Evernote + Moleskine = Awesome

When it comes to note taking, two of my favorite products are Evernote, the web service, and Moleskine, the classic notebook. Evernote lets me sync my notes to myself so they're available anywhere with internet service, and Moleskine lets me write and sketch to my heart's content in a sturdy and high-quality notebook. And as someone who is always making lists and jotting down reminders and ideas, these two  things are lifesavers.

So what could be better than Evernote and Moleskine? A collaboration between the two of them, that's what. I signed into Evernote today to find that they've announced a special edition Moleskine notebook. And not just one with their logo embossed on the cover, but one that can CONNECT TO THEIR WEBSITE (sort of).

(photo from the Evernote website)

For $30, you can pre-order a classic sized notebook created with special paper so that when you write on it and then snap a photo of it with the Evernote app, it becomes a digital file in your online account. How fantastic is that? One click of your phone and your handwritten note automatically becomes an editable text file.That means you could write your novel longhand and never have to type a word. Or you could keep a handwitten archive of family recipes and be able to search them by keyword on your phone. Or keep a travel journal in the remote forests of the Amazon and turn it into a blog post later. The possibilities are endless.

This awesome technology reminds me of Penny's computer book from the Inspector Gadget cartoons. It's great living in the future!

Top 5: Single Dads on TV

I've been tossing around the idea of writing a Top 5 about single parents on TV, and with Father's Day this past weekend, it seemed like the perfect time to showcase some TV dads. There have been lots of single parents on the small screen over the years, from The Andy Griffith Show to Gilmore Girls, but I'm only going to cover shows that have run during my lifetime, and that I've seen, which admittedly narrows it down, but write what you know, right? So these are my Top 5 TV Single Dads.

5. Alan Harper, Two and a Half Men

Alan (Jon Cryer) is a single dad forced to move in with his brother Charlie (Charlie Sheen) after a divorce from his son Jake's mother. He's the intellectual type with a propensity towards awkward social skills, particularly with women. He really wants to be a good dad but struggles to connect with his son, who is arguably one of the dullest tools in the shed. Despite a ridiculous ex-wife, a rich womanizing brother, and an uppity domineering mother, he's the most level-headed in the bunch and tries hard to be a stable and loving father.



4. Jimmy Chance, Raising Hope

Jimmy (Lucas Neff) is a 23-year-old kid who finds himself raising a baby girl after impregnating a one-night-stand who drops the child, Hope, off on her way to jail for murder. It's a weird premise, and continues to get weirder. Jimmy lives with his kooky parents Virginia and Burt and his grandmother Maw Maw (Cloris Leachman), who suffers from Alzheimer's and barely makes sense. The family is at the lower end of middle class, scrounging to make ends meet by working as pool cleaners and grocery baggers, but they always put family first and want what is best for baby Hope. Jimmy is always trying hard to give his daughter a good childhood, even if it means the rest of his life is a disaster.


3. Chaz Finster, Rugrats

I watched a lot of Rugrats as a kid, and unlike now, most shows I watched growing up featured a set of happily married parents. Now if you turn on a kid's channel you'd be hard pressed to find married parents - if you can locate parents at all. For some reason a lot of shows feature kids living with siblings or off at boarding schools, which is weird to me, but I'm not 12 anymore, so maybe that's acceptable? Looking back, this show featured a lot of adults who were pretty oblivious, but Chaz, the widowed father of the loveable red-haired Chuckie, was always there for his son. He hugged him when he was scared, tended to him when he had the sniffles, and in a particularly touching episode, told him stories of his deceased mom. Chaz, like Alan Harper, is rather square and awkward, but it works out for him - before the end of the series, he remarries a woman from Japan and adopts her daughter, Kimi.

2. Burt Hummel, Glee

I'm not a huge Glee fan, but I have to give props to single dad Burt Hummel (Mike O'Malley), father of glee club member Kurt. Burt is a mechanic and lover of sports - your basic small-town "man's man" - raising a gay son. Despite not understanding his son most of the time, Burt is supportive of Kurt's lifestyle and often stands up for him and encourages him in his singing and acting career. He's a caring dad trying to figure out how to raise a homosexual teenager who's temper sometimes gets the best of him, especially when it comes to Kurt. There aren't a lot of parents like him on television today.



1. Danny Tanner, Full House

Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) is the quiniessential TV single dad. Raising three girls after the death of his wife, Danny works hard to provide for his kids while enlisting the help of his brother-in-law Jesse and best friend, Joey. The three guys becomes best friends and band together to help out Danny and his daughters. While the series is full of outlandish storylines and way too many sappy morals (what my sister and I call "overripe banana moments" for being so mushy it's disgusting), we all watched the show and rooted for the single dad taking care of precocious girls during the 90s. He'll probably go down in history alongside Bill Cosby as one of the greatest TV fathers.

Top 5: Shows to Watch Someday When I Have Netflix

I know it's not true, but sometimes I feel like I am part of only 1% of the nation that doesn't have a Netflix account. I live out in the country, and for some reason the local cable companies have refused to bring cable out to our road. We live on a road between two state routes - both of which have cable - but since we didn't have access everyone signed up for satellite, and now that everyone has satellite they won't bring us cable. We're stuck in a catch-22. And since there is no cable, there is no high-speed internet - and no Netflix streaming.

Someday, when I'm able to live in the city and have my own internet hook-up, I'll sign up for Netflix. And when I do, these are the 5 shows I am most anxious to see:

5. Angry Beavers

Don't laugh at me, but I love this stupid show. I used to watch it with my sister all the time back when it was on Nickelodeon, and when she recently got Netflix she found that they have lots of episodes and sent me a video clip of our favorite one. I've been jealous ever since.





 4. Downton Abbey

I'm really curious about this show. It's got a lot of hype lately, since it stars greats like Maggie Smith, and is set in Victorian England, which just sounds fantastic. It must be like getting to watch a Jane Austen novel for an hour each week.





3. Firefly

How was I not watching a space western starring Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk? Probably because it was only on air in 2002, when I was a sophomore in high school and spent all of my free time doing homework. But someday I am going to watch all 14 episodes and the accompanying movie and finally be able to talk to all the Joss Whedon fans out there.



2. Freaks and Geeks

This series launched the careers of Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, James Franco, John Frances Daly and Busy Phillips. So basically it was a Judd Apatow series staring some of my favorite comedians. How did this not last? Why do all of the most awesome shows get cancelled after only one season? I remember it being on TV and wanting to watch it, and actually had an English professor in college recommend that I check it out. It looks awesome.



1. Doctor Who

I feel like a complete failure as a nerd for having never seen an episode of this show. And it has been on the BBC since 1963 which is completely insane. People keep telling me how much I will love it, and how amazing the show is, and making references to the show, which just makes me sad since I am not able to watch it. But as soon as my Netflix account is confirmed, you can bet that I'll be streaming all the revival seasons starting back in 2005. 

Top 5: Weird Song Associations

Have you ever been listening to the radio when a certain song comes, bringing back random memories from your past? One minute you're in traffic on your way home from work, and the next you're reliving your senior prom, all because of a simple song change. I don't know if I just had a really odd childhood or what, but when it come to songs triggering memories, I sure come up with some weird combinations. Check out my list and see what you think:

5. Lean on Me by Bill Withers  = Church Camp

This one is probably not a far stretch.  The song is about being there for your friends, and was the theme song to a junior/senior high church camp one year. It was sentiment was cheesy, but as high schoolers so were we, so it worked. When I put together the photo montage of our experience we played it to this song. Now every time I hear it I think of kids covered in mud jumping in the lake. 

4. Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles  = Trigonometry

In high school, I took a lot of advanced math classes (I know, what was I thinking?). I was smart enough to take Algebra in 8th grade so by time I got to high school I was a year ahead of the majority of my classmates. I even took AP Calculus - clearly my school did not offer enough art classes to keep me entertained. Anyway, I had a certain teacher who tried to make math more fun - looking back she most have done a pretty good job, as don't even like math and took all of her classes - but was painfully behind on the times. Case in point: to help us memorize trig formulas, we played a tortuous version of musical chairs while she played a tape of The Bangles, which she called Walk Like a Radian - you walked around a circle on the floor marked with radians, and whatever one you stopped at you had to recite the formula.  I don't remember any of the formulas but now the Bangles remind of pi.

3. Fly by Sugar Ray = Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

What in the world does Judy Blume have to do with Sugar Ray? Short answer: 1997. That was the year my class went on a field trip to see the play based on Blume's book at the local theater. As with most field trips, we took a school bus, and piled in 80 or so kids plus teachers. Of course we begged the driver to turn the radio on, and this was one of the chart-toppers of the time. Somehow every single kid knew the words to this song and most of them sang along loudly, probably to the chagrin of all the adults within a mile radius. The lyric "all around the world statues crumble for me" will forever bring back memories of kids singing happily and a story about a little brother called Fudge.

2. I Saw the Sign by Ace of Base  = Annie Get Your Gun 

My high school, like most in the midwest, puts on a spring musical every year. They've put on all sorts of productions, from Footloose to Oklahoma!, and my senior year the play of choice was Annie Get Your Gun. I had a lot of study halls that year - I'd taken everything possible, went to a local college for post-secondary work, and still had at about two hours of it a day - so when asked if I wanted to get out of it to paint sets, I jumped at the chance. The teacher only excused seniors and then left us unattended in the auditorium (probably not the best idea), so we blared music and wasted the afternoon painting. Somehow I ended up being the only girl with a group of guys I otherwise never would have hung out with (if it had been The Breakfast Club, I was Allison and they were Bender). And for reasons I still don't understand they were obsessed with Ace of Base, which we listened to on repeat until someone got sick of it and put in Metallica instead. Since then the 90s girl band and the old west have always been connected in my mind.

1. Centerfold by J Geils Band = Saturday Mornings

This sounds like a really creepy memory, but it's not, honest. When I was a kid my Dad and I would get up about the same time on Saturday mornings, and whenever it was on we would watch Pop-Up Videos on VH1. The music videos were usually a combination of current 90s stuff and classic 80s pop. I learned all sorts of random trivia about Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract, Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Men Without Hat's Safety Dance, and of course, J Geils Band's Centerfold. Obviously I didn't know what most of the songs were about, being about 10, but it was fun hanging out with Dad listening to music he liked. The only downside is that weird songs like Come On, Eileen remind me of my father.

Top 5: Little Debbie Snacks

Depending on where you grew up, your childhood treats were made by Hostess, Tastycake, or the infamous Little Debbie. When I was a kid Hostess were more "special-occasion" snacks - we only got them when Mom made a trip to the local Hostess outlet - and they don't sell Tastycakes around here, so when we had cookies at school or church, it was often in the slim box of the Little Debbie desserts. I grew up with a diabetic mom, so we didn't keep cookies in the house much, so getting a box of these were a Big Deal. Even though I'm old enough to buy them myself, and they're only like $1 a box, I still think of it as a treat when I get to have some Little Debbie's.

5. Oatmeal Creame Pie

These are the most generic of the Little Debbie's, and are very popular among grandparents, which is where most of us are introduced to them. It's like eating vanilla ice cream - plain and simple, but oh so good.





4. Nutty Bars

These are always a favorite among kids, partially for their peanut-buttery goodness, and partly because it is tradition to eat at least one of them by peeling them apart layer by layer. What is it about dissecting food that makes it so appealing to children? Who knows.  I always liked that they were crispy, unlike most of the Little Debbie snacks.





3. Cosmic Brownies

I'm sure they have a million calories or something, but these are some of the best brownies ever created. They are dense and fudgy and studded with bright candy-coated chocolate chips that make them out of this world (pun fully intended). My dad used to bring them home from school at the end of the year and stick them in the fridge - to this day my favorite way to eat them is chilled. Mmmm.



 2. Fudge Rounds

Seriously, who doesn't like Fudge Rounds? It's two chocolate cookies, drizzled with chocolate frosting, sandwiched together with chocolate filling. In other words, the perfect amount of chocolate. These are also pretty tasty chilled but I will eat them no matter what the temperature.



1. Star Crunch

My Great-Grandma Betty used to keep her cupboard stocked with Little Debbies for when the grandkids came to visit, and Star Crunches were one of her favorites. It wasn't long before I was hooked, too. Gooey caramel and rice crispies covered in chocolate? Yes, please! I can eat a whole box of these by myself. When it comes to Star Crunch I don't share well.

Top 5: Disney Channel Original Movies

This past weekend I found myself home alone one evening, flipping through the channels, trying to find something interesting to watch. It was Friday night so there was nothing on but reruns and random films that are just recent enough to debut on cable but old enough that no one wants to watch them. So I did what any person in their twenties would do: find the kid's channels and see if there is anything on to be nostalgic about.

Children's programming from the 80s and 90s are a big part of our generation's history. We love this stuff not because it was particularly good, but because we grew up with it (don't laugh, Baby Boomers - you have an entire channel dedicated to I Love Lucy and the Andy Griffith show!). Something I loved growing up was Disney Channel's Original Movies - the ones before High School Musical - and still watch them if they're ever on. Here's hoping that someday they start a channel just for made-for-TV kid's movies!

5. Halloweentown (1998)

I'm not usually a huge fan of Halloween, but this was a fun and bizarre movie a bit like Hocus Pocus. Basically it's about a girl who finds out at 13 that she's meant to be a witch, and is trained by her grandmother, played by Debbie Reynolds. Like most Disney movies the main character has to save her family, stand up for herself, and learn some valuable lesson. I was always a fan of the actress who played the lead, a girl named Kimberley J. Brown, because she was more normal-looking than most "gorgeous" Disney teen stars. She also starred in another Disney film, Quints,




4. Life-Size (2000)

This movie was originally aired on ABC but was made by Disney, so I'm going to count it.  This is a ridiculous film starring still-innocent Lindsay Lohan back in her Parent Trap days as a football-playing tomboy who recently lost her mother and wants to bring her back to life. She finds a spellbook (where do all these kids find magical items? Are there a lot of irresponsible witches and wizards in the Disney universe?) and attempts to ressurrect her mom but inadvertently brings to life her Eve doll (read: Barbie) played by none other than supermodel Tyra Banks. Seeing Tyra play a life-size fashion doll is actually pretty entertaining - she actually thinks she can do all of the jobs her doll has had over the years and experiences eating for the first time. I really need to watch it again and see if it is as cheesy as I remember.

3. Sky High (2005)

I babysat for a family with four kids when I was in high school, and they introduced me to this movie. It's about a kid who has super hero parents and has been sent to a high school for super heroes - but doesn't actually have any super powers himself, and gets put on the "sidekick" track. That is, until his powers kick in and change everything. It's your typical tween movie, with action and morality and a little romance, but I love it. It has great actors like Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Lynda Carter, and Cloris Leachmen; characters have awesome names like Warren Peace and Royal Pain; and the theme song is "Melt With You" covered by Bowling for Soup. If I'm home alone and it's on TV, you can bet I'll be watching it.


2. Smart House (1999)

This was one of the coolest movies ever back when I was thirteen. It's about a boy who wins a "smart house" in a contest - a house that knows what you're favorite foods are and keeps them in the fridge, turns the lights out for you, does everything buy itself. It's controlled by a computer named PAT, who portrays itself as a 50s housewife played by Katey Sagal. Over the course of the film PAT gets jealous of the woman the boy's dad is dating, and starts to over-protect the family, going so far as to seal the doors and keep all of them from going outside. What I didn't know about this film before I looked it up on Wikipedia is that it was based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and directed by LeVar Burton. No wonder it was so awesome!


1. Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)

This is, hands-down, the most awesome movie ever to be made for the Disney channel. Forget High School Musical, forget Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire, Zenon is the movie that defined my early teen years. It is set in 2049, which looks suspiciously like 1999 (complete with the new Volkswagon Beetles that were on every girls' MASH list), but some of the population lives on a space station. No big deal. Zenon lives there with her parents, and gets sent to her Aunt's on Earth when she is (literally) grounded. The space station ends up in danger, and only Zenon can save it, and the plot is totally predictable, but that's not the part that mattered. It was the awesome 90s-inspired fashions of the future, the crazy futuristic catch phrases, and the weird music of the future which sounded a lot like 90s boy bands but played by a fictional musician named Protazoa. The shiny hot pink fabrics! The tiny microdisc earrings! Zetus lupetus!

Top 5: Cartoons that Shouldn't Have Been Canceled

In my opinion, you are never too old to watch cartoons. Animated shows have been around for 50 years or so and have been targeted at adults for years (The Flintstones, anyone?) - but my favorites are the ones targeted toward kids but have tons of jokes and references only adults can appreciate. Which is either an attempt to smarten up kid's shows or a good excuse for adults to watch Nickelodeon long past their teens. Either way I'm still watching cartoons.

Unfortunately some of my favorite shows were prematurely canceled. (I spent way to much time deciding if "canceled" is spelled with one "l" or two. In the US it's one, in the UK it's two. Now you know.) We'll always have reruns of Bugs Bunny and DVDs of the entire Jetsons series but there are some shows that aren't on anymore that I really miss.

5. O'Grady

 This is a little-known show that was on The N (Nickelodeon's teen/young adult programming) when I was in high school and starting college. It was about a group of high school kids that tried to go about class while dealing with The Weirdness - a phenomenon that would cause random odd things to happen each episode. Odd like people starting to act like cats or floating like they're full of helium. The animation was purposefully sort of bad but the characters were great. I used to watch episodes online but I don't know if you can even find them anymore.



4. Daria

 I love this show way too much for my own good. I have the entire series on DVD and adore every minute of sarcasm and cynicism it comes with. As much as I love it I put it down at #4 on my list because I think it actually had a good life for a series - continuing it past 2002 probably would have ruined it. I'm actually surprised it lasted that far into the millennium without self-combusting.

*Fun Fact: they make a Daria voice for your Garmin or TomTom GPS! I need to look into this.



3. Angry Beavers

 This show is arguably stupid but I loved it and couldn't stop watching it nonetheless. It's about two brother beavers who get kicked out of the house when their parents have another litter and try to make it on their own. They're sort of like the Odd Couple - one is smart and rational, the other is goofy and spontaneous. They like to watch scary movies and have a friend named Stump who is, naturally, a tree stump. My sister and I still quote the show from time to time. "LOOOK! I'm looooooking!" Stupid but awesome, as cartoons sometimes must be (case in point: Spongebob Squarepants).



2. The Powerpuff Girls

 In my opinion, this is one of the cutest cartoons ever created ever. It's worth the double evers, it's that adorable. The Powerpuff Girls were three little girls created by mixing sugar, spice, everything nice, and Chemical X, which gave them superpowers. They have to save the city of Townsville from monsters and other gross things and have a direct line to the oblivious Mayor who knows not to call them after bedtime, since they are in pre-school, after all. How can child superheroes named Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup not be adorable?



1. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

 Out of all of the cartoons I've ever seen, this was by far the most creative. Madame Foster (the tiny old lady with the round glasses) opened a foster home for all the imaginary friends children had created and then grown out of. Friends included characters like Wilt, the one-armed basketball player, Eduardo the big purple fuzzy scaredy-cat, Cheese, the weird yellow toddler-like thing, and most importantly, Blooregard Q. Kazoo, known affectionately as Bloo, the friend of Mac (the little boy in the middle). They got into lots of trouble, went on lots of adventures and had to do their chores to keep the Foster Home going. This show was full of charm and wit, and was loved by viewers of all ages - it even received 7 Emmys!

Do you have a favorite cartoon? I'd love to hear about it!

25 Days: Monkey Bread

Most families have a traditional breakfast routine for Christmas morning. Some have a big meal of pancakes, or a casserole that can be prepared the night before. We learned when my sister and I were little that big breakfasts weren't the way to go - Whitneigh was so impatient and eager to open her gifts that my parents started letting us open our stockings before food was ready just to get her to calm down. Having to wait until 9:00 when everyone was awake and ready was almost more than she could handle.

At some point, I can't remember when exactly, Mom started making Monkey Bread for Christmas morning. It's easy to make, easy to eat, and most importantly, can be eaten in the living room while watching eager children open presents. Monkey Bread is a sticky pull-apart bread coated with cinnamon, sugar and gooeyness. It's wonderful. There are lots of recipes for it - you can even buy it frozen and pop it at the oven if that's your wish. My mom's recipe is super easy. We used canned biscuits to make ours, but if you prefer to make your own bread, my friend Trevor has a wonderful recipe at his blog The Handicapped Kitchen.

Monkey Bread

4 small cans biscuits
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter

Combine sugar and cinnamon in plastic bag. Quarter biscuits and shake in bag of cinnamon sugar until coated. Layer evenly in a bunt pan. Bring butter and brown sugar to boil and pour over biscuits. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes and turn onto a plate immediately.

25 Days: Plastic Shovels

On the other end of the spectrum, the complete opposite of the awesome Barbie Dream Boat, is probably the lamest gift I ever got at Christmas: a snow shovel. More specifically, a child-sized plastic snow shovel with a special note from Santa telling us to use our new shovels to help out our father. It wasn't the only gift we got that year, thank goodness, but it was pretty ridiculous. I mean seriously, who gives a kid a present that they can only use when doing chores? Thanks, Santa.

25 Days: The Barbie Dream Boat

One of the best gifts I remember getting for Christmas as a little girl was from my older half-brother, Brian. He's eleven years older than me and was in high school when I was in elementary, so he always got us cool presents. One year he bought my sister a red Mustang for her Barbies - it expanded from a two-seater convertable to a four-seater. Whitneigh never let Ken drive it since it was Barbie's car - and when Barbie double dated, both guys had to sit in the back. No muscle cars for Ken at our house.

Anyway, the coolest thing Brian ever gave us was the 1994 Barbie Dream Boat.

This one sold on ebay for $85.

First, it was pink. About three different shades of pink. It had tons of cool decals to decorate it with stylish monograms. And it had a pool, who needs a boat with a pool? Barbie, that's who.

Second, it had a blender. A blender! Do you see that pink transparent thing in the middle of the boat? A Blender. It's on a hot pink battery-powered base with a pulse button that would mix your drink. Come to think of it, who thought it was a good idea to put a blender on a little girl's toy? Were we supposed to be making margaritas or something? It even came with two pink plastic cups (you can see them on top of the boathouse in the picture). Whitneigh and I used it to make chocolate milk - it was the only beverage we knew of that you had to mix before you drank it. It made for a pretty sticky boat.

Now the boat is in my parents' basement, along with the red Mustang, waiting for the day when we have daughters of our own and can give them our embarrassingly old-fashioned plastic toys to play with. 

In the bottom photo here you can see that in the back of the Dream Boat is a kitchen and a fold-out patio that reveals a set of super comfy looking twin beds (those stick-on pillows look especially inviting). Judging by the table on the patio the boat came with a set of pink candlesticks and a golden ice bucket with a pink bottle of champagne. Apparently Barbie drinks now? I guess that explains why it was okay for there to be a blender...

25 Days: Stickers

Like I said yesterday, we are a family of passive pranksters. Since my sister liked to shake and inspect each of her presents before Christmas morning, my mom decided to mix things up one year and NOT put our names on the gifts. I thought it was brilliant. Instead of name tags, Mom bought four different kinds of holiday stickers and assigned one of them to each person in the family - but didn't tell anyone. We had to spend the time leading up Christmas guessing which person got which sticker. It was one of my favorite Christmases of my entire childhood.

My sister Whitneigh, on the other hand, remembers it as one of her least favorites. She was tormented by the fact that she couldn't tell which presents were hers to shake and which ones were someone else's. Mom thought it was hilarious and kept the secret until Christmas morning when we were finally allowed to know which sticker was ours. Whitneigh still resents her for it.

25 Days: Fox & Geese

Both of my parents are the babies of their families, so growing up we didn't have a lot of cousins our age around to play with - namely because most of them were in college or getting married. We also live out in the country so the aren't really neighbor kids to play with, either. We read a lot and made up games (remind me to tell you about how I convinced my sister that cleaning our room was a game). Our Grandma moved in next door to us when I was in first grade or so and often played with us - or as it's called to grown-ups, babysat. She taught us a lot of old-fashioned songs and games from when she was younger, like the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and one of our favorite winter games, Fox and Geese.

Basically you stomp out a wagonwheel shape in the snow, and one person is proclaimed the Fox and must chase the Geese without stepping off of the path. It's just a way to play tag in the snow. I always thought it was something that she and her brother and sisters had made up when they were kids. Then a few years ago I was rummaging around some old books at our church and found a book of "games for young people" that was probably written in 1930. It suggested parties with themes like Our Nation's Presidents and other things children wouldn't do now if their lives depended on it. And lo and behold, in the "outdoor games" section, was Fox and Geese! Maybe Grandma's church had had this book back in the 30s when she was in school and that was where she learned it.

25 Days: Hand-Made Stockings

Like most families, we have certain decorations that we have to put our every year because they hold so many fun memories. The Baby’s First Christmas ornament, the wooden doves my parents made the first year they were married – they may not be the most trendy but they are so meaningful that it just wouldn’t be Christmas without them. My absolute favorite holiday decorations are our stockings – when I was little, my mom found a pattern for sewing custom stockings, and made them for my half-brother and myself (this was before my little sister was born). His was a Nike sneaker, and mine was a Mary Jane with a pink lacy sock. We’ve used them every year since, and I love them. Since then we’ve made my dad a jester sock and my sister a high-heeled shoe. Now that my sister is married, we should probably make one for her husband! I wonder what shoe he would like?

25 Days: A Visit From Santa

When I was a little girl, probably in the 2nd grade, some surprise visitors stopped by our house one winter evening. There, in my kitchen, stood Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Or to be more accurate, there stood my Uncle Stan and Aunt Janet, dressed as St. Nick and his wife, delivering oranges to all the kids they knew. I thought it was awesome, having my aunt and uncle dressed up and handing out gifts, but my sister, who was probably 5 at the time, was completely freaked out by them. She had no idea who it was, didn't like strangers, and burst into tears. I tried to console her and explain that it was just Stan and Janet in costume but she wouldn't have it. I think she hid in our bedroom the rest of the time they were there. Poor Whitneigh wasn't as excited about meeting Santa as I was.

25 Days: An Electricity-Free Christmas

While the year Whitneigh pulled over the tree was pretty memorable, the year that holds the most unique memories for me is the year when we were without power for an entire week during Christmas. 

I was a freshman or sophomore in high school when the epic ice storm hit my hometown in Ohio. Snow and a thick layer of ice on top made for a beautiful holiday but not the most convenient one. Snow plows didn't come down our road for days. We live up on a hill and knew we wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. The heavy ice layer knocked out power all over Ohio. It gives you a whole new perspective, celebrating Christmas without electricity. We slept under piles of blankets, used old-fashioned oil lanterns for light, and collected before the fireplace for warmth. We played a lot of board games and went to bed around 7:30 rather than waste oil on staying up late. Thankfully we have a wood-burning stove in our basement and were able to cook over it and keep plenty of canned and frozen food in the house. Instead of ham we had chicken noodle soup for Christmas dinner. I live in the country and we have a well, which means when there is no power there is also no water. Think for a minute about all the things in your home that require running water, and you'll understand why we hauled pans full of snow to the basement in order to melt it. Life is a lot more complicated when you can't do simple things like brush your teeth or eat breakfast without taking a flashlight and a load of wood downstairs. 

Although we weren't able to light our Christmas tree or watch our favorite movies, there were still some good memories made that year. My mom trying to make Jiffy Pop over open flame in the fireplace comes to mind. It doesn't work, by the way.

25 Days: Pulling Over the Tree

We’ve had a lot of memorable Christmases over the years. From the great gifts to the horrible weather it’s hard not to make memories during the holidays. One that I don’t remember, but that is practically legendary in our family, is the year that my sister pulled over the Christmas tree.

It was 1989, and my sister Whitneigh was a year old and walking. We had the tree up and fully decorated with all the trendiest ornaments of the 80s. Our newest was a tiny pillow embroidered with a wreath and when you squeezed it a Christmas carol played. I was three and thought the musical pillow ornament was the neatest thing on the planet ("cool" wasn't cool yet). My parents purposefully hung it low on the tree so that I could push it myself and hear the song play.

I loved to play the ornament, and my baby sister loved to copy everything I did but being two years younger she wasn't always able to do the same things I could. So one day our Dad is laying on the living room floor under the Christmas tree watering it with a pitcher full of water. Little Whitneigh comes over to the tree to look at the new ornament, squeezes it, and walks away - without letting go of the tiny pillow. Off she goes, and down the tree comes with her. Right on top of poor Dad. He's trapped, she's crying, and undoubtedly Mom is hiding in the other room trying not to laugh.
  
 Unfortunately we lost some delicate ornaments, but we were able to save the pillow (and Dad). We put it back on the tree every year - for a while there it was up too high for us to reach - and laugh at the time a tiny ornament brought the whole Christmas tree crashing to the floor.

Top 5: Movies from 1986

It's my birthday! I'm turning 25 today, so to celebrate I'm counting down what I consider to be the best movies from the year I was born, 1986. It was a good year. Pixar was founded, Oprah's show premiered, Europe released The Final Countdown, Nintendo released Legend of Zelda and Now That's What I Call Music was only at number 7. A lot of great movies were released in '86 - Stand By Me (which I have never had the chance to watch), Top Gun, Labarynth - and those aren't even the ones on my list! Check out my top 5 movies of the year below.

5. Howard the Duck

I've never seen this movie, but the fact that it exists and was produced by Lucasfilm makes it worthy of my list. How a film about a cigar-smoking duck from space ever made it to the big screen is beyond me. The whole concept just cracks me up.




4. An American Tail 

I've mentioned this movie before because it's iconic among kids I grew up with. It's about a Russian mouse that immigrates to the US and gets separated from his parents. The song Somewhere Out There actually won a Grammy. If you've ever seen the show Community the characters, who are college students,  sing the song to their lab mouse - and it's awesomely hilarious because all college students know that song. (Watch it on YouTube here.)


3. Little Shop of Horrors

 Who doesn't love musicals about backstreet dentists and carnivorous plants?  Not to mention Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, and amazingly campy sets. It's hilarious, has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was nominated for best original song but lost to "Take My Breath Away" in Top Gun. So close.




2. Pretty in Pink 

 This is an iconic John Hughes movie from his repitoire of 80s teen flicks. I judge all teen movies against those by Hughes, and there are very few that come anywhere near his level. I love this one because of the supporting characters, Jon Cryer and Annie Potts. Who doesn't want a guy around like Duckie, or a boss like Iona? I always thought her prom dress looked stupid, though.



1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

This is one of my favorite movies, hands-down.  I love how Ferris talks to the screen, how much people love him, and all the lengths they go to just to have a great day skipping school. That's a lot of dedication. And it's not just about kids skipping school - somehow John Hughes always captured exactly how high school relationships worked without making them look chintzy. Plus there is the museum montage, the fantastic parade scene, Jennifer Grey flirting with young Charlie Sheen, the car driving out of the garage - I could go on and on. Like When Harry Met Sally,  if you don't like this movie we can't be friends.

Best Thing: Quirky Kid's Books

I love the concept of creating children's books out of complex "adult" ideas. Einstein once said "If you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough." If you can explain something to children you can be sure you know what you're talking about. Recently I've found these awesome books - the first, an introduction to graphic design written for kids:

Graphic Design for Kids by Pamela Pease

And the second, a wonderful board book for young web designers:

HTML for Babies by John C. Vanden-Heuvel Sr.

If I ever have children, they will read ridiculously awesome books like these!

Top 5: VHS Cassettes

We've been sorting through stuff at my parents' lately in preparation for a garage sale. For some reason my family has a ton of movies - there are two bookshelves flanking our entertainment center with tapes and DVDs double stacked. This morning I sorted through them and packed up four boxes. I should have counted as I packed, but I didn't - I'm guessing there are close to 300 that we're getting rid of. It's crazy, I know. I found some cool stuff we haven't watched in 15 years or so! Here are my favorite finds of the afternoon:

5. We're Back!

    

I remember really liking this movie as a child. Which makes sense, since it's directed by Stephen Spielberg. I don't know why we had two copies of it, though.

4. Fivel Goes West

"Somewhere Out There" is still an awesome song all these years later. Although to be honest, I can't remember much about the plot of this movie. Luckily I saved this one so I can watch it!

3. Winnie the Pooh's Blustry Day

That isn't me holding the box, but this is exactly what ours looks like. It's even worn like that, since we watched it so often. My mom confessed later that we watched it so much because she thought it was so cute that she wanted to watch it, too.

2. Ghostbusters

Who doesn't love Ghostbusters? Slimer, the Stay Puft man, the Keymaster, the cheesy effects, it's all awesome. This is one that we need to replace on DVD for sure. 

1. Walk, Don't Run

This is one of my mom and I's favorite movies of all time. I've watched it at least a dozen times, and that's just the VHS version. I love this tape because one year we went to watch it and it didn't work - the cassette was literally broken. The video tape was intact, but the actual plastic tape piece was cracked and wouldn't fit in the VCR anymore. So we did the only logical thing: found an old tape we didn't want anymore, took it apart, replaced the random film with the film from Walk, Don't Run, screwed it back together and played it. Since then I've bought us both DVD copies, but I'm keeping the transplanted tape for posterity.

Top 5: Children's Books

For this week's Top 5, I'm reminiscing a little. I read a lot as a child - I got my library card in the second grade and my dad would take us on weekly trips to get new books. It's part of the reason why I love reading so much today. These are my favorite books from my childhood!

5. Clifford the Big Red Dog (1963)

I'm not sure how I started to like Clifford, but they sold copies of the books at the grocery store my mom shopped at when we were little, and I was always on the look out for titles I didn't have. I had a collection of them and loved to read about the trouble Clifford kept getting into, even though he tried so hard to be a good dog. In the one I remember most he saw a kitten playing with a spool of thread and wanted to play, too - so he took a spool of telephone wire some men were installing and batted it all around the park. 6-year-old me thought this was hilarious! 

4. If You Give A Mouse a Cookie (1986)

Apparently this book was first printed the year I was born, but I didn't know about it until a friend of my mother's gave a copy of it to us for Christmas one year. We were hooked! The mouse was cute but needy - every time you gave him something, he wanted something else to go with it. If you gave him a cookie, he needed milk. If you gave him a nice little bed, he needed a glass of water. It was never ending. There are a couple of great spin-offs by the same author, including If You Give a Moose a Muffin and If You Give a Pig a Pancake

3. And to think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937)

My sister and I had a collection of Dr. Seuss books growing up, and this was one of our favorites. It's about a little boy who walked home from school along Mulberry Street and would imagine all these fantastical things to tell his father he saw. We loved all of the crazy things that the kid came up with, like traveling trapeze artists and an elephant parade. I still love the fact that both the Mansfield and Mount Vernon public libraries are on Mulberry Street. (Fun fact: this was Dr. Seuss' first published children's book!)

2. The Baby-Sitter's Club (1986)

I read every single copy the library had in this series. From #1, when they start the club, to the extended Super Specials to the spin-off series California Diaries featuring one of the girls who moved to the west coast. There was a TV show in the 90s (which I watched every episode of) and one Christmas my mom bought my sister and I official Baby-Sitter's Club dolls. I couldn't decide if I was more like Mary Anne or Claudia, but it didn't matter, because all of the girls were awesome. I used some of their babysitting tricks when I later became a babysitter myself!

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (1978)

My third-grade class took monthly field trips to the local library to have story time. The librarian read this book to us once, and I was absolutely enthralled. I couldn't find the book for a long time, but it was so engrained in my brain that when I babysat as a teenager I would tell the kids the story before bedtime. Can you imagine a town where all the food comes from the sky? Where you check the weather to see the menu? So imaginative! I was a bit skeptical when they came out with a movie version, but even though it doesn't exactly follow the story, it's still wonderful and hilarious. I finally bought a copy in college and keep it on my bookshelf with the rest of my classics.