More and more often I turn to Etsy.com when I need a special gift but don’t want something too corny.  When Paul and I had our 10-year anniversary, he chose me a pair of earrings from Etsy, because he knew I’d like just about anything he found there—and that he’d be likely to avoid the dreaded heart pendant the stores are always pushing on bewildered guys.

For Mother’s Day, Etsy is a great place to find a gift that doesn’t suggest that the giver chose it at random from the “Mother’s Day Specials!” flier that came from the department store.
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Business are going through layoffs, freelance clients are cutting back on their budgets, and sitting down to balance the checkbook has never been so depressing. Short of outfitting your office walls with Xanax-dispensing pellet guns, is there anything you can do to make your work environment more tolerable?

Well, maybe so. A little extra organizational happiness can’t be a bad thing, right?

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If you read me over at Swistle, you know I have been obsessed with enthusiastic about cloth napkins recently.  I initially tried them because of a feeling of wanting to purchase clearance merchandise no matter what it is environmentalism, but it turns out we LOVE using them.  They’re soft and comfy!  And I don’t iron them, and no one cares!

Well, so now I have to buy more than we need, to vent some of my enthusiasm.  I don’t even know how many I’ve bought so far, but…many.  I could sew clothes for ALL the VonTrapp children out of cloth napkins and still have enough napkins for them to use at dinner.
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If your household is anything like mine, you’re probably doing some cutting back these days, and luxury items seem a little more . . . luxurious than they used to be. As in, boy that necklace sure is pretty but I have other things I need to buy right now, like FOOD.

With budget restraints in mind, it can be hard to justify a high-end purchase, especially if you’re not really sure if it’s worth it. Is that spendy moisturizer really going to “revitalize” your skin, or will a drugstore brand do just as well? Let’s explore a few buzz-worthy purchases:
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Oh hey, another holiday is looming around the corner, BLEAH. I mean, oh, Valentine’s Day, my FAVORITE, I choo-choo-choose YOU!

(BLEAH.)

Please just tell me I’m not supposed to send in Valentines to my 3-year-old’s preschool. The teachers would warn us about this, right? Or is it just one of those Things that Good Parents Know About? ARRRGH.

While I’m stewing over the possibility of needing to make cards for a classroom of kids whose names my son cannot be trusted to accurately pronounce (one girl has been known in our household as “Prafarsha” forever, because that’s what he said her name was. FALSE), please enjoy some Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas for Guys, should you be shopping for the occasion.
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Do you realize that Christmas Eve is one week from today?  I’m making a list of gifts that have been given to ME in the past year, gifts that were a success and that you might want to consider buying for someone on your list.

My brother and sister-in-law gave me several pairs of earrings from the Etsy shop Kneehighs-n-Pigtails, and I LOVE them.  They’re so classy and dressy if you’re looking classy and dressy, but they look chic and awesome with t-shirt and jeans, too.
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I am not saying that good things don’t come in small packages, because of COURSE they do.  But sometimes a $20 CD can look, well, smaller than $20.  And sometimes a $20 throw blanket can look bigger than $20.

If you’re cutting down on gift spending this year, you might want to get more bang for your buck, as it were, by saving yourself money—and also giving the recipient a way to save some money themselves.  Or you might be trying to snow your in-laws into thinking you spent more than you did.  I’m not going to look too closely at your motivations, I’m just going to give you some big-looking, small-costing ideas that happen to go along with all the things people say they’re doing to save money these days.
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I’ve been listening to my iPod on shuffle recently and it’s been unexpectedly enjoyable — I keep hearing music I haven’t played in years, and as I drive to and from work I drift in and out of these nostalgic fugues. Music can make you remember a certain moment or time period in such a visceral way, don’t you think? Like how a certain smell will bring you back to a specific moment more intensely that your memory alone ever could.

Here are some albums that are both meaningful to me and awesome, in case you’re looking for new (well, old, but you know) tunes. I’m hoping you’ll tell me your memory-triggering albums/songs, too.
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My co-blogger here at Milk & Cookies just wrote a post about favorite places to do online shopping, and today’s post is related: what are your favorite shopping blogs or product review sites? Places you go to find gift ideas — either for other people or, you know, for YOURSELF? 

I love shopping/review blogs (so much so that I ran my own until recently); here’s a list of some of my faves, as well as some new-to-me picks recommended by other folks:
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So. November. About seven weeks left until the winter holidays. TIME TO PANIC.

Or for those of us who lovvvvve gift-buying, time to YAY! Time to start spending time every day prowling around looking for deals. Time to start placing orders and squirreling them away, and forgetting what’s already there, and ending up with too much for some people and not enough for others! Yay!

And this means I only have about seven Tuesdays left to share gift ideas and great finds with you, and
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