A Tale of Two Catalogs

Today I received two holiday catalogs in the mail.

 

Pottery Barn and World Vision.

 

The pottery barn catalog made me feel holiday-ish and nostalgic, and instilled in me a huge urge to own a large platter in the shape of a turkey. No seriously. I'm pretty sure that's what the pilgrims served the Indians (er- Native Americans) dinner with, right? The pictures are pretty and shiny and happy and make me feel like I need to have pretty and shiny things to be happy. And there is nothing wrong with owning pretty and shiny things. They do make me happy.

 

The World Vision catalog made me cry. Actual tears. Legit tears.

 (Has anyone seen my hormones?)

 

It's not a sad catalog with pictures of starving kids. To the contrary actually. The photographs show happy people. People who are holding animals and supplies that were bought by strangers in other, wealthier countries who realized that it's not all about shiny and pretty. And I guess that's what makes me cry. The loveliness of it all.

 

Last year I bought a couple goats for someone through World Vision. And before you get any thoughts like, "Oh that Jana is SO benevolent and awesome to the max!" you should know that I paid for it with a Visa gift card that I got from AT&T U-Verse for signing up for television service. So no, it wasn't all that benevolent and awesome. I didn't even really earn the money.

 

But it felt really good to spend that money on World Vision. I did it in Wes' name and they sent a little thank you card to him.  I cut out the picture in the catalog and put it with the thank you and stuck it in his baby book (which let's face it- has nothing written in it yet).

 

Tomorrow I'm going to look at the World Vision catalog with him and try to teach him animal noises. Which is probably pointless because I don't know what kind of noises alpacas make and whenever I ask Wes what ANY animal says he responds with "ROOOOAAAARRR!"

 

So I guess I have choices this Christmas. Buy a ceramic turkey? Or buy a real bird.

 

Keep the catalogs coming World Vision. You've got a lot of competition out there.

 

 

To hook those in need up with proper goods, visit www.worldvisiongifts.org.

Garden Ridge Opened/There Goes My Budget

At some point last year, I sent up a little prayer asking God to help me be a better steward of my money. He listened, and shorty thereafter Garden Ridge went up in flames.

Temple of holiday decor, flameless candles, glass jars, cheap art, fake plants, pottery, an entire "Seen on TV!" section, obscure and random packaged foods from abroad, tiny little chotchkies. POOF! Up in smoke.

Apparently it was arson, but I'm not claiming any part of that. It happened while I was at Chuy's eating delicious enchiladas with that addictive tomatillo sauce. I saw the smoke, and hoped that it was nearby WalMart on fire and not Garden Ridge, because let's face it, this is Texas and there's a WalMart at every highway exit. But the nearest Garden Ridge is not near enough for me to even know where it is.

But hold on friends (insert trumpet fanfare here). Garden Ridge has re-opened! Wooooo!

I went the other night to check it out, and other than their decision to skip fall decor and go straight to Christmas, I was not disappointed.

Hello, nineteen aisles of cheap plastic Christmas bulbs! Good to see you, entire wall of doormats! I nodded to the eight rows of lamps and shades as I walked down to the reproduction vintage furniture quadrant. Greetings, fake factory cart coffee table! It was great. They even had a whole section of hospital scrubs, which has never made sense to me. But they were there, animal print and all!

And just before I left empty handed, (this was reconnaissance only) I spotted the one item that really epitomizes (1) Garden Ridge, and (2) Texas, the ten foot tall inflatable patriotic Marine Santa.

Welcome back Santa, and Semper Fi.