On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: two nifty cows, and an owl living in captivity.

Heifer International provides cows, goats, and other useful animals to villages that need an economic boots, allowing people to make their own wealth.

Stay tuned for more neat charities. Cool cow picture here. Find a charity here, check its cred here.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a spotted owl in captivity.

This is Hazel. Your donation to the Portland Audubon Society could provide for her food and comfort. Hazel can't make it in the wild, so she lives in the Audubon Society and inspires love of birds among school kids who come to see her. 

Mouse is counting down the seven days of Christmas (seven, not twelve, because I can never remember that many verses) with charities that deserve support. First day of Christmas: National Audubon Society, or your local Audubon Society branch, which works to protect birds and their habitats.

Find a charity here, and check its cred here.

Mouse is usually over-stimulated even by walking into the airport: so many people! Exciting places to go! Window seat! Listening to the people flying the plane!

Around the holidays, this feeling intensifies, making travel overwhelming. I need some cool, simple, metallic flight accessories to calm me down. I got those above recently, and they have made the perfume and business card portions of packing effortless. No more crumply cards from jamming them into the back pocket of my wallet. No more broken perfume sample making clothes smell. No more running out of perfume sample halfway through the trip (this atomizer packs enough for two to three weeks, easy, and that's usually as long as Mouse likes to be away from home). And neither costs more than $10.

Then I went poking around online, and found more calm metallics to add to my wish-list:

Evian brumisateur to help hydrate skin in-flight (also good for after landing if you are traveling to the Southwest); metallic foot duvets to keep piggies toasty in-flight (on sale right now); brushed metal luggage tags which will neither fall off nor look exactly like nearby luggage tags; and a flask. What? It's three ounces--that means I can take it through security if it's in my quart-sized baggie, right? (It would make for a calmer and less expensive trip...)

This is my favorite Christmas ornament EVER, and you can make them yourself! Hee hee hee hee hee. (Via Living Small and Elise Marley)

My favorite makeup artist used to have an eyebrow brush which was actually a vintage toothbrush. (This sounds weird, but bear with me.) More rows mean that more of your eyebrow hairs get combed into order per stroke, and the boar bristles do the same thing for eyebrows that boar bristle brushes do for your hair: distribute natural oils, condition the skin, and make the hair healthier-looking. I was a little uncertain about getting a used toothbrush (ew), but hey, look--here's a new one, for less than $8, which will do all the same good stuff. And it will get rid of the little winter flakies.

Mouse heads home tomorrow for the holidays, and blogging will become sporadic until the new year. (Mouse has two sisters, one in the woods in the snowy Southwest and one in Africa. I am snowy Southwest bound, for the little house among the trees that feels more Christmasy than anywhere else. But internet there is as limited as other sister's internet, in Tanzania.)

Here are my hopes for the holidays with my family:

(1) Have 0-5 fights with my dad, thus creating an all-time low.

(2) Make tiny nephew giggle.

(3) Make chaps for tiny niece and teach her about lassos (not to be used on tiny nephew).

(4) Share caramels and cashews and cards with all the people who make my life happy.

(5) See old friends, drinking hot drinks and giggling about how things once were.

(6) Eat many cookies and all the salty snacks I can find.

(7) Use what money I have to make the holidays bright for people with less.

(8) Not try to match my mother drink for drink.

(9) Read books (including books for fun).

(10) Not accumulate more stuff than will fit in the suitcase I am packing right now.

Happy Holidays.

[Pretty star and more pretty stuff here.]

Chicago is getting its first real snow of the year. Mouse wants to gently remind everybody that four-wheel drive helps you go, and does not help you stop.

P.S.--snow is not so bad when you have nice boyfriend to help you shovel, lots of caramels, and plenty of wine. Plus the snow goes squeak squeak, much like Mouse.

 A favorite tiny person is turning five on Friday, and I want to buy her one of the jewelry boxes with a ballerina that pops up and spins around (preferably to "Swan Lake"). Trouble is, the cool part when I had one was that it looked like an ordinary jewelry box, so that the amazing thing was the ballerina. But all the ones in the stores now are pink, iridescent, bedazzled, covered in glitter, etc. Anyone know where to track down one of the simple old ones that we loved so much?

More trees! Trees upon which to hang your coat, tree that sticks on your wall, forest that sticks on your wall...

This little yellow lamp has Mouse dreaming of a camp-out. Maybe not a real camp-out, because it's cold. Instead, I want to deck out my bedroom with camping and woodsy stuff, so that when I crawl under the covers I can sleep that warm, uninterrupted, peaceful sleep of a camp-out (minus the rock sticking in my back). It would make the bedroom a little retreat from the world. I think, therefore, that my room also needs some trees...

(Tree lamp here, tree prints here and here.)