So what would make a perfect Father's Day?  As usual of course it depends on the Dad and his interests and life.  You do need to make sure you cover the basics though.  The 3 key areas are Father's Day Activities, Father's Day Gifts and Father's Day Cards.

Father's Day Activities

So in closing the perfect Father's Day Recipe has the above key ingredients with 2 others to make it really special.  Time to plan it and enjoy it and Love to make the day memorable…

The term Secretary is in some ways outdated.  Many people prefer to be called administrative assistant.  The higher level secretaries are often called Executive assistants nowadays.  Secretaries Day was started back in 1952 the the International Association of Administrative Professionals.

Since 1952, the International Association of Administrative Professionals has honored office workers by sponsoring Administrative Professionals Week. Today, it is one of the largest workplace observances outside of employee birthdays and major holidays.

In the year 2000, IAAP announced a name change for Professional Secretaries Week and Professional Secretaries Day. The names were changed to Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professionals Day to keep pace with changing job titles and expanding responsibilities of today’s administrative workforce.

Whatever you are calling them in your life, now is the time to show them that you care about what they do day in and day out and that you appreciate them.  If you have not already planned something like taking them out to lunch or something like that there are many other things you can do to send that last minute gift.

If you have time to run to the pharmacy go get a card, though ecards can simplify your life they don't pack the same I am thoughtful vibe than a physical card.  You can actually write something in them that reflects your appreciation for the administrative professional involved.  Gift cards are great last minute gifts.  Nowadays you can even get them at the supermarket even though they do hit you with a fee.  You can find gift cards for restaurants or specific stores like Best Buy.

Younger folks  are actually easier because you can get them at Amazon and print them out right at your desk and or email them to the person you are giving them to.  ITunes gift certificates are also easily bought online and make great last minute gifts.

You may also have time to order some flowers which tend to be great for older administrative professionals who don't "live" online.

Good Luck!

Easter gift ideas for kids usually revolve around an Easter Gift Basket of one kind or another.  Many times you can find them even at pharmacies like CVS and Walgreen's if you are in a pinch.  Easter gift baskets usually include some amount of candy.  Plush toys like Easter Rabbits, Easter Chicks, and Easter Lambs are also good gifts particularly for younger kids.  My daughter likes Easter Lambs more than Easter Bunnies.

You can make your own Easter Gift Baskets by buying a basket and then creating a theme around it.  For example, there is an Easter Gift Basket on Amazon that combines a bunch of Ben 10 toys.  This is great if the boy on your Easter gift list is a big fan.  Another possibility that comes to mind is Bakugan which also is very popular with boys.  For girls Easter Gift Baskets can be themed for dolls that they like or even one that revolves around a makeover.  This could include age appropriate beauty supplies and hair products.

For the host of the Easter gathering you should also remember to bring a little something.  Flowers are an easy bet.  You can also bring more sophisticated boxed chocolates.

We have put together an Easter Amazon store with some of our recommendations.  The Easter Gift Ideas there also include Easter Books and Movies.  Easter is symbolic of rebirth.  Celebrate spring with a splash!

A major selling point for the Discovery Store is that the products and toys they offer are educational in nature.  There is always a cool factor as well especially with the Robot Toys they sell.  Robot toys like Discovery Joebot and Rocky the Robot Dumptruck are great gifts for boys on your list.  Remote Control toys like RC Stunt Psycho and Discovery Remote Control T-Rex are also good gift ideas for boys.

On the girls side The Discovery Ultimate Pottery Wheel or the Green Dollhouse with Furniture are just a couple of cool gifts that the girls on your list will love.  Another gift that I found interesting was the Sticker Maker that they are offering at 20% off already.  My children love stickers in fact they have been obsessed by them.  They are also offering 2 best selling scientific/educational toys at discounted prices for the tinkerer on your list.  The Discovery Electronic Gadget Lab and the Discovery Tornado Lab remind me of displays that my son and I played with at a trip to the local Discovery Museum.

The Discovery Store 20% off storewide sale takes place from Saturday 12/12 at 12:01am PST to Monday 12/14 at 11.59pm PST. Take an additional 20% off all Discovery orders when you click through this link. Shop now!

Grandparents Day Gift Ideas

Easy and affordable gifts can be homemade or just be thoughtful.  If the grandparents are really involved in your children's lives and help take care of them and raise them maybe they need a night out.  Treat them to a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant.  If they like wine get them a bottle or even a wine basket.

Homemade cards from the kids are especially nice since it gets them involved in the gift giving and in understanding the nature of the special day, appreciating grandparents.

If the grandparents are not able to spend a lot of time with their grandchildren pictures and/or home movies are a simple yet usually much appreciated gift.  My mother-in-law can never get enough pictures and sometimes we don't take the time to go through those pictures in our hard drives.  You can put them in traditional picture frames or buy a digital one where you can load more than one.

You can make an album or slide show type of movie with pictures you just haven't had the chance to do anything with.  Recently I have been using a software program called Muvee to produce slide shows accompanied by music and titles.  My parents were blown away by one I sent them with pictures from our last visit with them.  Not everyone likes video editing but you may already have an application that you can do this with on the computer you have.

You can always keep to the basics of flowers and wine and most importantly your time!

At this point you may run into shipping issues with some of your Father's Day gift choices but keep in mind that online gift stores know that time is running out too.  They do their best to offer whatever expedited shipping options they can.  Keep in mind you have until Saturday to get the gift delivered to you if you are going to be hand delivering it.  You can also use my late gift strategy from my Mother's Day gift post if you think you are not going to get the gift delivered in time:

1. Get a Great Father's Day Card
2. Include a Printed Picture of the Present
3. Make sure the Father involved gets the card on or before Father's Day!

So now that that's out of the way let's look at what will make a good last minute gift.  Here are the top 5:

1. Shaving Related
2. Framed Picture/Digital Photo Frame
3. An HD Camcorder or Camera
4. A Gift Certificate to his Favorite Games Store
5. DVD Set of One of His Favorite TV Series

These are not necessarily in order since I have used all of these before with success.

1)Shaving can be a man's biggest pain.  My husband has sensitive skin and a year or two ago I was told of higher end shaving products from The Art of Shaving.  You don't necessarily have to get that brand but you can check with clerks at your department store for something equivalent if you can't find this line.  Their products can be expensive but they do offer a better shaving experience that results in smoother better looking skin.  If the Dad on your list does not shave you can always get some grooming tools for his beard or goatee.

2)Framed pictures and digital photo frames are great because most fathers love to have the latest pictures of their kids.  I am buying a digital photo frame for my husband this year because every year I end up buying a new frame for the most recent picture of the kids he wants in his office.  You can add pictures and change them and most digital picture frames come with different color frames that can be swapped out depending on the decor.  This is also great for grandfathers who want the latest pictures of their grandkids.

3)Men love tech toys.  If the father on your list has not upgraded to HD and HD camcorder might just make his day.  Nowadays you can get the Flip or Sony equivalents for around $200.  You need to make sure it had HD capabilities though since the Flip still has the non-HD versions out on the market.

4)If the man is a gamer and you don't know the difference between World of WarCraft and Guitar Hero you might want to buy him a gift card or certificate at a place like  GameStop.  If you know the specific title he has been waiting to get his hands on go for it and really make his day.

5)TV Series on DVD have made a bunch of older and very popular TV series available for purchase.  Men tend to love slapstick type of comedy and you can get them anything from the Three Stooges to Seinfeld.  I have done well with Seasons of The Office and 30 Rock.  You can also look at movie collections as well like The Matrix, The Terminator, Lord of the Rings, The Bourne Trilogy…

So there you have it, 5 ideas for great last minute Father's Day gifts.

Some of you may be asking why a laptop and not a desktop.  Today's student requires the mobility offered by a laptop.  Though laptops are usually more expensive than desktops the additional expense is necessary.  At time college students are taking notes right on their laptops in class.  You can't carry around a desktop.

One big factor to consider when buying the laptop is the college or university that they will be attending.  You need to find out what the requirements are and what software they recommend.  You don't want to buy a PC Windows based computer only to find that a Macintosh computer is required.  Many graphic and art schools rely on Apples versus PCs.

This leads us to the question of when you should buy the laptop.  If you can get the requirements for the institution your grad will be attending I personally think the sooner the better.  That can be as early as graduation.  The main reason for this is that every computer and software program has a learning curve and you should have your high school grad hit the ground running when they start college.

Picking a computer may be hard but once you have the requirements regarding operating system, memory, processor and hard drive space I would recommend looking at reviews online.  Amazon has a section with a breakdown by brand which includes reviews and best seller lists which may be helpful in picking the right laptop.

This is usually a graduation gift that is pretty hard to beat and will save the grad a buck or two come the fall.

I am an avid fan of time management tools and processes.  I was first exposed to them by a boss I had in one of first jobs.  In hindsight maybe he was giving me a hint .  All joking aside though he signed our whole department up for a Franklin Covey time management course that included training in the system and planning binders to make sure you had the tools to implement the system.  I wish I would have been exposed to these approaches earlier in life.

In those days computers were not as indispensable as they are today.  Currently I use a program called Plan Plus from Franklin Covey that is integrated with my Microsoft Outlook software to automate the process I learned way back when.  The Outlook Plug In also can sync with PDAs to take your organizational process mobile when you need to tough nowadays kids always seem to have their laptops with them.

Do your new grad and yourself a favor before those thousands of dollars are spent and school loans are taken out.  Talk to your grad about making the right choices about how they spend their time and give them some graduation gifts that will keep them on track.

This of course assumes your grad already has a computer but I guess that discussion is for the next post…

So to refresh ourselves, what is the meaning of graduating?  In the simplest sense it means "to receive a degree or diploma for completing  some set course of study".  If you take it further it marks the end of something and the beginning of something else.  Nowadays you have graduation ceremonies that may start as early as preschool.  This would mean you could have graduation gifts for:

• Preschool/Kindergarten
• Gradeschool
• 8th grade
• high school
• college/university
• grad school
• med school
• law school

Those are the simplest ones I can remember but there are even more specialty types of graduation out there.

The type of graduation is the first tip to the kind of graduation gift ideas you should be thinking about.  The main commencement events in life seem to be high school graduation and college graduation(or university graduation).  We associate both of these times as both great accomplishments with significant next steps.

So what is a good graduation gift for a high school grad?  Assuming that they are going to college or university I would say the best graduation gift ideas fall into these categories.

Commemorative Gifts/Personalized Gifts

Your graduate is bound to be feeling some nostalgia wrapped up in relief.  Getting something that allows them to remember not only the commencement ceremony but their school and friends will be very thoughtful.  This could depend on the high school involved but you might be able to get clothing with the school name/mascot or other things like pens and mugs that someone may put on Cafepress or something like that.  You could also get personalized engraved frames with a picture of the graduate on graduation day.  The picture of course would have to be given after graduation.

College Related Gifts

College related graduation are made up of what the new student will need to be successful in their studies.  This could include anything from a Kindle to a computer laptop or netbook depending on the school.

Home Gifts

This usually the first time the student is living on their own.  They will need to decorate their dorm rooms or apartments.  Graduation gift ideas for those moving out of the house could be anything that they would need to furnish a new space.  I remember getting my niece a small refrigerator and a gift card to WalMart.

For the college or university grad I would have to say that the graduation gift ideas are similar except for changing the college related category to new job related and adding one for travel related.  So the list would be more like this:

• Commemorative Gifts/Personalized Gifts
• New Job Related Gifts
• Home Gifts
• Travel Related Gifts

Colleges and universities have stores so it is usually much easier to find personalized commemorative gifts to buy for your graduate.  New college grads also have similar needs when it comes to home gifts because usually they are permanently moving out of the house.

College grads are hopefully entering the workforce and need things that they will be able to use in their new jobs.  They might be able to use a PDA to keep them organized.  Nowadays this is tricky because their are so many smartphones that have the same features so do your homework.  Pen sets, executive calculators, gift certificates to higher end clothing stores are just a few graduation gift ideas for the grad with a new job.

For the grad that plans to take some time off travel related gifts may be the ticket.  Many new grads choose to travel to Europe or other exotic places to experience more of the world.  Two gifts that come to mind are journals and rugged quality travel back packs.

I will continue next time with more….

Most Mom's nowadays have some form of digital photo taking device.  It could be as simple as her phone or as advanced as a Digital SLR Camera.  I admit that I am someone who has a hard drive loaded with beautiful pictures of my children and family.  I am not as good about printing them and sharing them as I would like.

Last year my husband and children got me a digital picture frame where I could transfer pictures and use them in slide shows right on the frame.  It is like having 10 frames in one or even more depending on how much memory the photo frame comes with.  Mine came with a usb connection, a flash drive connection and an SD card connection.

It has definitely made it easier to display my favorite pictures in the house.  I keep mine in the living room to display my beautiful children proudly to any guest that may stop by.

Choosing the right digital photo frame depends on the Mom involved.  You want to understand where she currently keeps her pictures (her camera, cell phone, computer…) so that the digital frame that you buy includes an easy way for her to transfer the pictures over.  You also want to take your budget into account.  The bigger the frame the higher the price and they span from 7" to 10" or more.  For more detailed breakdown of what to consider visit this Digital Photo Frame Guide.

Amazon is currently offering a Mother's Day Special on a digital camera/digital picture frame combination.

If you are reading this this year you may have to use my late gift strategy since you may not get it delivered in time.  Here goes :

1. Get a Great Mother's Day Card
2. Include a Printed Picture of the Present
3. Make sure the Mother involved gets the card on or before Mother's Day!