2002-12-14 - 7:53 a.m. holiday self-intervention Yesterday, I had to perform an intervention on myself. You see, I have a problem. It may even be one you share. I like to buy presents for other people. It's fun! It makes the recipient happy! You feel the glow of another purchase well made. BUT you have to draw the line somewhere. I drew the line last night. After setting up my hello kitty wishlist (which was a quick task since the online store carries only a fraction of their products), I saw that my daily candy email had a blurblet on these really cute crocheted finger puppets. Although I've already purchased a super cute hello kitty beanie that's wearing a bear suit for the only child under the age of 5 with whom I am acquainted, I was so very tempted to purchase the housepet or safari version of these puppets for him also. He's my closest friend since childhood's little boy. He's almost 2. He doesn't NEED finger puppets yet (perhaps in a few years.) Realizing I was in the full holiday spirit shopping frenzy, I shut down my browser and backed away slowly from the computer, and officially declared this year's holiday shopping to have been completed. Thus, I am spending this weekend at home. I'm going to bake dozens of Christmas cookies and make a few kinds of fudge for our holiday potluck. Last year, the potluck coincided with the end of the charity bake sale... this meant I went home with a happy glow from raising $100 or so with my chocolate chip walnut cookies. This year, however, they've upped the ante: there will be a prize for best dessert! I am not sure though, if, technically speaking, my cookies qualify as a dessert, per se. We shall see. It would be lovely to have some extra cash to put towards making my holiday week off from work more festive (i.e. procure more wine or go out for dinner.) Expect to see some silly cookie photos later. In non holiday-related news, reading this article about google's impact on our lives made me realize there really *is* an editor waiting to publish all those crazy story ideas that come to you over dinner and a bottle of wine, if only you are inspired and motivated enough to send in a query letter... I will try to do more writing and less idle brainstorming in 2003. AND, since 2003 is nearly upon us, I will be creating an end of the year "best ofs" survey... so if you have an end of the year "best" you'd like me to be sure to include in my survey (i.e. best comeback of a mediocre pop singer, best match of alterna rock song with product in a commercial, etc.) leave your comment on this entry... Now, must make some breakfast to accompany my coffee and to fuel the day's baking frenzy! any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09