December 2015

If you would like to obtain some well considered financial advice, contact Sarah Cecil 206-938-6017.

Brought to you by Sarah Cecil Financial Advisor with Edwards Jones Investments.

Sponsored post.

By Sarah Cecil

During this holiday season, you’ll likely be spending money, in various amounts and in various ways. And you can use this experience to teach your children about money management.

Here are a few ideas for doing just that:
• Stick to a budget. Tell your children you’ve set aside a certain amount of money for gifts and holiday events, such as hosting parties, and that you won’t exceed it. And if you have saved money throughout the year in a special holiday fund, let your kids know about that, too. This information should help impress upon them the importance of sticking with a budget and saving for a goal.

• Discuss credit and debt. Ideally, you won’t have to use your credit cards to an unusual degree during the holiday season. If you do, though, explain to your children that using a credit card is not the same thing as “free” money, and that your goal is to pay off the card as soon as possible, so that you won’t have to pay even more for your purchases in the form of interest payments.

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Discovery Shop
4535 California Ave. S.W.
206.937.7169
All holiday items, clothing and decor are half price Dec. 11–20. We have a beautiful selection of one of a kind treasures and tea cups filled with goodies that make perfect hostess gifts. Check our antique, vintage and collectible shelves and check the white board for unadvertised specials. The American Cancer Society shop will stay open until 8 p.m. Thurs., Dec. 17. Regular hours are: Sun., 11–3 p.m.; Mon.–Sat., 10–4:30 p.m. We will close at 1 p.m. Christmas Eve and be closed Christmas Day. www.discoveryshopwestseattle.org / LIKE us on Facebook

Santa Al’s West Seattle Schedule

By Pat Cashman

The other day, I found an old photograph in a box from my mom’s house---after all, she never threw anything away. She was the type who even saved calendars, figuring that if 1956 ever rolled around again, she’d be set.
But the old photograph really was a keeper: A picture of my great, great Irish uncle. But whether the man was really all that great, great is hard to tell from the image. It shows a solitary figure, in black and white, sitting uncomfortably and unsmiling on a rickety wooden chair. Faded writing on the back of the photo reads: “Maurice Hunt, around 1906. This is the only photograph ever taken of him.”

Phyllis Diller once said that photographs of her always did an injustice because they looked just like her. But when you’ve only got a single image to go by---like the one of my Uncle Maurice---who can say whether it really captures the person?

By Amanda Knox

I’ve been so busy this week—seeing a play, giving a talk, traveling, book editing, putting in my hours at the bookstore—I can’t focus. Of all things, I have a bone to pick with a dried goji berry. Ever bitten into one?

I’m at a loss. A single dried goji berry is many things all at once. It is delicious and disgusting. It is chewy, stringy, gritty. It is sweetly tart, bland, bitter. Bits of it stick to the crooks of your teeth like popcorn husks. I bite into one and think, “Bleh…?” Then I bite into another and think, “Why am I still eating this?” Meanwhile, my hand is already snaking back into the bag for a third. Against my will?  

There’s something weirdly satisfying about eating a goji berry that reminds me of people’s other strange compulsions. Like scraping fingernails across a chalkboard. Like debating politics with relatives. Like scratching bug bites and picking your nose.

by Kyle Kelley

Driving While Wounded

By Amanda Knox

Here’s how it works. One man, one set, some light and audio cues. It is a stark and solitary vessel that stands for all the characters and settings of the iconographic It’s a Wonderful Life.

A one-man show. Writers Helen Pafumi and Jason Lott were feeling ambitious, and not without reason. The story of It’s a Wonderful Life, when stripped bare, is about a good man who is desperate, cornered, and contemplating suicide. The play barely begins before the man makes his first attempt to jump from a bridge into the way on an oncoming train. But before he does, the audience relives the circumstances which led to his dire hour, on Christmas Eve no less. On that bleak, fog-shrouded bridge, the man relives it all alone, himself embodying the relevant characters. He is as if possessed. The choice to unfold the story in this way emphasizes the man’s vulnerability, and even suggests insanity.

The West Seattle Rotary Club with help from local fraternities and sororities gathered to help under privileged children in West Seattle for the 44th annual Christmas Shopping Spree. The club members were joined by the fraternal organizations outside the Sears store in Westfield mall at Southcenter in Tukwila in the early morning. Kids from area elementary schools are chosen by who utilizes the free lunch programs at the school with 100 children being selected.

They are taken down to the mall via bus and sized for shoes, then given socks, a warm coat, and a $100 Sears gift card. Then it was time for breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe where they get to know their shopping companions, adult volunteers who take them into Sears to buy shoes and other essentials with their gift card.

Home street Bank was the lead sponsor for a gift bag for the kids this year.

Sale prices at Sears are discounted an additional 10% for the children.

By Greg Whittaker

It’s here snow lovers. The last snow cycle covered the rocks and gave us hope that the NW Mountains will be off the hook yet again!

Based on first-hand observations today, the last storm cycle included a warm front that consolidated the six–or-so inches at Crystal Mountain. Then it turned cold Friday night and another 6-12 inches fell and wind drifted to fill in holes and cover rocks. West Seattle locals Marshal Bennet, David Levin, Jonathan Streeter and I hooked up at the top of Green Valley and helped a sizable Friday crowd of stoked skiers and boarders track out a bunch of fresh snow. Not quite visiting the “white room,” but getting close. No worries on the fresh pow front though. It was snowing solidly when we left and by the end of the day it was softening up again.