I know these things can vary regionally, but my Target has a good sale this week on the kinds of chocolate gifts I’d buy for teachers, mail carriers, bus drivers, etc., if I hadn’t decided to go the gift card route instead. Like, they have the hard plastic Christmas-tree-shaped and rectangular boxes of Ferrero Rocher, $4 down from $5.99, or maybe it was down from $6.99, in any case it was down to $4. And so were the pretty metallic cardboard triangular boxes of Lindt truffles. I stood there agitating for a lonnnnng time: So pretty! And so yummy! And such a good sale! But I’d already decided to do gift cards! Should I do candy AND gift card? No, too expensive. And they’d probably prefer the gift card. But the chocolate is exactly what I would have chosen if I didn’t want to do a gift card. And a $5 or even $10 gift card really doesn’t look like as much as a $6-7 box of chocolate. And maybe I should rethink the whole thing? Agitate agitate agitate.

Then Edward wanted to buy ME one of the boxes of Ferrero Rocher for Christmas, and I suggested he should go shopping closer to Christmas with Daddy instead, and he declined that idea, and I suggested a little more forcefully, and he DECLINED! THAT! IDEA!!!1! So…win for me, especially since both Paul and Edward are likely to forget all about it and purchase me ANOTHER gift from him.

********

It is time! to! shop! This year, as every year, I am going to try not to over-buy. I love gift-shopping so! much! and what happens is I keep seeing little things for everyone, and really it works better to have a few big things than a thousand tiny ones, and so then I cram the tiny ones into the stockings, and then THOSE are overfilled, and gah. So this year! I will try to be better! PLANNING is required. (But spontaneous buying is so fun!)

********

I just ordered holiday stamps. This is one of my favorite things, and even better now that I do Postcrossing. I go online so I can take a long time to make up my mind and so I don’t have to make the clerk impatient and exasperated. Some of the clerks even act as if it DOESN’T MATTER what the stamps look like! I KNOW!!

For my own holiday cards I ordered Holiday Evergreens. For Postcrossing I ordered one book each of all the holiday ones: a book of angels, a book of Hanukkah, a book of Kwanzaa, a book of assorted (reindeer/snowman/nutcracker/gingerbread), a book of Madonna and child, a book of holiday evergreens, and a book of the ones that say CELEBRATE. Most international postcards need two stamps (plus a 10c stamp), so I like putting a combination: like, if I use a Christmas postcard, I put on a Kwanzaa and a Hanukkah stamp. If the card is more winter-holiday-neutral, I pick whichever two look nicest with it.

********

I think I am going to buy a new fake tree. We have one I bought on sale at Target for $16.99 ten years ago, and it bothers me every year: it’s 6 feet tall (if the single branch at the top sticking up a foot above the rest counts) and it’s “slimline” so it hardly holds any ornaments, and although it DOES look pretty when heavily decorated so you can’t see the metal parts sticking out, I want BIGGER and more room for ornaments. Every year I wait for trees to go on clearance, but by the time they DO, I’m not in the mood to buy one. AND, I’m picky.

AND, remember when I finally DID buy one on clearance, and I put it away for the next year, and when we set it up the next year it gave me vibrating electrical shocks? and Target handled the situation super-suckily so that I felt not only cheated but also put-upon and “I WILL NOT BE IGNORED”-ish? So this year I think maybe I’ll buy one just on SALE, so I can set it up right away and see if Target is trying to kill me (AGAIN). Sure, sure, I shouldn’t buy it from Target, I should vote my dollars and etc., but the thing is I like their trees best so there it is. And then I can give the old one away on Freecycle BEFORE Christmas, so someone else can use it.

The Holiday Card Scoring Guide in 11×11 poster form (there is also an 11×14 version):

(as you can see from the watermark, this screenshot is from Zazzle.com)
(the watermark is not on the poster itself)

Yesterday I was all bleh and muh and “How come there’s never anything GOOD to do?” and so I went and made a Swistle Holiday Card featuring the Holiday Card Scoring System. It looks like this:

(as you can see from the watermark, this screenshot is from Zazzle.com)
(the watermark is not on the card itself)

On the inside it says:

(and again, as you can see from the watermark, this screenshot is from Zazzle.com)
(and again, the giant Z watermark is not on the card itself)

I consulted with my buddy The Gori Wife to find out how to say the Muslim holiday, too (and in fact, how to say “the Muslim holiday,” because I wasn’t sure if that was right or if it should be “the Islamic holiday,” and I can’t believe I’m confessing this instead of pretending I knew the right way all along), but she reminded me that the Muslim calendar is lunar (which of course I totally knew) (no I did not) and so although I could say “Happy Eid!” if I wanted to, it would soon be weird to be saying it in winter, and in fact even this year it would be a little weird since in mid-December it would be, like, a month too late for Eid cards. So! That is the explanation for why we have Festivus but not Eid, and why does the spell-checker reject BOTH holidays? COEXIST, spell-checker.

ANYWAY, then I wanted to buy some of my cards, not only to send them but also to see how they look in person, but I thought I’d wait until there was a sale—and this morning I got an email about a today-only today-and-tomorrow-only sale. It’s 50% off all cards (which means the Hey Pinehole! postcards are included so I got some of those too), plus free shipping with no minimum, and the code is ZAZZLECARD50. And I’m telling you because hey, maybe you want to pay what is still a very high per-card price to send Swistle cards. OR, more likely, maybe you want to design your OWN cards and save 50% and get free shipping (as long as you get them done by the end of today).

If you buy anything Swistley, I get a 10% commission, which they won’t let me refuse: I dialed the adjustable commission percentage as low as it would go. I’m putting that money into the care package and/or “buying one of each thing I design to make sure it looks okay in person” fund.

And if you are asking, “So, was it fun to design a self-promoting holiday card and then pay too much for them?”: yes. Yes, it was. So I also made some Christmas ornaments, though I have not yet ordered any because they’re not on sale. (FUN.) (TRY IT.) (And if you do, link from the comments section so I can go see what you made!)

Sometimes I like to blow my children’s minds by suddenly stopping to get them an unexpected treat. I was out with Rob and Henry (of the five, they are the highest maintenance right now, so I take them out pretty much every Sunday to give Paul a break). I saw a Dunkin’ Donuts and before they knew what was happening we were turning in.

I wanted a treat too, but I wasn’t in the mood for a doughnut. Which made it perfect: one of the combo options is a medium coffee and two doughnuts. Each child got to pick a doughnut, and I got a coffee in a fun flavor (gingerbread) plus got cream and sugar in it.

Side note: did you know that a medium regular coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts is 3 creams and 3 sugars? I found this HUGELY USEFUL, because even though I know we are now a nation of Perfectly Acceptable Coffee Pickiness, I still have trouble when I don’t know what it is I’m asking for. The regular is both creamier and sweeter than I like, and I was in a particularly confident mood, so I said to the clerk, “I want cream and sugar, but, like, half to three quarters of the usual amount?” And she said, “Er, well, it’s 3 creams and 3 sugars,” and I said “PERFECT: 2 creams and 2 sugars, then,” because those of us with math medals have instantly noticed that 2/3rds is right between 1/2 and 3/4ths. (Hey: why don’t we put letters after 1/2?)

Where was I? Oh yes! The gingerbread coffee was good. I liked it. And I noticed the sign said that the gingerbread flavoring was pre-sweetened, which made me wonder if some flavorings were just simple syrups with spices in them.

Before I give the recipe I tinkered together, I need to warn you that this is not meant to be a COPY of the Dunkin’ Donuts flavor: I’d only had one single cup of it, so I wasn’t familiar enough with it to try to duplicate it. What I DID do was make a version that would please me if I ordered a gingerbread coffee at a coffee shop.

Swistle’s Version of Gingerbread Coffee Flavoring

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 T. molasses
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 t. ginger
1/8 t. cloves

First, the simple syrup, which is just as simple as it sounds: 1 part sugar to 1 part water. Put 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan, bring it to a boil, and then turn off the heat. (In metric, 1/2 cup is about 120 ml. But it doesn’t matter the precise ml as long as it’s close to 120 and you’re using one measuring cup of sugar and one of the same measuring cup of water.)

Add 2 tablespoons (30 ml) molasses. If you don’t want to have to scoop the sticky molasses out of the measuring spoon with your finger, use the measuring spoon to stir the hot simple syrup and the molasses will dissolve off.

Add the spices: 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) of ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of ground ginger, 1/8 teaspoon (er, just over half a ml?) of ground cloves. Stir until they’re evenly mixed in.

In a mug of coffee (my mug holds 1.25 cups, or about 300 ml), I used 1/2 tablespoon (7.5 ml) of syrup. Then I added a slosh of 2% milk, which is how I usually drink my coffee. It was still a little too sweet for me, but approximated the sweetness I remembered from the Dunkin’ Donuts kind. If it’s too sweet for you, too, you can half-again the spices in the same amount of syrup and then use a teaspoon (5 ml) or even half a teaspoon of it in the coffee.

The extra can be stored in a little container in the fridge, though you will need to stir like the charles dickens to make sure the spices aren’t just hanging around on the bottom. And it’ll be thicker, so again: to make measuring less messy, you can use the measuring spoon to stir the mixture, then use it again to stir the syrup into the coffee.

I know I keep linking to these, but Marie Green’s latest in the “she would like another baby but her husband would not” series is killing me, and I think I’ve checked the comments section two dozen times: An Appointment to Erase Hope.

To counteract the sad, I love Anne’s post about Holiday Percentages and How to Make It Merry. Not only did I like her points about how to improve the holidays by choosing the parts you LIKE and doing THOSE, but she’s doing a giveaway of her holiday cookies and I am VERY FOND of holiday cookies. You can enter as many times as you want, as long as each entry includes something you love about the holidays.

There are so many embarrassing Veterans Day discounts today. Have you seen any? I saw “10% off earrings for all our servicepeople!” and “Veterans: show ID and get $5 off oil change!” *WINCE* It would be far better to have NO discount. “Thanks for risking your life in other countries far away from your families! Here, have a free value-size fries (when you pay full price for the burger and drink) (must show military ID)!”

I finished all 1,000 pages of Under the Dome, and I am ready to report:

1. It felt like a recipe: one part apocalyptic scenario, one part bad cops, one part crazy religion, one part descending into madness, one part power corrupts, one part supernatural, one part social/environmental lecture. I’ve read a lot of Stephen King books, so it’s not really HIS fault I kept recognizing his recurring themes.

2. It didn’t seem real. It felt like he was saying, “Okay, now I guess we should have a supermarket riot,” “Okay, now there should be a nasty murder,” “Okay, now there should be the discovery of something gross,” and bringing people out of their houses to participate. I felt like most of the characters were in their houses in a state of suspended animation, waiting for him to need them for a scene. Why weren’t more of them hanging around at the edge of the dome? Why didn’t we hear more about the agitation of the family members stuck outside? Why didn’t people make arrangements for their dog before killing themselves? Why DIDN’T people buy up everything at the supermarket, considering that’s what they do if even HEAVY RAIN is in the forecast? And you know, if you (the author) keep having to have people shake their heads in astonishment at how FAST everything happened, then maybe that is a clue that it IS IN FACT happening too fast.

3. He needs help naming his characters. Their names often don’t fit their ages, and it happens often enough to be confusing. In fiction, names can be a valuable way to help the reader keep track of who’s who. And it’s nice to give the characters names that are different enough from each other that the reader doesn’t get the characters confused. Oh, sure, I know that in real life there can be a girl in her twenties named Barbara and co-workers named Bill Borfen and Bob Biffan, but in FICTION we can CHOOSE the names, so LET’S DO A CAREFUL JOB SHALL WE?

4. The only part of the ending that was a surprise to me was in the afterword where he thanks his editor. His EDITOR. I mean, I knew he MUST have one but there are so many jokes about him NOT having one, I guess I just thought….and besides, if I were extremely successful I would not want much editing, either. And gosh, would you want the job of telling an internationally-bestselling author that if his character said “clustermug” ONE MORE TIME you were QUITTING?

5. I read it, all the way through, and enjoyed reading it. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was a good book if you like Stephen King books, which I often do.

I got tired of my hair being long. It was fun for awhile, and fun when it grew long enough for braids, and fun when it grew long enough to be rolled into a nice smooth bun. But the way I REALLY like to wear my hair is in a sproingy (i.e., ends fountaining instead of tucked) French twist, and that stopped working sometime last spring. That’s when I started the process of Intending to Make a Hair Appointment, and please note that today is a day in November—six to eight months past spring.

The other day I caught a glimpse of myself in a store mirror, and I SIGHED about my hair: I don’t have bangs, so a bun can look kind of severe, especially with my glasses and not wearing much make-up. I pulled out the bun so it was a ponytail instead, but it looked long and draggy and I didn’t feel cute.

Yesterday I tried wearing it down but it wasn’t a flattering look, so then I tried to put it in a bun but it was too dry for that to work right, so then I tried a ponytail and it looked wavy in some places and straight in others and the general effect was “got out of bed and put hair right into ponytail” combined with “way overdue for a haircut.”

And this kind of thing has been going on for MONTHS. But…to make an appointment, I’d have to use the phone, and I’d have to find a time that worked for the stylist and for me, and it would have to be a time when I didn’t have children with me and GAH. So this morning I cut it myself.

Practical, sensible, and economical? Or disturbing manifestation of increasing mental illness? I think as a culture we decide such things by the RESULT: if Britney Spears had looked gorgeous with a shaved head we would have been wowed by her nerve and style.

(Doesn’t my face look kind of naked without my glasses?
You can tell I can’t see you.)

The ends are not as crisp as when my stylist does it (I have good haircutting scissors I use for the kids’ haircuts, but they’re not PROFESSIONAL-good scissors, just regular good) (er, plus I don’t know what I’m doing like a trained haircutter does), and it’s a plain blunt cut with no shaping or layering so it’ll be a little triangular when it dries. It still could use an actual appointment with an actual person who knows how to cut hair.

But as a haircut that was meant to remove 5-6 inches of extra length until I get around to making such an appointment, I am very pleased with it. I only had to go around the perimeter once for the main removal part: no “Oops, this side is longer. Oops, now the other side is longer. Oops, CRAP.” And now it’s short enough to avoid ouchie tangles, short enough to use one box of hair color instead of two, and short enough for a flippy French twist. HAPPY.

I THINK I have solved The Puzzle of the Capitulating Sister-in-Law. You remember that she was all “Hey, my plan for splitting the estate is that I will take the house, the car, the money (to fix the house), and the stocks (for my retirement), and YOUR share will be that you get to pay half for all future house repairs, decade after decade, and if you’re lucky I’ll die before you and you’ll get back some of the money you sank into the money pit!” And we were all, “Uh, no, we’re not taking out a mortgage to pay for what would be your house,” and she was all “SIGH FINE I will also pay the property taxes GEEZ, NOW are you happy?!” And then we were like, okay, one more email before we consult a lawyer, and, “Hey, how about we split everything 50-50 but the house is in your half and we don’t pay any repairs?” and she said “Okay, sure!” And we were all “….???”

The theories for this sudden capitulation included:

1. She was operating on the “Can’t hurt to ask for what I want!” principle, and backed down when Paul declined.

2. She complained to a friend about the situation and the friend said, “Are you NUTS???”

3. She had a sudden flash of awareness and insight.

4. She had a stroke.

5. The spirit of my late mother-in-law left her body.

6. She went back on her meds.

7. She found gold coins in the back yard or made some other discovery about the $25,000 house being actually worth much, much more—or had an offer on the house for much, much more.

8. She has a wily plan.

9. She has failed to understand our counteroffer and thinks we agreed to her plan.

10. It’s a trap.

11. She reads my blog.

But now we have more information, and I THINK I know what happened. This whole issue started, if you recall, or rather if I told you so you CAN recall, because the lawyer handling the estate wrote to Paul and Paul’s sister, saying “Time to let me know what you’re doing about the house.” And Paul kept waiting several days between emails to his sister. And when, after his sister unexpectedly capitulated, Paul contacted the lawyer to say, “Okay, here’s how we’re dividing things up,” the lawyer sent back a letter saying that we should be aware that in this situation where there is no will, the court will insist that the estate is divided 50-50 TO THE PENNY, and that the court will need to grant separate permissions for each item that will be kept rather than sold, because cash is so much easier to divide.

So first of all, here is my theory: that AFTER Paul’s sister emailed us with her plan, but BEFORE Paul emailed back to say “FORGET IT SISTER,” Paul’s sister emailed the lawyer to tell him the plan she assumed we were accepting. And the lawyer told her about the 50-50 thing. And so then when Paul said forget it, she had already been forced to abandon her plan.

And second of all, this is AWESOME. The court is MAKING SURE.

And third of all, couldn’t the lawyer have mentioned this EARLIER, BEFORE I ground my molars into flour?