Calendars

Maggie Oster's Herb Gardens calendar

For some unfathomable reason, I've always liked calendars. I appreciate their decorative aspect -- I like having nice pictures that change every month. Somehow, I must also like the time-monitoring aspect as well. Perhaps changing the page every month helps punctuate the increasingly relentless march of time.

The only place I've found for a calendar in our house is in the kitchen. Last year, I had a herb garden calendar by Maggie Oster that worked particularly well, so I got another one for 2013. There are pretty photos of herb gardens along with a seasonal recipe using herbs for each month and various little facts sprinkled through the days of the month, along with the usual holidays and other calendar items. I don't have available wall space in my office and it doesn't make sense to have a calendar in a room, like our finished basement, where I don't spend much time, so the kitchen is it.

In Europe, there was always a wide selection of very nice calendars in all shapes and sizes. Predictably, calendars have been standardized and commercialized here to the point that they come in more or less one size, so that they fit into the display racks in stores. They generally all follow the same format of unfolding with a photo on the top page and the calendar on the bottom page. So the beautiful big calendars I had in Europe, with large pictures and only a token listing of the days (who really needs a calendar to figure out the date?), are a thing of the past.

As I'm experimenting with Pinterest, I've created an "Ideal Calendar" pinboard with the idea of picturing one to four places where I would like to spend all or part of each month. I already have three for January and one for February. I'm beginning to think the year will be too short to put in all the places I'd like to spend time! I'm trying to divide the photos between places I've been in that month (and, it goes without saying, would like to revisit) and new places I'd like to visit.

In general, Pinterest, with its focus on the visual is a bit like a calendar of one's life -- big photos with few words marking the various interests you have.