So, to those of you who received our Christmas card this year, perhaps you are wondering why we sent the insert printed in a tiny, indecipherable and mostly unrecognizable hieroglyphic text?
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| Can you read this?? |
Ummmm, well, that would be my mistake, resulting from my inability to edit myself when writing. Mark kept telling me it was too small, but I WOULD. NOT. EDIT. I had no idea it would be so small when I ordered the inserts. Ooopsie. I apologize! And yes, Mark, YOU were right (oh soooo painful to see that in print). But you were WRONG about the teal color. UGH.
DECIPHERED
Anyway, here is the translation for you, in plain and huge easy-to-read English:
2011 brought us our first broken bone - Shelby fell off a couch while goofing off with her bad example big brothers and broke her wrist! Eeek! But she weathered it like a trooper, showing off her bright red arm cast in her dance classes and preschool. Shelby is a cute little girly girl who loves her "outfits" and nail polish but who also carries Hot Wheels cars and dinosaur toys in her fluffy pink purse.
Connor's 2011 big news was skipping to the 4th grade after only one month in 3rd grade! He's a brainy happy camper, keeping busy with his newfound academic loves of physics and history and, as always, his beloved geometry, languages and hieroglyphics. However, Connor tempers his "heavy studies" with an equal love for reading (over and over) the Diary of A Wimpy Kid book series with much "LOLing" and "ROFLing" (his words).
First-grader Noah is still working on his unique Noahness - regular trips to the school nurses office from wild recess antics, hiding his un-done homework from his teacher, taking gymnastics classes (after being politely requested to NOT return to karate, please), and continuing to entertain us all, especially with his dream of being the King Noah of the world, and of being famous among the "China people," for whom he has an affinity, even telling his classmates that he'd visited China this past summer. Ummmm, which he did NOT!
Mark is still doing his SU Biology professor gig and getting his African carbon credit business nearing fruition (aka income!). Hallelujah! Maybe our 2012 Christmas card will bring you photos of us lounging on our new yacht in the Mediterrean. Just kidding! But maybe we'll finally be able to replace our 1996 TV! :)
Hmmmm. It just occurred to me that if you received the insert, which gave you the web address of our blog, that it would have been TOO small for you to actually see that we have a blog website. I didn't think this through entirely, did I?
EXPLAINED
Oh, and the tiny text is NOT where the problems with this year's batch of Christmas cards started. It started with even trying to get a decent photo (doesn't it always?). You see, the photo on the back of the insert was the very FIRST of over 150 failed Christmas photos, and it was just supposed to be a test shot with the kids holding their letters.
But it was the ONLY one that looked halfway decent. At least the living room was clean, except for Tiki's fugly dog toy by Connor's foot and the dirty spot on the camera lens. Observe our....attempts...., come on now, share in the joy with us, won't you?
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| Blinded by the sun. Or blinded by the sun coming OFF of Mark's head? |
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| Naughty, face-making kids! |
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| Moved inside, but still no JOY to be found in this photo. |
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| Another day, trying out pajamas instead of uncomfortable church clothes. But SHELBY!?!?!?! |
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| Noah pulling Shelby's hair. And who plugged Connor in?? |
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| This one could have worked, but I like getting Christmas photos of the GROWNUPS that I know, not just their kids that I probably DON'T know. |
Our professional photographer was Grandma, who did the best she could with the amazingly UN-photogenic subjects she had. And no, I don't think hiring a real photographer would have better results. It would be the same results but then I'd actually be PAYING for this torture. NO way, uh uh.
Well anyway, THEN, it turned out these inserts were too big to fit in the envelopes that came with the actual card. DRAT again. So, I had to cut them all down to size, and that's why the edges are all raggedy and the text doesn't have enough space around it to look good. Did you notice that? Sooo embarrassed (says the graphic designer, to whom YES, enough surrounding space is a VERY big deal).
But HEY, to make up for it, I DID put little bows on the cards, which I was NOT going to do, since it was sooo tedious and time-consuming and cost an extra 20 cents in postage. But it wasn't so bad, given that I did it while watching the latest Tori & Dean episode. Ummmm, I mean while watching...The History Channel. Yep. And don't they look pretty? Albeit flattened once you received them, I imagine. (Does that nail polish make me look jaundiced? Or golden & festive?)
NEXT, I could NOT get my addresses to print on labels from my computer. I remember last year that I figured it out easily, and I distinctly remember thinking "Gosh, I should make a note of how I did this so I remember how to do it next year." But did I do that? NO. Because I also remember thinking, Well geez if it was so easy I'll surely be able to figure it out next year again. NOW here is where I present to you scientific proof that aging and kids RUIN your brain. In the past 12 months my brain has deteriorated at an alarming rate. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out this stupid label problem. Let's not forget that I possess a Bachelors degree in Information Systems (ie, I am *supposed* to be highly proficient in software operation). Of course, that was a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago. And obviously, since your card was addressed by HAND, I never did figure it out. You know how long it takes to hand-write addresses on envelopes? FOUR AND A HALF episodes of The Good Wife, that's how long (which fortunately I had stacked up on the DVR). And because my handwriting is so atrocious, some of you may never have even received our Christmas card since the Post Office couldn't read it!
And finally, I apologize for not including a personal note on the cards. Usually I find it a bit rude to get a "form letter" with no personal note (It makes me feel like you're just not that into me if you don't write me a personal note!) and I really hated having to do that myself this year, but I seriously could not hand write my name to save my life at this point. You wouldn't have been able to read my note anyway, and you were already still trying to read the unreadable printed insert. See, I did you a favor. I assure each of you, I really AM that into you. But alas, my crippled and cramping hand prevented me from expressing my personal love notes.
DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
In summary, regarding the discontinuation of our Christmas card, I think next year it would perhaps be easier to just pack our family up, drive around to each individual potential Christmas card recipient (from Frankfurt, Germany to San Antonio to Seattle) and give you all a living Christmas card of our family in person, wishing you a Merry Christmas. Yes, that WOULD absolutely be easier than all of this photographing, and writing, and editing (or lack of), and ordering, and cutting, and tying, and hand addressing, and stamping and mailing, and then the subsequent translating and explaining and blogging.
Or maybe, if I'm really lucky, as Connor pointed out on the card itself, perhaps the Mayans were right and the world will end in December 2012, and goshdarnit, it won't matter anymore and I will mercifully have been put out of my annual Christmas card ordeal.
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| Holding on to my tushie, 2012 could be a bumpy ride. |
And if anyone is reading this who did NOT receive our card, it was probably because I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from too much cutting and hand writing and bow tying and simply could NOT finish - I am sorry. And yet, thankfully, I am now miraculously recovered enough to type another blog novella.
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