here):
Date I started addressing cards: I think around November 26th or 27th.
Date I finished: The day I stopped taking names and address, December 21st.
Total cards sent out (not including family): 358
States receiving 10 or more cards: California (31), Florida (11), Illinois (15), Maryland (10), Michigan (16), North Carolina (11), Ohio (26), Pennsylvania (13), Texas (23), Virginia (17), Washington (14), Wisconsin (12).
States who don’t love me and didn’t want a card: Delaware, Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming, Washington DC.
Other countries receiving cards: Canada (10), New Zealand (1), Australia (4), UK (5), Sweden (2), Costa Rica (1), Germany (1), Iceland (1), Finland (1), Scotland (3), Switzerland (1), Israel (1).
Number of cards kicked back as undeliverable: None so far!
Percentage of probability that I accidentally sent out more than one card to at least one person: 96.848.
Was I terribly organized about my card sending this year?: Fairly so, except for the not-enough-cards thing. That wasn’t due to disorganization, though.
Did I have a lot of fun shopping for funny cards?: I had a lot of fun creating one. Those of you who didn’t request one, this is this year’s card:
(pic)
(Inside: That’s okay, Santa Claws likes it naughty. Happy Holidays!)
I actually ran out of cards, and a handful of you got cards created by me. I’m sorry about that. I’ll do better next year!
What I’ll do differently next year: Order more cards, damnit!
Number of cards I’ve received: So far, 140 154! (I checked the PO Box yesterday morning). I’ll update that number in mid-January, when all the cards have arrived.
I meant to put up pictures of all the cards I’ve received so far, but I didn’t have time, and my camera is packed away, so I’ll have to get that at a later date (and will hopefully remember to come back here and post the link).
I was tagged forever ago for this meme by angstmama. It’s only now going up because it took me THAT long to come up with stuff that I haven’t already written about. The rules: 1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your Blog. 2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself. 3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their Blogs. 4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their Blog. Seven random or weird things about myself. 1. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when I have to get up to pee, when the deed is done I wander into the computer room, and I click on my Sitemeter bookmark, and when my page of stats comes up, I click on “Who’s on?” For those of you without Sitemeter, this tells you who has been on your site in the past 30 minutes. And I can’t remember the last time I clicked on “Who’s on?” and had it come up blank. In the middle of the night, I look at the list of who’s on, and I wonder, what are you doing on my site in the middle of the night? Who are you, Tulsa? Oakland? Jackson? Attiki, Greece? Oslo? Are you catching up on your journal reading? Are you taking a break from work, killing time, putting off going to bed? Were you looking for something else when you wandered across my site, or did you mean to be here? And after some time of looking and pondering, I go back to bed. Sometimes I dream about you all. 2. I adore the word “spry” and use it as often as I can. I just hope that when I’m a doddering old woman, someone will look at me and say, admiringly, “She’s certainly spry for her age!” 3. In the movie Catch & Release, there’s a scene where everyone is having (a horribly disgusting-looking) vegan dinner, and Jennifer Garner decides to share things about herself that her deceased fiance never knew. She says: a. I steal library books… on purpose. I have them from every town I live in. I can’t control it. b. I can put my whole fist in my mouth. c. I love natural disasters. I want people to die in them. I’m genuinely disappointed when the death toll is low. d. I made it with a girl once. e. I think catch & release fishermen are heartless weenies. I think putting a fish through agony for your own entertainment is just plain cruel. One of her secrets is mine as well. And I’m not going to tell you which one – you can guess, but I’ll never say. 4. I hate it when someone asks what I’m eating, unless they do the interested “Oh, that looks good!” face. Otherwise, they might say “What are you eating?”, but I hear “JESUS CHRIST. ARE YOU EATING AGAIN? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STUFFING DOWN YOUR PIEHOLE NOW?” Ask Fred – I get very defensive about what I’m eating if it’s not a salad or some kind of fruit. I’m known to squawk “NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS!” in response and hunch over my plate. Luckily, he finds it funny. 5. If I say “Such and such is so!” and someone responds with “Such and such is NOT so, in my case. Here is an example that describes the case of such and such being the exact opposite of so.”, I adore responding with “Ah, but in your case, that is the exception that proves the rule!”, because it makes me sound so very smart. Except that I’m not sure exactly what “The exception that proves the rule” MEANS. It just sounds good. 6. From the interstate highway between Closeville and Tennessee (a drive I usually only make when I’m taking a cat to the vet), there’s this apartment building you can see. It’s shaped like an “L”, and there are two stories, it’s battered and broken-down, there’s junk everywhere and crappy rusted-out vehicles in the parking lot, and I am absolutely fascinated by it. It looks like the end of the road. I stare at it as I drive by, every time. I can barely take my eyes off it. If someone’s outside, I want to see what they look like and what they’re doing, what they’re driving. If I had any idea how to get there, I would probably drive there and park across from it and just sit there all day to watch the people come and go. I don’t understand why I’m so fascinated by it; it simultaneously fascinates and saddens me. I think that in some parallel life, if I took a left instead of the right I took in this one, zigged instead of zagged, maybe that’s where I ended up. It looks like the place where hope goes to die. 7. I fully believe that if I didn’t have Fred around to keep me in check, we’d have 630 cats by now. And if Fred didn’t have me around to keep him in check (or at least slow him down a little), we’d have a back forty full of goats and sheep and pigs and cows and probably a couple of dogs to keep an eye on them. If you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged!
Annnnnnd, now I’m off to Maine for a while. If I can, I’ll update from there (I’m committed to posting every day of December, now that it’s so close!). Y’all behave. The comment-answering extravaganza is on hold ’til I get back – you can still ask the questions, I just won’t get to them ’til I get back. I’ll be sporadically Twittering. Edited to add: Annnnnd, now I’m not. Due to weather in Detroit, my first flight was canceled and (it being a holiday weekend and all) I couldn’t get on another flight out of Huntsville ’til Saturday. Thank GOD my father called to tell me the first flight had been canceled; it never occurred to me to check! So if you’ve got any burning questions, the Comment-Answering Extravaganza will go on tomorrow as usual!
Previously 2006: No entry. 2005: No entry. 2004: “Mom, you’re going to be bigger than Britney Spears!” 2003: I tossed the muffins in the trash, although it did occur to me to leave the one the Bean had had his ass upon – the assmuffin, if you will – for Fred. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: Though to be truthful, I was the Monster Who Ate Alabama for a period of about 24 hours… 1999: “You must not be using the stairs at your house Freddie! You haven’t lost any weight!” ]]>