Milk and Cookies
with Kristen
I'm a mother of five, a bargain hunter, a recreational comparison shopper, and always trying to make more time - for me and for you, too. On this blog I'm sharing my favorite tools and finds to help make your work-life juggle a bit easier.
You can find my personal blog at Swistle.blogspot.com.
Yay, calendar time!: twenty-one of the many possibilities
Categories: At the office, House & Home, Managing stress
It is time to CHOOSE A CALENDAR, and I am not even a little bit kidding when I say this is one of the purchases I most look forward to each year. I had trouble limiting this post to only twenty possibilities, and in fact caved and added one more at the last minute. (All photos except the last one are from Amazon.com.)
1. Charley Harper. I had a Charley Harper last year, and I don’t usually repeat. But if you’re looking for a good calendar, I REALLY liked my 2010 one. Plus, the 2011 one is half off.
2. Master of Illusion. I’m not fond of people calling themselves “Master of” anything, and usually optical illusion is more my kids’ thing than mine. Still, this one appeals to me this year, and it too is half off.
3. Wolf Kahn. I like the look of each page. I hesitate mostly because it seems like every single picture is in the same color range, so perhaps they wouldn’t be different enough from month to month. I like a startling change on the 1st of the month.
4. Kadinsky. My top candidate so far this year.
5. Bunnies. Hee, bunnies! This reminds me of my oldest child’s toddler/preschooler years, when each year I HAD to find him a bunny calendar or he couldn’t live a happy life.
6. Arts & Crafts Tiles. This is exactly the sort of calendar I’ve learned from experience seems “meh” when I consider it but then is highly satisfying to have on the wall. Plus, it’s half off. My second-most-likely candidate for this year.
7. Edward Hopper. Every year I consider an Edward Hopper calendar, and every year I don’t choose it. With such enduring appeal, it seems like one of these years I should get one.
8. Hello Kitty. I bought this for Elizabeth’s room already. And it’s half-off. [Oh, shoot, now it's sold out.]
9. Klee. Tied with Kadinsky.
10. Jack Vettriano. I think this artist is best known for that picture of an elegantly-dressed couple dancing romantically in the rain while their poor servants get soaked and sandy trying to cover them with umbrellas. I liked that picture at first, but then thought, “…Wait, that kind of sucks for the servants. Couldn’t this couple dance romantically inside where it’s warm and dry, instead of making everyone hop around protecting them from the weather?” I like the calendar; it looks equally thought-provoking.
11. Hamsters. I had a hamster as a child, and sadly it saved all its cuteness for the middle of the night, because hamsters are NOCTURNAL. The calendar lets you appreciate a hamster in the daytime.
12. Art Nouveau. I already liked this calendar. Then I saw it was marked down to $3.26. EVEN BETTER.
13. The Mathematics Calendar. Paul wants this every single year. He and his geek buddies at work solve the puzzle every day.
14. A Small Untroubled World. This is (1) pretty, (2) reality-denyingly soothing, and (3) half-off.
15. Treehouses of the World. Cool. (And half-off.)
16. Exquisite Creatures. I would like this better if it were a little less beetley. But it’s half-off.
17. Sibley birds. Birds are in. (And half-off.)
18. Kazuyuki Ohtsu. If I could see the word “serenity” without mentally yelling “SERENITY NOW!!!!,” this would be higher on my candidate list.
19. England by Rail. I love this one. I wish it were half off.
20. Beth Van Hoesen. This one is like “If animals sat to have their portraits painted.”
21. Invincible Summer. I bought this one to keep track of work projects. It’s a small-format calendar, which is perfect: I don’t have much wall space next to my computer, and I don’t need large calendar squares to remind me of deadlines. Mine is more of a teal color than shown in the picture (picture from Spinster Summer on Etsy). The one glitch is that there’s no hole for hanging it up; I’m going to see if I can remedy that with a nail, but it’ll mean putting a hole right through the pictures and right through the last Wednesday of the month.
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I’m genuinely eager to know: What calendar are you using this year?
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Through some miracle of Groupon and other internet savyness I am sporting this piece of awesome this year http://www.erincondren.com/store/index.php?cPath=129_644 I did not pay full price or my husband would have died. D.I.E.D. HOWEVER, I love it with all my heart and have already started a savings account so that I can possess another one next year
And then I need something I can glance quickly at on the wall. I usually print a shutterfly poster calendar with my favorite pic of the kids from the year before. This year I think I’m getting old because the little print they used for the calendar was too small for me. I’m going to have to come up with another plan.
^ Far more than you wanted to know at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning.
Amanda | December 29th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Amanda- OMG GORGEOUS. I keep thinking I’d like to do a photo calendar, and then I FORGET, or else I have trouble choosing the pictures. But one year I am GOING TO DO IT. I think I’d LOVE it once it was done.
swistle | December 29th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Ooh, good choices! I’ve thought about getting a Charley Harper one the past couple years, I should just go ahead and get it already! That serenity one is calling to me too.
I love picking out calendars too, and usually end up giving out some as Christmas gifts. Kliban’s cat calendars are always a big hit in my family and I’ve enjoyed having the daily one this past year to cheer me up at the office. Along with some artsy ones, I’ve also liked Cute Overload, The Onion and Extraordinary Chickens.
Nervous | December 29th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
We did a photo calendar of the kids, too. It’s always bothered me that the pictures are from the PREVIOUS year, not the year IN PROGRESS on the calendar, but. We made some for relatives and decided to keep one for us, too.
I do have to find one for my son’s room, though. He had a Highlights magazine Hidden Pictures one in 2010, which he liked. Holiday stickers is the main requirement.
el-e-e | December 29th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Nervous- Oh, I saw the chickens one at a store! I should have included that one—I really liked it!
swistle | December 29th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
el-e-e– I’ve thought about doing wayyyy throwback photos—like, for each birthday month, doing a collage of pictures of that child starting at newborn and then one picture for each birthday. Or, like, choosing photos from that month but three years previous—enough to make it kind of startling to see how much younger they look! …But this is why I keep not actually making a calendar: too many decisions!
swistle | December 29th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
For the past several years my sister-in-law would buy whatever calendar she could find cheap and put stickers on all of the birthdays/anniversaries in my husband’s (huge) family. So, while I didn’t get to pick the calendar, at least it was useful.
This year she took photos from all of the families and collaged them onto the different pages through some photo software which is really cool. It is fun to look through all the pictures at the top of the months. It reminds me of the yearbooks we used to get when I was in middle school.
I am a teacher so for work I buy my calendar in August and it is just a functional one, no pretty pictures to look at..
Elizabeth | December 29th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Sadly, our school district’s calendar hangs in my kitchen. Not my first choice, but I like having all of those important dates for the whole year right there. I got a free Norman Rockwell one from church that I want to find a place for too. My mom always had that one hanging in her kitchen. My favorite new year’s activity/purchase is the picture uploading, photo book making process that I do over at Kodak. I look forward to that as much as Christmas! Just waiting for the 40% off coupon to show up in my inbox like it does every year.
Melanie | December 29th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
With all these half off calendars and Amazon prime, I find myself saddened that I have a calendar already.
We’ve had a few calendars that don’t have holes (EVIL!) and I solved that by attaching a large silver binder clip to the top pages and then hanging the clip from the nail.
Elizabeth | December 29th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Elizabeth 4:36– Oh, I love the idea of an extended-family collage!
Elizabeth 5:39– GENIUS. I’m so glad I read your comment before ruining the calendar with a nail!
swistle | December 29th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
I ADE beautiful calenders for myself and for my Mother for Christmas. HOWEVER… Have five kids, there’s not enough room to WRITE on it all the things we need to remember. *sigh* Mine is in the bedroom by the computer desk.
I have one in the kitchen, one meant for large busy families, with columns for individuals. But it has only 5 people worth of space. We have seven people. But it goes through 2011 even though I bought it at the beginning of 2010, so we’re using it.
ALSO in the kitchen there will be a calender my daughter made us for Christmas, with her own versions of famous paintings. She’s in first grade, and her date numbers are written through the whole square. Very cute, I love it, but useless for writing in.
I pretty much want something with LARGE squares for writing in, for ME, for in my room. And I’m stumped.
Alicia C | December 29th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
I have not had coffee. Still.
That should say MADE*. Thanks. Argh.
Alicia C | December 29th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Alicia C.– Back in college, I took two pieces of poster board and drew a 7 (day) x 5 (week) calendar grid on each one, with Sunday-Saturday written as column heads and a little room at the top for writing in the month later. Then I got them laminated (this might be killer expensive in non-college life—in college, where there was a student-run AV room, it was a couple of bucks each). Then I poster-puttied them to the wall and used dry-erase markers to fill in the number dates on each one: current month for the top one, next month for the one beneath. As each month passed, I erased it, switched the two posters, and filled in the one I’d just erased with the upcoming month. If that makes sense. Anyway, lots of room to write. I kept a pad of paper for jotting down dates that were more than a month ahead. I’m planning to do that again when the kids get older and I need to keep track of more things—already things are getting tight, and hardly any of them are in hardly any activities.
swistle | December 29th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
I buy this artist’s letterpress desk cal on etsy every year: http://www.etsy.com/listing/61966318/2011-ilee-letterpress-and-silkscreen
Janet | December 29th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
For the first time ever, ever, ever, I have moved away from a paper calendar and onto an electronic calendar. I never thought I would be able to but lo, I got a smartphone and all of the sudden, it was easier to go electronic. I always know if I’m free, even when I am out and about, and the kids and my husband can access the calendar as well.
It’s the end of an era.
(PS)- I do still do a photo calendar each year for the grandparents, though, so we may put it up there just for nostalgia’s sake.
Leeann | December 29th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
My MIL has decided she gets to buy our calendars as Christmas presents. So for the last 5 years, I haven’t gotten to choose my calendar. (The low was the year of cutesy vegetables arranged to look like something else - like a car.) This year we got Inuit art. No offense to the Inuits, but it’s not me. I’m more bitter about this than I would’ve have been if someone else - say, MY mother - had decided to buy us calendars.
Of course, I always used to buy the exact same one - Ansel Adams photography. LOVE. But I would’ve loved the Arts & Crafts one, and I would’ve liked to get my husband the Kandinsky. I made him a photo calendar on Shutterfly for his office.
Courtney in Crete | December 30th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Courtney in Crete– OH NO! The calendar-as-gift is the worst thing EVER! My mother-in-law bought me a calendar one year for Christmas and I just kind of went “Oh what a shame I already have one!”—but luckily she didn’t keep buying calendars year after year or I wouldn’t have been able to keep using that excuse.
Swistle | December 30th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I got my 10 year old a Spiderman calendar for Xmas, I get free ones from my bank which have spectacular local nature photos taken by employees that I enjoy more than one would think. I wait on buying most calendars until the end of Jan. but I am a sucker for them and put up bunches..One per room if I can swing it. Love flower art and Far side ones the most.
drhoctor2 | December 31st, 2010 at 2:04 am
I like some of your picks SO much that I’m tempted to buy another one, but I already made one with our family pictures (I do it every year) and I don’t really need another. It’s kind of a pain to make one, but also fun because you get to look back through the photos from the year. I put last January’s pictures on this January’s calendar, and so forth for every month, so I can see how much they’ve changed in a year!
Devan | December 31st, 2010 at 2:53 am
So nice to join a conversation where I’m not the oddball for having more than one calendar, or *gasp* having PAID for a calendar I like!
I do have the year at a glance kind that I made with family photos and birthdays on it- a sort of perpetual calendar, except it has to be updated every time someone’s born. A happy re-working, of course.
Let’s see- for many years HORSES was my main love, though I’ve never owned them I do enjoy staring at them instead of working. But last summer we went to Scotland and so for Christmas my mom bought me a Scot one, which is Gorgeous. And reminds me of fun times that seem waaay too long ago. Of course, my MIL bought me one of their home state, but Pennsylvania nature was not as exciting as I thought (I had requested that one). Natural Parks are an annual fave, too.
This year? Haven’t thought about it yet, but I am heading to BN to return some Christmas books, and I really like your Arts-Crafts-Tiles one. The treehouse and hamster ones I thought would be perfect gifts, but I’m rethinking that after reading some comments
Kris | December 31st, 2010 at 6:07 am
The Edward Hopper!!! I was also considering several others on your list. But I went for the Hopper - it is just very clean and white with interesting, calm pictures. I love it! (PS this is my favorite purchase of the year too!)
Jennifer B | December 31st, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Kris– I LOVE the idea of getting a calendar of a recently (or not-so-recently) visited place! I do think calendars make GREAT gifts for people who don’t love choosing calendars as much as we do! Like, my mother-in-law used to buy a calendar each year for HER mother, who specifically wanted her to. And my sister-in-law often requests a wall calendar for Christmas, because she likes the fun of seeing what someone else chooses (and because I have such excellent, excellent taste, OF COURSE).
Swistle | December 31st, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Jennifer B.– If you think of it, you MUST tell me at the end of the year how it went!
Swistle | December 31st, 2010 at 2:19 pm
We rarely buy calendars because we get so many free ones in the mail, but this year Partner bought one that’s photographs of Provincetown, MA, which is a place with some romantic history for us. It was sold by the Human Rights Campaign, where she used to work. That one’s in the ktichen. In the study and in the kids’ room, there are calendars from environmental organizations with photos of wildlife. Right now there’s a wolf in the study and polar bears in the kids’ room. My son is also considering buying one with info about famous left-handed people, because, you guessed it, he’s left-handed.
StephLove | January 4th, 2011 at 3:40 am
Now I love all of those calendars and feel impulsive about ordering the one that I did!!!
Is it too much to have a calendar in each room? Yeah, prolly so.
I might go “Browse” for the Jack Vettriano calendar now…sigh…
*firegirl* | January 5th, 2011 at 12:24 am
Smashing Magazine also has a choice of desktop background calendars to download free each month. It is a very exciting part of each start month!
bunnyslippers | January 5th, 2011 at 5:58 pm