Thank You!

Image by Jayegirl99 via Flickr

It seems like I hear about this issue a hundred times a year. A ticked off gift giver has purchased yet another gift for someone and received no thank you acknowledgment in return. Did they get it? Did they love it? Did they hate it? Why are we spending our money on people who don't have five minutes and a stamp to let us know? To those who find people’s lack of etiquette hurtful to the point of considering “cutting them off”, I’d like to offer an alternative. From now on, when a gifting situation arises for thankless youngsters and adults why not order them some personalized note cards? Look online. There are many companies that make fun or elegant items for teens as well as adults, both male or female. Have their first names or initials printed on them. Not sure of their style? Keep it simple; white with black ink and a clean, readable font. For a graduation or bigger gift giving occasion, add a nice pen and a roll of stamps so they can get right on to writing. You might include a book on how to write a personal note explaining that this will help their college entrance essay writing, job interview thank you notes or any social occasion when they really should be sending an acknowledgement. Some folks, mostly boys, hate to hand write notes because their handwriting is atrocious. They must have missed out on the nuns with rulers experience. To them I suggest writing a practice note on scratch paper and keep it short, or use your computer and print out a brief message and hand sign it. Slide the printed personal note into the card like an insert and send it out. It very well could be the little, clever thing that gets you the job or the invitation to the next party from that amazing host. Yes, our young are the tech generation, but I’d bet a fortune that if their secret crush were to hand write them a note on a paper napkin, they would keep that little treasure for years to come. They do understand the importance of hand written notes, they just need to be taught how to write their own. Start your own tradition of celebrating their name by giving them personalized stationary and note cards and maybe the first one they write will be to you.
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Happy New Year! 2010 is a golden year...

Mimi says:
It's a brand new year and another golden opportunity to begin your life anew. At my house, paint and color reign supreme. It makes me nuts when those designer makeover shows paint human being's living, working and play spaces with gray. GRAY! The color of cold, the color of damp, the color of death, the color of depression. UGH. I think gray paint should be reserved for accent details and used very, very sparingly. Or made illegal since it is abused so frequently by budding interior designers who are trying to impress us all with how "serious" their work can be.

If we are what we eat, then we are also what we surround ourselves with. What we wear on our bodies gives us a pretty good idea about the interior landscape of our own psyches. If we are always reaching for gray, it's a safe bet we work in a business that has no room for error, frolic or creativity outside the S.O.P. bible. That or we freakin hate our lives. Isn't it interesting how grabbing a colorful scarf to wear, or adding some lipstick, jewelry or any dash of color can instantly brighten our mood? Not a coincidence.

When I moved to Mid Michigan years ago, our 1933 house had been painted a sickly gray green outside and the inside was (surprise!) gray. Not just a little gray. The carpet, aluminum mini blinds, draperies, wall paint and even the fireplace was a dead, cold, ash gray. The first month here was an excavation of epic proportions. We ripped every inch of that hideous carpet out, exposing gorgeous oak floors that had been smothered since the day the house was built. We sent the window covers to Goodwill and repainted every wall until the house was humming with tones and hues that echoed all things alive around us.

Guests to my home plop down in comfort exclaiming their desire to move in and stay forever. Well, there are some drawbacks to creating a refuge that other people might not be bold enough to make of their own living spaces, but after you pry them off your sofa, you can enjoy your home in peace.

I painted the front door gold on the inside and the outside to remind us all that there are golden opportunities everywhere.

So here is my challenge to you for 2010. Look around your life and anywhere you see non-colors, ones that do not fit into a rainbow, replace it with actual color. Be bold. Lose the beige, taupe, cream, ivory and if you have to wear gray, make it a background. Are you in the funeral business? Do you live at a mortuary? No? Then if you must wear or live in or around gray, gray, gray, add a mad dash of red, magenta, mustard yellow, royal purple, cerulean blue or a delicious grass green. Go nuts! Add some shimmer as the gray-ish accent tone. Sparkle with silver, shimmer with pearl, dazzle with diamondy reflection. OK. Diamondy isn't a word, but just go with it.

And if you've forgotten your science 101 and what constitutes rainbow colors, it's Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo & Violet. ROYGBIV. Remember? Pastel to intense hues, they all promote healthy attitude and more lively and welcoming living and work spaces. Put a flowering plant on your desk, even if it's a realistic silk, but real is better.

Until we actually live in one of those sterile, lifeless, sci-fi futures where everyone is medicinally altered into docile automatons in matching interstellar steel color jumpsuits, let's celebrate a living Earth by shaking off the winter doldrums and wrapping a Monet around your neck! You'll feel so much better and people will tell you so. Taste the rainbow!!