Amazon

I've mentioned before that I love Amazon for buying gifts. There's just so much selection, so much randomness and so much STUFF! Now they've gone and made it even better.

Now I can make gift lists for anyone I buy gifts for - all the better to remember what I meant to buy them!

One thing I love about Amazon is it keeps track of all your previous purchases. Now, they let you go back through those purchases and make lists based on that. The two-person bicycle ornament? That was for Cinnamon. The book on how to tie your shoes in crazy ways? That was Beth! Based on these previous orders and any other items you add to that person - Amazon will then recommend other gifts! I don't always agree, but it's really nice to just surf around sometimes, find a gift that would be *perfect* for _____. All I have to do is just click and it's saved until birthday/anniversary/Christmas!

Gift giving just became a whole lot easier.

PS. Even if you don't want to actually buy from Amazon, it could be helpful to set up the account anyway. You can always buy the stuff from another company - although in my experience, Amazon typically is the cheapest!

Um...

Today's blog is a reversal of my regular blogs. Today's blog is a gift that I am begging you NOT to buy anyone.

I like to think that my array of friends and family are quite diverse. I have some conservatives, some liberals, Christians, athiests, fairly normal and fairly not...but this one. I just can't imagine one person on my lists...no, I take that back. I can't imagine anyone, PERIOD that I would ever buy this for. Or anyone that I can imagine buying for me.

A belly cast??

Really???

I'm not sure I'm going to want to remember that forever. Don't get me wrong, I think baby bumps are adorable. But I'm pretty sure pictures will suffice. Where would you put your belly cast? On your kitchen table? In the foyer? How would you store it???

For $20, I can take a TON of pictures from every angle. I'm good.

So note to everyone, don't buy this for me. 'Kay?

Thanks.

In the works...

Check back at the end of June. I've just booked my husband's birthday present and it is going to be insanely awesome. His birthday isn't until July 5, but what I have planned only happens certain days each month. I gave him an option of June 21-25 or July 12-14 time frames.

I'll give you a sneak peak by telling you what hubby knows:

- Leaving Wednesday, June 22 after we both get off work. Destination: Teaneck, NJ (right outside NYC).
- Spending two nights at the Marriott Glenpointe
- Thursday morning/early afternoon we will be doing "birthday extravaganza surprise"
- Thursday evening will be spent hanging out in NYC.
- Home on Friday, before the city weekend rush starts.

What a few of my friends are saying:

"oh my. he is going to be in heaven. seriously. you will never have to worry about a divorce from this one simple present. hahaha"

"Seriously, I don't know if you will ever be able to top this gift!"

Readin' on up.

Sometimes, simple gifts can be the biggest surprises. What about giving a gift that someone already knows they like?

Brad and I can spend hours in a bookstore. I linger longer in the book section than he does, but he keeps himself quite occupied over in the magazine section. It never ceases to amaze me the volume and variety of magazines available out there.

One year, for Christmas, I decided to give him the gift that keeps on giving – magazine subscriptions. I got him two – one to a surfing magazine and one to a snowboarding magazine.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem that much better than a stinking gift card. They still don’t get to open anything! But that’s easily remedied! Just run out to the closest bookstore, grab the latest issue (if you’re really ambitious, plan in advance and have a couple of months’ worth of issues!), stick them in a box and wrap it up! Something to open and enjoy before their next issue comes!

I also got a magazine subscription for a friend who was getting married a few months later. When I got the subscription, I put it in her future new last name. Just another extra special touch to make it personalized.

Sidenote: Just make sure your gift isn’t something they are already subscribed to! If they are and you really can’t find any other subscription out there that you think they’d like, see if you can renew their subscription for a year or two.

But, really? You can’t find anything interesting to give them???

 

Amazon has THOUSANDS of magazine subscriptions. Just try it. I dare you!

Eco-Friendly and "What Do I Do With This?"

As we all know, random gifts are my favorite. But I’ve been known to be *so* random, that I don’t even fully know what I’m giving someone.

In October, the small town we live in gets invaded by about 40,000 people to this arts& crafts festival they like to call Colorfest. I had some fun at Colorfest and bought quite a few unique Christmas gifts but this one takes the cake. At the time, I hadn’t seen anything like it, but as the months pass, I’ve seen them popping up more and more.

I’ve seen them described as:

-          Cigar holders

-          Spoon holders

-          Cheese & cracker platter

-          Nut holder

-          Gadget bowl

Some I’ve even seen made into recycled windchimes!

I did give one to my dad for Christmas and I think his plan is to hang it on a wall in his “mancave”.

Biker Buddies

I like to give people ornaments. I know that’s not super exciting or super original, but it can be somewhat original if you do it right. I’m talking about doing more than Hallmark’s specialty ornament of that year here.

One of my bestests, Cinnamon, lives in Florida (the beautiful state that hubby and I will *hopefully* be moving to soon!). She and her boyfriend ride bikes for fun. They each have their own bikes but they also have a super cool tandem bike! (I’m only a little jealous!)

This year I found this nifty little ornament representing one of their favorite hobbies as a couple:

How many times do you see a Christmas ornament with a guy and a girl tandem bike riding? I’d never seen one before, so I jumped right on it! (Less than $15 on Amazon, using a gift card so it was yet another free gift to give this Christmas).

Hopefully she will think of me every Christmas when she puts it on her tree J

Drink like a camel

I haven’t been slacking…I promise! Once I got the hubby nursed back to health, I got sick. It was eerily similar to his sickness but hopefully I’m on the upswing.

Onward to gift giving!

So there’s this girl who’s probably going to be my sister in law one day. She and I spent a lot of time last summer hiking in the parks close by to our houses with the dogs. Some days were 3 milers, other days were 8+. Just depended on how much we had to talk about J

Regardless of how long we spent out in the wilderness, she always carried a water bottle. I, being married to Mr. Outdoorsman, had bought this little handy dandy thing years ago:

A Camelbak. They come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors. If you spend any time outside at all, this thing is one of the most useful, practical gadgets you can possibly have. Fill it with water (and ice if it’s a hot day), strap it to your back and then you are off on whatever adventure you have planned – with the use of both hands! It makes everything easier – kayaking, hiking, biking – anything you can think of!

Not long before Christmas, hubs and I were in good ‘ol REI and I saw Camelbaks on sale. Lightbulb on. She had never complained about carrying a water bottle around, but you could see that it wasn’t exactly convenient. Plus, we’ve talked about trying our hand at some adventure races together (trail running, trail biking and kayaking “triathlons”) and it would obviously be beneficial to have her water strapped to her back.

Happy trails!