Amy Turn Sharp

This year instead of doing a round up of various odds and ends to get “for her” on Valentine’s Day I thought I’d get a lot more specific about a few things that would have a lot more impact or be more useful than, say, a bunch of roses you grabbed as you were walking out of Piggly Wiggly.

Admit it. You’ve done that. We ALL have. In fact, Leta’s birthday is next week and I’m having a few things delivered from Amazon and will grab a giant Kit Kat from an end cap the day of. And she won’t know except she will because, hi, Leta! Stop reading your mom’s blog!

I distilled exactly what I would want on That Most Awful of Holidays (actually, I hate Halloween WAAAYYYY more) into three gifts: one romantic, one practical, and one indulgent:

My friend and world renowned rockstar Amy Turn Sharp is a poet, and when she was here last week for ALT Summit I got to peek inside a small notebook she carries around. It’s filled with short poems and thoughts she jots down when inspiration strikes, and when I flipped through it I had to catch my breath. Its pages contain words like this and this and this and this and this and this. Amy was voted best writer in Columbus, Ohio for 2015, and this year for Valentine’s Day she’s offering custom love poems:

“I write a lot of poems for people. On typewriters and with black ink. I gather a bit of information about your lover, friend or family and spin it into a poem that you can gift. You can choose hand-lettering or vintage typewriter.”

Having someone craft words around what you feel for the lover in your life, especially if you don’t know how to articulate it? That’s one explosion emoji of a gift.

They’re $75.00 + $6 shipping, which is not far off from what you’d pay to have a really nice bouquet of flowers delivered to someone’s doorstep.

This motherfucker changed my life.

I own the 9-Cup food processor, but I imagine a seasoned cook would put the 14-Cup model to good use.

I am not a cook by any stretch of the imagination, but this thing has turned me into someone who makes her own food for every meal. I use it at least twice a day to makes sauces, soups, dressings, dips, and fourteen different kinds of hummus. Turns out you can make hummus out of anything. Just add tahini and you can make hummus out of Cocoa Puffs.

I use it to shave brussels sprouts and to slice sweet potatoes into hash browns. I use it to make power bars out of dates, lemon juice, yerba mate, and coconut oil. And every single time I use it I marvel at how damn efficient it is. This thing could liquify a couch.

I’ve mentioned Stitch Fix before when my friend Kristen introduced me to the service last year, and ever since my first “fix” (five personalized pieces shipped to my mailbox) the only thing I wear is what they have sent me. Every pair of jeans and pants (THEY HAVE JEANS THAT FIT TALL PEOPLE!), every sweater and jacket and coat, every blouse and tank top. These guys transformed my entire wardrobe. In fact, I cleaned out my closet last summer and in terms of what I kept, I’d say a good 90% is Stitch Fix. You guys, I never wore tank tops until they sent me a tank top. I was a tank top virgin. They popped my tank top cherry.

You keep and pay for what you like and send back what you don’t want with free shipping. Only overhead is a $20 styling fee that’s waived if you keep even one item. Give her a gift card or offer to pay for a certain number of fixes. Seriously, you’d be gifting her a personal stylist WHO KNOWS HOW TO PICK PANTS THAT FIT TALL PEOPLE!