I have begun the long, drawn out process of sending Christmas cards this year -- I sent my first ten yesterday -- and have come to the conclusion that Daisy and I know and actually care about far too many people.
No, seriously.
For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, you'll know that I really haven't been able to send out cards for a few years due to, y'know, finances being excruciatingly tight in December most of the time. However, don't get me wrong, there are about five or six cards I will send out every year regardless -- to family members like my parents and grandmother and to close friends like April and Jane. But, really, that's been about it for the past two or three years. Hell, stamps alone are more expensive than the cards most of the time.
Obviously, however, it is not lost on me that this is the first Christmas where Daisy and I have been married, but it is the first one in a long time where I've not been so incredibly destitute at Christmastime to where I can't afford stamps or cards. I planned ahead; about two weeks ago I ordered two sheets of the new Batman stamps from the USPS website (because, of course, if I'm going to order stamps, obviously they're going to be Batman stamps) in preparation for the onslaught of cards I'm going to send out. In addition to this, after it took about three months or so of living here for all sorts of charities and other groups to get my address, within the past 90 days or so I've been getting bombarded -- almost every day -- with charitable junk mail for all sorts of causes. Almost all of these requests either come with a stack of free Christmas cards, Christmas stationery/address labels/gift tags, or something else Christmas-related. So, I've been putting those to use. Before I started yesterday, I had a stack of about thirty Christmas cards that I'd already gotten for free from these sorts of places. Some of them are nicer than others; some of them are really nice. But, obviously, this means that since I now have the means and have the time (as it doesn't take a really long while to write out cards and stick them in envelopes), I'm planning a huge card blitz this year. I purchased another box of them while we were out shopping this weekend, as I'm sure I'll need more.
Of course, Daisy wants to be involved as well, and I admire her for that; we're saving the nicest cards and the like for close family and friends so that she can include her own messages in them along with mine. Most of my extended family and friends, the ones I haven't seen in years and/or only see briefly (if at all) when I visit home -- those ones went out yesterday to get a jump on the season and to make sure all of them had our new address here in Omaha in case they wanted to send a card back (most of them won't, I assume). Some of the family on that list I'm not even sure if they know that I've gotten married in the past year, as I did send out invitations to them but never heard a damn thing from any of them. The friends on that list from yesterday know, of course, and need our new address, so it's a win-win there.
My goal is to send out five or so cards every day (give or take, anyway) until we're done. And that's just for my own family and friends, too; Daisy needs to send her own cards to her own friends and family if she chooses to, and she's never been big on cards, really (which is why the stack of thank-you notes for our wedding gifts are still sitting on the counter in the living room -- addressed and written and ready-to-mail, but unstamped and gathering dust right now). Obviously that's going to require even more stamps (possibly more Batman stamps) than I have now, so I'll have to order more stamps over the course of the next week or so at the most. Doing a quick count, I have 35 (yes, thirty-five) actual cards right now ready to be written out, stamped, and mailed. I'll more than likely use them all, or at least the vast majority of them.
In other news, it briefly got warm here (into the mid-50s yesterday) before plunging back into the 20s with more cold wind. As you probably know if you've lived here for any stretch of time, midwestern weather is bipolar; it's supposed to be nearly 60 again by the weekend. Usually I don't have to worry about my allergies giving me fits in fucking December, but this year, apparently, I do.
I return to work this afternoon just wanting to put my head down and get through the week; I have still heard nothing about my student loan forbearance, and they've had the forms now for a full week (I faxed them last Tuesday night from work). Still waiting. The same goes for the U Pull It people here in Omaha, as apparently they pay no attention whatsoever to their quote requests. If I have to get them on the phone to haggle with them about anything, I will not be happy.
Daisy has asked me why I don't want to get the car fixed, as we could take the money from our savings account to fix it (things like this are what that money's for). The main reason is because of my shitty luck more than anything else. I could have it fixed this week and have it back on the road in tip-top shape, yes, only to have another major part blow on it the day after, or two days later have it broken into again at work and have the same damage caused once more. I love the car, I do, but I don't love it so much as to keep throwing money at it when I've already put far more into it (over these past almost four years I've had it) than it's worth. What I need to do is to sell it, get what I can out of it, and then use some of that money from our savings to get something else that I'm not constantly worried about getting broken into, stolen, or breaking down every week.
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