Postcards from My Kids

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge failure at mailing things. I have thank-you cards and presents that sit at my house for years that never get mailed. Whatever- everyone has their faults. Mailing things is mine. Not that I don’t have others, but mailing things is the one I’m admitting to today.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while because once I actually did good. Once, I made it my new year’s resolution to mail everyone birthday cards. I think I made it until like August or September. Maybe it was June. It was a long time ago.

Thank-you cards. When I was a kid, we were taught to call and say thank-you. I married into a family that mailed thank-you cards for everything. They also mailbirthday cards, congratulations cards, graduation cards, mothers day cards (to people who aren’t THEIR mother, father’s day cards (ditto) and anniversary cards, this was foreign territory. Anniversaries are private celebrations, aren’t they?

I didn’t get it, at first, I thought it was like a conspired effort to drive me nuts. Maybe these people own stock in Hallmark. I get it now, it’s nice celebrating family that way. I still fail at it, though. I think it’s really nice, really sweet. We think of our faraway family all the time, we talk about them every day. We have pictures of nieces, nephews, cousins, Aunts and Uncles all over our walls. The kids call them frequently, they love to talk on the phone. And, they often make cards to send them. but they never get mailed.

Years go by and my husband and his brother don’t speak to each other, but his wife still sends my kids presents over the holidays. I wish I had my act together enough to send them but it seems like each time the holidays roll around I’m trying just to scrape up enough so that all my kids are amazed a little. Postage last year for our holiday cards was over $50. Or was that the year before?

My brothers married mailers, too. At least one of them. She sent my kids a big huge package of designer hand-me-downs. Including such precious accessories as shoes, hats and purses. What a fantastic aunt. You’d think something as amazing as that would force me to actually mail the thank-you card, but alas. It’s been months. The card is in a little “mail” pocket by my front door. Like it’s waiting.

I think I need a personal assistant, but would that take away the “personal” about it? Maybe that’s what virtual assistants do. I wonder if they do piecework. It’s not that we’re ungrateful- we’re totally grateful. I just forget to mail things. And it’s not just personal things, it’s the bills, too. My gas man is Rick and my Electric man is Adam and the Cable guys rotate between the bald guy and the greasy guy. They’re very friendly. I’m glad they don’t charge extra for door service, because they could totally get away with it.

So why- you might wonder- did I just buy custom made
postcards from Vista Printing? Because they’re cool. I got 50 of them, they let you upload a graphic of your own design. I’m thinking we’ll use them as holiday cards, since this is August and it will probably take me until December to mail them. Anyways, I made a collage with pictures of my kids and “2008″ on the side. I even put a picture of my husband and myself.

If you don’t get one, don’t feel bad. There’s one by my front door with your name on it, I’m sure. If this doesn’t work out, I’m going to use the Vista Print mailing service next time, you upload your address book and type in your personal messages and they mail them for you. I hope it doesn’t get that far.

Lotsa crazy crud going down at the Hannigan house. Don’t miss another post,

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