"Indestructibles True to Name" Skeptic Claims

As I've said before, I'm fan of books. So much so that my appreciation is hindering my desire to share books with my son. I have a collection worth sharing but I want him to be able to enjoy these books for years to come, even share them with his kids one day perhaps. The problem you see, is that he's a baby and babies and paper are like squirrels and walnuts, crows and alleyway garbage, pigs and mud: the first can't resist the latter and it's always messy.

I have all these wonderful kids' books that I long to share with my kid, but there are only so many times in a day that I can read lying on my back, baby by my side, with a cumbersome 12"x12" Richard Scarry extended overhead, out of reach but still in eyesight for little Oakley.

Someone years ago made the fabric book, next came the board book, followed by the plastic bathtub book - all good concepts and money-makers, but all failing in the same category: they're not paper. They don't sound or feel like paper and they certainly do not resemble credit card bills, magazines, library books, and all other irresistible, off-limits baby fare.

Finally someone has figured this out and applied it to kid's books. Kaaren Paxton (no, not a typo her first name is spelled that way) and Workman Publishing to be precise. Together they are putting out aptly named Indestructibles, 8"x8", 10 page, tyvek books that can be munched, crunched, scrunched, sucked, hucked, chucked, folded, molded, rolled, chewed, stewed, but cannot be food! Better yet, they sound like paper to wee baby ears. After sacrificing a few of my childhood faves to my son's quick, grabby hands (even while under close supervision) and a couple library books (board and otherwise), I am investing in an armload of Indestructibles for every baby-toting parent I know this Christmas.

Fear not dear book lovers, I can still be found with an oversized Richard Scarry book shading me and my son at least once a day.

*Note: This post was written but not posted last fall. I did indeed give Indestructibles to a number of the tots in my life for Christmas. Oakley has since moved on to real paper books and only occasionally tears a page. His little brother, Bennett, is too little to enjoy books as he's still working on focusing on the faces of his family, but I already know what to stuff into his little stocking this holiday season!

The G-force of Google Plus

It is a given that online social networks are here to stay. What is changing is how your network integrates into your entire online experience and Google is a major catalyst behind this shift. Google already offers an array of widely used online services, Gmail, Picasa, Blogger, Buzz, Wave - chances are you use some of them yourself - so it's little wonder the company got their social network, Google Plus, off the ground to an explosive reception this past summer. 

Existing Google account holders will find the transition to Google Plus to be seamless; it's a classic case of an add-on sale. While many of us feel as though we couldn't eat another bite of social media, full as we are on our daily diet of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, Google Plus arrives as the dessert course of Google's set menu ordered when you were still hungry. That is to say, many Google account holders began using (and came to rely on) their Google services before they ever joined Facebook or Twitter. For these people, using Google Plus is more like consolidating your online presence than switching PR firms. 

Google may have missed the initial social network waves that Facebook and Twitter rode to success. But now Google Plus can offer improvements on their competitors' features. While many details of Google Plus are simply welcome adjustments - the personal taglines of Twitter profiles without the spam, superior privacy settings, notifications that appear when using other Google sites, and the ability to edit posts after they're posted rather than deleting and re-posting or, heaven forbid, ignoring the error and letting it go down in indelible internet history - there are also some remarkable new concepts at work.

• Circles

One of the real difference makers is Google Plus' circle feature. As in life, groups of friends, family, acquaintances, and co-workers can overlap or exclude to personalize the privacy of your actions. For instance, you can share photos with just your family circle and jokes with only your friends as you might in real life. While Facebook has it's counterpart in the "friends" list, Google Plus' circles are more pliable and actually fun to work with.

• +1

As with Facebook's like button, Google's +1 button is a simple way to publicly recommend a site, recipe, musician, company - basically anything searchable. However, on Google Plus you have a page to keep track of these "internet treasures" as Google puts it, thus enabling you to check in with your +1 page on your own schedule rather than being inundated with your like-ee's updates that end up diluting your news feed.

• Hangouts and Huddles

Google has termed their video chat and text applications hangouts and huddles, respectively. Unlike Skype, you can chat with a group of up to nine people and, as your hangout can be made public, you can actually meet new people if friends of whoever you're hanging out with join in. This is a remarkable social tool that adds another dimension to Google Plus over the friendly voyeurism of Facebook. 

A pro for Google Plus that is also a con for those under the age of 13: you must be over 13 to join. While this limits a portion (and sadly only a portion) of the juvenility of the posts, it does exclude a sliver of online participants. Another con is the unavailability of business pages, that is, currently only private persons can open Google Plus accounts, (although business pages are predicted to come out later this year). A major flaw affecting both tweens and businesses alike: if you try to join Google Plus you can not only be booted off the site but you could also lose all of your related Google content on the sister sites. This flaw will likely change in severity as it's been a major point of contention.

Google Plus is not Facebook or Twitter; it does some of the same things better and it offers some great new tools and treats. There is, of course, nothing stopping Google's competitors from making counter-improvements and some have already done so. All in all, Google seems destined for continued greatness with Google Plus as yet another star player on their roster of winners. Of course, Google Plus is behind Facebook and Twitter in terms of number of users by a few hundred million or so, but there is no denying that this new network has sparked the interest of online junkies. It offers excellent management control and aesthetics and is drawing users daily from other popular Google services. Well on it's way to becoming a big player in the social media market, Google Plus is indeed the next big thing for anyone who wants to stay connected.

"This Year's Resolutions" by Levni Yilmaz

From Yilmaz's brilliant, understated "Tales of Mere Existence". Check it out at http://www.ingredientx.com.

The New Year is Here

I don't know about you but I was up at 5:30 this morning after sleeping through the first midnight countdown since I was probably eight years old. I went to bed when the clock read 11:11pm and just couldn't be bothered to make it another 49 minutes. I told my husband, "it's already 2011 in Montreal".

I remember thinking my parents were the dullest pair of party poopers when they went to bed at 10pm on New Year's Eve back when I was in high school, but now that I'm a parent I'm beginning to understand the sanity of an early bedtime. It just goes to show that I'm much less interested in drama than I once was. I recall feeling that it was important to witness the changing of the years, to take stock of where my life was at and where it was going, that this was a momentous occasion. Now I value my sleep more than the thrill of the countdown or the midnight kiss, even if it is only 49 minutes more shuteye than I might otherwise get. When you're up at 5:30am, midnight is nearly morning.

Use What Your Mama and Daddy (and Great Aunt, and Co-worker, and Sister-in-law) Gave You

Now that the holiday festivities are over (and they are for me being the mother of a baby that I am, I won't likely get up to much of anything for New Year's Eve - a rousing game of cribbage if I'm lucky) I find myself with a boatload of Christmas cards that I can't bear to part with. And there's even a few still trickling in after the Christmas postal boom. 

I have a wire card wreath (a much-loved wedding gift that has a permanent home on our dining room wall that houses cards year-round depending on whose birthday was recent or which holiday is near), but I can't leave Christmas cards in there until our next family birthday in March. And as much as I can't abide tossing the holiday notes neither can I stand storing years and years of season's greetings in a shoe box. And so I craft. It's the perfect solution: I turn these seasonal mementos into new cards or, as in this year's incarnation, ornaments. 

These super easy orbs require only old cards, scissors or straight edge paper cutter, a hole punch, and some metal page fasteners (as we used to use in duo-tangs back in my grade school days).

 Simply cut cards into same length strips, punch a hole in both ends of each strip, mix and match for the best color combos (I used about a dozen trips per orb), attach a fastener through each end of each group of strips, fan the card strips out to form a ball and voila! 

These look as good on the tree as they do on the mantle or in a glass bowl on the table.

--

Next year I'd like to tackle this wreath from goodhousekeeping.com

And these gift tags from marthastewart.com and modkidboutique.blogspot.com respectively.

Time for Life

I don't get it. Where does time go? I wake up at 6am with my little guy and I wonder how I can possibly fill the 16 hours until my 10pm bedtime, especially when I can't do any one thing for more than 10 minutes without complaints from the peanut gallery (and boy, is my peanut cute). I've got his two nap times in which to accomplish my adult duties, though making up lost sleep tends to take priority these days. And yet I have mama friends who actually knit, sew, cook, read, exercise regularly, and have more than one child! They must multi task and do it all at once! It's not like I'm idle, but running a household and being a good friend, neighbor, and daughter pretty much keeps me occupied. I have all these tasks (household budget, printing photos for albums, stocking the freezer, writing letters, et cetra) that I'm saving for a slow day (or month) that never seems to come.
Then it hit me: I will never have more time than I do now - a daunting thought but also a liberating one. Suddenly, it felt like I'd better stop wasting time complaining or rationalizing (or writing) about it and just "git 'er done". So here I am writing Christmas cards at 5:30am rather than lying awake in bed listening to a crying baby and I'm thinking, sweet, I just scored 30 minutes! Maybe today's the day I do it all. Ask me tomorrow.

Like a Kid in a Stationery Store

I love cards. I love buying, making, sending, upcycling, and, of course, receiving them. During the last winter of my undergrad degree, I baited myself into finishing essays and studying for exams by allowing myself to make one Christmas card after each portion of school work was complete. (Hey, those long, cold Montreal winters bring out the nerd in a lot of people.) I had an entire corner of my bedroom set up with organized paper scraps, glue stick, and paper cutter. The month before, I had been lucky enough to stumble upon a freelance invitation maven who was holding a paper sale in her apartment and I snagged what has proven to be a decade's worth of beautiful scraps.

A couple years later I was visiting friends on Hornby Island and found a 1960's fairytale book at the recycling depot, (aka: the free store), that had unbelievably quaint floral accents adorning each page and I've since used snippets of these pages in frames on my walls and to decorate my wedding invitations.

A sampling of my upcycled and recycled one-of-a-kind wedding invitations.

One recent November I found myself staying with friends in Manhattan and after two weeks in the Big Apple my husband had purchased more clothing than I had but I felt no remorse because I had found wooden Christmas postcards by Night Owl Paper Goods and vintage inspired, small scale Christmas notes by Yellow Bird Greetings at a stationary shop in Greenwich Village. These were the perfect souvenirs as far as I was concerned: pretty, useful, and something I could not get back home. It wasn't until I got back home to Vancouver that I noticed the fine print on the back of the paper cards that read: "Printed in Vancouver". I'm sure the cards were appreciated nonetheless.

Night Owl Paper Goods' wooden postcards 

(perhaps they should change their company name)

I also worked for a few years as a buyer for a chain of natural lifestyle stores. My favorite part of the job quickly became stationery perusing and purchasing. The perfect way to ensure I got the Christmas cards I wanted! Not only did I bring in Night Owl's wooden cards but I discovered near perfect lines like Eggpress. How do you ever choose just one of their cards?

Impressive Eggpress

Coming soon: the best ways to use old Christmas cards!

All I Want for Christmas...

...is a good garlic press. This one by Zyliss to be precise.

An Epicurean wood fibre 18x13" natural color cutting board.

Two Silpat baking mats.

A subscription to Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food" magazine.

Natural, handmade soap.

Snazzy Smartwool socks (seriously, I like getting socks for Christmas).

Oh, and my baby boy's two front teeth to hurry up and stop making him a teething menace!