Fore!

My hubby is a big golfer. He will take any opportunity to brush up on his golf swing or get out on the golf course. He’s also extremely organized. Everything in his life has to be properly put away and in its’ place. Kind of a contrast from me – don’t get me wrong, when it comes to my work life and my school life (and gift giving) I’m rather OCD. Think I’m kidding? I had a phone interview for a new job last week and they asked how I stayed organized with tasks. I used my color-coded Christmas presents spreadsheet as an example. The HR representative laughed and told me I was borderline OCD.

Anyways, when I came across a golf organizer for your trunk, I thought that sounded like a great fit for my husband. It gave room for extra shoes, clothes, balls, etc. Anything you can think of, all stored away in one handy little place. The problem is, when I went to order it, there were horrible reviews on the quality of the product. So I kept looking. I finally came across a Nike Golf trunk organizer. It’s more expensive than the other brand I looked at, but I figured that a Nike Golf came with a certain reputation.

$72.95 at Amazon.com

Then, just for fun, I got him a pair of these Golf Ball Finder Glasses! You can get these just about anywhere, even Bed Bath & Beyond. The reviews weren’t outstanding with this either, but for the price (less than $15), you can’t expect too much. The bottom line was, people found more balls than they lost. For $15 I figure if he just finds 15 balls a year we’re probably in the clear. If nothing else, it is pretty fun to sit and watch the wildlife with those glasses!

$17.19 at Amazon (but you can get this at Bed Bath & Beyond with a coupon for cheaper!)

Keepin' it Kool.

It seems like every year I tend to get hubby one "big" gift for Christmas and a couple of smaller gifts. Sometimes they're something he's mentioned over the past year but never got around to getting (rare!). Sometimes they're something someone else mentioned and he seemed interested in. This year's "big" gift was none of the above. I don't even remember how I came across it, but I think it stemmed from when I was considering giving him this:

A remote controlled cooler! But then I decided that maybe I need to encourage getting away from the college-type gifts. At the time, we were talking about buying a house. This house had an AMAZING three-tiered back deck and we were just dreaming about all the awesome parties we would have. In anticipation of that, I bought hubby:

I got him the larger one and it was definitely a good surprise on Christmas morning. The smaller one is 57 quarts and the larger one is 87 quarts (holds 72 12oz cans with 20lbs of ice to give you a base). It's rustic, it's useful and it's much nicer to look at then the plastic ones!

I bought it on Amazon for around $150 I think but it's currently unavailable. You can find them on the world wide web though!

Sushi please!

My husband and I are sushi junkies. We have one restaurant in our small town that serves sushi and the workers and owners of the establishment know us by name, by face, by phone number and by our dogs (who usually ride along and hang out in the back of the Pathfinder).

"I'd like to place an order to go please."
"Can I get your phone number?"
"704-..."
"Ahhh, Topper! What would you like?"

We literally go in at least once per week, sometimes twice. Needless to say, we rack up pretty quickly on the soy sauce and chopsticks.

My husband likes having his own things in life. That's why I thought I'd died to heaven when I found Everything Chopsticks. Pretty chopsticks, beginner chopsticks, personalized chopsticks and glass chopsticks. And beyond.

After browsing the enormous selection, I settled on a pair of travel chopsticks:

These weren't the cheapest chopsticks on the website (nor were they the most expensive, by a long shot!) but they are simple, appear to be sturdy and come in a nifty little travel case for easy transportation!

They screw in at the middle for easy cleaning and transporting!

Something tells me we'll be having sushi for our day after Christmas dinner :)

Old Skool.

If you remember, last year I came across this Atari set to give my brother for Christmas. It was a huge hit. He is an early 80's baby so he's getting to that age where it's fun for him to go back to his childhood sometimes.

I had actually planned to go completely practical this year, but c'mon. It's Christmas. We all buy practical gifts for ourselves. I kind of enjoy being that person with a reputation when it comes to getting gifts - I keep people on their toes since they never know what's coming.

Anyhoo, this year I searched and searched. I knew I wouldn't top last year, but I was going to try to at least be in the same ballpark.

While perusing through the crazy collection of stuff at Think Geek, I found this gift that is perfect for that playful person who grew up in the 80's:

DONKEY KONG JENGA!
$24.99 at Think Geek



My brother, his wife and their friends all love playing games. I'm pretty sure they don't have Jenga, but even if they did - now there's this extra step of trying to get Mario to the top without getting hit by the barrels!

Kind of hoping he wants to break it out right then and there when we celebrate Christmas...

Remember this blog where I said something was in the works? Well, it's time for my little update!

What I had planned was quite possibly the best gift I could have ever planned. Thanks to Gotham Dream Cars, my husband drove 6 exotic cars with me as the passenger! The Ferrari was in the shop (hate when that happens!) but we drove a Porsche, two Lamborghini's, an Aston Martin, Bentley and finally a Mercedes. I really don't know how else to describe it, so I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Just having fun in NYC was enough gift for the both of us, I think! But it was an absolutely amazing experience. It kind of stunk because it rained horribly through most of the morning - flooding conditions, actually. But they gave us a phenomenal deal to come back within a year and try it again.

I HIGHLY recommend Gotham Dream Cars, though. They were ridiculously knowledgeable and super impressive. They have a lead car and a trail car and you just have to stay in between those two. The lead car will radio ahead if they see a cop or something, but they can't help you if you get pulled over. Although, who wouldn't want a speeding ticket in a Lamborghini to take home as an extra souvenir?

It's not cheap - with tax it comes in right under $1,000. BUT, we got a great deal on our hotel, a cheap shuttle in and out of the city and once we were in NYC, we barely spent any money. We just walked around and enjoyed everything together. I'd been budgeting for this since January and regardless of what some people have said, it was worth it to me. We had a great time together, doing something that most people will never do and it made incredible memories for us. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Want to see all of the professional pictures?  Click here!

A morning cup of coffee...

Snapfish did this very clever marketing move - the week of Mother's Day I began to get emails offering me 50% off Father's Day gifts.

Hook, line and sinker.

I started looking through their "qualified" Father's Day items and saw something I thought my dad just might like.

A photo mug!

Brad's grandmother was given one of them for her 80th birthday and I know she's really enjoyed it. My dad is a devoted morning coffee man and while they have a bazillion and one coffee mugs, I have a feeling this will be the one used daily.

You can put up to I believe 16 pictures on a mug and there's a couple of different sizes of mugs, 11oz-17oz. I went with the 15oz coffee mug (the 17oz is a Latte mug). I took pictures of my brother and I as kids, of my mom and dad, and wedding pictures from both of our weddings...and of course the two grandpuppies! I'm probably going to get a small bag of gourmet coffee to put with it. Even though I'm far away, he can have his coffee with his baby girl every morning!

Oh, and by the way. With my 50% off, even with tax and shipping my total came to $15.35. Normally they start at $16.99. Still not bad, but my 50% off was nice :)

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!

Warning: Do not try while hungry...

The economy pretty much stinks these days. Christmas should never be a burden and homemade gifts are no longer the macaroni-necklace, toilet paper roll Christmas tree crafts anymore. It’s super easy to give the illusion of spending a lot of money (although that’s definitely not the expectation) without the cash. Besides, when the recipient finds out you did it yourself, that’s even better!

Got a candy or dessert that is your specialty? Find a cute way to box it up as a gift!

I made these fudgy bon-bons for work a few weeks ago.

They look professional, right? Find some little boxes, wrap some ribbon around it and voila! Instant look of expensive fudge shops but cheap solution in your own kitchen.

Children on your list? Try these chocolate mice!

I think they are just adorable!

Got a tea lover (like myself) on your list? Pomegranate Winter Tea!

Click here for 26 fun little gift-giving-worthy recipes!

Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck

I’m kind of the self-proclaimed queen of random. You’ll never catch me giving my father a tie for Father’s Day (although I’m pretty sure I have in the past…but no more!). With giving gifts comes the potential for that element of surprise. I LOVE that look on people’s faces when they open a gift to find something they didn’t even know existed!

I found one of those gifts for my father in law this year for Christmas. My husband vetoed it, saying it was just “clutter” (*gasp* how dare he??). But I still think it’s pretty awesome.

What is it?

My husband, father in law and brother in law all love the Three Stooges. (Ohhhh the jokes I could insert here).

Life sized Three Stooges cut outs! (Amazon)

If you don’t like this scene, there’s multiple ones on there, just pick the episode you want!

I  thought about getting them Three Stooges masks too but maybe that’ll wait for another day…

Go Team!

As I mentioned a few posts back, my best friend and I exchange Christmas ornaments every year. We try to do something that’s special to that year and this year she got married in August (I talk about weddings and getting married an awful lot, don’t I?).

Concerned that she would get a bazillion “First Christmas” or “Just Married” ornaments, I decided to think how I think best – off the wall.

My bestest graduated from Virginia Tech and her husband from Wake Forest so naturally during any sport season, they have a good natured rivalry going on. I thought it might be fun to play on that a little.

While browsing on Etsy (I’ve mentioned how much I LOVE this site), I found a quilted Virginia Tech ornament that looked like this:

I didn’t see any Wake Forest stuff on the site, but went ahead and emailed the crafter anyway. I explained the situation and asked if she could possibly do some sort of “split household” ornament with VT and WF. She (Donna) responded back and said she’d love to but she hadn’t been able to find any Wake Forest ribbon (which disappointed her greatly considering she was also a WF alumni). She said she’d look around some more and see if she could come across some WF ribbon and she’d let me know.

Fast forward about a month later – she found some! She messaged and asked if I was still interested (absolutely!). I received the ornament a few days later and it was perfect:

I stuck a note in there saying that I hope this ornament will be the butt of many fights (jokingly, of course) to come as to whose team gets to face outward. The reaction?

ALSO, you are the most fantastic gift giver  EVER!  We love the ornament.  It's perfect!  How do you think of these things???

Another satisfied customer!

I spy...

Gifting for the ultimate action lover?

Do they mountain bike? Rock climb? Ski? Snowboard? Anything?

Then I think they might just love this gift.

Last year, my brother-in-law’s girlfriend and I were trying to come up with a final “big” gift for our significant others. They tend to like the same things so we figured if we could come up with something between the two of us, we’d be golden.

While walking around REI (are you seeing a trend in this family? If you haven’t been exposed to REI and buy gifts for an outdoorsy person, it will save you tons of time trying to shop!) we came across…

Helmet cams! It’s more than just a helmet cam though – you can attach it to a bike or anywhere else you can find to stick it.

The one above is $99.95 at REI and now that I look at it, has a terrible rating. Hmmm…anyway, it’s still a good idea and there are good ones out there. Just something to consider!

Mountain Climber Dude Thing?

Another post-honeymoon gift story.

In St. Lucia, we stayed at a resort where there were multiple bars and restaurants we could go to each night. The resort was going through renovations, and we got into the habit of going to one of the post-renovated bars before we’d head to dinner. This bar had been decorated very modernly but not in a cold way. In the bar, there was a wall full of these cast iron mountain climber guys. Brad thought it was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen.

Now. We got married in October so obviously this was on my mind when I started doing my Christmas shopping. I consider myself virtually an expert in Google, but this one threw me for a loop. I mean, what do you call this thing?

I tried everything. Mountain climber. Cast Iron. Man. Dude. Rope. You think of it, I was googling it, trying to figure out how on earth to find it. The bartender at the resort had said that the owner’s wife had decorated it and brought everything in from Europe.

Finally….after literally over a month of searching online every single day…I found it. Surprisingly enough, only a few hours away. I went ahead and ordered it (and sent it to my brother’s house so Brad wouldn’t suspect anything).

On Christmas morning, I brought it out (a long, skinny box that was clearly weighted on one side). Everyone thought it was a golf club. Brad opened it…and was pleasantly surprised.

And no one has doubted my Google skills since!

Rum rum rum!

My husband and I went to St. Lucia for our honeymoon in 2009. It was beautiful, everything was wonderful. They specialize in rum down there so before we left, he bought 4 bottles of St. Lucian rum to bring back. I don’t think he ever intended to actually drink them, but he wanted keepsakes.

Well, all but one bottle made it back to the US. One shattered in my luggage (of course it would be the one in MY luggage), with no hope of salvaging. He was ticked and claimed it was his “favorite” rum that he tried while he was there. Alas, life went on.

This Christmas season, while thinking “outside the box” I remembered this little scenario. Possibly because I got some luggage out that still had the faint scent of rum…but who knows :)

Now, I couldn’t exactly remember the name of this magical rum that was lost. Obviously I couldn’t ask him since that would kind of spoil the whole thing! So I did some research on good ‘ol Google. And I found it. I did remember him saying that the label had the two Piton Mountains on it. Done. A place in New York could ship it to me. $30.

$30 for a honeymoon memory gift I know he wants but he’s forgotten? You betcha.

Toys for Boys!

I’ve mentioned before, but my husband is one of the most difficult people to buy gifts for on earth. If he sees something he wants or needs, he tends to just buy it himself. I’m a person who likes to buy gifts in advance, so I have to start talking him out of purchases in September if I want to make sure he’s not buying something I already bought.

Or, as I told him this weekend, I just buy him things he doesn’t know he needs yet.

My husband is outdoorsy. I think he’d live in a tent all year round if I let him. My only stipulation for our honeymoon was that I did not spend it in a tent. I’d say one of his top five favorite stores on earth is R.E.I. I think pretty much anything I get from there, he’s okay with (especially since we are R.E.I. members so we get a percentage of anything we spend back to us at the end of the year AND they will take ANYTHING they sell us back at any point...even if we've worn running shoes for 50 miles!).

This year’s Christmas R.E.I. purchases?

Night vision goggles. He’s joked about wanting them before but they’re incredibly expensive. Luckily, a quick search of R.E.I. found a decent pair for $50. When we were in the R.E.I. store Saturday, I saw actually saw the same ones I had ordered and they were in the kids’ toy section (haha). But anyway, they’re supposed to see in the dark for up to about 50 feet I think. Plenty of room to have a little fun in the dark!

Next up? A pocket blow torch. $19.95.

Just insert a regular lighter and bam! Instant extreme fire!

What will he use these things, you ask?

What boy doesn’t like toys to make him feel like a kid again? And when Brad feels like a kid, I’m usually laughing nonstop for a solid few hours. Which makes me feel like a kid again.

Laughter = Love

Oh Christmas!

I loveeeeeee that Christmas is coming up because it's my chance to really go crazy with gifts. I'm going to have to be careful which gifts I put up here before Christmas, but I'll update with all of them after Christmas. I'll be able to remember, too, because as my co-workers learned on Friday, I have color-coded Excel spreadsheet with each and every person I'm buying for (along with two birthdays during the holidays), what I'm giving them, where I'm getting it from, if I've bought it yet, if I've received it yet and if I've wrapped it yet. I'm telling you, this gifting thing is an obsession.


I think it's a pretty safe assumption that the men in my life won't read this so I'll start on them first. Plus, guys are the hardest to buy for, right?


So I don't know about you, but when my brother and I were growing up, we had an Atari. We weren't a family who did nothing but play in front of the t.v., but the Atari was quite the novelty to us. I remember watching my big brother play a lot, admiring how he could actually make Donkey Kong get up the ladders while I could barely pick up Big Bird's eggs out of a basket. 


We still have that old Atari, somewhere. It doesn't work anymore, but it's around. The funny thing is, I had already bought my brother's Christmas presents this year. I was only online, looking for more gifts because a co-worker had asked for opinions on a gift for her family. Then...I came across a Christmas show-stopper...

The Atari Flashback 2!

It has about 40 classic games, pre-loaded onto it. Hooks up to any modern TV (how freaky will it be to be playing Atari on a 60 inch flat screen??). It's only $34.99 and, thanks to my fantastic credit card points, yet another free-to-me Christmas gift (bringing my "free gift Christmas" total to about $176-that'll be another blog post). 

It's supposed to arrive this week so I'll update if it doesn't meet my expectations. But I'm anticipating this to be a "holy crap" kind of Christmas gift. The other Christmas presents I bought him are just going to have to wait until his birthday. It's in February, they'll last :)

Cornwho?

I’ve talked before about my hubby – the man who has everything and if he sees something he wants, he gets it before anyone else can. So slowly, I’m learning – sometimes I have to think ahead for him. What’s something he doesn’t know he wants yet?

For his birthday this past July, I started researching a few months earlier. What is something he likes to do that he could do at home? What’s something he’s never mentioned wanting but might want?

So…I took a risk.

I went all out.

I got…

Cornhole boards.

Not just any cornhole boards.

Jack Daniels cornhole boards.

Not just any Jack Daniels cornhole boards.

Matching black and white bags.

And, the big surprise…

Lights that go inside the holes so the game doesn’t stop just because the sun goes down!

Another good gift is the drink holders, but I figured he could always build those on his own if he really wanted them...