Hello, December (Holiday Photo Card Comparison)

I spent the last week creating our Christmas card, something I'm doing myself for the first time.  Usually it's our super-talented photographer friend who does the job, but after a fall season of big expensive (loving our new fence!! and our new giant sectional!!) purchases, we're holding off on a big photo order for now.  That said, I spent the last week exploring a number of photo card sites, customizing cards, and changing my mind at least a dozen times.  I checked out tinyprints.com, Shutterfly.com, iPhoto, Snapfish.com, and PearTreeGreetings.com  They all had positives and negatives, but I did pick a favorite.  Here's a completely subjective and nonscientific rundown of my thoughts on each:

tinyprints

• Great fun, contemporary styles - especially their Rainbow group
• Prices are on the higher side
• Good sorting options
• Easy to make several cards and compare

Shutterfly

• Good mix of classic and contemporary styles
• Prices on the lower side

iPhoto

• High-quality cards & envelopes (based on a card my husband made for me a few months ago)
• Limited styles and and color options
• Prices are moderate to high

Snapfish

• Many standard style options
• Prices are low

Pear Tree Greetings

• Creative designs and shapes
• Prices are moderate
• Awesome color customization options including artwork (LOVED THIS!)

I chose to order my cards from Pear Tree Greetings.  I loved their fun designs, and the color customization options won me over.  The prices are in the middle of pack.  I ordered matching return address labels, but you can have envelopes printed instead for an extra charge.  Some of the companies even offer to address and mail your cards for you.  This can be a great time saver.  I would have considered this option, but I didn't have my addresses in a compatible format, so I decided to address them myself.  

If you're thinking of ordering photo cards online this year, I suggest signing up for the card company mailing list a day or two before you order.  Both tinyprints and Pear Tree Greetings sent me either discount codes or free shipping offers.  A general Google search for a coupon code for the specific company may also work in your favor.  I believe I got 5% off my order by doing so.

This was a really fun project, and I can't wait to see the finished cards!  This is a new experience for me, and I spent a lot of time figuring out exactly what I wanted.  Do you send photos cards? What company do you use? Do you go crazy sorting through all of the options, or do you get in and out as quickly as possible?

I should probably note that these opinions are my own, and I was not reimbursed by any of the card companies for my thoughts.

One of Those Days

Yesterday was just one of those days.  The kind of day I wish I could wear headphones and still be an effective parent.  Seriously, I think scientists should study my daughter.  It must be medically significant to be able to talk, sing, laugh, cry, scream, grunt, giggle, groan, holler, and otherwise vocalize astonishingly loudly, nonstop for 12 hours all without the slightest strain of the vocal chords.  I blame my husband; he's the talker in the family.  When I married him I guess I didn't realize I was signing up for that same quality in a three-year-old!
It was also one of those days where after putting the girls to bed and finishing up my freelance work, I finally got a long-overdue shower.  It was lovely.  I enjoyed every minute.  Then I got out, dried myself off, towel-dried my hair, and was half dressed before I realized while one of my legs was baby smooth, the other one sported several days' growth.  Yes, I had only shaved one leg.  So I re-undressed, the towel came off my head, and I went back into the shower one more time.

Have you had one of those days?  Where you forget to shave one leg?

I also learned these fun facts yesterday. 

• Sheets are disgusting.  According to this article, "sheets can contain 0.1 gram of feces, salmonella, and E. coli after just one night's rest. That means they'd collectively contain about 10 billion microbes." And that's nothing compared to the feces party in your carpet.  Seriously.  Disgusting.
• There's a birth control shot for men.  Well, it exists, but approval is still being worked out in India, the home country of the shot's inventor, and maybe in the next year or two the FDA will start it's own research in hopes of eventual approval in the United States.  So basically by the time I'm menopausal, there will be a birth control shot for men.  Sigh.
• I had one more thing, but my browser isn't working to bring up the article.  Basically it was all about the harmful effects of the sun, including the risks of skin cancer.  And since we had a week of 90-degree temps here and I've been outside with my daughters every day in that blistering sunshine, I was suddenly alarmed at the sight of my slightly darkened (compared to the the usual pasty white) arms and ashamed at my previous pride in the first glimpses of a tan in years.  Damn you, sunshine!

Coming soon: Fighting weeds in my garden the lazy way.  And this year I don't mean hiring the neighbor girls to do the weeding.

You Are Beautiful, Just the Way You Are!

Today I came across the lovely site operationbeautiful.com devoted to helping others find beauty in themselves.  I'm talking BEAUTY, not physical stuff.  I love this idea.  I actually keep post-its in my purse (along with a million other things I rarely need), so I think I will be posting my own little note soon.  If you get a chance, this is a powerful blog post about how one of these little notes can affect someone in a big way.  Finally, the short little video below, which I hope you can see, gives a great overview of what the Operation Beautiful project is all about.

Book Deals

If you are the kind of person who thinks Wal-Mart is evil, you may want to stop reading now and go about your day. 

If you're more apt to think a deal is a deal, carry on.

I'm not much of a Wal-Mart shopper.  As I've made clear time and time again, Target is my supplier of choice.  Wal-Mart makes me anxious and depressed.  BUT, last night when I was searching the Internet for my next book club pick (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) I remembered a little tidbit from some marketing?/econ?/business? book I worked on last year.  I don't remember the details exactly, just something about Amazon and Wal-Mart being in an book online pricing war.  I don't even remember who won.  But that doesn't matter.  My evening went something like this:

* Checked local used bookstore inventory online (no luck)
* Checked library availability including all interlibrary loan options (no luck.  wth?  popular book!)
* Checked Amazon.com and BN.com (bingo.  started the order process on Amazon--almost always the cheaper of the two) but then...
*Remembered to check Walmart.com. (score! cheaper and only $1.97 for shipping.) I even had the option to have it delivered to the store for free, but I decided it was worth the extra couple bucks to avoid driving 20 minutes to the nearest store with two young kids in tow.

I did some more checking, and a number of the books I'm interested in are less expensive at Walmart.com (hardcovers, no less).

Of course they don't have quite the selection as the other two big book retailers, but I'm definitely adding Walmart.com to my book-buying search list.  I have a book addiction, and I need a cheap fix.

P.S. I am very sad our local bookstore closed last year.  R.I.P. River City Books!  I would have loved to have given you my business.

Good Morning, Angels!

I'm a person who desperately needs structure, accountability, a little artificial stress to get things done.  I marvel at how much more I'm able to accomplish in a day when I have a million things to do—how much faster I can clean when I get a phone call that someone is stopping over is a few hours.  Give me a day with nothing planned, no deadlines, and it seems like I can't get anything accomplished.  Shhhhh.  Please don't let my husband in on this little secret.  He's called me out on in before, but I deny, deny, deny.  Suddenly I'm having flashbacks to my college days, staying up late, waking up early and typing away.  I'm pretty sure I never finished a paper before 5a.m. on it's due date.  And I was an English major; there were a lot of papers.

That is why today I am excited for the launch of the fall Good Morning Girls challenge.  Finding daily quiet time with God has been a challenge for me for the last several years, and I'm looking for a little peer pressure to help turn that around.  Good Morning Girls is essentially a group of women (you ask your family, friends, co-workers, whoever) who agree to e-mail, Facebook, tweet, text (whatever works) each other after their daily quiet time.  You say "good morning" and just let the group know what spoke to you that morning (or more likely for me kids' nap time or evening) during your quiet time.  It's a great way to encourage one another and let peer pressure work it's magic.  I've assembled a group of 5 amazing ladies, and I'm looking forward to seeing the many ways God will bless us over the next few months.  If you want to join our group, let me know.  Or if you want to find a somewhat anonymous group, check out the Good Morning Girls message board.

The Solution to My Grease Problem?

As I was roaming around on the Internet in a few minutes of free time yesterday, I found Tide's Stain Brain site.  It's a handy little resource for finding the solutions to all sorts of stains.  Not surprisingly, they recommend Tide for everything.  But they do offer some instructions for exactly how to pre-treat specific types of stains.  They also offer tips for treating stains while on the go (and presumably away from your Tide).  More importantly, they display user-submitted advice, so you can get suggestions that don't necessarily feature Tide. A free Stain Brain iPhone app is available with the same information, useful for when you're away from home. (I hear some people do actually leave their homes once in a while.  Maybe I'll try it sometime.)

It does, indeed, have a solution to my grease stains, but I haven't had a chance yet to put it to the test.  Apparently I've been very careful lately (pats self on back).  I'll let you know how it works when the time comes.

Housekeeping on the Laptop

Every couple of days I go through my e-mail, sort by the From field, and delete all those daily and weekly corporate e-mails that, at some point in the distant past, I've signed up to receive.  You know, those e-mails that mysteriously start showing up after you create an account in order to buy something wonderful, join a giveaway, or cast your vote in a critically important online poll (the blue dress, definitely the blue one!).  Or the e-mails you once enjoyed reading but haven't sparked your interest lately.  They show up as often as every day, and I delete them.  And I delete them.  And I delete them.  And I delete them.  So tonight I'm going to take 10 minutes (tops) and unsubscribe.

So goodbye Target, Menards, Hawaii Visitor's Bureau (I was wishful thinking), Fossil, and about 5 others.  I'll still visit you once in a while, but from now on it will be on my terms.

There's an App for This

About a month ago, before I started this whole housekeeping project, I discovered the HomeRoutines Task Management iPhone app.  (I have a bad habit of browsing the Apple App Store when I have nothing better to do.)  I immediately downloaded it.  HomeRoutines has all sorts of fabulous features for those who like to check tasks off a list as they progress through their day, with a strong emphasis on housekeeping.  I've always been a cleaning list-maker.  Usually listed by room and then marked for priority, my cleaning tasks just seem to multiply when I write them down on paper.  And I like that--the more detailed, the better.  Yes, I could just write down "clean bathroom," but I feel so much more productive when I:

• pick up bathroom
• wipe counter
• clean sink
• clean mirror
• dust
• clean toilet
• sweep floor
• mop floor
• empty trash
• clean shower

And who wouldn't?  That's what's so great about HomeRoutines--it's completely customizable.  You can make your cleaning routine as simple or as extensive as you like.  And you still get the satisfaction of adding that check mark (actually, it's a star) to each item as you go.  It's got lots of other helpful features, including zones of focus, a timer (quick, sweep that floor!), and the ability to sets daily and weekly tasks, as well as a general To Do list.

Now it's confession time.  I haven't actually been using the app...YET.  I will.  But trust me, I'm starting way behind, here.  As I've said before, my goal is to work through the house room by room, purging, organizing, cleaning, and maintaining.  Once I've tamed this beast of a house, I think HomeRoutines will be a good daily motivating tool for keeping the mess under control.