Mr. Moab & Me

 Not gear you'd expect for the desert, is it?

 

I like Christmas. I like vacation. I like the Dynamic Duo. Why are these 3 things together so tricky? We’ve tried far-flung (and expensive) escapes. We’ve tried staying home. This year we voted to try another option – an easy, off-the-beaten-path getaway (planned by my fella) to Moab.

Probably you’ve never heard of Moab in December. There would be a reason for that, and that reason is cold. Cold dissuades everyone from a wintertime Utah adventure. Everyone except for us and a bunch of Japanese tourists who got suckered by a travel agent offering December deals to the desert.

 What the Moab desert looks like in winter.

 

But the secret to marital bliss (and family vacation and long car trips) is compromise. My fella is better at this than I am. So I put on my big girl underpants and got onboard with Mr. Moab and his idea of vacation bliss. This included a long drive, hiking in snow and hard rock (both looking at and listening to).

I did all of these things while also remaining true to myself. I bought a bunch of magazines for the drive and a cute, new parka for the hiking. I refused to educate myself about the rocks, but I took artsy shots of them and teased my guy about his blissed out expression and metro sunglasses (both are activities – the photography & the teasing – that I really enjoy).

 Guru Girl on a break from hiking.

 

I can now report it was a pretty decent vacation. Our family dynamic stayed the same. Plenty of whining and complaining (from our offspring, as well as ourselves), but somehow it’s better in a remote location where one doesn’t have to do chores. And I was such a good sport on the hiking that on our way home, driving past the outlet mall, my fella actually stopped, without a pained expression on his face. Talk about Merry Christmas!

It’s hard to relinquish control. It’s hard to go on a vacation you fear will be a disaster. But it can be worth it. I didn’t discover a newfound passion for nature or cold this trip, but I did discover a newfound appreciation for some things I’d forgotten, like the fact that ACDC’s “Back In Black” is a little bit genius, kinda like my guy, who booked us into a really nice hotel at a spa on our way home. Ah, the sweet smell of eucalyptus-scented compromise.

Silver Linings Playbook: Movie Review

The good guys scored another point last week when we snuck in a movie. “Silver Linings Playbook” to be specific. This is a movie that’s all about, well duh, seeing the silver lining behind the sucker punches life sometimes deals you. This is hard to do. For all of us. But it’s doubly hard for someone like Bradley Cooper, the star of the movie, because he plays Pat, a rough and tumble Philly townie. This guy’s vision of reality is so skewed there’s lots of easy stuff he can’t see (like the fact that his cute but damaged neighbor is in love with him) much less abstract stuff like problems and their silver linings. The odds are against Pat that he’s going to be able to identify all his problems, much less solve them.

Pat is a disaster, but he’s trying hard to see the good in the mess that is his life. So are all of the characters around him who’ve also been thrown curveballs but are struggling to stay in the game.

This movie is ostensibly about how Pat got his groove back, but it’s really about the journey we’re all on. It’s about flaws and mistakes and the hurt they cause, but it’s also about trust and connection and rising to the occasion. Ultimately, it’s about new beginnings and the painful and funny growth it takes to get them. It’s about recognizing what you value and taking the necessary steps to ensure it’s around in the morning. That morning after vision looks different for all of us, but the journey to get there is remarkably similar.

Cheers to “Silver Linings Playbook” for reminding us that, though they might not emerge unscathed from the battle, good guys often score. Cheers to lost dogs who are found, missing retainers that are discovered, and other minor miracles. Against the odds.

10 Steps To Immediate Fun

Step 1: Buy Taylor Swift’s “Red” album.

Step 2: Put it on your car stereo.

Step 3: Tell the children to buckle up.

Step 4: Roll down the windows and the sunroof.

Step 5: Turn to the track called “22”.

Step 6: Drive a little too fast. Play the music a lot too loud.

Step 7: Show the kids what car dancing’s all about.

Step 8: Feel the worries of the world slip right out the window.

Step 9: Eavesdrop on your kids’ reaction.

Step 10: Relish in the idea that you can still surprise yourself and your children, and all it takes is a little Taylor Swift and channeling your inner 15 year old.   

In Defense Of Holiday Cards

I love holiday cards. There are some naysayers out there who claim they’re too much work and people don’t really read them and/or care. I am here to tell you that I both read them and care. I save the cards we get all season in a cute, holiday basket.

I love seeing which fashionable card my friend Tanisha has picked for the year. I love reading to see if my friend Dianne has included a blurb about our hiking trip in hers (she did this year!), and I love seeing how big everyone’s kids have grown. I also really like hiding the name, showing the kid pix to my fella and making him guess who they are. He is really bad at this game, although he’s improved a lot since all of our friends’ kids were babies. My fella thinks all babies look alike. Kind of like starlets.

So send your holiday card out this year. Even though Christmas is, um, today. I myself have a big, old stack of our holiday letter sitting right in front of me. I am hoping to get it out by New Year’s. I don’t mind when people send late holiday cards. I might even like them a little better because it shows a procrastinator’s true commitment to the cause.

One of my favorites last year was from my friend Kristie who sent out her family’s Christmas photo for 2011 and also their Christmas photo for 2010, which she hadn’t found time to send out previously. Viewing the changes in her cuties in the two cards was like the time-lapse photography depicting glaciers and global warming, only much less depressing. 

So snap a pic of your kiddo or your dog or you, smiling by the fire. Send it to friends old and new. It’s a tradition the sentimental among us love. If you’re really technologically inclined, send a “jib jab” card. These are funny, interactive cards that allow you to insert the faces of you and yours onto the dancing bodies on the “jib jab” card. There are lots of different styles available, and they’re pretty funny. Fast, funny, almost free (I think membership is around $1 a month.) If that’s not a guru girl good thing, I don’t know what is!  Happy holidays, guru girls & guys!(Click this link to go to the jib jab card website for more information.)

 

 

2 Gift Ideas For Your List's Littlest Ones

‘Tis the season of gift-giving to all the people on your
list, big and small. What to get the smallest ones? I learned the hard way,
when our oldest turned one, we spent a small fortune on toys and she spent the afternoon
interested only in one, party balloon. I read somewhere that a box of Kleenex
is another great gift for a one year old because they will spend all afternoon
pulling out one tissue after another. This process also teaches their little
brains something about cause & effect, all for under $3. 


But many of us just can’t bring ourselves to gift a big, old
box of Kleenex to a one year old. (Clearly, I am not among you as I gifted some
of our best friends with a holiday jug of Pedialyte just last week.) But for
those of you with actual standards for keepsake gifts, I turned to my friend
Jamie, who’s so dead-on in the etiquette department that she not only remembers
my birthday every year but also the birthdays of the Dynamic Duo.

Jamie says thoughtful gifts for babies and young families
are easy. She advises getting the family a gift certificate to get their photo
professionally taken. Or, for a less expensive option, make a play date with
the family, bring your own camera along and take a million close ups of the
crew at play. Then hustle over to Target, get the film developed and pop the
prints into a keepsake book. I did this once at a birthday party for a 3 year
old. The parents were too busy staging the party to take any pictures. When I
dropped off the book later that afternoon the mom was so happy she almost
cried. Woo-hoo! Little bit of extra time and effort, lot of impact!


Another good gift for a young friend is a keepsake holiday
ornament. Jamie has been collecting the “Frosty Friends” Little Eskimo series
for years. You get one for the kiddo each year and, voila!, when she’s 18 she
has her own ornament collection. I like the idea of hand delivering the
ornament to the kiddo. Bring fixings for some hot chocolate with you. Then sit
down with the kiddo, swig your hot chocolates together and admire the different
ornaments. It’s a tradition and a gift, all in one. (Click this link to learn more about Frosty Friends ornaments on amazon. Available around $10 each. They are also available at your local Hallmark store.)

Name That Blog

I’m thinking of renaming the blog. It’s a quandary because I want to pick a good name, one that’s memorable but one that’s also frequently requested in search engines. Based on what just came up on my computer, I may just rename my blog “concussion symptoms”. Because no sooner had I typed in just a few of those letters than the slogan popped up.

I typed this phrase into my computer because I believe I could be suffering from concussion symptoms. It’s freezing, snowy and windy here in Colorado today. You would think I would take this into account when I opened the hatchback of my SUV, a hatchback that frequently falls down, even when not burdened by high winds and a bunch of snow. But no, there I was, arms filled with stuff from the trunk, when the hatchback came crashing down on my head.

My head hurt immediately after it happened, and it hurts even more now that I just surfed my way over to “Web MD”, a site my fella says I should never visit. He’s right. I shouldn’t visit it because every time I do I immediately have all of the symptoms it lists. Yes, I have a headache. I also have a bit of dizziness and fuzzy thinking. But I can’t tell if this is out of the ordinary or just due to the cutting-down-on-caffeine lifestyle I’ve recently adopted.

I ran into my friend, Sevi, at the bookstore immediately after it happened. She evaluated the size of my pupils and then told me not to worry. I only have to stay awake 24 hours. Ha, ha, Sevi. I was going to feel bad for her that she was in the middle of the bookstore, trying to figure out how a Nook works, while shepherding her 3 kids, hopped up on holiday party sugar, but now I don’t feel bad for her at all. Now I’m going to text her at midnight when I’m trying to stay awake due to my head trauma. I’ll be awake and brainstorming new, potential blog names.

These are the options I’ve come up with so far. They’re unlikely to get better as I get more tired and impaired as the day wears on. So help Sevi out. Give me some feedback on the options below so that just maybe I won’t text Sevi later tonight to wake her ass up, I mean, get her opinion on them.  

. Tipster (this one has a tagline too… hip tips to ace the race of life)

. Lux Likes

. Worth A Splurge

. Get It Done

. Exceeds Expectations

. Codebreaker

. Behind The Curtain

. Time Crunched & Testy

. Herding Cats

 Which one do you like the most? Any other ideas that jump out at you? Let me know in the “comments” section below. You should be able to write them in anonymously. But keep it clean, people. My dad reads this blog… as does my 9 year old, which you might have guessed because really, who else is going to comment “fascinating stuff, Mommy”.

Armageddon For Your Eyes: Clinique Even Better Eyes

I’m walking around today with bright red eyes, courtesy of my new eye cream. I look like that poor University of Colorado professor who, last week, was foolish enough to bite into the brownies some students brought to the class potluck.

 

Only, for me, it’s not pot brownies I’ve been unsuspectingly sampling – it’s a new eye cream that’s supposed to make me look rested and spry, not like a newborn vampire.

The eye cream -- called Clinique Even Better Eyes Dark Circle Corrector -- has this handy metal tip that dispenses the miracle gel and massages it into the eye area. It’s designed to spruce your peepers right up. What Clinique doesn’t tell you is that if you squeeze the bottle too hard the miracle cream spurts out the tip and into one’s eye, versus under it. The effect of miracle cream in one’s eye is very different.

So now I’m looking less like I’ve visited the Fountain Of Youth and more like I’ve been on a pot bender. I’m staying with the eye cream though. With continued – and proper – use this stuff is supposed to be the best of the best. Like Bruce Willis in “Armageddon”.

If all else fails, I’m trying my friend Tara’s tip, which is that if you have blue eyes the thing to perk them up is orange eye shadow. I would not have thought this to be the case, but damned if it didn’t look like Tara was wearing colored contacts today at school pick up. She was that bright eyed!

Turns out she was just wearing some new, orange eye shadow. The take-away here is that just as Bruce Willis was not afraid to launch himself into space in that movie and my friend Tara was not afraid to rock orange eye shadow, you should not be afraid to try new things either. The upside could be huge… like the size of that asteroid Bruce destroyed.       (Click on this link to amazon.com to learn more about Clinique Even Better Eyes, available for around $38.)

What If

I can’t find it in me today to recommend any product or entertainment to improve the quality of your life. There’s so much improvement to be made, in the fundamental quality of life for all of us. How do we think about that improvement -- much less make it happen -- when our hearts are broken?

In time, I’m sure we will think about it. And we’ll fight about it, and we’ll implement change that will enrage half the people. Maybe the change will be a gun control measure. Maybe it will be bulletproof glass at your kid’s school. Change looks different and different is scary. Different makes people take sides.

In the meantime, what if we were all on the same side? What if we pretended we were in my littlest one’s first grade classroom? Her teacher has a saying,”Be a bucket filler, not a bucket dipper.” It means the first graders are supposed to fill up each other’s buckets. They’re supposed to say nice things to each other, fill each other up versus tear each other down.  

There’s a lot wrong with our quality of life right now. The sense of  disconnection, alienation and invisibility that afflict many in modern life isn’t good for any in modern life. It leads to choices and consequences that are devastating, to all of us.

What if we were all on the side of bucket fillers? What if we tried to fill the buckets of as many people as we could every day? What would that do to the disconnected? The alienated? The invisible? What would that do to our own minds and hearts?   

Proof Of Heaven: A Guru Girl Good Read

I am dismayed that I missed Barbara Walter’s “20 Most Fascinating People” special on t.v. last night. It featured, among 19 others, Ben Affleck. And you all know how much I love Ben Affleck!

Although my own fascination with Ben is great, so is my fascination with some other things in life, and this is what got the best of me last night. I’m reading this book that I cannot put down. It’s called Proof of Heaven, and it delves into some of the great existential questions of our time, like is there life after death.

I’m not usually into deep think pieces like this. I have too much on my daily “to do” list to worry about what might be on my “to do” list in the hereafter. And according to the Proof Of Heaven author, I should put conversing with a bright orb right at the top of this one. Editor’s note: At least that’s more interesting than doing laundry.

This sounds a little woo woo and wacky, right? Here’s the thing: Proof Of Heaven is a non-fiction book written by a respected neurosurgeon, a guy who studies brains and how they work for a living. His name is Eben Alexander, and he wrote the book based on his own near death experience in 2008 and what happened to him when he was technically brain dead. Alexander’s not a woo-woo guy. He’s not a religious guy. He certainly doesn’t seem to be a “15 minutes of fame” type of guy. 

The book’s a straight forward account of what happened to Alexander, and what it means to the rest of us. Here are some of the shockers:

1.     There’s a heaven.

2.    Death isn’t scary. The scary part was when Alexander was told it wasn’t his time to go yet, and he had to come back to earth. Editor’s note: I bet doing laundry topped his earthly “to do” list too.

3.    Our time on earth is the shortest, dreariest part of the equation.

4.    Lots more… some of which made my head hurt because Alexander got a little science jargon-y toward the end, and, also, it was edging towards midnight.

It’s fascinating stuff. Maybe not Barbara-Walters-quality-fascinating, but definitely worth a read and a ponder. This would also be a great gift for a family member who likes to read. Optimistic, thought provoking, great conversation fodder. It’s a triple threat, in a way that bath salts never are.(Click this amazon link to learn more about Proof Of Heaven by Eben Alexander, available for around $8.)  

Urban Myths & Guard Alaska Bear Spray

 

Urban myths are a scourge of the earth, particularly for people like me who believe every single one of them and act on the information. I get a flu shot every year. I’m pretty sure the flu shot is an urban myth. Because every other year I get the damn flu.

E-mail is another fantastic source of urban myth. So recently when I got a warning e-mail from my dad I didn’t even want to go there. My dad got it from his friend and passed it along to me. In my experience the e-mail exchanges between my dad and his retired buddies consist almost entirely of forwarded dirty jokes, so I seldom click on the links. But this time I did.

The e-mail was a warning about the latest ploys urban gangs are using to victimize us. The message said that if you’re driving on a highway at night and someone throws a bunch of eggs at your windshield you should not turn on your windshield wipers.

Because this will create an obscuring, milky residue all over your windshield. You’ll have to pull over then because you won’t be able to see out your windshield to drive. That’s when the gang will nab you. 

Then the message gave a second warning: if you’re driving down a remote road and you see an infant car seat on the side of the road, you shouldn’t pull over to check it out. This is because the car seat is a ruse that gangs use to get drivers – usually trusting women – out of their car. Once you’re out of your car and inspecting the car seat, you’ll see there’s no baby in it. But by then, it will be too late. The gang members who placed it there -- and have been hiding behind a nearby tree -- will have nabbed you.

I think these warnings are urban myths. But you never know. I used to think rumors of gang activity here in idyllic Colorado were greatly exaggerated too. Then I taught a professional speaking class at the community college and listened to a student give an absolutely riveting, informative speech about how gangs work. Wow. Talk about eye-opening and tricky to grade.

Here’s what it boils down to: There’s bad stuff out there. It gets exaggerated by media and the internet, but it’s out there. You need to be safe. Let’s not perpetuate a culture of fear, but let’s also arm ourselves with a healthy dose of awareness and bear spray.

I am a big fan of bear spray. It has none of the murky legal, ethical and practical considerations of gun ownership. You can order up some on amazon, stash it in your purse and ignore the ominous warning e-mails from your dad.

Keep a good head on your shoulders, some Guard Alaska in your bag and go on with your day, guru girls and guys!(Click on this amazon link to find out more about Guard Alaska Bear spray, available for around $31.)

It Is The Experience

While crafting with kids, repeat this mantra “It is the experience.”

It’s not the final product.

 

The condition of your sink.

 

Or the fact that every flat surface of your house has been frosting-bombed.

It is the experience they will remember.

Best. Hostess. Gift. Ever. Pedialyte.

So I went to a holiday party this weekend and, of course, brought a hostess gift. I brought a nice Merlot and a big, old jug of Pedialyte.

Pedialyte isn’t as festive as holiday flowers or a scented candle, but for cocktail-loving people you know really well, it’s just the thing. Because Pedialyte isn’t just for flu-stricken children. It’s also a great way to kill a hangover or so my party-loving friend Lisa tells me.

Gulp a glass of Pedialyte down at the end of the party, or better yet, alternate your adult beverage with a glass of Pedialyte all night, and find yourself blessedly hangover-free the next morning.

I myself didn’t test it out this weekend as I was the designated driver, but our friend Dan totally did. His fiancé did not. Guess who was happier Sunday morning?

Pedialyte: drink of champions for the champion partiers in your life. (Click this link for more information on Pedialyte, available at Walgreen's for $5.99 a jug.)

Flight Behavior Book Review: Why It Won't Fly Off Shelves

I’ve been enjoying global warming lately. I know this is not politically correct to say, but a 74 degree day, in December, in Denver? C’mon, now. Some parts of global warming don’t immediately seem so bad.

Here’s a part of global warming that does seem immediately bad: Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book about it, Flight Behavior. This pains me to say because Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors. But her latest book is tedious and scientific and way too light on compelling characters grappling with all this tedious, scientific stuff.

I’m good with writers who take a current issue facing our society, fictionalize it and write a humdinger of a book about it to make us care. Writer Jodi Picoult does nothing but this. Fiction is a great opportunity for writers to question the impact an issue has on society and their characters. 

We’re a storytelling people, ever since the cavemen hung out. So it makes sense that the choices people make about an issue -- even made up people -- stay with us, much longer than the newspaper headline about the issue itself. 

But with this approach to a story, the writer walks a thin line. She has to develop our knowledge of the characters and the issue. This is where Kingsolver mis-steps. Flight Behavior is about Dellarobia, a farm wife in Tennessee who discovers millions of monarch butterflies roosting on the mountain behind her house.

The butterflies aren’t supposed to be there on the mountainside. Neither is Dellarobia, who’s a whip-smart, young wife trapped in a dying, farming community by limitations beyond her control. The butterfly phenomenon draws scientists from around the globe. Their presence leads worlds and beliefs to collide for Dellarobia, who can suddenly see a way beyond her limitations.

While science opens up Dellarobia’s world, it closes down the fictional world Kingsolver works so hard to establish. Just when the story starts cooking and you’re really rooting for Dellarobia, Kingsolver throws in a page or two of science about the darn butterflies. She does this the entire book.  

It’s not a bad book, but with her previous works Kingsolver sets the bar high. Flight Behavior doesn’t make the hurdle. But here are some of my Kingsolver favorites that do (in order of most favorite): The Bean Trees, Pigs In Heaven, Prodigal Summer, The Poisonwood Bible.

Pick one of them up this weekend for some global warming enjoyment, I mean outdoor café reading.

4 Rules For Crafting With Kids

 

In her magazine this month Martha Stewart shared how eager she is to bake and craft with her grandchildren, who are 1 and 3 years old respectively. I’m pretty sure my attention span and attention to detail would drive Martha batty. Am sure it will go much better with grandchildren under age 5.

There are some things to remember about crafting with kids (or an ADHD crafter like guru girl):

1.     You’ve got to value the experience, not the result.

2.     You’ve got to prominently display the result. Even if it’s questionable.  

3.    You’ve got to embrace the shortcut. Hear that, Martha? No churning of your own butter or plucking tail hair from your own horse and braiding it into a Christmas ornament. I am not lying. This last one Martha actually did this year. Tail hair plucking and braiding is too time consuming to be fun. Plus the result is not at all sparkly, which is gonna be a total deal breaker for any little girl crafter.   

4.    You’ve got to spend more money. Yes, you can get a gingerbread house kit at the store for $10. You have to assemble the walls of this house with frosting, wait for them to set up and then curse under your breath when they fall down.

 

      All of this takes time. And you have to do it while your kids rampage around the crafts table, whining about the wait and eating all of the decorations. This is not a fun experience. (See the above pic of my grandma doing a retro gingerbread house with the Dynamic Duo. Note how annoyed even great grandma looks, as well as the number of Diet Pepsi cans she was using to try to stabilize the walls.)

Spend more money on the kit where the house comes already assembled and ready for the fun part: the candy decoration. Yes, the kit costs twice as much, but the experience is twice as fun. And at the end of the day that’s what crafting with kids is about: the fun time, not the 4 letter words uttered by the adult in charge.

 

 (Click this link to see a pre-assembled kit at World Market, available for $19.99, free shipping.)

  

5 Items For Fast & Festive Decorating

 

Holiday decorating perplexes me. If they featured Christmas trees on E Network’s “Fashion Police” our tree would be on it. Like a starlet who can’t decide if her style is retro or rapper, our tree has ornaments that run the gamut – blingy, rustic, trendy, crafted by a 1^st grader (which means all 3!). You name it, we got it.

The tree is beyond hope, but the rest of our digs are not. So I tackled the mantle with zeal and a vow to keep it simple. Natural, organic Christmas would be the theme.

Huh. There is nothing natural or organic about the holiday decorating process, especially not when you’re standing in the Target aisle, on a Saturday morning, totally confused by the enormous variety of options before you. So I did what any good shopper would. I got overwhelmed and left the store, with a vow to decorate using stuff I already had at home.

Huh. I believe we’ve already covered the kind of stuff I have at home. Pondering it all in my basement, I got overwhelmed again and did what any self-respecting mother of two would do. I called my mother and begged her to come style it up. 

And like a fairy godmother, she did! Nikki grabbed a bunch of stuff I already had, snipped some branches off the trees out back and voila! the mantle was transformed. I’ve always been very suspicious of those decorating shows that say you can do this. But I am now a believer.

 

 

Here are 5 holiday basics you need so that the decorating guru in your life can sweep in and style it up for you.

1.     Clear candle bases.

2.    Neutral, chunky candles.

3.    A seasonal wreath.

4.    Pinecones.

5.    Branches of evergreen and berry. *If you don’t have these in your own yard, you can buy them at a florist or snip them, on the down low, at your local park.  

Here’s the even better tip: the first 3 items can be used year-round on your mantle. Then, at the start of a new season, your style guru just has to come back and spruce it up with some seasonally appropriate swag, say birds’ nests for spring.

Happy decorating, guru girls and guys! 

 

Words To Live By

There are a number of things that light me up like a Christmas tree. Holiday displays of ingratitude from the younger set top the list. Like this fabulous, wooden advent calendar I got to specially delight the Dynamic Duo. “Delight” accurately describes their reaction the first day. I tucked two miniature ornaments – one for each kiddo – behind the Day 1 door.

By today -- day 3, mind you --  the only word to accurately convey their reaction is brewing-for-a-fight. The Dynamic Duo can make anything into a competition, including who gets the better mini ornament from the advent calendar.

This was not exactly the sentiment I had in mind when I bought the darn thing. The holidays bring a lot of excitement and expectation. I get it. What’s a kid to do if not wrestle her sister into submission over an ornament the size of a tack?

The holidays can make even good kids go bad in the manners department. Adults too. Full disclosure: one year, in a stunning display of immaturity, I threw away the holiday gift my fella got me. In full sight of my fella. That’s how mad I was when I opened the c.d. package and found: Bing Crosby’s “Holiday Hits”.

Perhaps we all could use a tutorial about gratitude. One that’s not preachy, heavy-handed or time consuming. Maybe one in the form of a picture book so that it speaks to everyone in the family?

Something like “The Secret Of Saying Thanks” is just the ticket. This story shares the idea that there’s one, important secret in life and that is: “the heart that gives thanks is a happy one… for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.”

Okay. Mind officially blown. So true. So easy to remember. I wish I could sew because if I could I would totally embroider this on a pillow -- heck, every pillow -- in my house. It’s that profound. I’m ordering this book pronto from amazon, express delivery, so that we can read it a bunch of times before Christmas rolls around. Bring on the Bing Crosby! (Click this link to learn more about the book on amazon.com where it's available for around $12.)