No matter how easy text messages, email, Facebook, Twitter, even blogs make it to keep in touch with loved ones, none of them quite beats the thrill of opening your mailbox on brisk December afternoons and pulling out a Christmas card from a friend or relative (Unless you’re poor old Charlie Brown, and then you don’t know what I’m talking about). Sending cards makes me as happy as receiving them, and thanks to hitting some pretty amazing after-Christmas clearance sales the past two years, I’ve got enough cards stored away for many Christmases yet-to-come.

Except that when I went into my clearance buying frenzy, I didn’t think about the fact that this  Christmas, I’d be the mommy of a nine month-old and have no time to write Christmas cards. Or that I’d want to send personalized Christmas cards, with a picture of the not-so new baby (and possibly his parents).

So, despite having the dozens of Christmas cards in my stationery drawer, I’ll be purchasing cards from Shutterfly.

I first discovered Shutterfly last March, when the Burt Squirt was born and I received a coupon for birth announcements in a packet from the hospital. Since I had a newborn and really didn’t have time to go to a lot of trouble for birth announcements, I checked out the site. The design selection thoroughly impressed me, as did the simplicity of uploading a picture and personalizing the text. All told, I spent about ten minutes creating and ordering beautiful announcements (that I still see hanging on friends’ and family members’ refrigerators), and two or three days later they arrived in the mail, ready to be stuffed into envelopes and mailed. The price was good, too, especially because of the online coupon code I found for free shipping.

My experience as a Shutterfly customer was so good that I won’t consider ordering anywhere else. With 30% off cards and free shipping for orders of $50 and over (and an additional 5% off coupon code), I hardly feel guilty about not using all those cards I already bought. The hardest part is choosing between all of the adorable Christmas photo card and holiday card designs!  (I think I’m going with the Retro Ornaments Green to highlight the family picture I chose for this year’s card.)

And did I mention that for blogging about Shutterfly, I’m getting 50 FREE holiday cards–and you can, too?!

So check your mailboxes this December, because you may just find a Shutterfly card from me! (But if you don’t, it’s not because you’re Charlie Brown. It’s just because you didn’t send me a card last year. *wink*)

Just last Saturday, as Mr. Burt and I browsed IKEA for nothing in particular, I commented that I have a bit of a dish fetish. Mr. Burt replied that he knew, and had bought me a second set of dishes a few years back in the hope of satiating my appetite for tableware.

“Oh, it has,” I reassured him even as my thoughts turned to the the other dishes in our high kitchen cupboards which he’d clearly forgotten we owned owned: the retro diner set, the vintage Valentine set, the two sets of Christmas dishes, and the antique china.

Though in fairness, the former were Mr. Burt’s bachelor dishes, the latter was an heirloom wedding gift from my former piano teacher, and the Valentine dishes and one Christmas set were gifts from my mother-in-law. I only bought the other Christmas set because I saw it at the now defunct Linens N Things when we were doing our wedding registry and not only was it after-Christmas clearance but marked down to $4 as well because two salad plates were missing.

We’ll gloss over the part where I’ve never used any of them because they’re up in the high cupboards where I can’t reach without climbing so I, too, forget we have them.

But speaking of wedding registries, that’s the perfectly rational explanation for the two sets of every day dishes:

Way back in the fall of 2003, Mr. Burt and I registered for this pattern. We both loved them because they were kind of retro-modern, and I loved the fact that Mr. Burt loved a set of dishes. Or felt strongly enough about them to insist we put them on our registry. Alas, not long before our first wedding shower, all the stores where I registered stopped selling them. So we registered for another pattern, which I loved and Mr. Burt liked well enough, but less than the first set which, bizarrely, would pop into my head every now in then in the years after our wedding. Like when, a few weeks before my 26th birthday, I wrote my lead character of Songs for Piano and Voice drinking coffee from one of the mugs from that set of dishes; on a whim, looked on Pfaltzgraff’s website to see if they still sold the pattern. As it turned out, not only did they sell it, but they were selling it on clearance–$115 place settings for four for $23. So I convinced Mr. Burt to get me them for my birthday. So I had both sets of dishes, and, more importantly, no more wistful regrets about my unfulfilled wedding registry or guilt that Mr. Burt didn’t get the one thing on the registry that he really cared about. Which he didn’t really care that much about.

All that to say, given my history with cheap dishes, it should come as no surprise that Mr. Burt’s first words upon arriving home from work today were, “What’s with the silly new dishes in the kitchen?”

“Halloween clearance at Albertsons,” I replied, and it was all the explanation Mr. Burt needed.

Because holiday clearance (75% off! 87¢ big bowls, perfect for popcorn! 62¢ plates! 31¢ cups! And to think I’d only gone in to Albertsons for hot dog buns and chili!) is my other fetish.

It dawned on me this morning that now I’ve got a car again (should have thought of this last week, when I acquired said motor vehicle; but I am pregnant, ergo, a little bit slow), I don’t have to do my grocery shopping on the weekends, when Walmart is a circus. If my grocery budget would allow it, I’d shop anywhere but Walmart, because even on weekday mornings, when it’s not busy, Walmart can be extremely annoying because there are certain items I buy that they don’t sell (or, more annoying, used to sell, but don’t any longer — most recently, Wolf hot dog chili).

So, before Walmart, I ran in Kroger for the express purpose of buying Ragu 7 Herb Tomato pasta sauce. Two jars of it.

I came out with six jars.

Plus six more in other varieties.

And nine boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch…

…five boxes of Lucky Charms…

…four boxes of Barilla pasta…

…three 8-roll packs of Bounty paper towels…

…and two packages of Oscar Mayer hot dogs.

It’s like The Very Hungry Caterpillar Goes Grocery Shopping.

I couldn’t help myself! They were all items I buy regularly, and they were on sale cheaper than Walmart ever has them, and in stock, and–

Well, you know you may have gone a little beyond taking advantage of a good sale when the cashier remarks, “Not planning on going out for a while?”

I gave a sheepish laugh and indicated my baby belly. I should have told her I was preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse and asked if she was ready (because nothing says preparedness for zombie attack like weenies, cereal, pasta sauce, and paper towels). But I never think of these things in the moment. Even when I’m not pregnant.

You’d think that such a life-altering experience as pregnancy would be a subject a writer would eat up, wouldn’t you?  Yet this writer has made it six months into her first pregnancy without really blogging about it.

Several things can account for this, I think.  During the first part of my pregnancy (17 weeks, to be precise), I was too sick and tired to blog.  These days I’m feeling better physically, but I most often don’t feel I have the mental capacity or creativity to write; I’m preoccupied (gee, I can’t imagine with what), and I believe that my body is so busy making a tiny person that there’s not much left for making stories of words.

It doesn’t account for the slowdown in my novel work, but I think the biggest detriment to my blogging is Facebook.  When you can share any interesting news or amusing tidbits in one line, or upload a photo album to share with all your friends, why go to all the trouble of writing blog posts?  (Which is an entire blog topic in itself…)  But the writer in me resists this laziness – the less I write, the less I’ll be able to write.  And the sentimental part of me knows I’ll regret not having written anything but Facebook status updates about my pregnancy.

Though maybe there’s something to not chronicling pregnancy:  if I don’t write about my experiences, I won’t remember them as clearly, and will be more likely to consider a second pregnancy… Because I’m convinced there must be some sort of amnesia that sets in after birth, or women would never volunteer to do this more than once!  (I don’t know what to make of all these women who claim to love being pregnant…)

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Even before the economy got bad, I loved to save money and get a good deal.  It’s fun to get a lot for a little.  It’s even more fun to get something completely for free.  Like airline tickets.  (Though you don’t want me to get started on Mr. Burt’s current credit card enterprises.)

But even getting something small for free is hugely thrilling. For instance, the other day I bought seven boxes of cereal because A) they were on sale for a really good price and B) you got a free package of Pop Tarts and three free gallons of milk.  It’s a sensible combination for a deal, isn’t it?  Cereal, milk, Pop Tarts — all breakfast foods.  However, I’m at a loss to see the sense in this manufacturer’s coupon offer from the past Sunday’s paper:

Possibly I could see the connection if this were any other soda being offered for free with the purchase of eggs — a lot of people do drink soda with breakfast, and eggs aren’t just a breakfast food.  But Big Red?  Who over the age of eight drinks Big Red?  (Also, I must register my astonishment that there’s actually a Diet Big Red.  Are people who don’t find liquid bubblegum sickeningly sweet really that bothered about sugar?)  In any case, this is one coupon I did not clip with the intent of squirreling away a little extra money while our economy goes down the toilet.

Speaking of the economy, some brave soul has decided to start a new business in our area.  About a week ago, I went out my front door to find a nylon bag hanging on the knob, accompanied by a flier advertising a pick-up dry cleaning company.  As in, on Tuesday morning, you put your clothes in the bag, leave it on your porch, and they pick it up and return my clothes to my porch on Friday, starched and hung neatly on hangers.  If you never intend to use the service, you put the empty bag out on Friday for pickup.

Is it just me, or does this strike you as a highly naïve operation?  First of all, does someone really expect me to be trusting enough to leave my good dry clean only clothes on my porch?  If you’ve ever been to my neighborhood, you’d know that stuff left outside your home is fair game for scavengers.  It won’t last five minutes.  And this is suburbia!

I myself am proof of the kind of property rights mindset people have around here:  on the first Friday pickup day, I did not return my blue nylon bag.  Truthfully, I forgot to put it on the porch, but that was probably more a case of out of sight, out of mind.  As in, the bag was out of sight, in my laundry closet, because I thought it would make a great laundry bag for wet clothes when traveling.  If you put a bag on my doorstep and invite me to take it into my home, it’s not coming out again.  It’s mine, my own, it came to me!  We’re in a recession, I must hold on to anything useful that should fall into my possession.

On one last money-saving note, this week I’ve been stricken with a nasty sinus infection and cough.  While debating whether to drag my sorry tail up to the pharmacy for cough syrup, I googled Robitussin to see if it actually would help.  According to Wikipedia, “some cough medicines may be no more effective than placebos for acute coughs in adults, including coughs related to upper respiratory tract infections” and “Recent studies have found that theobromine, a compound found in cacao, is more effective as a cough suppressant than prescription codeine. This compound suppresses the “itch” signal from the nerve in the back of the throat that causes the cough reflex. It is possible to get an effective dose (1 g, though 0.5 g may be sufficient) from 50g of dark chocolate, which contains 2 to 10 times more cacao than milk chocolate. Cocoa powder contains roughly 0.1 g per tablespoon.  Theobromine was also free from side effects in the blind tests.”

So, I have not spent money on Robitussin, and have instead been drinking many mugs of Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate Sensation.  Which may not have saved me money…But even in an economy like this, a spoon full of sugar — or in this case, a mug full of dark chocolate — makes the medicine go down in a most delightful way.