USEFUL art: I can check the date on my phone, but I want a place on the kitchen wall to write the doctor appointments.

(image from Amazon.com)

Dr. Who. In my cart as a candidate for one of the children’s rooms.

(image from Amazon.com)

SuperGraphic. In the cart for the kids or Paul.

(image from Amazon.com)

Crap Taxidermy. It’s funny to think that some of us will know JUST the person to give this to.

(image from Amazon.com)

Mathematics. I get this for Paul every single year. He uses it as an office calendar, and he and his officemates stand around the whiteboard trying to figure out each day’s problem.

(image from Amazon.com)

Vintage Patent Blueprints. I think one of my two older boys would really like this. It doesn’t have space to write appointments, but they only use calendars as wall art. I am finding too many candidates for their calendars this year.

(image from Amazon.com)

Forest Feast. This makes me think of Catherine Newman and how she and her kids have been doing some fun foraging. No top picture, though: it’s a half-size wall calendar.

(image from Amazon.com)

Beer Labels. It pleases me to think how much my late mother-in-law would have hated this.

(image from Amazon.com)

This is Paris. I suspect a lot of us are feeling more sentimental about Paris than usual this year.

(image from Amazon.com)

Kitchen Happiness. I LOVE THIS ONE. Strong finalist for my kitchen.

(image from Amazon.com)

Things Come Apart. One of the older boys had this one last year, and it was a very satisfying one.

(image from Amazon.com)

Floral X-ray. Strong finalist.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Writers’ House. I love this concept: pictures of authors’ houses.

(image from Amazon.com)

William Morris. I have a mug in the pattern on this calendar’s cover, so it was startling to see it!

(image from Amazon.com)

Flying Mouse. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at.

(image from Amazon.com)

Wassily Kandinsky. I like Kandinsky, but I am not sure I want a whole year of Kandinsky.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Book Lover’s Calendar. I don’t generally like The Classics, so this is not the calendar for me. But it immediately grabs my attention as the right calendar for MANY, MANY PEOPLE. I love that the cover shows all twelve books that will be featured.

********

Those are the 2016 calendar candidates! And as usual, I hope you will tell me what calendar you are choosing for the upcoming year, if you ARE choosing a calendar.

Hacked

11 Replies

Paul’s workplace: “We need to know EVERYTHING about EVERY family member! Social Security numbers! Birth dates! Employers! All income sources! Web site addresses! Email addresses! Stock holdings! Extended family members! EVERY SINGLE PERSONAL DETAIL! And we need it updated annually AT LEAST, for the protection of EVERYONE!”

Paul’s workplace: “Oops, we got hacked. Again. All your private information is public. Again.”

Paul’s workplace: “FOR EVERYONE’S PROTECTION, we need everyone to update private information again. Is your teenager working part-time at the grocery store? WE NEED THAT INFORMATION. FOR YOUR SAFETY. Provide it or we regret that we can no longer consider you an employee.”

Paul’s workplace: “You are not going to believe this. It’s funny, really. Ooooo, but do we have a treat for YOU: free credit checks for a YEAR!! A whole year!”

Computerized Countdown Calendar Winners!—And a Bonus!

17 Replies

It is time to choose the winners for the Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar! Here are the nine winners:

Robin (2015/12/03 at 11:12 pm)
Melissa (2015/12/03 at 4:43 pm)
Devany (2015/12/03 at 10:46 pm)
Doing My Best (2015/12/03 at 9:32 pm)
StephLove (2015/12/03 at 9:35 pm)
Diane (2015/12/03 at 7:59 pm)
Kim S. (2015/12/03 at 5:37 pm)
VirginiaMom (2015/12/03 at 3:17 pm)
Lisa (2015/12/03 at 3:28 pm)

I had the calendars sent to the email addresses used in the comments. Let me know if yours didn’t come through.

But wait! Because Super Grover emailed me:

OK, this calendar is *awesome.*

I was going to enter the contest, but when I saw how many people were excited, I decided that I’d just take the plunge and get it for myself.

Then, I realized *I* could indulge my inner bargain-hunter and take advantage of the cheapo pricing, too.

So! Here are 10 activation codes for other people to use, so you can make the contest bigger!

So here are the ten additional winners:

melissa (2015/12/03 at 3:25 pm)
Lydia (2015/12/04 at 9:52 am)
Nikki B. (2015/12/03 at 5:17 pm)
Stephanie M (2015/12/03 at 4:11 pm)
Mkhernan (2015/12/04 at 12:34 am)
elly (2015/12/03 at 7:57 pm)
Monique S. (2015/12/04 at 2:06 am)
Kalendi (2015/12/03 at 6:22 pm)
Carrie (2015/12/03 at 10:51 pm)
Wendy (2015/12/03 at 7:49 pm)

Those calendars have been sent as well, to the email addresses used for commenting; the listed sender will be Super Grover. Again, let me know if yours didn’t come through.

This was fun! Thank you, Super Grover!