In my first post in this series, The katdish ultimate Christmas shopping guide, Part 1, I introduced you all to the Forever Lazy, which is basically a onesie for adults. Incidentally, it is also available in the Bed, Bath & Beyond sales circular:

Today, I’d like to peruse the BB&B circular with you and point out some of the more interesting gift giving options therein.

First up, the Sound Asleep Pillow:

This pillow comes with a built-in speaker and 46″ stereo cable to attach to your ipod or other electronic listening device.

“The Sound Asleep pillow is the perfect gift for teens who are too old for toys, a husband who already has everything, college students who need a restful night’s sleep, or anyone who enjoys relaxing to their favorite soothing sounds.”

Finally! A solution to getting a restless night of intermittent sleep without the inconvenience of leaving the television on all night!

Next up is the Babycakes Cupcake Maker:

“This fun cupcake maker comes with everything you need to quickly prepare a batch of delicious mini cupcakes. It makes 8 cupcakes in 5-8 minutes.”

Thank goodness someone has finally come up with a machine that can bake a batch of cupcakes in 5 to 8 minutes. Because the 17 to 22 minutes it usually takes to bake them is like an ETERNITY! Besides, I have tons of space in my “electronic kitchen gadgets I never use” cabinet since I got rid of my George Foreman grill.

The Babycakes Mini Cupcake Maker: coming soon to a garage sale near you.

I’ll be honest. I’ve never really understood the appeal of this next item: The Lazy Susan Fondue Set

“This innovative fondue set features a Lazy Susan style base that allows users to rotate the bowls around the fondue pot to make sampling easy and fun.”

Fondue sets are seen almost exclusively at parties, and frankly, the concept mirrors the double-dip chip scenario made famous on Seinfeld. When you stick that little fork into the community dipping sauce, it’s like you put your entire germ infested mouth into the pot for others to share.

In the famous words of Hall & Oates,

“I can’t go for that. No, no. No fondue.”

The final item on my list is a product that is sure to be under many-a Christmas tree this year. What do you get someone who has everything that you budgeted spending approximately 100 bucks on?

Why, the Soda Stream Genesis Soda Maker, of course.

“SodaStream Genesis Soda Maker turns water into soda in seconds. Just fizz, flavor and enjoy. It is quick and easy. With SodaStream you’ll save on lugging, storing and disposing of bottles and cans of store-bought soda. You can fizz and flavor to your taste, without high fructose corn syrup or aspartame. Sweetened with Splenda®. Enjoy regular, diet soda and energy drinks, or create your own seltzer or flavored sparkling water.”

Flavoring available separately.

I don’t drink a lot of soft drinks, but I’m pretty particular about which ones I like. Okay, I pretty much only drink Diet Coke. I’m not inclined to drink Diet Pepsi, let alone diet “cola”. But I suppose if you have a hankerin’ for making your own soda, this is the product for you. Especially considering how difficult it is to find ready made carbonated beverages:

One side of an aisle at the local grocery store completely devoted to carbonated beverages.

Then again, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, owners of the Soda Stream Genesis Soda Maker will probably mock those of us who didn’t stock up on store bought carbonated beverages. That is, until the zombies take their flavoring packets. Then we’re all in the same boat.

Merry Christmas, happy shopping, and don’t forget your 20% off coupon!

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Halloween is a distant memory. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Time to put the Christmas shopping rush into full gear. But don’t fret, I’m here to guide you through the season. Over the next few weeks, I will alert you to some of the best gifts available on the internets, beginning with my first selection, Forever Lazy:

“Forever Lazy has zippered hatches in front and back for great escapes when duty calls…”

"Heh, heh...she said doodie..."

In the interest of full disclosure and giving credit where credit is due, I must share with you that this suggestion came to me from long time friend and sister-in-snark, Sarah via a series of text messages:

So there you have it. Perfect Christmas gift Number One: A bedazzled Bingo Forever Lazy.

For your shopping convenience, I have provided links to both sites:

Click on image to visit the Forever Lazy website

+

Click on image to visit the Bedazzler website

= win/win!

And just in case you don’t want to take my word that the Forever Lazy is a perfect Christmas gift, I’ll have you know that this garment has garnered a fairly high profile celebrity endorsement:

"We love the Forever Lazy" - Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La-La & Po

Check back next week, when I’ll be sharing MORE internet finds with you.

Happy Shopping and as always, Sorry/you’re welcome!

image courtesy of photobucket.com

When I was a kid, back-to-school shopping involved little more than perusing the two aisles of office supplies at the local Roses, where the selection was limited and the quality was debatable. But now there’s Staples. If there had been a Staples when I was in school, I’m sure I would have roamed the aisles of notebooks and pencils with the same sense of wonder and excitement my children are displaying.

Shedding the outdoors for a classroom is now a call to arms. One look at the sheet of necessary supplies in my wife’s hand that came directly from the school officials confirms it. Pencils, notebook paper, backpack, glue, tape, composition book, erasers, and kid-friendly scissors are just a few of the necessary items. I feel like I’m sending my kids off to college rather than second grade and kindergarten.

Although I am at times not so patient a father, on this day and in this store understanding comes easy. My kids are regarding our trip here with the perfect blend of excitement and seriousness. A tiny seed of knowledge is being planted within them that somehow this supply shopping is no errand. In a few years it will sprout and grow into the knowledge that what they are doing is the physical manifestation of a spiritual truth. They will see this a holy rite, and a universal one at that.

Because if my children are anything like me, all this shopping and ogling over school supplies and all this excitement over starting a new year will likely one day be replaced by a determination not to screw things up yet again.

I was never a standout in school. Nowhere near honor-role caliber. Average at best. I suppose I had the smarts to do better and be more, but not the drive or discipline. What people thought of me and how I fit in mattered much more than learning the Pythagorean theorem or how photosynthesis worked. Then, and sometimes now, the things that really shouldn’t matter at all mattered very much.

For me, the best days of the school year were the first few and the last few. The first few because they always held the most promise. The last few because by then I had firmly entrenched myself in my yearly rut of getting by rather than pulling ahead, and just wanted everything over with.

But summer vacation is the Great Eraser, three months of sunshine and play that put enough distance between me and the previous nine months to suggest the next year might be mine to own. Back-to-school shopping would always cement that thought. All those fresh notebooks with empty pages waiting to be filled with knowledge? Pencils sharp and wood-scented, ready to chew on in deep thought? And of course there was the epitome of student organization, the Trapper Keeper. Those were the weapons I would wield in the battle against myself.

And it always worked for the first few weeks, after which those notebooks would be filled with doodles born of boredom and angst, the pencils would be thrown at either a classmate or the ceiling, and my Trapper Keeper would have been torn to shreds and abandoned in the bottom of my locker.

We have good intentions, don’t we? Every notion to make the next day our best, to rise above petty thoughts and empty words and become who we know we can be. And still every night we close our eyes with the nagging thoughts of who we let down and what we couldn’t measure up to.

Just as we can’t be the perfect student, we’ll never be the perfect people. Deep down we all know this. But we also know that just because our feet are stuck in the mud of this world doesn’t mean our hands can’t reach ever higher toward the sky. Just because we cannot fly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stand tall.

That’s what I want my children to know as they walk these aisles.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at his blog What I Learned Today and follow him on twitter at @BillyCoffey

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, but it bears repeating: Retail is for suckers. Having said that, I feel I should share with you some cautionary advice about spending extended periods in stores that offer “designer brands at discount prices”. If you do not find the deal of a lifetime within the first 10 minutes, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY! In your desperate attempt to find a bargain, often things that you wouldn’t give at the tackiest white elephant gift exchange somehow find their way into your shopping cart. If you are weak, shop with a buddy — preferably one who will bluntly tell you just how incredibly ugly that sunflower tea cozy really is. (If you’re in the Houston area, I am available at a nominal fee.)

Since a picture truly is worth a thousand words, I will give you some examples of what NOT to buy on your next shopping excursion.

In my exciting and rewarding career as a faux-paux painter, not only do I help my clients choose a color palette, help them with creative decorating solutions, and wipe God only knows what off of their baseboards, as an added service, I also am always on the lookout for decorative pieces that might fit with their decor. I have worked in a vast array of homes with a wide variety of decorative tastes. I have not, however, ever had the occasion to select anything like this:

(Then again, I’ve never painted for any missionary families.)

And while we’re on the subject of decorating, I have also painted a few fairly awesome beach themed rooms (if I do say so myself). Here’s the thing — if a child requests a surfing or beach theme, it is usually because he or she thinks it would be incredibly cool to have their friends hang out in said room. Resist the urge to buy every surfer themed item! Less is more. Besides, little statues like this do not scream, “I am cool”:

They scream, “I am as nerdy and as fish-belly white as Captain Shorty Pants, here.”

With a name like “katdish” you would think that I would be all about the decorative cat accessories — and you would be wrong. I don’t dislike cats; I have a cat. But having a real cat (and the associated litter box) is really all I need. I’m not fond of the bumper sticker declaring my sworn loyalty to the Abyssinian, Persian or Siamese. Nor, would I ever own any of these items:

And frankly, if you have actual cats that resemble any of the ones pictured, shopping should be way down the list of problems you’ve yet to deal with. And speaking of pets, if you purchase a lead crystal dog bowl for your little four-legged friend, does the word “Spoiled” really need to be engraved on it, Captain Obvious?

The following items truly defy any logic. I can only loosely categorize them into “weird stuff you might put food into or perhaps frighten a small child with”:

While we’re on the topic of frightening, have you ever purchased a celebrity endorsed product? I’m not talking about something useful like a thigh master or a George Foreman grill. What I mean is, have you purchased an item with a celebrity’s likeness on the packaging? Nothing says, “You really should stay with your own children next Christmas, Uncle Phil” like a celebrity endorsed board game:

Do we have any Dr. Laura fans out there? If you have read all of Dr. Schlessinger’s books and listen to her radio program faithfully, yet still are not entirely convinced of what a pathetic loser you really are, perhaps you may be in need of some personal counseling via your very own Dr. Laura doll:

Not only is your favorite snarky psycho-therapist decked out in a fabulous lemon yellow pants suit, but if you politely and respectfully press the center button of her single breasted, designer jacket, she will speak to you in that oh-so condescending voice of hers. I know this to be true, because I do what I am told. And when I saw that little blue circle that says “Try Me”, I did just that. I’m not entirely certain what she said to me, as my actions coincided with an announcement on the intercom (“Clean up on Aisle 5”). But I’m pretty sure she called me a tramp.

We’ve talked about the inside of your house, but what does the exterior of your home convey to others? Seriously, people. Do I even need to mention you should avoid the lawn and garden aisle at Big Lots at all costs?:

I will close this post with a word of advice for readers of the female persuasion. When you are getting dressed in the morning and your husband gazes upon your backside, do you really want him reminded of Easter egg hunts from days gone by, and the “big one that got away”?

While I have been known to rock the granny panties on those days between “when the laundry should be done” and “when the laundry is actually done”, clearly this should not be a regular practice. Besides, they make an excellent tea cozy!

Are you sitting at home thinking how truly awesome it would be to find a one-stop shopping place for all the things in life you really should not live without?

You’d love a Snuggie, but your dog’s nails need a trimming, a few rhinestones need to be replaced on your jean jacket, you need to increase your closet hanging space, your produce doesn’t have the fridge life you’d hoped for, you have bad mojo due to harmful foot toxins, you have a pesky overabundance of nose hair, your lace dickey is so 5 years ago, you’re having a hard time eavesdropping on your neighbors at the mailbox, you have no place to hang your bananas, there’s no good place locally to buy waterproof granny panties, you’d like to know what your cat is really trying to tell you, and your dryer is full of lint! Look no further, my friend!

One visit to the fine folks at Harriet Carter and your troubles are over, my friend! You can find all the aforementioned items and SO MUCH MORE!!! You’re welcome. Just trying to make all of your lives a bit easier. I’m generous like that.

P. S. – Who in the heck plays backgammon anymore? Wrapped in a Snuggie or otherwise?

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, but it bears repeating: Retail is for suckers. Having said that, I feel I should share with you some cautionary advice about spending extended periods in stores that offer “designer brands at discount prices”. If you do not find the deal of a lifetime within the first 10 minutes, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY! In your desperate attempt to find a bargain, often things that you wouldn’t give at the tackiest white elephant gift exchange somehow find their way into your shopping cart. If you are weak, shop with a buddy — preferably one who will bluntly tell you just how incredibly ugly that sunflower tea cozy really is. (If you’re in the Houston area, I am available at a nominal fee.)

Since a picture truly is worth a thousand words, I will give you some examples of what NOT to buy on your next shopping excursion.

In my exciting and rewarding career as a faux-paux painter, not only do I help my clients choose a color palette, help them with creative decorating solutions, and wipe God only knows what off of their baseboards, as an added service, I also am always on the lookout for decorative pieces that might fit with their decor. I have worked in a vast array of homes with a wide variety of decorative tastes. I have not, however, ever had the occasion to select anything like this:

(Then again, I’ve never painted for any missionary families.)

And while we’re on the subject of decorating, I have also painted a few fairly awesome beach themed rooms (if I do say so myself). Here’s the thing — if a child requests a surfing or beach theme, it is usually because he or she thinks it would be incredibly cool to have their friends hang out in said room. Resist the urge to buy every surfer themed item! Less is more. Besides, little statues like this do not scream, “I am cool”:

They scream, “I am as nerdy and as fish-belly white as Captain Shorty Pants, here.”

With a name like “katdish” you would think that I would be all about the decorative cat accessories — and you would be wrong. I don’t dislike cats; I have a cat. But having a real cat (and the associated litter box) is really all I need. I’m not fond of the bumper sticker declaring my sworn loyalty to the Abyssinian, Persian or Siamese. Nor, would I ever own any of these items:

And frankly, if you have actual cats that resemble any of the ones pictured, shopping should be way down the list of problems you’ve yet to deal with. And speaking of pets, if you purchase a lead crystal dog bowl for your little four-legged friend, does the word “Spoiled” really need to be engraved on it, Captain Obvious?

The following items truly defy any logic. I can only loosely categorize them into “weird stuff you might put food into or perhaps frighten a small child with”:

While we’re on the topic of frightening, have you ever purchased a celebrity endorsed product? I’m not talking about something useful like a thigh master or a George Foreman grill. What I mean is, have you purchased an item with a celebrity’s likeness on the packaging? Nothing says, “You really should stay with your own children next Christmas, Uncle Phil” like a celebrity endorsed board game:

Do we have any Dr. Laura fans out there? If you have read all of Dr. Schlessinger’s books and listen to her radio program faithfully, yet still are not entirely convinced of what a pathetic loser you really are, perhaps you may be in need of some personal counseling via your very own Dr. Laura doll:

Not only is your favorite snarky psycho-therapist decked out in a fabulous lemon yellow pants suit, but if you politely and respectfully press the center button of her single breasted, designer jacket, she will speak to you in that oh-so condescending voice of hers. I know this to be true, because I do what I am told. And when I saw that little blue circle that says “Try Me”, I did just that. I’m not entirely certain what she said to me, as my actions coincided with an announcement on the intercom (“Clean up on Aisle 5”). But I’m pretty sure she called me a tramp.

We’ve talked about the inside of your house, but what does the exterior of your home convey to others? Seriously, people. Do I even need to mention you should avoid the lawn and garden aisle at Big Lots at all costs?:

I will close this post with a word of advice for readers of the female persuasion. When you are getting dressed in the morning and your husband gazes upon your backside, do you really want him reminded of Easter egg hunts from days gone by, and the “big one that got away”?

While I have been known to rock the granny panties on those days between “when the laundry should be done” and “when the laundry is actually done”, clearly this should not be a regular practice. Besides, they make an excellent tea cozy!