I take after my father when it comes to greeting cards: it’s a surprise if I think about it. Unlike my mother, who sends birthday, anniversary, and graduation cards to both her and my father’s extended family. She is punctual about it and spends time and effort picking out the right card, year after year, for them all. She’s amazing!
I stink at it! I am so bad! Despite watching her for years, seeing how much value she feels it has .. I don’t. I just don’t feel the same. I’m also indifferent about giving gifts. Sure, I love you and value our relationship, but I don’t feel like it’s important for me to find a token gift that very often isn’t useful or enriching to the person who’s birthday it happens to be. Now, when I DO find something that is perfect for anyone, I don’t hesitate to buy it! Often without too much regard for price. If I KNOW that this gift is something that will fill the recipient with joy and excitement and will likely get lots of use – consider it bought.
Same thing with cards. I don’t look for cards for people. I just try to write notes to people when I find myself thinking about them. I’m not that good at it (so if you haven’t gotten a card, it’s not because I’m not thinking of you!), so I have a little book that helps me. You saw it here yesterday, in my desktop sorting basket:
I had an opportunity to use it today and it occurred to me that I should share it with everyone!
So, I think this was a gift or give-away from my mother – a simple, small notebook.
Some people are always eloquent, with legible handwriting, and accurate spelling. Not me. I have found I waste fewer cards if I wright a rough draft. Even if it’s just a couple sentences – I’ll mess up the spacing or their name or something. So, I write it out here and try to check my spelling and grammar. An extra benefit is I can look back and see what I’ve written to people in the past! It’s fun to see what I thought was noteworthy in my life when I wrote it.
Inside, I keep a flag on the next empty page and a note card right inside. More often then not, the card there works for what I want. When I open it up, I’m ready to write!
If that card doesn’t quite work, I can turn to the back where I’ve glued an envelope and put in a variety of other cards. I also keep some address labels here.
Since I write these cards right by my computer I have instant access to my address book (Google’s Contacts) and my stamps are stored in the same space as the book, so I am able to draft, write, and address the note without a hassle!