This is a very pared-down version of the post I used to do. I used to have lots of fun looking for a lot of calendar options for lots of different people/rooms (the kids’ rooms, the kitchen, next to my computer; also gifts for various people). Then that stopped being fun for unknowable reasons, and the kids lost interest and I started needing only one calendar just for my kitchen (perhaps these were the unknowable reasons), so I decided to stop doing the calendar post entirely—i.e., no calendar post at all, because who wants to just look at only the calendars I’M considering for MY KITCHEN? Then I started doing a post of just the calendars I’m considering for my kitchen. And now there’s been another step down, and this post is basically “Which of the calendars I’ve bought in previous years for my kitchen will I buy again this year for my kitchen?” Onward:

(image from Amazon.com)

Feline: Terry Runyan cat calendar. I’ve had this one either once or twice before. I liked it and might very well buy it again.

(image from Amazon.com)

Esté MacLeod calendar. I’ve had this one either once or twice before. I liked it and might very well buy it again.

(image from Amazon.com)

Kate Heiss wall calendar. I had this one in 2025. I liked it and might very well buy it again—except that I feel a resistance to having the same calendar two years in a row. But I still want to put it into my cart and think about it.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Illustrated Animal Kingdom calendar. The main thing that stops me from buying this very satisfying calendar a second time is that I can’t tell if this is maybe the exact same set of pictures I had last time. It’s certainly the exact same cover. (I just compared notes, and I can’t say for sure because the one I had in 2024 only shows ten of the pages on the back—but eight of the ten from 2024 are duplicated on the 2026 calendar.) Also: my grocery store has this calendar for $9.99, so I am not sure where Amaz0n gets off selling it for $19.73. Being able to buy it from my grocery store instead of from Amaz0n is a point in its favor.

(image from Amazon.com)

Joyful Landscapes calendar. I keep adding this to my cart each year, then feeling funny about it and removing it. Theoretically it’s what I like, but. I guess it feels as if it is trying too hard to be what people like me would like.

(image from Amazon.com)

Colorful Landscapes calendar. Same deal as with Joyful. I keep thinking “Oh, this is extremely my thing!,” and then having second thoughts. I guess I must feel seen but in a bad way.

(image from Amazon.com)

William Morris calendar. Basically wallpapers. I have had several such calendars and they have all been surprisingly satisfying and peaceful.

(image from Amazon.com)

Flora & Fauna calendar. I mean, basically that is what I want. Flora. And/or fauna.

(image from Amazon.com)

GuassLee cat calendar. I have not had this calendar before. But I do have this cat.

(If you want to be calendar twins with me this coming year: I published this post, and then proof-read it and tested all the links, and while doing so decided on the Esté MacLeod.)

I am getting Christmassing done LEFT AND RIGHT. I have the cards out on the dining room table, and I am chipping away at them. (I LIKE doing cards, but only if I do them in batches.) Yesterday I did my big Trader Joe’s trip, where I buy a bunch of their holiday items for stockings and also to have on hand to add to other gifts: I like to add one of their one-pound chocolate bars to the gift card for the mail carrier; last year I added one of their cute small tins of those long tubey cookies to a Secret Santa gift that seemed sparse; when a kid had a friend stay with us for a couple of days during Christmas break, I had a little giftie to send home with them; when a co-worker unexpectedly gave me a little gift, I had a selection of little gifts on hand for giving them one back; when I had an impulsive coffee date with a friend, I had some treats to put out on the coffee table.

What I’m trying to tell you is that I vastly overdo it: those exciting successes of earlier years mean I am UNLEASHED in the moment. I buy EVERYTHING. Then I end up with quite a bit of extra. But also: there are seven of us here over Christmas break, so we can eat anything I don’t end up giving away. Also this year they had GIANT gold-wrapped chocolate coins, $2.49 each. GIANT GOLD-WRAPPED COINS.

This year I had an especially fun quest, because Paul’s sister mentioned the following things: (1) that she LOVES Trader Joe’s and the nearest one to where she lives now is four hours away; (2) that she’s always questing for interesting flavors of crackers and chips; (3) that because she is a vegetarian and also someone who has trouble keeping weight on (I know we might usually hate this, but it hugely helps that she is so medical about it—like it is a reason for concern, not a reason to tee-hee and preen), she eats a lot of nuts and seeds for the calories/nutrition. Well. I don’t know if you have a Trader Joe’s near you (THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED POST), but they have a whole aisle of interesting nuts and seeds. I bought her every weird flavor I could find. Peppermint yogurt almonds! Chili garlic cashews! Caramel coffee almonds! Pumpkin-spiced pumpkin seeds! Plus pumpkin-cranberry crackers and a couple other kinds of crackers that came in small packages. These are not all going to fit in the large flat-rate box.

Plus I got an amaryllis. And a bottle of Cedar Balsam room spray. And peppermint hand soap. It was a festive trip, and I came home a little buzzed.

Hey, so, every year I get Target gift cards for various people: it’s pretty much down to the mail carrier and the UPS guy now, but this used to include, for example, the kids’ karate instructor, or a kid’s piano teacher, or my physical therapist. Now that I am mad at Target (that understates it, but this is supposed to be a festive post), I don’t know what gift cards to get. What I liked about the Target card was that someone could get groceries and other necessities, or they could get fun stuff and gifts, depending on their financial situation. (I’m totally willing to give cash, but lots of professions are not allowed to accept cash?? for some reason?? even though they are allowed to accept gift cards??? I don’t get it but I am trying to follow the rules.)

Amaz0n doesn’t seem better but maybe it is. Wa1mart doesn’t seem better but maybe it is. I’ve seen those Visa gift cards, but I don’t understand how they work, and some of them seem to expire and/or have fees. Maybe a card for one of the local coffee/doughnut shops, but that feels harder to spend, and a lot of people who DO go to coffee shops are loyal to a particular place. Maybe the local grocery store, but that doesn’t feel festive; but it’s also low-risk that they can’t/won’t use it. I do know people can pass on gift cards to others (and lots of charities accept them as donations, including our local food/clothing pantry), but it would be nice to increase the chances of pleasing the recipient. If you too are mad at Target, and you have a few gift-card recipients on your list, what are you doing about that?

While I have you here, do any of you have experience with the kind of razor where you replace the blade yourself, and not with a designed refill-head but with a plain old cheap razor blade? One of the kids would like to try that out. I suspect he will end up learning why people buy the multi-blade replacement heads, so I don’t want to spend a lot of money, but I think it’s a fun thing to try so I do want to buy him one. Maybe up to $20?

I know cats vary considerably, and one cat’s favorite toy is another cat’s no thank you, but I impulsively bought this cardboard cat gingerbread house with my last Chewy order, and it has been a hit with ALL FOUR CATS (I sprinkled cat nip on the floor of it to help with the introduction):

(image from Chewy.com)

They sit in it! They scratch in it! They play in it! They get huffy about whose turn it is! It makes a delightful Christmas decoration and photo op! I bought it on sale for $11 and when it starts to wear out I will be looking for another sale cardboard house to replace it.

I have done an important holiday task: I have ordered the prints of the family photo we’ll include with the Christmas cards.

Every year at our annual extended-family get-together I have someone take photos of the seven of us—but this year that task fell to my brother, who took literally eight photos and called it good, and there is no photo among those eight in which fewer than two of us are blinking. I should have handed the camera to one of my sisters-in-law, either of whom I think is more likely to grasp the concept that it takes several hundred family photos to get one good one—or, at least, several dozen to get a decent one.

So instead I have done a collage, which would be less stressful if we did not have SEVEN people (and FOUR cats) to fit into a 4×6-inch format. I try to improve the situation by using as many photos as possible that include more than one person(/cat), but it is still difficult, and this year was more difficult than most. I started with a list of what important things had happened this year: Henry graduating high school and starting college was a big one, and so is William’s new job (he is doing substitute-teaching for the local school district, because he majored in computer science and employers are currently under the misapprehension that AI can do that job without negative consequence); no one else had a Big Event, other than me with my knee-replacement surgery, which does not need a photo (though I had one set aside if there was room, which there was not).

The collage format includes two larger horizontal slots and four smaller vertical slots, so in the two larger slots I did a picture of Paul and me from our anniversary, and a photo I had of the five kids together; then in the smaller slots I did one of Henry at his high school graduation (it was a better photo than his dorm-move-in photo), one of Elizabeth at her summer-camp job, one of William on his first day at his new job, and one of Edward with a cat. Rob is the only kid who didn’t have his own separate photo, but he is also grown and living far away, so that feels understandable. The three not-pictured cats will have to similarly understand.

I am trying trying TRYING to follow the advice of myself-from-earlier-years, which is that I should SEIZE any too-early holiday energy. Any time I think, “Oh, it is too early to get started on that,” I am going to try to remember myself in mid-December frantically wishing I had done it BACK THEN when I had TIME. Last year I got a mild case of Covid in December (too positive to go to work, but not too sick to be sitting up and doing things) and it was THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED: I spent day after day working just on Christmas, and I STILL didn’t get done everything I’d wanted to do! Can I possibly improve myself this year?? It ALWAYS seems Too Early until it seems Too Late! ALWAYS!

So I have ordered the photos even though I am not ready to do the holiday cards, and probably won’t be until after Thanksgiving. And I am remembering my previous resolution to order the gifts in my carts as soon as they go on their first good November sale: I know I will THINK “Oh, but they’ll go on better sales on Black Friday!”—but either they WON’T, or they WILL but it will NOT BE WORTH WAITING, or they WILL but they will be out of stock. Just order them NOW. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are almost always disappointing!

And I am buying stocking stuffers LEFT AND RIGHT, as soon as I see them. Yummy little snacks? BUY THEM. Cute little thingies? BUY THEM. Fun little toys? BUY THEM.

The items for my parents, and for Paul’s sister, which need to be shipped: I am going to work on them SOON, VERY SOON. I sent one item ALREADY to Paul’s sister, and I sent her a self-conscious / apologetic text about it, and she was like No for real we are basically preppers so buy-it-when-you-find-it is our whole philosophy, I breathed a sigh of relief. She and I agreed that Amaz0n is a useful evil, and that we will use their wish lists and ship things to each other nice and early without feeling weird.

I have completed the first circuit of the line-a-day journal I started on Election Day of last year: I am now making a SECOND entry on each page. (I chose this particular cover, but there are many, many, many, many, many options.)

(image from Amazon.com)

It is of course very upsetting to re-read the entries for the days following Election Day. It is not much less upsetting to be adding entries such as “The Supreme Court ruled in the Tr*mp’s favor that SNAP benefits can be halted while he appeals a federal judge’s ruling that he must reinstate them” and “The Supreme Court temporarily allows Tr*mp’s rule that passports can only show the holder’s assigned sex at birth” and “The U.S. has blown up a 10th boat, claiming without proof that it was a drug-running boat—not that that would allow us to blow people up.” But it was refreshing to add “Not only Z0hran Mamd@ni but also Abigail Sp@nberger and Miki3 Sh3rrill won their races.”

Hello! I have been assigned my Secret Santa children for this season, and I am extremely excited. Also: I have some questions to put to the group-mind.

ONE! Do you use air-freshener thingies in your car? And if so, what would you say are the superior ones—good scents, really work, last a nice long time, not too overwhelming, maybe a little pricey? And separately, do you know which are the COOL ones—like, if you were a teenager?

TWO! If you were looking for a good “dress-up / pretend play” gift for a 2-year-old girl who wears size 4T-5T, and you didn’t know what she might already have, what might you choose? We also know that she loves pink, and dinosaurs. I purchased a couple of really good Melissa & Doug dress-up outfits when my own kids were little, but that was when I knew exactly what they wanted to dress up as (knight, pirate), so I was willing to plunk down a chunk of money on just one outfit. It’s more difficult when I’m not sure. Should I buy one dinosaur suit? Or an assortment of tutus? Maybe she already has the princess/mermaid set. Maybe she’d prefer more of a doctor/construction/astronaut/firefighter set. WHY DON’T THESE FORMS HAVE MORE DETAILED INFORMATION?? I feel like if I were signing up my kid, I would have to be physically stopped from filling up multiple pages.

It’s extra difficult when I can’t even give you an approximate budget. We’re supposed to spend about $100 total per child (I will tell you privately that I fudge this and go higher), and we pick from a list including practical things (bedding, clothes) as well as fun things; so what I typically do is get a whole bunch of ideas for all the categories, and then start narrowing down, depending on what I feel like I have the Best Ideas for. So maybe I will find a dress-up set for $70 and it is the most perfect thing I have ever seen, so I will prioritize that; or maybe I will feel too uncertain about any of the options, so I will skip it and buy other things instead, or I will get a much smaller $10 dress-up item. My FAVORITE is a nice distribution among the categories, so I guess for a dress-up set I would be imagining $20-30.

You might think, as Paul immediately did, that I should prioritize the fun things. But there are TWO Secret-Santa-type programs: one is TOYS ONLY, and that is served by all the toy-collection bins that show up around town, and that is a fairly hearty program. The other is THIS program, which is supposed to have an emphasis on more practical items—but then they list toys, too, which leaves me a little uncertain. I generally LEAN toward the practical, but I try to make them fun (i.e., FUN/character bedding set, COOL clothes), and then I always include items from the toy list as well.

I have gotten distracted from my list and I still have one more question:

THREE! Do you have any particular Little People sets to recommend—especially considering the child is 2 and likes pretend-play? I was browsing the options, and it seemed like some were FUN but I wasn’t sure about the play-value (tree animals, Christmas wonderland); and some had more play-value but it feels more likely the child would already have that set (school, house). On the other hand, we’re supposed to provide gift-receipts, and we bring everything in a couple weeks before Christmas, so there’s no such thing as a an utter disaster: if I accidentally buy something the child already has, the parents can exchange it. I could also do a character/animal set, making the assumption that those could be integrated into existing sets OR played with even without a set.

1. Today I was restless after work, and

2. I have been trying to run more errands in the afternoons after work, rather than letting them pile up for my day off, and

3. I have been trying to buy the cats’ special Hills Science Diet Oral Care cat food (the vet recommends mixing it into their regular food for routine dental care) locally instead of from Amaz0n, but the local store keeps being out of stock, while promising they will have some soon, and

4. I needed to complete a Pokémon task, so:

This afternoon I went on an outing to the local gardening/pet store, with a stop along the way to complete a Pokémon task. On the topic of Pokémon tasks: I have become very self-indulgent. I have thought, “This is a hobby, and it is a perfectly acceptable hobby, and if I need to pull over into a parking lot for a few minutes to complete some sort of task to acquire some sort of prize, then TELL ME: WHAT HARM IN THAT?” Anyway, I went to the gardening/pet store, which has a task-completing Pokémon thingie in its parking lot, and don’t worry if that part makes no sense to you.

They DID have the cat food I was looking for, but only in the 3.5-pound bags, which is a bridge too far for me, expense-wise. The 3.5-pound bag is $25; the 7-pound bag is $35. My frugal heart cannot tolerate that math. So I went home and ordered the 7-pound bag for $38 from Chewy.com, which scores well on Goods Unite Us. This is how we live now.

Where was I? Oh, yes: so, I was disappointed in my quest—but, on the way in, I’d noticed the gardening/pet store was having a 25%-off sale on fall bulbs. I like to live dangerously, in re fall bulbs. That is, I like to plant them VERY LATE. We have ABUNDANT CHIPMUNKS, who love nothing more than FLOWER BULB SALAD, and so ideally I like to plant the bulbs MOMENTS BEFORE the ground freezes solid. This results in a pleasing partnership with my frugal heart, which likes a sale. The fall bulbs go on 25% off when we are beginning to play chicken; when the bulbs go on 50%-off, it is CHICKEN GAME ROYALE.

But we are more financially comfortable than we used to be, and 25% off is enough to at least cause me to browse, especially when I have been disappointed in the cat-cookies quest. (The vet calls the big-chunk oral-care cat kibbies “cookies,” and now so do we.) I bought a bag of 7 white daffodils—an extra-fragrant variety with a thin red rim around the trumpet; these were abundant at our old house and I miss them. I bought another bag of 16 mixed pink-variety daffodils. Another bag of 7 fluffy yellow daffodils. And a bag of 4 allium giganteum, which you should look up if you’ve never seen them; our library handyman planted a bunch of them around our library sign and they are spectacular. Big purple lollipop puffballs. Chipmunks/squirrels allegedly find daffodils bitter; I don’t know how they feel about allium.

The clerk commented, “And if you don’t mind being out in the rain, this is a PERFECT day to plant them.” I do mind being out in the rain (especially I mind my glasses getting speckled), but I don’t mind it as much as I mind LOSING TO CHIPMUNKS. I went out with my little trowel, and I planted all 34 bulbs in the yard, in the rain. The rain will help water them in, and will also help cover my tracks (chipmunks are apparently alert to Disturbed Soil).

If you tend to feel crummy in the winter, may I recommend planting bulbs. All winter I can think about them, and look forward to them coming up. They are the epitome of hopefulness. I have already started hoping.

Since reading An Episode of Sparrows, I have read two more books by Rumer Godden. The first was Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy. It was surprisingly gritty/modern in parts (a significant portion of plot takes place in a brothel, and in some of the before-and-after circumstances surrounding members of that brothel), and then surprisingly meandering/religious in others. Like, I didn’t measure, but if I had to ESTIMATE what percentage was gritty and/or focused plot and what percentage was nearly-unrelated meanderings about day-to-day convent life, including who was assigned to which daily chores and which saint-day it was, I’d say 30/70. I read the whole thing, but was sometimes unsure why I was still reading. And then one of the major plotlines, which seemed to be building to a book-long Ultimate Plot Confrontation, went utterly unresolved! Just, “Welp, I guess we’ll never know! Okay bye!” Definitely I liked it less than An Episode of Sparrows, and I also felt it did not hold together well. It was like the author got super interested in nuns/convents and just wanted to write about that, but felt she had to incorporate it into a fiction plot, and then couldn’t figure out how to resolve the fiction part.

Then I read The Kitchen Madonna. I would never, ever, ever have chosen this book off the shelf without having been motivated to read more Rumer Godden. Here is the cover:

I mean, absolutely not! But I enjoyed it enormously, and it was similar in some ways to An Episode of Sparrows: quirky interesting children pull off a relatively minor feat that will nevertheless have you breathlessly rooting for them to succeed. And there are illustrations! And by the time I finished the book, I felt so fond of the cover I can’t even express it to you; you will just have to try it for yourself and see if you feel the same way. I do wish Mary weren’t a blonde. And are her eyes blue? Let’s say they are not. This is a book I might want to own, and might want to re-read annually, perhaps near Christmastime, even though it is not Christmassy. The vibe is Christmassy.

In other vintage-media news, William has been working his way through old Halloween/scary movies, and we have joined him sometimes. (Not for The Exorcist, which William described palely as “very medical.”) Last night we watched The Invisible Man (1933), which reminded me of the Disney Sunday Night Movies I enjoyed so much in my childhood (Escape to Witch Mountain! The Cat From Outer Space! The Absent-Minded Professor!). I would have found some parts much too scary back then (lots of invisible throttling, and a Scary Invisible Voice), but I could imagine a version of it where I would have just enjoyed the thrilling special effects. Tonight we watched Werewolf of London (1935) which I found even more enjoyable. There were many genuinely witty moments. Both movies end (spoiler alert!) with the monster (a MAN who has REACHED FOR WHAT MAN SHOULD NOT REACH FOR!!) dying dramatically and conveniently, with Final Words Expressing Regret and Humanity, as well as devotion for The Blonde Love Interest. If I were compiling a list of movies to watch every Halloween, like I do at Christmas, I would add Werewolf of London for sure.

I have thoroughly cleaned a toilet, and I am feeling triumphant about it.

Even after months of physical therapy for my knee replacement, and being assured by multiple professionals that I MAY kneel on that new knee, I have not been able to COMFORTABLY kneel on that knee. It feels Wrong. In part this is because that knee is still numb, more than it is supposed to be—and I can tell it is more numb than it is supposed to be, because the surgeon’s PA keeps trying to act surprised/incredulous, and also as if it’s fine (“Technically you don’t NEED to kneel ever again,” she says, age 32 and I’ll bet still doing plenty of kneeling herself without seeing it as unnecessary), and/or as if I am confused or imagining it (“Well, it WILL be permanently numb over HERE, but you’ll only notice that when shaving!”—indicating an area adjacent to the numb area, which is indeed also numb), alternately. Kneeling on it feels the way it does if you put weight on something swollen/numb/sore—which is to say, my body gives me immediate, strong feedback that NO YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS: it is a combination of Intense Discomfort and also Panic. And yet: all the professionals agree that I am not doing any actual damage if I kneel on it, and that I can ignore those signals. DON’T listen to your body!—as all the professionals constantly tell us.

Well. I don’t know about you, but actually I used to kneel quite often, and consider(ed) it pretty important. Perhaps that is WHY I ended up having to have a knee replaced relatively young, for what the surgeon described as “wear-and-tear” damage. I definitely used to kneel to clean toilets, and to clean the shower floor, and to clean the bathroom floors. And now I feel stuck, because I married a man who has never cleaned any of those things and never will, and when I hired housecleaners they stole from us.

I can kneel on the OTHER knee, though perhaps that is not wise if I want to keep it. And also: it turns out that kneeling on one knee is about 1/10th as useful as kneeling on both. (Try it! It is…surprising.) For one thing, it is harder to move around: if I am down on one knee, and I need to change position, I have to sort of HITCH and SCOOT. Also: I get uncomfortable much more quickly. Also: it’s all just so frustrating. I have wept over it. Am I glad I had the knee surgery?, lots of people want to know. Yes. But.

I bought a gardening kneeler, but that was much too firm and didn’t help. I can kneel on, for example, a mattress (the physical therapist had me do my practice-kneeling on a mattress), so I have wondered if maybe it would be best to put a small plump squooshy soft pillow into a plastic bag (germ/chemical protection for the absorbent pillow, since I am dealing with bathroom floors and cleaning supplies), and kneel on THAT. But tonight what I did was I knelt on a combination of (1) the original knee and (2) the surgically-replaced knee, placed carefully/judiciously on the pile of towels I was about to launder anyway, which I had cast onto the floor. That worked pretty well. I still had to scoot around a bit, because I found I still didn’t want to kneel much on the replaced knee, even if on towels. But! I was down on the floor, and I was able to thoroughly clean a toilet that badly needed it, and that felt very satisfying and good. (The toilet has not gone nine months uncleaned. When Henry was still here, Henry cleaned it. But he left in late August. Since then I have frequently scrubbed the toilet bowl, and have sprayed/wiped the toilet ring/seat, and have sprayed/wiped the floor in front of the toilet (blood rushing to my head as I leaned down) because of who I married—but today is the first time since January I’ve cleaned THE WHOLE ENTIRE THING and THE ENTIRE FLOOR AROUND IT. I feel HIGH. …and perhaps in need of more sources of joy and satisfaction in my life.)

I was so invigorated by this success that I went on to clean multiple things I could have cleaned at any time without kneeling: the half-bath sink, the kitchen sink, the toothbrush cup, etc. And I have cycled two loads of laundry, and ordered a few Christmas gifts. One triumph leads to more triumphs, and I don’t know why I cannot fully incorporate this knowledge.

I cannot seem to figure out a way to be thin enough to be physically comfortable, without living a life of constant deprivation and/or exercise.