Quick finds – I’m not posting my final order to Amazon, I know, but I still have until Thursday to figure it out, so more on that later…

Another year rolls in

Last year I found at Costco a cool “mom” fridge calendar. I thought I didn’t have enough appointments and events to jot down to make it useful, but after seeing it there a couple of times, temptation prevailed and I bought one. Turns out, I DID have enough stuff to fill up an acceptable percentage of it. It’s proven useful this year, with Xavier’s doctor checkups and visits at the clinic for shots, and just to remember weekend events, dentists appointments, auto oil changes, etc. AND I gotta say I enjoyed using it; it’s a nice tool, and pretty too.

These calendars feature big squares perfect for notes, they are printed on writable paper and are fridge-freezer-door sized. They come with magnets for the back and fun stickers to highlight everyday family activities (sports, hobbies, dentist, doctor, birthday, etc.). They’re sold in September, as they start with the school year, but they hold 16 months – the drawback is that you throw away a couple months if you buy one yearly.

Last year I got from Costco the 2006-2007 version from MoreTimeMoms – here it is for Canada and there’s a “see inside pages” if you want a better look. It’s available in US or Canada, and there’s a French version.

I totally recommend it and would have gotten the 2007-2008 edition, except that the months feature new images of the same cartoon family, so I got the similar one from MotherWord instead at WalMart. The stickers aren’t as cute, and the day squares don’t have handy lines in them, plus the shape is a different, but the month headers are full of funny little bears doing seasonal stuff. It’ll do for this year.

So far I like to keep the pages once I’ve ripped them off the calendar – some type of archives of our days : if I need to remember when this or that thing happened in the future, I can look it up.

Design tips and artwork

Quickly, still… I’ve stumbled upon this blog 2-3 times already when looking for tips and techniques for Photoshop/Illustrator etc., and have now suscribed to the RSS. It’s called Veerle’s blog: she’s a Belgian illustrator/designer doing beautiful artwork and sharing handy and fun tips and howto’s for Photoshop, Illustrator and web design. For those who like to dabble with these…

Have a nice week, all! (Our Awaited Wenesday is coming this week: I should be posting again once or twice before the week is out.) I leave you with pics from babysitting Romane on Wednesday, and Xavier visiting Félix on Saturday. Also: video of Xavier’s first bike ride.