Monday, December 10, 2018

2018 Holiday Gift Guide for Buying Me Presents

Tis the season for every blog & website you know to start posting a 2018 Holiday Gift Guide for the _______ in your life. Let's be real, though; odds are if you're reading a _______ blog featuring nifty ________ products to buy, YOU are probably the ________ in your life.

Fear not, though; out of the goodness of my heart, I've found a few minutes to put together this handy dandy 2018 Holiday Gift Guide for Buying Me Presents. You're welcome.

Real talk, though; if you've been reading for a little while, you know that this has been my Year of No Shopping, which has had a number of different benefits. One of them is that having a general policy of not buying stuff has cleared away the consumerist noise in my head & helped me clarify whether I really truly want something for good reasons, or am just falling prey to #shinythings syndrome. A lot of times I find that after a few weeks or months, the infatuation passes and stuff I thought I wanted no longer seems all that appealing, while with a tiny percentage of things, I realize that nope, this is something that I really would value and use regularly in ways that truly improve my quality of life. So, here are some of those things!

(Oh, & before you ask -- these are not affiliate links. It's literally just stuff I personally want.)

  • Geometry Snacks and the sequel More Geometry Snacks, by Ed Southall. You all know by now I'm just a big math nerd, right?



  • Noise canceling headphones. I fly enough these days that I think this would really change my life. By the end of a work trip even the sound of someone else breathing nearby is sometimes often more than I can handle.

  • Cookbooks! I'm pretty much obsessed with cookbooks. Some classics I've been eyeing include...
  • Chef knife roll bag. Speaking of cooking, we often do dinner parties at other people's houses where we all cook & depending on where we're going sometimes I like to bring my own knives, & as you can imagine, transporting several knives without a knife bag can be, er, exciting.


    Some of my favorite knives


  • A classy water jug or two. For serving pitchers of beverages at parties!

  • Portable voice amplifier. In my work with teachers I am often in a large room where even my best teacher voice isn't cutting it. Sometimes there's a great, functioning sound system! But sometimes not! And you don't always know in advance, so having a good backup would be great for those situations.

  • New sai. When Don's car got broken into, both of us had our high-end custom-made sai in his trunk stolen. Sigh...lesson learned.


    God, they were pretty. And expensive.


  • New sai case. For y'know. When I finally replace the sai. (My sai were super nice but my case was pretty old & crappy with a broken zipper, so, good riddance.)

  • Kindle HD 10 Tablet. More & more I find myself wanting a tablet in the kitchen & not using my mini-Kindle for reading because it's too small. So my master plan is to move the little one into the kitchen for cooking & get a new larger one for actual reading.

  • Natural Bamboo Charcoal Odor Eliminator. I'm going to need, like, 10 to put in the running shoe closet, which, frankly, right now, is kind of a problem. They also come highly recommended for stashing around cat boxes, & since we have a plan to get cats next year, I am planning ahead.



  • Hydroflask in cobalt blue. I'm trying to break myself of the habit of every taking or buying plastic bottles of water, & I've realized part of the reason is that I don't have a really good water bottle that I like and can carry around easily.



  • Tights! Not for running, but just casual wear. A few years ago I bought a pair of super soft & comfy Oiselle tights that I just LOVE and have very nearly worn the crap out of. (Like, seriously I wear them multiple times a week, always take them when I travel, & pretty soon I'm going to have to start patching up the places that have started to wear thin.) They've still got a little life left in them but I'm perpetually annoyed that I only have one pair and they can't just be clean & ready to wear all the time. I'm pretty sure they don't make the ones I have anymore (the label long ago wore off so I don't even know what they were) but I love Oiselle bottoms so much that I'd love a pair of either these or these. I could also do with a pair of nice sweats.

    So. Now you know what's on MY holiday gift guide!

    What's on your Holiday Guide for Buying You Gifts, running-related or not?

  • 7 comments:

    1. I was literally just venting to my husband about how all I want for Christmas this year is to not have to give people a list of gift ideas. (We just got married and we are grateful for everyone's generosity, but MAN are we buried alive in STUFF). ANYWAY, consider this gift to yourself for when you enter cat town. I started using pine pellet litter years ago because regular litter gets tracked all over your house by little kitty cat paws. It also has a chemical smell that is very distinct, even if it's better than "urine," and I was always worrying about the amount (and chemical makeup) of dust my cat inhaled as she used it. The pine litter smells like a lovely forest, is natural and doesn't create dust, is too large to be tracked more than a foot outside the litter box, and magically absorbs smells. It's a godsend and you couldn't pay me to go back to the old ways. And you get to keep your charcoal bags allllll to yourself.

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      1. Second the pine litter! It really does smell good.

        With the caveat that I'm now using, as our primary litter, a grass seed one (So Phresh), because it clumps a bit better than the pine, but within that brand the scented option is a gross fragrance, and the unscented one you kind of end up smelling the stuff in the litter a bit, so now I'm mixing in some of the feline pine in with the grass seed, so I get the best of both worlds and I'm really liking this solution.

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    2. I’ve tried every cat litter under the moon, and I’m sad to say that clay still works best for my cats. I get the 40lb bag of Scoopaway from Costco for $13, and it does an unbelievable job of not smelling. (We are terrible cat people and only scoop 1-2x a week.)

      I am going the opposite way with the Kindle - I currently have a large Fire one and just asked for a small paperwhite one to travel with. I’ve also asked for Sephora gift cards, because for the first time in my life, I’ve been going through make up and skin products rather quickly.

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      1. So many options!! I will definitely need all your top cat tips.

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    3. Ooh, future cat lady! The sum total of my cat experience is itching eyes, wheezing and Benadryl, but you have things covered on that front :) I am asking this year for...nothing. (Unless it's a home organising/ cleaning service!) We have way more stuff than anyone should have in a tiny apartment. But now I kind of want some Geometry Snacks, too.

      Best thing I got for myself this year that makes me feel like a real grown-up: two pairs of actual pyjama pants from Target. They are super soft, super comfortable, and slightly more acceptable for schlepping laundry to the basement.

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      1. I love pajama pants!!! I just have a tendency to put them on post-run AND THEN we'll decide we need to go get takeout or something & I end up feeling like I should put on real pants. XD But they are still pretty much the best.

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