christmas presents

This afternoon, I took a break from chopping down the talk--which is not only making it shorter, but also making it more cohesive, fiouf!--in order to go run a thousand errands, all of which happened to be resolvable within a two-block radius: rite-aid, post office, dry cleaners, whole foods, and cafe. Fabulous! This afternoon, I got my parents' christmas presents finished and sent off to them, and I think they're good ones for once. My dad's was simple, he's quite the walker (the man walks about 3 miles a day just getting from place to place when he gets tired of waiting for the bus) and he lost his pedometer, so I got him a new one. Not too inspiring, but I know he'll appreciate it.

I'm much prouder of the gift I got for my mom. I am not much of a DIYer, but I do make my own day-by-day calendars because I know exactly what I need and no stationary companies seem to cater to my quixotic desires in this regard. Anyway, my mom shares my passion for all things paper and whenever I whip out my little calendar in her presence reaches for it, flips through it, and caresses it with wistful chubby fingers. So I made her one of her own.

Tada! This is what it looks like closed.

This is what it looks like open. You can see the hand-made quality where the stitches get a little crooked.

I profited from the odd asymmetries of the postcartwork to create a kind of ying yang effect. It's not traditionally pretty when you look at it up close, but I know my mom will appreciate how it straddles the ugly/beautiful line. We're both into that.


I'm sure they'll like both of the presents--if only because I'm an only child and they dig pretty much everything I do--and I know they need both of them. She shoots, she scores! And she goes back to deleting clauses.