Wrapping paper and Christmas cards are part of the tradition but how about being even more creative and environmentally friendly? Sending online Christmas cards isn’t the same but it’s an alternative. If you buy cards get them in a box, buying a single card will cost a lot more. Plus you will have enough cards rather than going out again for anyone you forgot. Of course, look for cards and wrapping paper made with recycled paper.

Wrap presents in fabric: dish cloths, towels, blankets, scarves, pillowcases and clothing. How about giving presents in other containers such as lunch bags, travel cases, laundry baskets, cookie jars, food storage containers, tool boxes, knapsacks and other things people can use again. It’s a present in a present that way. You can also wrap presents in drawings children have made. Pages from comics, magazines, newspapers and books too dog eared to reuse (second hand bookstores) are crafty ideas too.

Skip the bows and ribbons and go with other reusable things like strings of beads, knitting yarn, garden twine and mittens on a string for kids. Decorate the top of the package with Christmas ornaments, fridge magnets, hair clips, seed packages, sample packs of coffee, photos from Christmas past, anything small and useful or just small and pretty.

Furoshiki - a type of traditional Japanese wrapping cloth that were frequently used to transport clothes, gifts, or other goods.

Not all that long ago, in the olden days someone began rules for email etiquette. Someone else renamed the rules Netiquette. One of the old rules was for email signatures - the few lines of text at the end of the emails you send out. Email signatures used to include links, favourite quotes and even ASCII art.

The netiquette rule was that an email signature should be 4 or 5 lines or less. As an ASCII artist who loved having my own art in my email sig, this was tough, but do-able. I miss seeing the old fashioned email sigs. They were replaced with fancier, bandwidth sucking HTML signatures and now they seem to be replaced (in a way) with social bookmarking which comes at the end of a blog post.

Someone has set the netiquette rule for that too. It’s a limit of five, someone says. It made me feel sentimental for the old email signatures, those 5 lines or less. You can pack a lot of ASCII into five lines, a lot of creativity. Social bookmarking is just another image file. Don’t they seem kind of dull when compared to the old signatures we put so much thought into?

I’m late again this year. This was going to be the year I started NaNoWriMo on time and actually finished my 50,000 words by the end of November. Instead I’m still in the final stages of moving jetlag. Not that I had a jet, that would have been nice, a whole moving crew too.

Here I am nearly a week after the start of November and I have not even begun. So much for my great plan to be part of it all this year. I don’t really like to put it off till next year, again. I did that last year after a slow, late start. Is anyone else joined up and trying?

Blueberry Cottage Cheese Pancakes presented by The Inn Keeper's Place Bed and Breakfast

Makes 18 pancakes (4")

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups blueberries

Butter for griddle or Pam spray.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl.

Stir together sour cream, cottage cheese, eggs, and vanilla in large bowl.

Add flour mixture, stir until just combined.

Gently stir in blueberries.

Heat oven to 200. Heat a griddle over medium heat. Butter griddle lightly.

Spoon level 1/4 cup batter onto griddle for each pancake.

Cook until lightly brown and bubbles begin to form 3-4 minutes.

Turn and cook other side. Keep in warm oven on baking sheet until ready to serve.

Garnish with berries and citrus wedges.

These sound great. Will be trying them tomorrow morning. Zack and I are going to make a pancake breakfast for Grandma.

If you were 9 you'd be impressed too.

http://www.thatgrrl.ca/dead_evil.htm

My nephew wanted a web page for the game he and a friend are inventing. It's going to be called Dead Evil. Mainly the action is shooting bad creatures in some kind of dark, evil world. At least he will be busy for the summer.

I think I can find him a more gorish looking font. Not sure gorish is a word, root for gore. I don't think he cares a lot about correct spelling though.