Our household used to receive the standard delivery of mail: bills, ads and a few carefully chosen magazines. Then one day, sandwiched between Time and Good Housekeeping, there appeared an L.L. Bean catalog.
I pored over the brightly illustrated, slick pages and placed an order, little realizing that I was triggering a reaction that could be generated only by a modern computer or a pair of rabbits.
In no time at all, magazines and newspapers jammed my mailbox. Why, the entire coffee table disappeared beneath a mountain of catalogs.
Our mailman began delivering by truck to save the strain on his back from lifting my daily delivery of catalogs.
If I were strong, I would throw them out with the credit card offers and official notices from Ed McMahon.
But, I'm weak. I can't resist what they have to offer.
If I choose my wardrobe from Catalog A, I'll be so rad my grandchildren will stop calling me grandma and I'll lose my senior citizen standing.
Shop from Catalog B, and my modest abode will be transformed into Architectural Digest's Home of the Decade.
Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart.
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The American Cancer Society's Discovery Shop, specializing in gently used clothing and accessories, is celebrating the new year with a sale on fall fashions, coats, furs and formals until Saturday.
Shop hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
For more information, call 544-0568.
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The Severna Park YMCA pool sparkles with lap swimmers, swim team practice and classes from 6:30 a.m. until closing daily.
Afternoons on the third Sunday of the month from January through May are reserved for YMCA family fun and splash parties from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Members swim free. Their guests pay $2.
Children must be accompanied by an adult.
The YMCA also provides birthday parties for 5-year-olds to 12-year-olds, complete with cake, ice cream, paper goods, balloons and a game leader, plus an hour of pool time.
For more information, call 647-3800 or 647-3638.
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The YWCA of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County is entering its 75th year and is looking for anyone who has old photographs or stories to tell of the "Y" and being a woman in Anne Arundel County from the 1920s through the 1930s to help with a diamond anniversary perspective, which is planned for next fall.
The official birthday celebration will be in December.
If you can help, call Raejean French at 626-7800 or the Northeast Area Center at 647-1500.
Once known as a home away from home for young women from rural areas coming to work in the state capital, the "Y" now considers itself more of a social action movement, focusing on literacy, poverty, racism, child care, education and training, domestic violence and gun control.
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Members of the Severna Park Elks Lodge recently honored Jessica Norris, a fourth-grader at Oak Hill Elementary School and Gregory Coulter, a second-grader at Oak Hill, as students of the month for November and December, respectively.
Jessica was nominated by her teacher, Joan Blum. She was accompanied to the ceremonies at the lodge's monthly dinner by her parents, Pat and Bill Norris, and her brother, Bill Norris.
Gregory was nominated by his teacher, June McCarthy. His parents are John and Margaret Coulter.
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Art work by county elementary school students will be on display from Monday, Jan. 9, through Thursday, Jan. 26, at the Broadneck and Severna Park branch libraries.