Holiday Gift Suggestions

 
Use cash. Don’t spend what you don’t got. If you use a credit card, make a spending budget before you start and pay the balance of your card in full every month. If you can’t do that right now, don’t shop with your card for gifts, consider some of the options below until you can pay your credit card in full each month.

• Re-gift! Take a look around, you may have some treasures at home, in the garage that would be very much loved by someone you know. You may also have some things that, well, you just don’t love that much, maybe never did, but there is someone who might cherish it. Consider yourself to be an agent of Divine Re-circulation during the holiday season.  It takes as much thoughtfulness as mindful shopping.  I love previously cherished items!
• Hand-make a gift or cook something. So what if you’re not that good at it. I received so much appreciation for (and had so much fun making) what I thought were going to be holiday treats but didn’t turn out that well. The point was the effort and expression of love. And that worked really well.  And a hand made scarf?  I just love those.  If you are a gardener, and you have fruit trees, or other produce that can be preserved – that is a great way to hand-make a beautiful gift.
• Make a coupon for a service that you can perform yourself, like shopping, driving, yard work, car wash, dish wash, floor mop. And as with all gift giving, you might want to practice being ok with however the gift is received. If it is received and placed on a shelf and never used, that is just fine, the joy, I think, is in the giving.  Stay clear of services offered as coupons that are too personal or intimate.  Offer coupons that you know the receiver will want to say a hearty YES to.
• Shop at a thrift store. Treasures, treasures, treasures can be found in gently previously owned items.

Although, as I mentioned in an earlier post “Why Shopping for Made in the USA is Not That Difficult” I am currently using foreign made equipment to post this blog, and probably wearing a few items of clothing right now that I appreciate being able to buy affordably because of big store prices, I am trying to balance my spending by shifting my focus to local spending and services. Consider these options for holiday gifting:

• Gift certificates or services at locally-owned businesses. One of my favorite gifts I received the last two years is a gift certificate for a locally owned small art store. And the luxurious feeling of being able to go in to the store and shop for items I would not normally think about. Fancy pencils, and oh, my obsession with fountain pens. In the store, it was a challenge to stay with US Made products. Once I received a coupon for a paint-your-pottery type store. It took me a while to use it because doing so wasn’t on my radar. But when I did, what a great time I had.
• Gift a membership to a local gym or a season pass to a movie theatre (especially if you have a small non-chain, art Movie Theater in your town.)
• Gift a meal at a locally-owned restaurant, or a coupon to cover a portion of a meal at a locally-owned restaurant. Small, non-chain restaurants often have gift certificates, you just have to ask about them. Similarly, gift a class! There are all kinds of classes happening in your neighborhood. Check with the local faith communities for example to find a bunch of classes you can purchase for someone else.

What is that photograph at the top of the post you might ask?  That’s my Christmas gift to you, a photo that I would much rather never saw the light of day, but there it is, me some 30 years ago with the hair.  Oh the hair, the hair, the hair.
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Blogging Made Easy: I couldn’t have done it without Edward.

     Recently I started a blog for seniors entitled Antonia’s Senior Moments. I couldn’t have done it without Edward. In addition to his outstanding blog/internet skills, he is a great listener and a perfect coach and ‘nudger’ just when I needed one. When I was timid about moving forward on one issue or another, he’d take my hand and was willing to jump in the deep end of the pool with me every time.

     I thought the mechanics of creating and maintaining my blog were something I had to struggle wIith if I wanted to communicate via the internet. Edward has taught me what I need in order to have a good time working with the various components of Antonia’s Senior Moments. It’s a fun project, and I don’t need to white-knuckle the technical parts of my creative process. His patience, humor and expert technical skills have been a true blessing.

Thank you, Edward!


Its my hobby, blogging is.  I have learned how to use all free softeware and services to make a personally enjoyable blogging experience.  By following simple search engine rules my posts are easily found.  Now I am helping others do the same.  I coach people in how to set up a Blogspot blog, establish a writing schedule, how to choose titles and keywords that will raise their posts in prominence in search results over time. My goal is to help you be creative on a consistent basis and to help share your creativity with those people who would enjoy your work the most.  I work on a fee for service basis and I only take on new would-be bloggers that are ready and willing to commit to a weekly writing schedule.

Click here ro contact me


Also read:

Why Advertising On Your Blog Doesnt Work

Blogging: Follow The Rules and Float to the Top

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Who is Mary Oliver?

Some time ago one of my readers submitted a comment which included a few lines from a poem by Mary Oliver. I reposted the comment as a blog entry because it was particularly complimentary and I enjoyed the poetry. Soon aftrer I began to notice an increase of visitors to my blog. At first I imagined it was because of some wise or interesting thing I had written, until, that is, someone showed me how to research what key words readers were searching for when they found my blog.

The culprit: "Mary Oliver"

One or America's best loved poets was driving traffic to my site. Visitors were finding my blog because of the few lines of Mary's poetry. Oh the indignity.

I read more about her and read more of her poetry and began to understand the love affair the poetry reading world continues to have with her work.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. [...]
The world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

From "Wild Geese"; Dream Work (1986)

Interesting Bits:

• Her fifth collection of poetry, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984.
• She fell for her partner of 40 years, hook line and sinker, love at first sight style: Molly Malone Cook, who would become literary agent and live with Mary in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
• She attended two colleges, Ohio State University and Vassar College, but did not receive a degree at either one.

A Thousand Mornings

New And Selected Poems

Thirst:Poems


For more articles on poetry click here

For articles featuring reviews click here

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Gradients Are Effective in Web Design, and Part of Life in General

The second bit of useful web design advice I received from reading Mark Prashan’s article had to do with the appropriate use of gradients, the gradual change from one color to another, or from one intensity of a color to another in an object.

I’ve been thinking about gradients in life and how it appears to be that all of life is a gradual unfolding.  Wherever I find myself at any given moment, it appears I am halfway between where I was and where I’m headed.  Even in moments when I think I have arrived, it appears to be that it is merely a resting point along a continuum. I try to keep in mind to love the journey as much as the destination I think I’m headed for.

Recently at a relicensing seminar for licensed spiritual counselors I asked those who were in attendance what they would tell themselves now that they had been licensed for two years, if they could travel back in time and whisper in the ear of their freshly graduated selves.

Among other things, the relicensing professionals say they would tell themselves to relax more, to have a sense of humor, to accept that what they know is what they know and it will all change soon enough, to keep in mind that they don’t have to do it all perfectly, and importantly, to be kind to themselves.  The conversation reminded me again that life is an unfolding treasure and each step of the way we learn more about what is wrapped up in life.

Lao-Tsu is quoted as saying “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Someone once told me that there may be a more accurate rendition of the original language that goes like this, “Even the longest journey begins where you are standing.”  Whether or not this is true, the sentiment in the second version is worth considering.  It has helped me to keep in mind to acknowledge, even love, where I am standing, so that when I do take a step onward in the journey it is motivated more by love, than by reaching.

Read part one of this article here.

How Sitting Still Reveals A World Within.

Shopping For Made In USA is Not That Difficult.

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