Shopping for my own kid’s Christmas gifts was easy. I knew what he liked and wanted and only had to figure out how I’d have the money to ensure the items made it under the tree. Even as he got older, I knew what clothes and shoes to buy that would make him happy — and that continues still today.
It’s different with teen grandkids.
I’m struggling hard this year choosing gifts for my granddaughter, Colette. She’s at the funky stage where she’s into weird clothes (from a nana’s viewpoint), is too old for toys, and already has all the tech products she needs. Gift cards and money are boring but practical. I’ve made it through the stocking stuffer gifts — smokey-eye make-up, weird socks, the expensive shampoo I use that she loves, and a beanie with a funky pin.
And then I found a cool item for $20 bucks that I think is awesome and she’ll likely throw in a drawer — a Fahlo animal tracking bracelet. (Fahlo = follow… decent marketing, yes?) Each bracelet tracks (fahlos) the animal you choose via an app on your digital device, and also helps save wildlife when a portion of the purchase is donated to a cause. She’ll probably hate it because I would wear one of these myself.
I miss the days when buying Christmas gifts for my granddaughter was simple. 🩷
As I struggle to put a few things under the tree this year (I sprung for the Disney tickets so it will be only a FEW things), I’m reminded that these are good times too.
Gift choices at Christmastime are fodder for funny stories in the future!
I remember the year my Great Aunt Lois gifted my (at that time) partner with a white angel candle that had been stored for at least 25 years. It was yellowed and flat on one side where it had partially melted from the heat of the attic storage spot. I wonder… 20 years from now will Colette will talk about the time her crazy Nana bought her a bracelet to track a shark? 😉
Now you know: In 2018, a man found $7.5 million in a “Storage Wars” unit he bought for $500. He had to negotiate with the original owners, who paid him $1.2 million to return their money.
My favorite brother and I didn’t grow up privileged. We had what we needed, but certainly didn’t get everything we wanted. It’s likely your childhood was similar — some better and some not as good. But if you didn’t grow up getting every thing you wanted while living in a wonderful house brimming with every new gadget on the planet, you should be able to…
…name something you thought was a luxury when you were a kid.
I thought about this for a bit because when I was young, I thought a whole bunch of things were a luxury. Like my Aunt Kak’s baby blue feather sofa with detailed cherry wood accents. Good grief! We didn’t have anything like that OR her open fireplace (with seating on 2 sides) that had gas logs in her basement of all places. (We didn’t have a talking parrot either, much to my dismay.)
I still thought that couch was luxurious when my kid was an adult! But a luxury? Think harder…
I asked Perry the question and it took him a nanosecond to say, “Going out to eat.” If I could name only one item that quickly, I’d not have went down the rabbit hole thinking about it.
I ALMOST said ‘new store-bought clothes‘ because I didn’t have many. Nanny made what I wore and was a seamstress extraordinaire. Pre-school days and when I was in elementary, she made dresses for me with matching slings because I sported a broken arm about half the time.
She was still making my clothes when I was an older kid — like the light blue skirt that barely covered my ass and the complimentary white blouse (photo on the right below). There was a time when I owned 2 store-bought tops for school. One was a blue checkered smock top and the other was a white, v-neck sweater (left photo below). Nanny took me to JC Penney and bought me a pair of hug hugger bell bottoms and that was a luxury for sure!
That white sweater? I loved it so much I had a photo taken wearing it and gave one to my boyfriend, His Mom took something sharp and scratched my eyeballs out in it. I’m guessing she did it because my grandmother was dressing me in skirts that by today’s standards would be obscene.
If I had to name one thing I thought was a luxury when I was a kid *drum roll please* it would be air conditioning.
Nothing like telling your age, but in my younger years, I would’ve considered A/C in a house — and certainly in a car — a big ole’ luxury. I don’t remember when we got A/C, but I remember NOT having it. Heck, I had a black Chevette without air when Ben was a baby, so he might name that as a luxury too. 😉
Other items were power windows on cars, a color TV, a private phone line (instead of a party line), and staying in a hotel.
What’s the one thing you thought was a luxury when you were a kid?
Now you know: Daniel Fahrenheit (who invented the mercury thermometer) set 0°F to the coldest stable temperature he could maintain in his lab by dissolving salt in water.
How much do you read? Or… do you even like reading? There was a time when Ben was living at home and barely in high school that he called me “book woman.” If I had a 30-minute time slot, I had a book in my hand. One year, he bought me a Jerry Springer book for Christmas. 🥴
The same year, someone else bought me a mirror. For the record, I liked the book purchase better even though it was a crazy choice.
He’s the only person in my life that has purchased and gifted books to me. After the Jerry Springer book, he purchased one about Mick Foley (of WWE fame as Cactus Jack and Dude Love — also from Bloomington, IN). As Ben matured in life, his choices in books for me evolved as well. Last year, I got a coffee table recipe book.
I never read business books.
Since reading is supposed to be an enjoyable activity, I never read business books. Business books are work related and I read to escape work. Not even gonna’ lie, I’m not sure I’ve read one of my own brother’s books from start to finish. I prefer mysteries and crime suspense most of all. Gimme some of that Michael Connelly, James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell, and Sue Grafton.
My reading has morphed into books on my Kindle rather than ones I hold in my hands.
I pay for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited and get the audio versions when they’re included for free. I’m not going to pay more for 1 book a month with Audible when I get a bajillion titles for less money via Unlimited — but I do spend more time listening to books now than I do reading them. I like it because I can listen with headphones while folding clothes, doing laundry, and even mowing the yard.
Even decent authors throw out a dud now and again – my recent book review…
I’m currently listening to “If She Only Knew,” by Lisa Jackson. It’s sooo sloooow that if it was a physical book I’d have already skipped to the end to get answers and moved along to another novel. Instead, I’m too invested to stop now, and have jacked the speed up to the point it sounds like Minnie Mouse is the narrator. At regular speed, it’s almost 15 1/2 hours long. It would’ve been better sticking to the typical 10 hour timeframe with less repetition. It’s a 2.5/5 on my non-expert scale.
Now you know: Besides murdering John Lennon, Mark David Chapman contemplated killing other public figures including David Bowie, Johnny Carson, Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul McCartney, and Ronald Reagan.
The 60-30-10 rule is a timeless interior design principle that helps create a balanced and visually appealing color scheme in a space. It basically consists of allocating colors in a room according to a specific ratio: 60% of the space should feature a dominant color, 30% a secondary color, and 10% an accent color.
It’s been the “go-to” design rule for 70 years or so… and it BARELY applies to just one room here at the barndo. I say barely because there are 3 colors (mostly) that adhere to the percentages (mostly).
Think about the main room in your house… the focal point.
Does it follow the 60-30-10 rule of design?
The 60% of the rule assumes that you’re painting your walls and ceiling the same color. AND… it also assumes your floor isn’t acid dyed concrete (mostly burnt orange!). The idea is to create cohesive, visually appealing spaces without overwhelming complexity. I live in a pole barn — and you get what you get. 😉
As you consider the rule and how it applies to your spaces, I hope you have better results than I do. Green, orange, black, white, gray, cream… good grief!!
Upstairs here at the barndo is no better.
The main room upstairs is nothing but muted shades of blue, gray and cream. Where’s the color pop? There isn’t one unless you count the lone green plant that I forget to water half the time.
If I was starting from scratch with a new build — not costly changes to cover 3,000+ square feet of flooring… and painting places you can’t reach with a regular ladder — I might pay more attention to the percentages and color choices. But after all is said and done…
I DON’T CARE!
Do you focus on a balanced, dynamic look that feels both cohesive and visually engaging? Or do you focus on comfort and what you like and could care less about some stupid 70 year-old rule?
Now you know: Starbucks holds almost $2 billion in the form of money people keep in the app or gift cards; they make 100s of millions of dollars per year off of customers not buying coffee.
For the past several years, I’ve booked all the speakers and entertainment for one big event held at Disney World in Orlando. It concludes today but the majority of my work was finished last week. I swore I’d NEVER EVER do it again. It’s tedious and stressful. Not only because I’m spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of someone else’s money, but also because I want the event to be a huge success — no mistakes allowed.
I didn’t even reward myself with the trip to Disney this year, but Ben & Coco did. 🙂
They had a great time and I’m thrilled I could make it happen. If you haven’t been to Disney for awhile, you may not know that you better have $10K for the trip. I don’t see how families do it since it’s so crazy expensive.
Back to the never say never…
The guy I’ve worked with through the years for this event is retiring. Me too!! But then I got a call from a gentleman with an offer to do the big event next year that I’m not sure I can refuse. The money… the family experience… ARG!
I’ve got a couple weeks to think it over — and even negotiate for a better offer when the first one is already good. I may be eating those “never again” words because how can I say “no” to this?
I can say no because I don’t like what the speaking industry has become.
There’s a recent scandal that’s shed some light into industry challenges that involved ImpactEleven, a speaker training firm. ImpactEleven would charge speakers a $2500 onboarding fee plus around $1500/month to be a member. Their upsell was for a $35K+ sizzle reel (demo video) which is paramount to get companies to book you. ImactEleven would provide the location and hire actors that would give fake testimonials and standing ovations. The end result was a high quality video that LOOKED LIKE the speaker had performed in front of a large audience that loved him/her, when maybe they had yet to perform at Sunday School.
But then, because of financial irregularities within ImpactEleven, the actors didn’t get paid so they sued the fake speakers telling them they had to pay up or remove the video from public use. Even worse? It was exposed that bureaus and management companies were being paid kick-backs (double dipping to the umpteenth degree) to refer newbie speakers to them. If you don’t disclose a commercial relationship with a referral, that is unethical, right?
So now what?
Companies are left not knowing legitimate speakers from the fakes — and good speakers are competing for dates against slick imposters that are not only giving all speakers a bad rap, but are also bombing their performances onstage for companies that paid for a professional in good faith… oftentimes based on a video that is nothing but fabrication.
Throughout the years, I’ve experienced first hand a whole lot of actions that would cause me sleepless nights if I did them. I could tell you stories that would make your head spin. It started getting worse during COVID, and with AI now, it’s a battle to be honest and have a chance in the marketplace. I’m too old and too tired to fight it.
When asked by a reporter about the unethical practices of some bureaus, my older brother told the truth. He didn’t point fingers and only revealed a couple instances of questionable actions, but he didn’t lie. Here’s a link to the article.
Now you know: Five U.S. Presidents (Thomas Jefferson, John Q. Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Lyndon Johnson) didn’t take their Presidential Oath on a Bible.
