To Card or Not to Card?

Black Friday has officially passed. I finished most of my Christmas shopping in one fell swoop (thank you Costco). I have a few more things to buy online and so am turning my attention to the annual debate: To Christmas Card or not to Christmas Card? That is the question... Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and arrows of paper cuts (and searching to update old addresses) or, by going electronic, end them? I am definitely an efficiency buff and electronic is definitely efficient, but I admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for getting an old-fashioned real paper card in the mail.

I found out on facebook about a deal from Shutterfly where they will give you free Christmas cards if you write a blog post about their cards. So I followed the links to check out their Christmas cards.

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

I was pleasantly surprised with how cute their card designs were... definitely an upgrade from my typical Costco-cheap-photo-card special. People might even start to think that I was kinda craftsy. Hmmm, that could be dangerous. I think my favorite designs thus far are:

Red 5x7 card or Red and brown card or Red Christmas Tree


The even have super-cute Christmas party invitations that would be oh-so-cute for the oh-so-classy imaginary Christmas party that I am going to host at my house some day... (assuming that I ever get to the point in my life where my house/life are not so messy that I could host a Christmas party).
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-invitations  Hmmm, maybe someday.

So, I will see if this gimmick works and I get my free cards. If so, then I will have the terrible moral dilemma of figuring out who gets a "real" card and how much work I am willing to go to to hunt down old addresses. :)

Wax On, Wax Off....

Earlier this week I finally gave up on my feeble attempts to pluck my eyebrows instead of getting them waxed. I guess I used to have a better grip on my personal grooming limitations: I used to joke that if I was asked in a job interview what my weaknesses were I would promptly answer "bowling and eyebrow maintenance." Yes, some of us are just born with bushy or uni-brows and without the inborn coordination to maintain them on our own. My hands, while coordinated enough at fine-motor activities like playing the piano, are pretty much incapable of managing two neatly plucked brows. My right eye isn't a big deal, but my left eye (where I have to reach across my nose to pluck) never ends up looking right. But I didn't think this was actually noticeable to others.

I popped in the beauty salon where I typically would get my brows waxed before I determined that waxing was a silly waste of money that I could easily forgo with a little effort on my part. The lady took me back to the waxing room (which is disturbingly decorated with a picture of mostly-naked Asian lady sitting inside a giant orange --with giant swaths of larger-than-life orange peel covering her in all the necessary places). I laid down and she examined my eyebrows. She immediately pointed to my problematic left eyebrow. She eyed it disapprovingly and said, "What happen dis one?" Embarrassed, I admitted that I had tried plucking it myself. She clicked her tongue at the apparent huge bald spot in my eyebrow and commented, "You no do that. You have problem, come to me; I take care of it."

I guess some things are just worth the $10.

Stock and Save?

Against my better judgment, I just made another attempt at attacking the Albertson's stock up sale with 3 kids in tow. Has anyone ever noticed that one's ability to count the items in one's cart and make sure they add up to multiples of ten is seriously impaired by the number of children with you? I'm not one to think that counting to 10 should be a trying endeavor... but I seem to spend more time at Albertson's counting to 3 (as in "Put that back by the count of 3 or else!").

I'm back and alive, but this trip was much less successful than my last trip to Albertson's (minus two of the kids) where I paid $35 for my $90 of groceries (coupon doubling oh yeah!). Today I either forgot or couldn't find several of the coupons that I was going to use and made about 7 trips back and forth across the store to get items I forgot. During the last 15 minutes of this shopping extravaganza Jackson was balanced on my left hip as I tried to steer the cart with one hand and nagged Camryn to stop hanging on the side of the cart so I could push it straight.

When I finally got out of the store I asked myself, "What am I really going to do with 10 cans of Pillsbury crescent rolls? Sure they are good, but they are not exactly going to help me lose my baby weight. Sure they went from $1.50 to $1.00 a can if you bought 10, plus I had a couple of coupons, but is that really 'saving'? Wouldn't it still be cheaper to eat oatmeal instead of buying 10 boxes of cereal at $1.50 a box? On the other hand, have I ever actually gotten up early enough to make Jared oatmeal before he gets on the bus?" Hmmm, point taken. Besides, in terms of food storage it would be a lot easier and tastier to eat cold cereal than plain oatmeal in an emergency.

So which is it? Are stock and save sales a great chance to save or just a great chance to spend more money?