Shop Small on Small Business Saturday

November 20, 2012 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

It’s that time – to support and celebrate the many small businesses that make our country great. Yup – this Saturday, November 24, is Small Business Saturday and you may still have time to sign up!

American Express founded this day to promote small businesses, and if you have an AmEx card, and spend $25 on your card at a participating small business – and believe me, this is growing! – they will credit the card you use with $25.00! Can’t beat that, can you? Check it out here and don’t wait – there are a limited number of registrations, and they just opened on the 18th. Want to go straight to the enrollment page? Here it is.

Small Business Saturday is the sane person’s alternative to Black Friday with its crushing crowds and bargain driven mentality. The big box stores are now opening on Thanksgiving – yes, on Thanksgiving!! – to get your business. Really? UGH! Getting your Christmas and holiday shopping started is a great idea, but it shouldn’t have to be a fight to the finish and/or on a treasured holiday that celebrates family and friends.

So check out online which shops in your area will be participating, help them thrive in this economy, and earn $25.00 back from American Express. Everybody wins. Extra bonuses – you get to reconnect with your neighbors, enjoy human scale shopping, peruse goods and services that are often tailored to your own area’s preferences, and find cool stuff that isn’t repeated a thousand times over in big box stores all over the country.

Happy Small Shopping!

Baby Loves Black

November 15, 2012 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

I wouldn’t say my Mom was a fashionista. She wouldn’t have said it either, even if that word had existed back then. She was a conservative dresser in the time I knew her, that is, growing up my whole life. When I was a child, she wore simple clothes for the most part – straight skirts, (now known as pencil skirts), quasi-fitted short sleeve sweaters or printed or solid blouses, shorts in the summer. I remember her in wedgies in the warmer weather and medium high heels the rest of the time. Always on the simple side. In her daily dress, my Mom was not an adventurous soul.

And then … she had her evening/party clothes. An entirely different woman appeared. My Mom had the most fabulous skirts, tops and dresses for when she went out, and they were almost exclusively black. She wore black taffeta flared skirts, black silk tops and she had a gorgeous pair of black (real) velvet pumps. She positively glowed. To this day I can vividly remember one of her shirts … it was black crepe with cap sleeves, solid in the back, and in the front, there were chevron stripes of sequins, about 1/2″ apart, in alternating pale colors – gold, silver, aqua, pale rose and green. Even as a child, I wanted that shirt.

I believe those fabulous evening clothes – and possibly how happy and confident my Mom seemed in them – inspired my own love of black clothing. I’m typing this blog in a favorite combination – black jeans and a black sweatshirt over a black long-sleeved polo-type shirt. Garnet earrings are the only color at the moment, but then … I’m home. I love wearing black and honestly, I could wear it all the time, but it somehow seems a good idea to vary my wardrobe colors. Still, it’s a lifelong attraction.

Pan back in time when I was 6 or 7 years old. In school we were given these horizontal booklets each year; we filled them out with photos of ourselves, “My Best Friend”, “My Pet” and some of our favorite things. I may still have that book; my Mom saved a lot of our school stuff. On one of the pages, they asked you to fill in your favorite color. Undoubtedly inspired by my Mom’s fabulous evening clothes, I happily wrote “black.”

And that’s when they called home.

Can We Ever Have Too Many?

November 8, 2012November 8, 2012 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Probably the answer to that is `yes,’ but when I think about it being books, my head just seems to automatically move from side to side … no. We can’t.

Of course, I say this in my own defense, as well might you, in the face of Tuesday’s experience. I went to vote. Our town votes in the local library. There are no services for that day, but one can still roam about and peruse the shelves. Well, the shelves I perused were the ones in front of the check-out desk which are always filled with used/unwanted/donated books for sale. $1.00 for hardcover, $.50 for paperback.

I asked one of the ladies helping out with voting if I could just leave the librarian some money for a few books. Of course I could, just no borrowing from the main shelves. (I bet they’re all in cahoots, I thought, conspiring to entice helpless readers.) I didn’t have change, so left a bigger bill which would cover the books and a small donation to the library along with a note.

I found another book by Amy Tan, The Kitchen God’s Wife, her next after her first big success. The Joy Luck Club. That seemed like a good bet. And then I found Toni Morrison’s latest novel, Paradise, a mystery about some evil goings-on in a convent outside a small Oklahoma town. Now that sounded interesting! And then in paperback, The Power of Silence, a later book by Carlos Castaneda, and also The Secret by Rhonda Byrne … the book. (I’ve only read the web site.) What a tasty little gathering of reads for such a pittance.

Now, that fortune cookie … technically, it belonged to my friend as I had already opened and eaten my cookie. Half of it was good advice … the generosity part. The perfection part? Well, sometimes that’s just a way to make ourselves crazy, but hey, it’s only a thought in a cellophane-wrapped, folder-over piece of fried dough, right? I have something more on my mind … I’m stalking through the freshly vacated rooms of the convent with men seeking justice in Paradise.

Lending A Hand, Lending A Shoulder

November 5, 2012November 9, 2012 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

One of the things I observe and which warms my heart during and in the wake of cataclysmic events such as Hurricane Sandy, is the outpouring of support for those stricken with misfortune – our neighbors, our family and friends, and for total strangers. It seems there’s a little something everyone can do, and the more we hear, the more we come to know just how worse off many have it than ourselves.

We all can lend a hand and if needed, a shoulder, to someone in need. What makes me crazy is the media – do they focus on all the good people are doing for one another? No, instead they feature the fist fight at the local gas line. I can only say, shame on them. Show us the good stuff.

This country has come together again and again – to stand with one another in the face of tragedy right here – 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and other events, making us proud to be Americans. Even in the face of an election and across party lines – really, in the face of such sadness as the destruction we’ve just witnessed and lived through – who cares? It’s then that people care most about what counts … each other.

It’s sad that it sometimes takes tragedy for so many to put aside their differences, but in the end we do. We’re at our best and most human.

Today I had to make a call as one of my bills never arrived. The first question the representative asked, seeing where I lived, is how was I doing in the wake of the hurricane. Our humanness is what binds us and makes the world so much smaller. She was from a country whose capital was almost completely underwater in August due to excessive rains and flooding. We commiserated briefly before discussing the business at hand, and the world became yet smaller.

There are so many ways to help. Are you a writer or illustrator? You can help out and be helped in your craft as many authors, editors, agents are offering their time and expertise for a fee which will be donated to help victims of Hurricane Sandy. Read more here.

It’s November – PiBoIdMo Month!

November 2, 2012 / still a dreamer

November is PiBoIdMo – Picture Book Idea Month! It’s the perfect time for aspiring, (or published), picture book writers to challenge themselves by coming up with an idea a day for the 30 days in November.

Established by children’s book author Tara Lazar, PiBoIdMo is a great way of really getting those creative juices flowing, and while you can certainly do it on your own, you can sign up for PiBoIdMo on Tara’s web site. It’s free, of course, but registering gives you the opportunity of winning some cool prizes including a critique of your ideas by an agent or editor in the children’s book field. There’s still time! Registration closes Nov.4th.

You can still follow along after that date, and check out the relevant daily posts on Tara’s site, but to be eligible for prizes you must register by Nov. 4th. Check here for complete details and to sign up.

I participated in 2010 – that’s a photo of my PiBoIdMo journal which has plenty of room left for my 2012 ideas – and was amazed at how many good ones I came up with! Some were less than brilliant, I admit, but quite a few were pretty interesting. I really enjoyed my own little PiBoIdMo kick-off which included reviewing some of those ideas. Just makes me want to write!