Catching Up to the Holidays

Back with Both Feet in the Water

So I’d promised the Receptionist at work that I’d work up a draft of the card she’d asked me to fashion after MY card from last year, and then drop it by during my day off on the Monday that Fussbudget left Columbia, so she could take it home to review with her hubby. So I did that, then ran a few errands around town, and settled to watch the remaining two movies we didn’t get around to during Fussbudget’s visit, so I could return them.

Return of the Newsletter

I finally started seriously working on my Christmas card that week. It had been looming over my head all month, and I was seriously late in getting it out. I normally get my cards sent out by the first of December. For two reasons: 1) to remind everybody else that THEY need to send ME a card, and 2) because I move around a lot, I like to make sure everybody has my most current address early.

When I sat back down to focus on my newsletter, I realized that I’d totally been in “blog” mode when I wrote it. It was MUCH longer than previous years, with far more details than I usually give about my annual doings. Normally, I’d have taken the time to edit it down, but I just couldn’t focus anymore on the thing. But it ended up working out well enough, since I had a LOT of pics I wanted to include, and I had a lot of pages with which to accommodate all of them. J Oh, and I decided to go with my Anonymous Pics theme that I instituted for the blog. I think it turned out well, aside from being so long.

Reproduction Debacle

Then came the printing. Mom was gonna help me print some of the pages out with HER printer, so we split them up, plus I took the cardstock to print. However, I failed to remember that I was using custom fonts that her computer would not recognize. And she failed to realize that the newsletter was printing out ALL wrong… words printing out over pictures and such, because they were exactly configured AROUND those pictures. With the right font.

She ended up printing about 60 or so pages before she noticed a completely different problem (her printer is configured differently from mine, so the instructions for turning the pages around to print double sided was wrong) and realized that all 60 pages were useless. It wasn’t until I went to take her some more paper that I noticed the font problem, and by then, I figured it would just be easier (longer, but easier) for me to print the rest of them all out, myself.

Breathing Space

I FINALLY got the cards done and sent out on the Monday before Christmas (Saturday). Then I had a little bit of room to breathe before it was time to worry about wrapping gifts and baking. Though, I decided not to push myself about it. I figured, my BIG obligation was the cards, and those were done. Everything else: if it got done, fine… if not, nobody was going to die. If all else failed, the presents would end up in paper bags under the tree.

Though, Mom asked that I not do that with Pop’s gifts. For as long as I can remember, Pop has always given me his gifts to Mom to wrap. He really does suck at wrapping. However, Mom insisted he’d be able to a better job than paper bags… lol

Well, I SUPPOSE he probly could. *grin*