12 Days of Christmas (Day 2)

I wasn't sure if I should call this day two leading up to Christmas day or day 11, counting down. I guess it's 6 of one, a half dozen of the other...

Anyway, as I was sitting in my living room sipping a cup of tea listening to Christmas music and trying to come up with my next entry I had one of those eureka moments. Actually that's not true. It was more like one of those, "where are my keys!" only to find out they're in your hand, kind of moments. I'm sitting here racking my brain...while listening to Christmas music!!

Put up some music you cotton headed ninny-muggins!

What says "Christmas" more than Christmas music? Uhhh, nothin', that's what. Of course putting up music on your blog is easier said than done. See, I just said it and as you can see there is no music at the end of this sentence.

Originally I wanted to link to a couple of my Spotify playlists which total about 15 hours of music but in order to do that everybody would have to have Spotify and would have to click on a bunch of links, blah, blah, blah. If I've learned anything about people it is that if there are more than 2 links you can pretty much forget about them getting to the finish. This whole Internet fad is really destroying our attention...oooh look Christmas lights!!

Where was I? Oh yeah, Christmas music. So I found a YouTube clip that has about 44 minutes of music and most of the songs are pretty good. Obviously the down side to this is the fact that if you are in to Christmas like me you already have found all the Christmas music you'll need to get through the season but it is what it is. It's the thought that counts.

Without further ado (I just wanted to use "ado" in a post) here's a link to bushel full of tunes that you can listen to if you, for some strange reason, don't have access to any Christmas jingles.

Enjoy!

12 (business) Days of Christmas

Last year I did a daily email to a small group of friends that I called the "12 Days of Christmas" daily email. The title alone took me hours to come up with! The basic purpose was to help all of us take a moment each day leading up to Christmas to truly enjoy the season. Once Thanksgiving passes, the final month leading up to Christmas day seems to come and go so quickly that you're left sitting there on December 26th wishing you had taken more time to enjoy those things that make Christmas, Christmas. So, last year I decided that I would send a little "something" out to my friends each business day leading up to the greatest day of the year. I purposely left off the weekends because the weekend is typically the only time that we do actually manage to do something Christmasy so I wanted to spread a little cheer while we were all stuck at work or school.

Obviously, the things that make Christmas so special are different for all of us and something that I loved might hold zero meaning to somebody else. However, everything did point to Christmas in some way so even if what I sent was completely devoid of the meaning it had for me personally it was still, what I thought,a nice reminder for everybody else. Some of the things I sent were silly, like an old TV commercial, and others were more profound like a choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus. But in the end, it was all Christmas!

That brings us to this year. I woke up today and realized that we are 12 business days from Christmas day and I can't, in good concsience, neglect my self-appointed duty to bring a little frivolity, joy and wonder to Christmas Season 2013. I currently have no idea what I'm going to post over the next 12 days or how I'm going to find time to do it but, dagnabit, I'm going to find a way.

So with all that being said, fire up the yule log, knock back some egg nog and prepare to laugh, cry, gasp in wonder or ponder what influences I'm under over the next 12 (businesss) days as we embark on operation, "Don't forget to enjoy Christmas before it passes you by in a blur," 2013 edition! Again, hours and hours on that title...

Feel free to share these posts with friends and family and anybody else who might enjoy a little Christmas pick me up.

To start things off I'll go back to what is for many of us like another member of the family. I am of course talking about TV. What says Christmas more than a classic Christmas TV commercial. My all-time favorite happens to be the Hershey's Kisses "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" bell choir but I used that last year and I don't want to be accused of laziness so here's another great one from the Mars Corporation (I thought I would give equal time). Merry day 12 of Christmas everybody!!

(Christmas cheer bonus: Here's the Hershey's Kisses commercial. It's just too good not to include!)

Please keep in mind I have no control what the "next" video is that pops after these so hopefully it's nothing too crazy!

You Call That A Recap?

This morning I realized that I've reached the one year anniversary of my blog. Let's do a quick recap and see what's happened in the last year on Pencil and Paper!

Ok, let's see here. Looks like I have written a total of 12 posts. Huh... Well, um, that's not quite the volume I anticipated when I started this thing a year ago. I was thinking at least 1 a week. So at a minimum I'm supposed to be at 52 posts at this point.

Let's do a little quick math...carry the one...divide by the square root of an isosceles triangle...hit the calculate button...aaaand? It appears I need to write 40 posts today to get back on track. Holy smokes! Hmm, maybe I need to change my output goals for the next year.

What else do we have here. I see I now have 12 followers. One for every post!! It appears my blog growth more closely matches that have a stalactite (you know because they're, like, really slow growing and stuff).

I guess there are a lot of reasons why there are only 12 of you but I think I'll go ahead and blame the economy. It seems to take the blame for pretty much everything so I'm sure it had an impact on my blog growth this year as well. That and climate change. Those pesky chlorofluorocarbons. Somebody should really do something about those.

Sheesh, that was a pretty quick recap. Now what?

Wait, that's actually a pretty good question. Now what? I'm asking you. All 12 of you. Now what? What do you want to hear about? Maybe that's how I increase my output. Let the people decide!

Of course this means that in another year if I'm sitting at 24 posts I'm just going to blame the 12 of you (or 24 of you if the pattern stays consistent!)

Is there something you want to know? Is there something you want me to write about? I don't care what the topic is, I'll take a crack at it.

My goal a year ago was to entertain, inspire and/or inform. I'm not sure if I've done much of any of that but I'm willing to try it for another year. So, if you have a topic you want me to dive into, a story you want me to tell, something you just want to know more about, let me know. I'll take a swing at it.

Man, I hope this doesn't backfire...

Little Bird

I briefly hung out with a humming bird this morning at the local watering hole - the bird feeder on our back porch. He was pretty friendly but he had kind of an attitude. I think there was a bit of a Napolean complex thing going on there. I didn't mention it to him though. Most birds are well aware of their short comings so there really is no need to point it out to them. Plus they can poop on your head so it's best not to risk irritating them.

Listomania! You call this food? Pt 2

Time for part 2 of my list of 5 least favorite foods. In today's installment I give you the remainder of my list:

#3: Raisins - Aside from the fact that it looks like a dead bug and probably has a very similar consistency (I assume this fact having never intentionally eaten a bug), raisins are basically rotten fruit. Take a grape, leave it out in the sun for a few days and VOILA! you have raisins. Why would I want that?

I feel very similarily toward "sun-dried" tomoatoes. I'm fairly certain they only call them "sun-dried" because calling them what they are, "fell off the vine and were left in the dirt only to be picked up a few days later" tomatoes, is very hard to market to people, let alone fit on a package.

#2: Beef Liver - I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you will be with me on this one. I don't think I have to explain much here. It's organ meat. Not only is it organ meat but it's an organ that filters toxins. Not only is it an organ that filters toxins but it's an organ from an animal that has a disease named after an angry version of itself. All that being said, I will devour a porterhouse steak so I guess a cow can't be all bad. I just won't eat their organs or drink their...
 

Listomania! You Call This Food?

For a long time I’ve been toying with the idea of posting lists to this blog. Yep I’m one of those people. You know, the person who spends arguably too much time putting lists together before starting any actual work. In my defense though I pose this question: how can you get anything done if you don’t know what you need to do? If you expect me to simply remember it you’re living in a dream world!

I admit though, my list-love goes a bit further than a simple “to-do this weekend” type of list. One year I maintained a list of every album I purchased. It ended up being over 60. I also started a list of my top 100 songs of all time. I never finished that one because it was constantly changing. I’ve also maintained a list over the past several years detailing every book I’ve read and, I hesitate to admit, I’ve also given each book a letter grade. My wife and I recently put together a list of all the projects we would like to get done around the house. Yep, she’s a “lister” too. It’s probably why we ended up getting married. Though she's not as list crazy as I am. That's why we're still married! (among many other reasons)

As I recall she had her own list when we met 8 years ago. Her's was a list of attributes that, in a perfect world, she was looking for in a husband and I’m pretty sure I nailed most of them. Accept for the only child part and S’s in the

A Bone To Pick

As the title of this post suggests, I have a bone to pick and it's with the month of February. I have issues with this month. It's nothing personal per se, I mean the month has never done anything to me directly and honestly one day I may find some redeeming qualities in February, more on that later, but right now I have some problems. It's not a long list, it's just two things, but they're enough to provoke me to finally sit down and get it off my chest with the hopes of being able to move forward with the month.

My first beef is the smaller of the two beefs. It's like a cow-sized complaint vs, oh I don't know, a bull-sized complaint if we want to keep with the whole beef metaphor. Anyway the first issue I have is with the weird length of the month. If we have all these months with 31 days why not just take a couple of the extra days from those months, give them to