Quick Gift, Take Two!

 Christmas is bearing down on us like a runaway train!

Augh!!!  Is Macy's still open!? 

But if you live close to a Trader Joe's

(and if you don't, I'm sorry, because it's FANTASTIC)

then an easy gift is a Trader Joe's gift bag!

What makes this gift bag super-cool is I filled it with goodies I knew the recipient would like,

and

I made it a "Trader Joe's" gift bag by cutting out the TJ's logo from one of their bags,

and gluing it to a pretty holiday craft bag.

The tags, btw, are from one of my favorite charities:  Heifer International.

If you've waited too long and want to get me something for Christmas,

you could buy a goat (or part of a goat) for a little girl in Africa.

Because, how awesome are goats?

The answer is LOTS.

Goats are LOTS awesome.

AUGH! CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE!!!

You need something for little Christmas gifts, STAT!

Not something too big;

not something that will make people feel like, "Dang, I didn't get anything for HER."

But, not something so impersonal that folks will say,

"Oh, you SHOULDN'T have stopped off at the gas station on the way here."

So, people, I give you the Tiny Gift sweet spot:

Snowman Poop.

I found the snowman graphic here,

printed them out on cardstock,

trimmed them to 1 1/2" by 4 1/4"

and stuck them to a Tic Tac container with two-sided scrapbooking tape.

I passed them out at work,

and included them with the gift cards I gave my family.

They got an appreciative giggle wherever they went.

P.S.  I got the original idea here for jack-o-lantern "seeds," 

and just changed it to poop.  As one does.

Christmas Without The Crazy

I can approach Christmas like one big ole' crybaby whinypants...

... but one of the things I do enjoy is Christmas lights.

My goal when putting them up is results somewhere between

"I don't give a rat's booty" ...

... and "Why, yes, I do start my day with an intravenous drip of espresso!"

How do I hit that holiday sweet spot?

By following

a 

few 

easy 

steps.

FIRST STEP!

Twinkle lights are your friends

as is just heaping the strings in piles on potted plants.

There are probably half a dozen lights out on this C7 string,

but it's not noticeable since their neighbors are flashing off and on anyway.

SECOND STEP!

Net lights are also a terrific invention; 

without any tedious wrapping they can easily cover a bush in seconds.

Yeah, it's not a great picture.  They do look cool in real life, though.

THIRD STEP!

Forget tall ladders!

If I can't reach it with a small stepstool, I don't bother.  

I used to climb all over the roof like a crazed spider monkey, and it took FOR-EV-ER

to finish with all the decorating.  No more!

FOURTH STEP!

Use what you have, so there's not a lot of clean-up/storage afterwards.

I have this cool felt Santa that goes over a lighted tomato cage,

that I place next to another light-wrapped, Christmas tree wannabe tomato cage.

As I said in another post,

I also drape lights over my leftover Halloween pumpkins for a fast and easy display.

After Christmas, the tomato cages will go back with the gardening supplies,

and the pumpkins?  Eh, I might leave the lights on for a bit longer.

FIFTH STEP!

Instead of tasteful, dainty white lights carefully strung around every bush and window,

focus on the entryway with lots of color and big lights.

Make your porch the focus of your house!

And now, 

THE LAST STEP!

If you take away nothing else from this entry but this last step,

you will thank me later.

It is the key to keeping myself from stressing out

over this Christmas chore  decorating opportunity.

What do I do when it is time to haul out the strings of C7s?

I wait until the daylight is almost gone, say, 4:30 pm or so...

... and THAT'S when I start decorating.

Yup, that way I have about an hour before it's too dark to see.

And when I can't see to work anymore?

I pack up whatever unstrung decorations are left, and put them away for the year.

That's it!

It's what I call "The Lazy Martha" approach!

(OF COURSE there are no images of "lazy Martha," 

so just try to imagine her in sweat pants and a ponytail.)

I'm (Not) In The Money!!!

The Sweet Man and I recently refinanced our mortgage,

and for reasons SO BORING you would keel over and die if I explained them,

we overpayed our property tax escrow account 

to the tune of you-could-buy-a-crappy-used-car-with-the-amount.

Youngsters, I give you the AMC Gremlin, a REAL CAR from the seventies.

So when I received an envelope from the escrow company this week 

that looked tantalizingly check-y, I was understandable excited.

Wooo!! Christmas just came early!!

BUT, when I opened the envelope?

Yes, you read that amount right.

The company generated,

signed,

enveloped,

addressed,

and STAMPED a check for...

FIVE FREAKIN' CENTS.

When I called the company to try to wrangle my ACTUAL amount owed,

Dan assured me that we would be receiving our refund,

since - in his words - the county wanted the correct amount "to the penny."

"It's funny you should mention 'pennies',"  I said,

and told him the tale of the Amazing Miniature Check.

So, wish me luck!

I'll be waiting by the mailbox.

Craft Fair Conundrum

A couple weeks ago, I did a craft fair.

I hauled most of my stuff there, 

and sat down and waited for the money shower to begin!

I mean, I had holiday stuff.

I had tissue holders for stocking stuffers or Hanukkah gifts.

I had quilts that ranged from tiny...

to big.

Unfortunately, the money shower was only a trickle, 

and I made (after my table fee) only...

...$39.00.

However, my booth mate?

Yeah, the patrons made it rain for him 

like he was a girl in music video.

So I think that's my last craft fair for a while.

It was a lot of work to make just $39.00.

Instead I'll keep focusing on my Etsy shop.

The beauty of Etsy is someone can type in the search engine, for example,

"nerd geek baby quilt"

and there it is, in my shop!

People don't usually have something so specific in mind when they hit a craft fair.

But through the beauty of the Wide Wide World of Web,

someone who needs exactly the right quilt for a 

friend/sister/co-worker

can find that online.

"Omigod!  A Kawaii Kitty Quilt!"

So I'll be doing virtual craft fairs for the foreseeable future.

Put On The Brakes, Christmas People!

Last week, when NOVEMBER had barely begun, driving home

I 

saw 

THIS:

Okay, it was actually only three of those giant balloony Santas and reindeer,

but I was gobsmacked.

I hadn't even taken down my Halloween decorations!

(This is just a portion of my Halloween decorations, y'all.  I go nuts for Halloween.)

Look, I've become resigned to the fact that celebrating/decorating for Christmas

is getting pushed farther and farther back.

(I have no idea why the people are so tiny and Santa so huge.  

Just go with the "Christmas in July" idea.)

But can we please at least wait until 

after Thanksgiving 

before putting up the indoor tree and outdoor blinky lights?

I myself handled the transition between the two holidays 

by stacking up my leftover, uncarved pumpkins,

and covering them with a string a white Christmas lights.

It feels kinda Thanksgiving-y with all the pumpkins, no?

And I'll be able to leave those lights up through January 1st.

It's the Lazy Martha way of dealing with decorating for the holidays.

Shorty Post

(I'm getting ready for a craft fair tomorrow, 

so I only have time for a short post.)

I used my birthday money for a new camera to replace my flaking-out one.

I was not aware that the new Canon PowerShot A800 came with an "arty" setting.

Evidently, I pushed that button.

It's A Dead Man's Party!

What fun thing did I do in SoCal today?

I hit the Day of the Dead celebration at Rose Hills Memorial Park!

That's me in front in the MisNopales Elvis t-shirt ;

before going I had a lefty white lady moment of

I don't want to be culturally insensitive and/or look like I'm trying too hard!

So I ditched my sugar skull skirt and went with MisNopales,

which ended up being just right.

Just as promised, there were altars there...

...including this one in a cool car!

There was a sugar skull as big as I am!

Okay, it wasn't actually made of sugar.

But wouldn't it have been awesome if it was?

The non-profit Donate Life/ Done Vida had a big presence at the celebration.

 I thought this was cool not only because the message about organ donation

dovetailed nicely with the whole theme of Day of the Dead,

but also because my own Pa is alive and kicking today because he is an heart donor recipient.

This is the Jardin (Garden) of Donors, which had photos and quotes from donors, bless 'em.

I also saw Catrinas...

... which both the Sweet Man and I copped a pose nearby.

There were food trucks; 

when riding the shuttle to the location,

a woman and I shared a nice moment when she caught sight of them and gasped,

"Oh, look!  Food trucks!"  And I replied with "Yay!  Food trucks!"  

Then we both laughed with glee,

because who doesn't love greasy/sweet/spicy food from a food truck?

Sadly, these are not my tacos.  We tried to get sweet potato fries with toppings,

and they ran out of the toppings right as we finally got to the front of the line!  Boo!

But, hurrah!

 Craft booths!

I love me some good craft booths.

I bought a new green skully flower for my hair.

Now, what's that in my hand?

Why, the best thing of all!

Lalo Alcaraz, who does the comic strip La Cucaracha,

was selling signed prints!

Woo!  I was so freakin' excited!

I love Charlie Brown,

I love Day of the Dead,

so it's like he made these 

just 

for

MEEEEEE!!!

There was also dancing and singing performances,

but the Sweet Man and I headed out to do some personal Day of the Dead business:

visit my grandparents.

They're both buried there, but since it's over an hour from my house to Rose Hills,

the last time I was there was when Grandpa was buried in 1993.

A big part of Day of the Dead

is cleaning and decorating the gravestones of friends and family,

and I came prepared.

Props to the Sweet Man for helping me find the gravestones;

although I had the area and number, it was still a scavenger hunt.

He had the good idea of using his smartphone to type in nearby names on gravestones,

so we were able to triangulate how close we were.

The gravestones weren't in too bad of shape,

but I clipped the grass around them, wiped them off with a soapy cloth...

... and put some flowers on them from my garden.

Then the Sweet Man and I enjoyed some flan we'd bought from a food truck (yay!)

 as a little picnic.

Picnics in the cemetery are actually part of the Day of the Dead celebration,

and this particular dessert had a nice tie-in to my grandma:

she died when I was just eight, so I don't have a lot of memories of her.

But!

One memory that I do have is of her giving me a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk

when she was baking with it.

And what's the very first ingredient of the flan we enjoyed on this fine, sunny day?

Sweetened condensed milk!

It was like a little hello from Grandma.