January 18 - Thesaurus Day

A page from my 1963 copy of Roget's. Happy 230th Birthday, Peter Mark Roget!

January 14 - Organize Your Home Day

I'm not sure who could organize their home in one day. Perhaps someone with a very small home and few belongings. My place is on the small side, but I have tons of stuff. There is no way I could get it done in a week, much less a day. Personally, I try to follow Flylady's guidelines for doing a little at a time.

June 5 - Candy Month

June is Candy Month. If I were in charge, I probably would have made October the designated month of candy, but that's just me. I'm not in charge. Anyhow, I just finished reading Candy Freak by Steve Almond. In his book, Almond discusses the beloved candy of his youth, and it made me nostalgic as well.

I remember eating candy with my friend Kate. We would pretend that Tic Tacs were medicine we needed to do adventurous things. (What? I was five.) We would sit under the tree in my front yard and eat Now and Laters, Lik-m-Aid, Bottle Caps...mmm.

I remember Nana would give me Skittles. (Nana gave me everything I ever wanted. Including a Lite Brite, for which I am eternally grateful.) I would eat each bag of Skittles differently. Sometimes I would eat them color by color, usually starting with lime first; it was my least favorite flavor. Sometimes I would shove the contents of one bag in my mouth and see how long it took me to chew it all up. And once in a while, I'd just eat one or two at a time, however they fell out of the bag.

In Candy Freak, Almond also goes into great detail about the candy he remembers but is no longer manufactured. Perhaps I'm just too young, but I can't think of any candy that has disappeared on me. Do you have any long lost favorites?

May 22 - National Backyard Games Week

Official Site?

According to my (not scientific, nor very extensive) research, National Backyard Games Week is the week in May starting the Monday before through the Monday of Memorial Day.

As a child, I liked to ride my bike around the neighborhood. We also played catch, baseball, basketball, tag, hide and seek, hopscotch and more that I have probably forgotten. The most fun games were the ones we made up. Maybe these games weren't unique to the kids in my neighborhood, I just haven't heard of them anywhere else.

We played a game we called Statue. I forget all the rules, but this was a two-person game. One player was the statue, the other person was the statue-maker. The statue-maker would move the statue's arms, legs, head, etc. into position, usually some bizarre or hilarious pose.

Also we played a game called Ice-Cream Man. There wasn't much to it. Actually, one person would just turn their bicycle upside down so it was upright with the handle bars and the seat on the ground. That person would move the pedals with both hands in a sort of churning motion. The other players would line up and tell the ice cream "man" what flavor they wanted. The ice cream man would then mimic making an ice cream cone and handing it over.

A variation of this game was the Cookie Queen. Actually, I don't remember the rules (if there were any), just that I was always happy when I got to be the Cookie Queen.

We played a game we stole from the Baby-sitter's Club books. In those books, it was called Let's All Come In or something like that. We just called it Hotel. This wasn't so much an outdoor game, but one my siblings and I would play in the basement. This is another make-believe game; one person would run the hotel and the others were the guests. I remember my brother always wanted to be some famous wrestler.

Well, reliving these memories has put a smile on my face. What games did you play when you were young?

Today is also:
International Day for Biological Diversity (or World Biodiversity Day)
National Maritime Day

May 12 - Nutty Fudge Limerick Day

May 12 - Limerick Day
ALSO - National Nutty Fudge Day

I couldn't decide which holiday I wanted to celebrate today. I like funny poems. But I also like fudge with nuts. So I decided to combine my celebrations. I'll be making fudge (with nuts) and I'll pipe a limerick on top using frosting. Meanwhile, enjoy my limericks about nutty fudge!

There once was a man named Cutty
He wanted some fudge that was nutty
He tried making some
But it couldn't be done
It came out tasting like putty

There once was a man named Rudge
He liked to eat nutty fudge
His wife made him some
But she shouldn't have done
It came out looking like sludge
(OK, OK, I realize that is just a copy of the first poem...I'll try harder with the next one.)

There once was an old trial judge
Against his wife he held a grudge
His favorite treat
She wouldn't eat
That treat was some nutty fudge

On the face of Old Lady Crudge
Was a very large smudge of fudge
She tried and tried
and she cried and cried
but that smudge of fudge wouldn't budge.

Limerick Day was created to celebrate not only the familiar poetry style, but also the birthday of the man who popularized it - Edward Lear.

Here are some of his still enjoyable books:
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
Complete Nonsense
Nonsense Books


Today is also:
Fibromyalgia Awareness Day

March 11 - Organize Your Home Office Day

March 11 - Organize Your Home Office Day

Five Tips to Organize Your Home Office (My favorite)
Organizing Your Home Office
Ten Tips to Organize Your Home Office

I took this opportunity to clean up my home office. I don't work out of the home, but I have a desk where I conduct the business of my life, my boyfriend's life, and our life together. As you can see from the "Before" picture, I have a bad habit of letting my crap pile up everywhere.

Laziness. I has it.

And, as you can probably guess, this organization project will likely take more than one day. So I got started on Sunday.

Step one: I admitted I am powerless over my clutter – my life has become unmanageable. Ahh. I feel better already.

Step two: Cleaning and pre-organization. (Yes, pre-organization. I have to organize before I can organize. )

I grabbed a kitchen timer, a garbage bag, and two boxes. The garbage bag is for garbage (duh), one box is for items that need to remain in the desk/office area, and the second box is for items that belong in other parts of my apartment. I set the timer for 30 minutes, and hit the start button. When I came across papers that need to stay in the desk area, but need to be filed OR acted on, I just added them to the KEEP pile, to be sorted through again. Yes, this sounds like extra work, but I will get too distracted if I try to micro-manage my papers at this juncture. I really need to see what the top of my desk looks like. I haven’t seen it in a while.

A half hour later – I feel better. Sweatier and dirtier, but better. I still have LOTS to do, but I have made a marked improvement. Here’s what I did:

I started by going through the stuff on the floor. Some things, like craft items and books, I set aside for later organization. I have to focus on organizing my home office. Hobbies and other cleaning tasks can be done later. I was able to weed out some garbage, including some old phone books. I collected the library books in one place, my personal books were stacked on the table (for later organization), and some items that I want to take to work with me are stacked near the front door for me to grab on my way out the door in the morning.

With a few minutes left on the timer, I put away some of the items on my desk that belonged in other rooms. I was able to pretty much clear my desk top. I still must go through everything on the desk shelves, in the desk drawer, and of course, I must go through my pile once again to sort through all the papers.

I found my calendars! (You'll notice from the "before" picture that a 2007 calendar is still up on my wall.) My new wall calendar was a Christmas present from my mother, and it features photographs of Chicago. I heart Chicago.

Christmas decorations are packed up but still out. These need to be stored in the bedroom closet. I can put them away later; they are not really in the way right now. (A few hours later I got around to putting away all the Christmas decorations.)

On Monday, for half an hour between work and dinner, I went in for another go-round of sorting through my crap. Here’s what I got done:

I collected all my current bills and set them aside to pay them tonight. Books that belonged at the desk stayed, books that did not belong were moved elsewhere. Everything in and on the desk was sorted through and garbage was thrown out. I was even able to start putting things back in place.

After dinner, I sat down to pay my current bills. Then, while watching The Godfather, I went through my papers more carefully and tried to sort them into rough piles. I was done by the time the guy finds his horse's head in his bed with him.

On Tuesday's agenda:
Step three: The actual organization begins!Plus, re-organizing the filing system and find homes for things that do not belong in the desk.

I'll be back later tonight or tomorrow to show you the "After" picture!

March 8 - Read an E-book Week

March 2-8 - Read an E-book Week
Official Site

Today is the conclusion of Read an E-book Week. But there is still time to read!

I don’t think that e-books will replace paper books, at least not in my lifetime. There is something about having books in your hand, on your shelf, at the store or library that cannot be replaced with a computer, e-reader or iPhone.

Despite this desire for actual, physical books, I do read e-books from time to time. I often read books found at Internet Archive, a pioneer in the book digitization industry. This non-profit organization only digitizes books that are in the public domain, which means that the books available are largely pre-1923. While you may initially feel restricted by this, you will eventually be surprised by the large number of popular titles available. The books vary widely in subject. There is plenty of non-fiction, novels, poetry, cookbooks, how-to, and more. You will certainly be able to find something to read there.

There are many other sites with free e-books available. Project Gutenberg is a partner with Internet Archive. More books can be found here and here.

I would love to get a Kindle, but for now I will read physical books, and some e-books online.

January 7 - Book Blitz Month

January - Book Blitz Month

I couldn't find any information online about this observance. It seems I saw somewhere that the "blitz" is when authors go on tour to support their books. But I can't find the link I had for that.

So I decided to make Book Blitz Month my own. I cashed in my Amazon.com gift card and ordered a whole load of books. They are starting to arrive this week, so I will be immersed in one of the best things around - NEW BOOKS! Whee! When I get through those I'll hit up the local library. I've been in this area a year now, but still haven't made it over! I can't believe I've put it off so long.


Happy reading!

November 15 - National Bundt Pan Day

Happy Bundt Day!

The bundt pan (which is used to create the iconic cakes from the '60s and '70s) was created in 1950 by Nordic Ware. Celebrate by baking a cake! I used this book to create a delicious bundt cake today.

November 14 - Children's Book Week

November 12-18 - Children's Book Week

Even as an adult, I still enjoy most children's books. I should re-read some of these books more often. Recently, I was looking through the children's books on amazon.com, and I came across a few that I'd almost forgotten about:

• The Velveteen Rabbit
• Harriet the Spy
• Ramona Quimby
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
  

I could go on and on listing books that I loved as a child. But I won't bore you with the details. Go grab a few children's books from the library, or see what is available on the Internet Archive. Enjoy!