Winning at Marriage

My anniversary is coming up and I was trying to figure out what to get my husband to celebrate. Looking for inspiration,  I went to the almighty Hallmark website, to see what was the appropriate gift to mark the numerical year of my anniversary.  I was horrified.

This is what Hallmark had to say.  

Anniversary	Traditional	Modern
1st	Paper	Clocks
2nd	Cotton	China
3rd	Leather	Crystal/Glass
4th	Fruit/Flowers	Appliances
5th	Wood	Silverware
6th	Candy/Iron	Wood
7th	Wool/Copper	Desk Sets
8th	Pottery/Bronze	Linens/Lace
9th	Willow/Pottery	Leather
10th	Tin/Aluminum	Diamond Jewelry
11th	Steel	Fashion Jewelry
12th	Silk/Linen	Pearls
13th	Lace	Textile Furs
14th	Animals*	Gold Jewelry
15th	Crystal	Watches
20th	China	Platinum
25th	Silver	Silver
30th	Pearl	Diamond
35th	Coral	Jade
40th	Ruby	Ruby
45th	Sapphire	Sapphire
50th	Gold	Gold
60th	Diamond	Diamond

* Historically, the traditional 14th anniversary gift was ivory, but endangered elephant populations make this an unethical choice.

I feel cheated that I missed leather.  There are some interesting things that I could have done will leather. Right now I am on Fruit/Flowers or better yet Appliances.  I am not entirely sure that, Honey I love you. Please enjoy this new oven and please don't cook me in it, is the way I want to go. 

I feel like this list had a lot left to be desired. It didn't inspire me, well maybe the leather did, but other than that it didn't give me much to work with. The idea of buying fruit or flowers or appliances doesn't stir the blood. I decided that I would make my own list.  

Anniversary 

1st-Tee Shirts   

2nd- Action figures/ Toys

3rd - Comics/ Books

4th-Movies/Theater/Entertainment

5th- Games

6th- Beverages/ Alcohol

7th- Amusement Park/Fairs/ Concerts

8th- Kitchen Gadgets

9th- Food

10th- Electronics/ Computer 

11th-Themed Conventions

12th- The Great Out Doors 

13th- Winery/ Beer tours

14th- Pajamas/ Costumes

15th- Themed Hotel Room

20th- Destination Trip (hello hobbits)

25th- Jewelry

30th-Museums

35th- Leather/ Weaponry

40th-Art

45th- Mythical Creature

50th- Vow renewal - Themed

55th First edition

60th-Trophy

That's right, for my 60th anniversary, my husband and I should get a trophy for winning at marriage. 

Gifts Ideas

Every year around this time of the year I start the internal debate as to if I have sufficiently acquired enough gifts for those people that I care about. I enjoy giving gifts. I think it is fun. I enjoy seeing the surprise on the persons face when they open something that rocks their socks off. It isn't easy to surprise half the people on my shopping list and most of it requires use of the internet to acquire, unless it is a craft, and then I either go local or do it myself.

I don't want to tell you what to buy a person, because I believe that everyone deserves a little bit of thought when comes to a gift, but I will share with you some of site that I enjoy and have found a few of the odd, interesting and just plain amusing gifts at. (Also the numbers have no significance, other than the fact when I am writing a list I like to use them. It is not a rating system.)


1.  ThinkGeek

Dib is a fan of ThinkGeek Pillows!

- I love ThinkGeek, because what ever you passion is, they try to have it. There is everything from Star Trek/Wars to Doctor Who to Game of Thrones. They cover almost anything that has to do with video games and popular television shows, and a lot of other really neat things also. It is geared to a variety of ages, and if you sign up for their email notifications, sometimes you can get some really good deals on shipping.


2. TopatoCo

Dib loves putting cat hair on shirts!

-  I love tee shirts, and I love web comics. TopatoCo is a marriage between the two. They do have other things besides tee shirts, but because of my love for tee shirts, that is all I have ever purchased. I can attest that their shirts do not shrink, and that the print does not fade after multiple washings.  I know that most people can not give every person a tee shirt, but I then you can certainly fill their shoes with the various buttons, stickers and stuffed animals that they have.

3. Fred & Friends

Iggins loves shopping online!

- Weird and Off Beat probably should have been my middle name, but my parents knowing that I would be teased to the ends of the earth if they had actually did that instead of Marie. This site is where I can find all the interesting things that makes some ones stocking buzz or their birthday gift rattle. You know that thing you got from me, it might have been a Fred & Friends product. The beauty of Fred & Friends, is that most of the time you can find their products in those fun off beat stores locally, or if you are really desperate for that free shipping Amazon.

4. The Literary Gift Company

Iggins approves!

-This has been described as "The Intelligent Gift store with an Academic Theme". I think this is a fun site for anyone that has a love for reading or writing. There are more than just books on this site, and the wide variety of items that a person can find is refreshing.  I will admit that I am very much amused by the bookshelf wrapping paper, and considering that I do get a lot of books for people in general, it it is a little bit of fun to wrap a book in a picture that a book would go.  If you have never been to this site, I would say at least check it out. It isn't a cup of tea for everyone, but I know there are at least a dozen or two things that I would love from there.

I killed a clown.

I killed a clown. Or at least that is what I tell people when they see my hands.  I am pretty sure that clowns bleed a rainbow of colors, because clowns aren't humans. They are space aliens trying to infiltrate our planet. That might not be a true story, but so far I have had no arguments about clowns.  

 Once a month, I get together with my girlfriends and we do something, anything. We make an adventure out of it, because one cannot have too many adventures in this life. It was decided that it would be fun to do a little bit of tie dyeing.  I personally don’t remember the last time I did any sort of tie dyeing. It had to be at least a dozen years if not two decades since I have had any sort of association with tie dye. I now know why.  It doesn’t matter how much you try not to get any on you, it is still going to happen.  The gloves they include in any of the kits are a joke. They tear easily and made for giant hands, so there are all sorts of gaps for dye to seep into, especially if you have any sort of enthusiasm for the project. You get a group of girls together with some sangria and bottles of dye, and things can get pretty interesting and enthusiasm was not lacking. It was an adventure that has certainly proved to be a learning experience.

We tie dyed the following: 2 Dresses, 10 Tee Shirts, 3 Pairs of Socks, Various Undergarments, 1 Beds Sheet set, Yoga Shorts, Towel Set, Hoody, Fedoras, Ball caps, 3 Dress Shirts, Bandana’s, 5 pairs of feet, 5 sets of hands, 3 legs, 2 arms and  1 forehead.  I am sure that there is more that was dyed and I am just forgetting it, because I may have ingested some dye at one point or another.  There was a lot of dye flowing around and, since there were five of us, and five pairs hands and 5 sets of feet were dyed, you can guess that I got dyed.

It was fun, until I tried to get it off, and then I learned that the Internet is a liar.  Here is a list of things that I have tried thus far to remove the techno-colored from my hands. Please note that none of these things actually worked. 

1.        Acetone- It removes nail polish, and has been said to help remove hair dye from furniture.  This is did not work in the slightest.  Having now had the experience of rinsing my hands in acetone, I can attest to this.  Acetone is cold. It is creepy and it feels like your life is seeping out of your hands, but it did nothing to remove the dye. It didn’t even make it fade either.  I would not recommend trying this method, unless you want to know what it is like to shake the cold clammy hand of death.

2.        Orange Cleaner- I had high hopes for this. It is supposed to be able to clean anything. It doesn’t. The gritty texture and the strong smell of oranges, was kind of pleasant after shaking the cold hand of death with Acetone. However, with the exfoliation and the determined scrubbing and rubbing the solution together, it did nothing to lighten the coloration of my hands. On the bright side my hands felt smooth from the exfoliation and every crack and crevice in my hand was highlighted even more in the stubborn dye.

3.        Baking soda and Dish Soap- This is form a dye removal website. I am not going to mention the website, because I think they are using hair dye, and any cure for hair dye does not apply to tee shirt dye.  I thought it would be worth a try since I had both items in my home. Mixing dish soap and baking soda is weird. It makes a paste that almost feels like play dough. Rubbing it onto my hands was sort of like trying to wash in slightly blue cookie batter.  The baking soda continued to smooth my hands even more. It felt kind of nice, but did nothing for the dye. The dye was stubborn.

4.        Toothpaste- This is probably the weirdest home remedy that I saw, but in its own way it made sense. Tooth paste is whitening and used to remove stains on teeth. In theory it could possibly remove stains from a person’s hands.  In theory it works. The act of covering my hands in tooth paste, I don’t think I will ever forget. I learned that when you cover your hands in tooth paste, they start to tingle because of the mint in the paste.  The longer you keep the paste on, the more it tingles. After you wash the paste off , your hands will smell like mint for the rest of the evening. Despite the tingling, and the minty smell, my hands did not seem any less tie dyed.

After about four attempts and a shower later to remove the dye, I decided to just go to bed.  It was like magic; once I fell asleep I completely came to peace with myself and my new skin colors.  Waking up in the morning I gave up on changing the color of my hands, and decided to compliment my new and improved color pallet by painting my finger nails a rather fetching pink.  Then the real miracle happened, while I worked throughout the day, the color just seemed to come off of my hands and lighten and fade. It was amazing. By the end of the work day, I no longer looked like I murdered a clown or strangled a rainbow.  I would say that the moral of the story is that sometime it is easy to get distracted by the small things in life and if you just keep moving those small things sort themselves out, sort of like tie dye.