Fancy Flours Cookie Cutter Challenge: February

I inspired myself with all of yesterday's mumbo jumbo about getting off the merry-go-round and doing things differently. I've decided this month we will select the cookie cutter for our monthly Fancy Flours Cookie Cutter Challenge a little bit differently than we do normally.

Newcomers, once a month Highlowaha readers put me to the test. I select a holiday worth celebrating and you, the readers select a cookie cutter from the Fancy Flours website that you think I should have to use. The key is to find the cookie cutter you think I will have the hardest time incorporating into my celebration. My job is to bake them, decorate them, and package them.

This month you vote on both - the cookie cutter and the holiday. Check out the polls below.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Now for the cookie cutter...

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

The holiday and cookie cutter receiving the most votes will be my winning combination for the month of February. Tune in at the end of the month to see what I have come up with.

Signing off until tomorrow....

You're Fired... Up

Are you like so many Americans, trudging through the work week, counting the minutes until quitting time? You might even like your job, but still you find yourself breathing a sigh of relief on hump day, followed by a happy dance on Friday.

There is an art to keeping work fun. It takes some... well, work. Having fun at work means remembering colleagues birthdays, hosting pot lucks, tuning into the highs and lows of your office mates, laughing over favorite t.v. shows, baking extra cookies for the break room, pulling pranks, declaring theme days, rewarding one another for work well done, and so much more.

Last month we decided to tackle fun in the work place, by partnering with Fancy Flours to celebrate, National Have Fun at Work Day. As is usually the case, readers voted on which cookie cutter I should have to incorporate into the celebration. This month the dragon was the winning cookie cutter.

Work Day Drag-on?

Fire up and...

Now it's your turn to slay the drudgery. How you'll make your work place more fun tomorrow?

P.S. If you're eyeing my dragon cookie because you know the Chinese New Year is coming up and you want your very own, don't despair.

Win your very own dragon cookie cutter. Visit the comment section and recommend other occasions for which it could be used. Add a slogan and earn brownie points. The person Cheryl, Heather, and I agree came up with the best idea and slogan will win his/her very own dragon cookie cutter.

Signing off until tomorrow...

Fancy Flours Cookie Cutter Challenge: January

Psych.

I bet many of you returners thought we forgot about this month's Fancy Flours Cookie Cutter Challenge. Not a chance. We simply bumped the challenge from its regularly scheduled time slot, so we could make room for last week's mini series, Resolutions 101.

We're back, baby.

Challenge Overview. Each month I select an occasion worth celebrating. You, the readers, get in on the fun by scouring the 600 + cookie cutters sold on Fancy Flours' website. The goal? Select the cookie cutter you think I will have the most difficulty incorporating into my celebration. You might think airplane for National Ice Cream Month, A porcupine for Earth Day, a mermaid for my husband's birthday, or a rooster for Festivus. All are good examples of the lengths to which our readers have gone in challenging me to think outside the box.

My challenge. Incorporate the winning cookie cutter into my celebration for the month by baking them, decorating them, and then packaging them with either a winning slogan or presentation.

Let the fun commence.

This month we will be celebrating National Fun at Work Day, scheduled for Friday, January 29. Have your own fun at work today by clicking here and voting on the cookie cutter you think I should have to use this month. Remember, keep it fun. Make it hard.

Once you've decided, jump into the comment section and cast your vote. The cookie cutter receiving the most votes wins.

And while you are at it... how about sharing other ideas you might have for making Friday, January 29 fun at work (especially if work is at home!). If we're lucky, maybe Heather will jump in a describe her recent Office Olympics (for which her team received the silver medal!).

On your marks, get set, vote!

Signing off until tomorrow...

Wake Up Call

Wake up! Today is Festivus and we've got some complaining to do. A few weeks ago I announced Highlowaha would be celebrating this favorite Seinfeld holiday. Little did I know you would saddle me with a Fancy Flours ROOSTER cookie cutter to help get the party started.

The Christmas holiday gets snowmen, elves, Santa Claus, and Rudolph. Me? What do I get? A rooster. I want to lodge a grievance.

That's right. Festivus, according to Seinfeld is set aside for the airing of grievances and I've got quite a few

Why did I get stuck with a rooster? I'm a city girl. How come Tera, Julie, Maureen, and Montana Kelly never show their faces anymore? Whose reading this blog anyway? Why is my skin dry? Why do I have no sense of direction and a bunion on my left foot big enough to warrant its own shoe? Why are the hard boiled eggs stinking up my refrigerator, and why don't cashiers know how to make change?

I could go on. Why does my husband leave the "twist ties" around the hangers of his dry cleaned shirts? Why does my teenage son think cleaning his room means throwing everything in a heap at the base of his closet? Why must my youngest son strip down COMPLETELY each and every time he goes to the bathroom, and why does my laundry multiply...exponentially?

Why? Why? Why?

Cockadoodle-do-something! Share a grievance. And while you're at it, tell me this.... Which of our blog posts in the last year stunk like the eggs in my refrigerator? Don't try feeding me a cockamamie story about how they were all good and don't worry about ruffling my feathers. Come February, we're presenting do-overs for the 18 worst posts of 2009, as voted on by YOU!

Don't be a chicken. Lay it on me.

Think you could do better than me with the rooster? Well, lay that one on me too. Share another occasion when you might use the rooster and let me hear you slogan. The proud winner rules the roost and wins the cookie cutter.

I'm out. Ba Humbug.

Signing off until tomorrow....

Fancy Flours Cookie Cutter Challenge: December

Yesterday we closed out November's Cookie Cutter Challenge, featuring a Fancy Flours cookie cutter shaped like a screw driver. I used the cookie cutter to celebrate the end of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and 55, 190 words later, there is much to celebrate! With a minor twist of the screwdriver, we even generated a fun Christmas present idea or two. Check it out.

Today you decide on the cookie cutter I must somehow incorporate into December's holiday. If this month follows suit, your suggestions for a cookie cutter to match my holiday will go together about as well as peanut butter and anchovies or salt and pancakes. That is to say... not at all!

You should know that while you are busy making sure I have my work cut out for me, I am having a great time selecting each month's holiday. This month was no exception. In fact, this might be one of my favorites so far. I laughed and laughed and laughed after stumbling on this holiday. Meanwhile, Richard couldn't believe I had never heard of it!

This month on December 23, we will be celebrating Festivus, a holiday created on Seinfeld in response to the commercialization of Christmas. The slogan is, "Festivus, a holiday for the rest of us". Festivus Festivities include three components:

• Festivus Pole: It is an unadorned aluminum pole, apparently in opposition to the commercialization of the decorated Christmas trees.
• Airing of Grievances: where the celebrant tells their friends and family all of the instances where they disappointed the celebrant that year.
• Feats of Strength: where the head of family tests their strength against one participant. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned.

Want to know more about Festivus? Click here. Or, for a real laugh click here and watch part of the episode.

I have absolutely NO idea what I will do with this holiday or your cookie cutter for that matter, but bring it on. Click on the Fancy Flour website and select the cookie cutter you think I should have to use. The cutter receiving the most votes wins. In the event of a tie, the winning cutter will be selected from a hat.

Signing off until tomorrow...

Cookies with a Twist

Today marks the LAST day of NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month and the focus of this month's Fancy Flours Cookie Cutter Challenge. My friend, Susan, will be the recipient of this month's cookies, as she was brave enough to join me in undertaking this crazy adventure. Write 50,000 words in 30 days.

The rules of our cookie cutter challenge are simple. At the start of each month I announce an occasion we will celebrate. Readers visit Fancy Flours to vote on one the 600+ cookie cutters featured on their website. I then incorporate the winning cookie cutter into our celebration. You spare me no mercy, typically picking cookie cutters totally unrelated to my celebration.

I gave this month's entry a little "twist" that I think you will find perfect for the holiday season.

We'll call this month's entry... Can We Build It? Yes We Can! Getting 50,000 words on paper is only the foundation of building our best selling books. I used the screwdriver cookie cutter as the inspiration for my Book Writer's Tool Belt. Inside are all the "tools" Susan will need to begin editing her masterpiece.

Check out what I've included: a small book of daily inspirations for writers, red pens, a gift card for a cup of inspiration, post it notes, chocolate, aspirin, a small gift card for the ultimate book lover, and of course a batch of my yummy cookies.

And, because packaging is everything, I gathered all of her items together in a $.77 tool belt from Lowes.

Here's the "twist" that I think you will like. You could create a Tool Belt for just about anyone on your holiday list. Know a Scrapbooker? What about paper, scissors, stickers, glue, and a hole punch?

Know someone who interested in sprucing up his apartment? How about paint swatches, a picture frame, a decorating-for-dummies book, and a gift card to a local accessory store?

Ice cream lover? Sprinkles, an ice cream scoop, a gift certificate to Baskin Robbins, sugar cones, ice cream spoons, ice cream stickers, and cherries for on top?

Fore! How about a golfer? Golf tees, score cards, a golf towel for his bag, golf balls, ball markers, and new spikes for his shoes.

One more. This is fun.

Sewing. Needles, thread, scissors, a new pattern, a pin cushion, and a gift card for fabric.

Cake decorating, fishing, knitting, hunting, fitness, cooking, coffee lover, tennis, guitar player, or gardener. We could go on for days! This is a fun, fun way to package just about any present you have in mind.

The screwdriver cookie cutter is icing on the cake, regardless of your tool belt theme. Just add a tag reading, "Cake Decorating with a Twist," "Building the Ultimate Scrapbook," or "The Nuts and Bolts of Golf." There's a slogan for whatever belt you create.

Win today's cookie cutter by suggesting yet another hobby for which you could stuff a tool belt and tell us which items you might include. Submit an idea in the comment section and your name will go in the construction hat for a drawing to be done tonight at 9:00 p.m.

Signing off until tomorrow when we select the cookie cutter for December.