I fully realize I don't write here as much as I should, and honestly I have no real/good excuse for it.
In the days since my last post, a lot has been going on in Brandon-and-Daisy-world. We are now -- slowly, mind you -- getting the house in order and getting things taken care of and put away. Daisy set up her new bookcase last night (which opened up part of the living room/dining room a bit more), and in the next several days we will hopefully clean up the stuff that needs to be cleaned up and put away so that it's not a burden to walk through several rooms of the house.
No, we've not yet gone through and catalogued the wedding gifts, but I have already begun the long process of mailing out the Thank-You notes to everyone I have addresses for and wrote down that they sent or gave. So far I've sent out close to ten of them, with many more coming in the next few days/weeks. Daisy has a good fifteen or more to write out to her own friends and family, and I have another ten or so myself. I've been sending them out in volleys of three or four at a time, but we're running low on stamps, so we will have to get more of those before we can send out the rest of them. I had some cards left over from my graduation last year, so I used those first -- but after they ran out, I had to order another set of 100 cards/envelopes from Amazon, which I've been using since. I mentioned this in my last post here last week.
Here's the problem, though -- in addition to not having stamps, I also didn't have address labels. I still don't.
While I tend to be pretty laid-back about a lot of things in life (and I'm sure some of you will find it highly amusing that I say this), there are some little things -- and I do mean little things -- that drive me batshit nuts. And one of those little things is not having return address labels for envelopes and bills and the like that I need to mail out. When I lived in Kansas, this was never a problem -- I always donated about (on average, anyway) $100 a year to the DAV. It's the only charity I donate to, and as I've written here in the past, I am very passionate about my support of veterans. My grandfather was in the Navy and was at Pearl Harbor. Daisy's father, as well as one of my uncles, was in Vietnam. My officemate at the university for three years was an Iraq War veteran, and some of my best students over the years have been veterans. I may not always be incredibly patriotic in my own thoughts and views, but I support the hell out of anyone who has fought for our country. So, because of this, I donated to (and continually donate to -- the last check I wrote them was in May) the DAV. Because I was a regular donor, one of the things the organization did to show their thanks was to send adhesive address labels in all colors and patterns about three times a year, about 100 labels or so each time. Over the years I lived in Kansas, I collected thousands of these address labels, as I kept them and used them on everything I stuck in the mail. I had a huge stack of them, a pile probably two inches high.
Once I moved out of the house in Kansas, however, every one of them became useless and obsolete -- because it's not like that was my address anymore. I shredded almost all of them, saving only the many sets of letter seal stickers that also came with them. I mean, I couldn't use them once they were outdated. So I found myself living in a new place in Omaha, with a new address, and no address labels to put on my mail -- I had to write in my return address every time like some sort of caveman.
Again, little things like this drive me nuts. I tend to send a rather high volume of mail, more than most people do these days. And while yes, I do pay 90% of my/our bills online now, there are a few that have to be paid by mail because there's no online option. With the large number of Thank-You cards we're sending out now as well, I started getting really twitchy about needing to write in my address every damn time. I don't know if the DAV has any presence in Nebraska, or if there's some sort of law that prevents solicitation by mail here or something, but when I sent my last donation check to them back in May, I included my change of address on the form where indicated. They very quickly cashed the check, and...I've heard nothing from them since. I've been living here in Omaha almost two months now, and I haven't received anything new in the mail from them. I at least expected a July 4th donation drive or something like that, but never got anything. So I had no new address labels.
It finally drove me nuts enough to where last week I did something about it. I went to a website called Vistaprint, which I'd heard advertised on a few podcasts I listen to, and custom designed and ordered 280 address labels. I also got a custom self-inking stamp as well. I used a coupon code and it got about $10 or more taken off my order. They shipped yesterday and should be here by Friday. I used my own credit card for them, not our joint account money.
Daisy thought I was insane, by the way. She said I could get special paper and print my own address labels...and while I can, I can't do that on a laser printer (which is what I have) -- it would have to be an inkjet. I haven't owned an inkjet printer in fifteen years, and even when I did, the ink was so expensive that I couldn't afford it. My laser printer, on the other hand? Yeah, the toner cartridge in it has lasted over two years, and that's with a lot of printing I did as a grad student and professor.
So yeah, that's my mindset when it comes to essential items.
"I'll write in the addresses for you on envelopes if it bothers you that much," Daisy said, "but if it's really that important to you, okay."
"It is," I said, twitching internally at the thought of going without them.
It wasn't expensive, really; I'll probably go back to them sometime in the future as they do all sorts of custom stuff like that -- for example, business cards. I'll need business cards at some point, I'm sure. Daisy's initial reaction, however, made me glad that I didn't order a second set of labels with both of our names on them...which I did consider briefly.
Speaking of both names...while Daisy's last name is changed almost everywhere else at this point, the one place she's not gotten it changed is with the social security office. She will also have to get a new passport as well, as we plan to go to Nova Scotia next summer. While Daisy does have full dual citizenship in both the US and Canada (Mama was born there and she has permanent resident status here in the US), that doesn't mean she doesn't need a passport to travel between the two countries. I myself have never had a passport, as I've never left the states, so we'd (ideally) like to get both of them done at the same time...and it takes a while to do it. It also costs a good bit of money to do it. To be able to change her name in these last places, Daisy needs her birth certificate or a certified copy of it. The parents aren't sure where that is (though it's more than likely in the house somewhere) and if we had to go with a certified copy, well, that may be more difficult than it seems or should be, since Daisy was born in Vermont and moved out of state shortly thereafter.
"I'm not sure you couldn't get a new social security card online somehow," I told her. "One would think that they would've streamlined the process and put a form for it online at this point."
I mean, people get married every day, right? Her name's already changed everywhere else, including on her new driver's license, so...
We'll have to see what happens. Dad looked for the birth certificate last night but couldn't find it, and I would imagine it'll turn up eventually if it's in the house.
Anyway, changing gears yet again...
Since my phone interview with the university here a week ago -- in which the lady told me she was going to mail me official literature to study and help prepare for my presentation I have to give -- I haven't gotten anything in the mail yet. I know at least some mail is more than likely being slowed by the July 4th holiday, but with a little more than a week left before I have to give this presentation (that I will need to spend some considerable time working on, I'd imagine) I'm beginning to get a bit nervous. She told me to let her know if it hadn't arrived in a week or so, and that date would be on Wednesday (read: tomorrow).
We haven't yet gotten our wedding photos in the mail from our photographer, either. She did send them once, but apparently they got returned to her because she put the wrong address on them. Daisy verified the address here with her last week, and she said she'd resend them. It's a disc anyway, not a huge stack of photos. As soon as we get those, I'll post a few of them here. You can go back to the wedding recap posts if you want to see one or two of them, as I was able to see a few of them early.
Today we don't have much planned; Daisy went to bed about an hour ago with a migraine (or the beginnings of one), due to a sinus headache. We were planning to go to the gym together, since we have a free gym here at our apartment complex, but during play wrestling tonight she tore off a large chunk of her toenail and it now hurts for her to walk a lot. We were also planning to go take care of the remaining grocery shopping together (she went out yesterday afternoon with Mama, and picked up some stuff on the way home), but that may be put on hold and/or I may be doing a fair amount of it myself in the coming days due to her toe. In the meantime? Life is the status quo, I suppose.
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