I need Novembers off…

Is there a career which would allow me to have Novembers off?? I feel the great pull of time, of the pages of the calendar turning turning turning, the pressure of all the things I planned to do this year, staring me in the face…

I want to be a part of Art Every Day month, and of NaNoWriMo but I don’t have the time, what with the escalation of pressure (Christmas music has made its way to my job) to make my Christmas lists, and then commit to the making of said gifts (which, of course could be part of Make Art Every Day…)

The great American novel may not be really floating around in my head, but I would love to challenge myself to write every day as well. (The goal of 50,000 words itself isn’t off-putting; I’ve written two fiction stories over three times that length, but the time-frame: 30 days, of which I have already lost the first 4….and the topic…)

Yet these have to compete with the new crisp visions I’ve had, the visions of quilts I would love to get back to, the desire to start new ones…

And the recipes! They come at you from everywhere– holiday cooking, holiday baking; it all looks so much more satisfying and so much less like another chore than at any other part of the year….

And of course all those things to do don’t even touch on all the time needed for pesky routine things like sleeping, and cleaning house…

So, if anyone is aware of a vocation I could take up, that would free up my NOVEMBERS, do tell!

Christmas without Wally…

(Wally-World, that is.) I can do it, can you?

I dislike– in so many ways it can’t be adequately described– Wal-Mart.

So much so that I can tell you exactly when I last set foot into my local WM. It was just over a week before Thanksgiving. So that puts it at what, 49 weeks ago?? I can’t say I’ve missed a thing not being there. Understand please, that it is SO convenient to my daily world that I can see the sign over the front entrance from the window of my job; that their parking lot is across the street from my parking lot….

I just am never HAPPY when I am there. The light is ‘off’, the air moves oddly, the hollow feeling of the place, even when over-loaded with (often cranky) people just bothers me. I have never saved enough money there to make it worth my while.

I have never found it one-stop-shopping enough to make it worth my while. It isn’t more than a lowest-common-denominator kind of place for me.

I have never stood on the check-out line without the thought running through my head, “WHY did I come in here?” (And all this without the first echo of the more overt political, environmental, labor and capitalistic  etc. issues that cause me to simply not need WM in my life!)

Oh, back when I lived on the Island, and the closest WM was over a bridge in another state, AND was a relatively new addition even there, I thought it was a fine thing.  A place I would have to make PLANS to get to. (It was before a Target became available to me, in that same out-of-state, ‘destination’ type of experience that even IKEA was.)

And when I moved here, I did on occasion shop there; before I really became comfortable with the other local grocery stores, and who carried what; before I had learned my way about the area.

It is the only place down here open 24 hours, and coming from a city where EVERYTHING seemed to be open 24 hours (even Home Depot), I felt it was the place to be. However, there is nothing I would need in the middle of the night that I can’t find at my CVS, closer to home and less of a headache.

So, with perfect honesty, I can say, I will not be doing my Christmas-ing at WM. I realize that for some, WM really IS the only ‘local’ alternative. And I feel for you. But, if you are reading this blog, you have within your reach, the entire WORLD.

Use it! Keep your UPS man in a job, and buy online! In your jammies, in the middle of the night, and think about those fools standing in WM at 3 am, cursing the 25 CLOSED cash register lines, while they stand 10 deep at the 3 lines open, waiting their turn to deal with tired, harried cashiers.

And order gifts to your hearts content; gifts far more unique, more whimsical and probably far more personal than the same red and black plaid flannel shirt that exactly 3,550,673 other tired Christmas shoppers tossed into their carts at the last minute, remembering that Uncle Jimmy would be at Christmas dinner this year!

(What? you don’t want to pay shipping and handling?? Well, how about GAS, and TIME, and all the other things that end up in the cart over and above what you NEEDED??)

Where to shop? Well, let me list a few gems:

Photography My photos, they make WONDERFUL gifts…

Collectibles My Dad’s web-site, where you will be able to find one-of-a-kind ephemera and small household collectibles; things that you will remember from your youth, and things that will make you smile…

T-shirts My babiest brudder’s T-shirt site…(he has a more unique view on the world than most, a great site for the teens and young adults you need to shop for…)

And hey, there are a gazillion OTHER sites out there, big and small, that offer just about anything!!! (But, if I were to start picking and choosing…. well, I figure I will just advertise for Us!! LOL)

(Oh, and by the way, I am NO LONGER early, folks. It is NOT too soon to be thinking about Christmas gifting. It is 53 DAYS till Christmas, otherwise known as November 1st, AKA ‘Happy Birthday Kerin and Elaine!’)

Christmas is coming…

…and I am aware that I’ve been slacking… Did you know almost 40% of your holiday prep time is GONE gone gone… and here I am, neglecting the posting of my “Christmas is coming, the sky is falling!” blogs…

My excuses, such as they are, are as follows:

• I’ve been hanging out with friends.
• I’ve been traveling.
• I’ve been taking photos (Almost 600 images that I have shot over the past few weeks are grinding around in the computer waiting for processing so you can buy them!)
• I’ve been fondling my quilting fabrics, thinking, planning, plotting….
• I’ve been buying out the book section at Goodwill, so I have many more excuses not to do housework.
• Oh, and housework.
• And work-work.

Yet, time waits for no woman to prepare for the holidays. I DO have my Christmas cards already. They aren’t signed or addressed or stamped, mind you, but they are HERE!

I have the gifts for that list of ‘just a little something’ people almost completed, and I do have a ‘short-list’ of gifts for the majority of the family. Which is really a SHORT list this year (No, not the family–I haven’t off’ed anyone! Just the quantity of gift$ per person…)

The biggie is always Timmy. As I usually get one REALLY GOOD IDEA. And then, his birthday occurs on December 2 and I end up giving him the REALLY GOOD gift then, and have to hit the drawing board again….

Of course, since these two beauties will be joining our family on Sunday, I may just buy him stock in lint rollers—meet …well, Nameless and Nameless Jr.- (25 combined pounds of FUR)

I posted a poll last month. You responded that you feel that handmade is better. You preferred to give and receive thoughtful (and possibly handmade) gifts.

So, share with me, and the thousands (lol) of other dedicated readers…What are some of your favorite gifts you’ve received –and why?

And, one last thing…if you are looking for a bit of spiritual whimsy to add to your holiday stocking, check these out…my brother’s newest cool venture!

 

Really cool stuff…

…Well, to me, anyhow!!!  If I continue paying down my credit cards at the rate I am going now, I will be 100% free of them by October 2010. That’s exactly ONE year from now.

Possible? Yes. Probable? Not really. After all, I DO still use them, but I use them far more carefully and much more as a convenience than I did in the past, when they were actually part of my budgeting.

That’s the nasty truth of being a single parent who received little to no child support for 18 years in a city with the expenses of New York.

Nowadays, I make a bit more, live in a less expense location, and have my husband’s income as well, which obviously makes a difference in the headway of my finances.

I have always had a good credit rating, and that is mine and mine alone. Which explains how even in this day and age, I am able to still manipulate my balances and move them around to get the lowest interest rates possible. It’s a bit like a shell game, but I am finally on the right side of the overturned cardboard box!

As I DO use the cards still, I fully expect to have a balance next year at this time. And I am ok with that, really. I pay something along the lines of 5-7 times my minimum each month. I can cut back to the bare minimums on the cards and try to live entirely cash, (and some have an interest rate) or I can continue to move balances to 0% cards I already own and have $0 balances on (Somehow the CC companies haven’t noticed—Shhhh!)

I am interested in how it all falls out as the regulations supposedly change in favor of us, the consumer, over the next 6-8 months.  None of my cards have told me my rates were going up, (except one, and it was a date nine months from the receipt, and I currently owe them $270, so by next month that threat is useless to me) and none have cut my limits back. (Which totals somewhere over twice my annual salary! Craziness, indeed.)

I know there are things I could be doing differently at this very moment in order to speed up the process. I could look more seriously into Dave Ramsey, I could re-read some Tightwad Gazettes, or Your Money or Your Life. Sell more of my photographs.

Shop yard sales, or just stop shopping, quit vacations, no more dinners out (that’s on Timmy’s card, however)… there are a gazillion things we together could cut back on…. but his cards, his bills are separate. And I can not make those decisions alone.

But, once I have eliminated these beasts of burden from my back, I can begin to assist him more fully in the pursuit of his own freedom.

One step at a time. Beginning with Christmas.

Christmas is going to be spare, it’s going to be sparse, and it’s going to be about people. Not about things, but about emotion, connection, and loving thoughts. (I hope. That’s my plan. )

I can’t be Scrooge, however!! How do YOU plan to make Christmas a less ‘object driven’ pursuit this year? I’m interested in hearing about all sorts of ideas!! (successful ones, especially!!!)

Christmas Gifting styles….

Can I interest you in a perfectly unscientific little poll?

I am a gift giver. (Well, it should be more properly termed a reformed gift-giver, or a gift-giver in my fantasies).  I can think of few things more enjoyable than walking through stores, fairs, museums—anywhere, all year, and wanting to stop and buy YOU something.

Something that brings to mind YOUR smile, or laugh, or some time or event we’ve shared when I spot it. And I want to stop and purchase this little token, tuck it away and wait for Christmas.

Bet you didn’t know that, did ya? It’s not for lack of wishing that I don’t have a goodie basket sitting, waiting for you.

I used to have a closet, and I called it the “Yah NEVA Know” closet. Because I worked in retail, and often in the mall, I was exposed to all the things, all the year through. I knew better than to admire item X in April, and expect to go back in late December to claim it as the perfect gift. So, if the price was right, and it seemed the thing for you as a gift, into the closet it went.

This closet, by the way, was not simply for gifting. At one point, a cousin who lived with me exclaimed that one of the most fascinating things to him was that if he felt the need to have object A, which was needed as a part for something else, he simply asked me, and I would pull the object of his desire out of the Yah Neva Know closet. (It saved many a late night run to the craft store to make a school project for Arlie, too.)

I’ve had to stop this. My credit cards thank me, really they do. In real life, my gift-giving list is relatively short, and not particularly excessive. We don’t give excessive gifts (well, except to each other), and I don’t exchange with a long list of people.

I have discovered that while I love the hunt–the thought and discovery when collecting and creating a gift, and I put myself into those  expressions of love– that more often than not, the giftee doesn’t seem to appreciate the effort, to “get it”. Or we simply don’t exchange gifts with each other any more, for any number of reasons.

It takes a lot of psychic energy to defend yourself against the perceived lack of enthusiasm, so too often of late, I have become a gift card giver. And in my mind, much of the excitement and anticipation is taken from the experience of Christmas, because I LOVE to watch someone open my gifts and see their faces…I know I am usually more excited to watch them open them than to be opening my own!

There is still a small list of friends for whom buying gifts is still exciting (even IF the gifts  sit unopened for 8 months, till we see each other..hey, Christmas is a state of mind!)

But in my fantasy world, I’d be driving Little Saint Nick up and down the East Coast for weeks leading up till Christmas, dropping off all manner of goodies collected and made, just for you. (I’m sorry, let me re-phrase that_ I’d be having Timmy drive Little Saint Nick; I’d be in the passenger seat, LOL)

So, now a poll. Where do you fall in this Christmas chaos that will be descending upon us sooner than you would even believe?

 

Etcetera…

…just random bunches of fleeting thoughts…(they get more entertaining as you go through them….)

This past Sunday, thanks to someone linking my blog post, I had my all time high of readers. Almost 300 people visited this site that day, almost 500 over the course of the weekend—and I got ONE response. (from my husband) Just curious, folks. At the bottom of every post, there is a place to leave a comment…

Have you tried and it’s too difficult? Do you have to do something like register? (NOT be rude, I just sometimes don’t realize that it’s so difficult, because “I” am signed in….)  I totally get not responding to everything I read. It just seems like pretty low percentages…

Three or four people did search out my email and take the time to privately comment….which seems like much more bother….

A few people have asked me how to Subscribe to the blog. That makes me happy. (Will they comment though?? Ah, that is the question! LOL) To subscribe there is a column to the right, titled “Subscribe Here…” If you choose Entries RSS, you can subscribe via whatever Reader you use (I have a Google homepage, with a tab set up just for blogs I follow. Whenever someone updates, it shows up. There are other types of readers that I know nothing about. But, that is the button to get you started! )

More importantly, that little countdown clock I mentioned I had on my homepage indicates that there are only 90 days left now till Christmas!!  Did my post of 10 days ago shock your system into thinking about the holidays? Have you done any list making? Bought any gifts?

I  have!  Sitting in my studio are almost all the makings for the gifts for my employees and co-workers, my quilting buddies and stocking stuffer-ish things for the family in general. Obviously since they all READ the blog (let me re-phrase that… I guess they read it…lol.) I can’t really say what it is… but I’ll take a pix and post it after Christmas—then you can use this idea next year!

And, because he is a cute, but dimwitted creature, who has for a friend a cute, but somewhat prickly creature, here is a story about our cats.

(Hamish, ‘the Red’ or ‘the Bad’ or ‘the Scared’, hiding in the vanity in the master bathroom, because of a thunderstorm. He opens the cabinet door with his paw, and climbs in to cower behind my personal products)

(Miss Tatiana, with evidence of a recent kill beside her)

You have to go to my husband’s blog to read the story of the little excitement at our house the other night around midnight…

Anyway, back to the comments thing. (I know, let it go!! LOL)

I opened my Photo website up the other day, and have had some serious inquiries from people interested in purchasing my art!! Yippee!!!! And, although there have been in the past week or so, over 5,000 hits, there has been ONE comment.

So, to summarize. Silly Cats. Christmas—it’s coming, ready or not. Subscribing and commenting. Buy photographic art as Christmas gifts from home in the comfort of your jammies.

Remember, comments are like virtual HUGS. High fives! Or, as Sally Field once said, it shows, “ You like me. You really LIKE me!”

(I promise to come up with a more entertaining post next time. Really.)

Now I’ve Gone and Done it… =)

What follows below is a huge, self-serving commercial announcement:

——————————————-For all of you who have, for all these years, told me I should be selling my photography:

LOOK  at what you’ve gone and made me do!!!

Officially going ‘live’ today is my photo website, The View From the Passenger Window.This website is my virtual gallery, for your viewing (and shopping) enjoyment!

The photographs in most of the galleries are available for purchase. (Christmas is coming–hint, hint…the perfect gift for that someone who has everything!)

Please take a few moments and enjoy a walk through my world. There is a very convenient shopping cart available to you, to make shopping a cinch. Your art will wing its way to you printed on KODAK professional papers.

I am asking you (begging? pleading? cajoling? –you choose the descriptor that best suits!) to send a link to this blog to anyone who you think may enjoy it!  Or even better, simply send them a link to the site!

(You’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends….

…)

I would love to receive comments on my art; there is a comments field in each gallery…comments are like virtual hugs…and you can never overdo hugs!!!

And, THANK YOU for your purchase!

—————————————–END of commercial announcement.

(*Were there enough subliminal messages there? Do you have a sudden urge to hang a few new photos over your couch? Did you take the hint?? Or are you just repeating that silly commercial, above? LOL)

Oh,  and by the way…..THANK YOU!!! For your friendship and for your encouragement!