Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts

Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle

Amazon.com: Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle Store

You have to check this one out! Now you can condense your home library and get books really cheap - if you won't miss page turning and cover art. Do you know a bibliophile? This may be the perfect Holiday gift for them.

Halloween Reflections

Well, it looks like I managed to post on the first and last day of this month (since Blogger struggled on Blog Action Day and even though the post is there I don't count it), which is weird, but okay, I guess. It's Halloween today (for those living under a rock) and it's finally fall weather.

I remember back at the 'ole university that Halloween was the biggest weekend and the biggest event of the year. Since it's always been my favorite holiday, I was always up for the shenanigans during the big celebration. I guess the tradition rubbed off because I continue to want to celebrate Halloween by having costume parties.

This past weekend was the 2nd Annual Halloween Costume Party at our place and we had a great turnout. Everyone was willing to get dressed up and play along with our games and drink our free beer. It was great seeing old friends, and I hope they'll all come back next year when I've worked out the bugs and will have more time to spend with them. I honestly did make an effort to hang out with everyone, so I hope no one feels left out.

Other than a few rude and hurtful comments and scenes that I won't go into (but have been stewing on quite a bit), I think the party went pretty well. I'm already thinking about improvements for next year (which I need to do since I'll be de-decorating the house in the next couple of days). Right now, my biggest problem is what to do with the left-over food and beverages.

Anyway, thinking about Halloween always makes me think of the year I won best costume in my hometown parade. For years, I came up with ideas trying to win that stupid thing, and one of the last years I participated, I struck gold. My uncle has gone as Oscar the Grouch when he was younger and won first place and my grandma still had the silver trashcan he used in the basement. When I saw that, I thought, "Well, since I never win, I'll just go as trash". So I had my grandma help me attach a trash bag, paint my face brown, and staple real trash to the bag (banana peels, old milk cartons, and other not-so-gross objects). Lo and behold, the judges dug it and I won in my category. Technically I guess I went as recycling instead of trash, but no one really knew that, and to this day, I do not look at trash the same way. (Or the judges).

So, anyway, I hope you have enjoyed my Halloween ramblings and are having a Happy Halloween of your own.

Make Your Giving Count

Every year, I buy a bunch of people who are special to me gifts. I buy gifts for my micro kitties, even though they've never heard of Jesus and have no clue about any holidays anyway. This year I decided to try to make sure that my gifting benefitted others as much as the folks I actually will be giving items to.

There are a lot of great companies out there that try to give back to other organziations so that they can also benefit from the seasonal inflow of cash. One such company is The GreaterGood Site. They contribute to fighting breast cancer, stopping world hunger, promoting health care for children, saving rainforests, feeding rescue animals, and promoting literacy. All of these causes are good reasons to make some of your purchases if you can through their shop sites. They also contribute funds based on people just going and clicking a button on their sites (some of these links are at the bottom right panel of this blog).

The purchases I've made at this site so far have already funded 74 bowls of food for rescue animals. 74 bowls of food is at least $20-30 worth. All by buying my gifts through their site (which has very affordable and unique items), and these are gifts I would be buying anyway. I'm not trying to tell anyone where to shop, but I am trying to let everyone know that you can expand your holiday giving by taking advantage of sites like these that work to support important causes.

Happy Holidays!