One Half Buddhist, One Half Christian, One Half Pagan

The rules:
Step One
- Make a post (public, friends locked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.
- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.
- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two
- Surf around your friendslist (or friends friends, or just random journals, or holiday_wishes) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:
- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.
You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

My Wishes:
1. Any of the perfumes listed here. There doesn't seem to be a way to link directly to the wishlist, so just click on the tab labeled "Jenny's Wishes." Click a second time if the first doesn't work. The site doesn't seem to have direct links to the sellers, but you should be able to Google them fairly easily. I have no problem with getting any of these second hand or as decants.

2. Music! Burn me CD's or send me MP3s. I love classic rock, all sorts of folk, the blues, some country, big band era jazz, and lots of other stuff. I'm also always willing to try something new.

3. Anything from my Amazon wishlist.

4. Anything from my Etsy favorites list.

5. Yarn in pretty colors. I prefer variegated yarns on the cool side of the color spectrum, and prefer to work with natural fibers. However, I'll take anything. As a bonus, if you give me yarn you get first dibs on whatever I decide to make with it. (You'd get an email along the lines of "I think that yarn you gave me would make a nice hat. Would you like a hat in those colors? Which of these patterns do you like better? How big is your head?")

6. Things that smell nice. Soap or perfume oils or lotion or bath salts or whatever. I like desserty smelling stuff best, but realistic floral or fruit smells are also good.

7. Gift certificates to Sock Dreams.

8. Homemade candy. Especially things which involve chocolate, mint, cherries, or peanut butter.

9. Make something especially for me.

10. Make a donation to a charity. I'm fond of Heifer International. Your local public library or a local literacy organization are also great causes. Do it in my name if you want, but don't get me on any mailing lists. :)

Body: I woke up this morning with a God-awful backache, but it seems to have improved by now.

Reading: In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton. I'm only a little more than a chapter in, but so far it's pretty interesting. The author is looking at the Salem Witch trials in the context of everything else that was going on in the Massachusetts colonies at the time.

Book Review: I finished The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander, by Frank Stockton, the man who wrote "The Lady and the Tiger." It's the story of a man who claims to have lived since the time of Abraham, and he's telling his history to his current wife and a friend. It was pretty good, but I'm glad that the download was free.

Hearing: BBC History Magazine podcast

Wearing: Today's perfume is Eat Me!, from BPAL's Mad Tea Party line. All the perfumes in that line are inspired by characters and situations in Alice In Wonderland. Eat Me! itself is inspired by the little cake that makes Alice change sizes. It's a wonderful fruity vanilla, and one of my favorites.

Tonight's Project: Repeat: I have to get those Swap-bot projects done tonight. One is overdue, and the others are due Saturday.

Project Follow-up: I got the bills mailed, but did nothing else.

Randomness: If you have a wish list (on Amazon, or somewhere else), link me! You can also send me the link as a PM or email. I'll probably get you something someday. No promises about when though.

Well, it's too late to be a birthday list, and too early for Christmas; so I'll just call it an ongoing Wish List

Music:
Any albums (not Greatest Hits or Best of's) by any of the following performers:

• Led Zepplin
• Mike Seeger
• Pete Seeger
• The Beach Boys
• Aretha Franklin
• Jimi Hendrix
• Johnny Cash (I already have the Folsom Prison album)
• B.B. King
• The Rolling Stones
• The Who
• The Indigo Girls (I already own 1200 Curfew)
• Billy Bragg (I already own Talking With the Taxman About Poetry and both of the Mermaid Avenue albums)
• Jefferson Airplane
• The Weavers
• Enya (I already own Paint The Sky With Stars and A Day Without Rain)
• Loreena McKennit (not sure of the spelling)
• Heather Alexander
• The Doobie Brothers
• Bo Diddley
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (or any solo or other combinations)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Fleetwood Mac, any version of the band (I already own The Dance and Rumours)
• Timbuk 3

Greatest Hits or Best of albums by any of the following performers:

• Marvin Gaye
• Billie Holiday
• Billy Joel
• Tina Turner
• Roy Orbison
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Bonnie Raitt
• Lonnie Brooks
• Cheryl Wheeler
• Bill Morrissey
• Kathy Mattea
• Peggy Seeger
• The Staples Singers/Mavis Staples

Specific albums:

• Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost of Tom Joad, The Seeger Sessions
• Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant

Books:

• Anything by Neil Gaiman (I already own American Gods, Anansi Boys, and Stardust)
• Anything by Kage Baker (I already own The Anvil of the World)
• Anything about England and/or Wales in the 1100's (Please, no general histories. I own several of them already.)
• Any books of quotations, lyrics & poetry (I use them for ideas for different projects)
• Anything by Isaac Asimov, especially his guides to Shakespeare and the Bible. I have no problem with used, and in fact would love to get some of his older, out-of-print books.
• Any of the Doonesbury books
• Cookbooks from Williams-Sonoma.  I've never used one, but I've heard good things about them.

Audio Books:

• Beowulf, any translation will do, but I'd prefer the Seamus Heany(sp?) one
• The Iliad and The Odyssey, any translation
• Gilgamesh, any translation
• Dante's Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno, any translation.
• any of Shakespeare's plays
• Audio books in french.  Especially stories that I'm already familiar with.  Classic science fiction & fantasy, children's books, and classic literature are probably all safe bets.

Crafts:

• string/yarn/perle cotton/embroidery floss with the following characteristics
  • natural fiber (cotton, wool, silk, linen, bamboo)
  • any colors, although I prefer the cool side of the spectrum
  • any size - I can embroider with thin stuff and knit with thicker stuff
• Interesting papers of all sorts
• Interesting buttons and/or beads

LiveJournal/Computer things:

• Extra User Pics/Storage Space/Paid Time here on LJ

Gift Certificates:

• Borders
• Best Buy
• Joann's Fabrics

Other:

• A good digital camera.  I have no problems with second hand.
• An enclosed herb garden/mini-greenhouse.  I don't have a specific one in mind, but it needs all of the following characteristics:
  • enclosed enough that the cats can't eat the plants
  • big enough to grow at least 3 or 4 different plants to maturity, not just for sprouting.
  • be re-useable
• Slipper socks/house socks/bed socks
• Perfume oils.  Not traditional spray perfumes, since the alcohol in them gives me a head ache.
  • Scents I almost always like:
    • Vanilla
    • Rose
    • Apple
    • Strawberry
    • Cinnamon
  • Scents I almost always hate:
    • Patchouli
    • Banana
    • Coconut

This is my Christmas Wish-List for my & Tom's families:

Kitchen Supplies:
a large casserole dish
a cheese grater
a 9 by 13 baking dish/cake pan
decent cookie sheets
Clothing:
a MSU sweatshirt
warm slippers
a bathrobe, either flannel or terrycloth
shirts that are appropriate for a casual workplace
simple pierced earrings
Household Stuff:
cat toys
a large flashlight or battery powered lamp
a dustbuster or similar hand-held vacuum
a small foot stool to use while I'm sitting at my computer
Other Stuff:
any actual albums (no "Best of" collections) by:
- Aretha Franklin
- B.B. King
- Etta James
- Muddy Waters
- Odetta
- Santana (except Supernatural & Shaman)
- Sweet Honey In The Rock
- Ray Charles
- The Rolling Stones
- The Who
any books written or edited by Isaac Asimov. I'm trying to collect all of the 400-odd titles that he wrote, so I have no problems with used copies. Don't worry about duplicates. With that many titles the odds are in my favor.
Gift certificates to Borders, JC Penneys, Best Buy, or Michaels Crafts
anything off of my Amazon Wishlist

You all have pretty good taste, so if you think I'll like it I probably will. In general my favorite colors are pastels and grey tones, especially blue. I prefer silver jewelry, and V- or scoop-necked shirts. I don't wear turtlenecks at all and prefer not to wear mock turtlenecks. I wear either a medium or small, but it changes from garment to garment. Medium is probably a slightly safer bet.