"Twas the Day Before...

What I'm reading: Missing Mark, by Julie Kramer

First -- stop reading and scroll down to Tuesday's post, "New Challenges" by Betina Krahn. She's giving away three books, and if you comment before 6 PM Eastern time today (Thursday), you'll be entered for a chance to win. Winners announced tomorrow. What are you waiting for?

I must confess I will be glad when the holiday season is past. Not being a Christmas person, I find the obsession with the holiday gets old very fast. Blogs devoted to Christmas hints, gifts and books. Everyone wants a comment about what I do for Christmas, or my best Christmas memories. Well, at the very least, they've freed up my blog crawling time, because they don't draw me in, and I move on.

We gave up sending Christmas cards years ago, and I'm pleased that the number we receive is dwindling. All those dead trees and postage used to wish us a happy holiday we don't celebrate. I often wonder what all the people whose lists we're on would think if we sent the Hanukkah cards.

But my real peeve is how many people seem to think it's worthwhile to mail a card with a pre-printed 'signature' and nothing else. All we are to most of them is an address label and a stamp. Granted, a few do address the envelopes by hand. My feeling: if we're in communication during the year, then that's enough of a gesture of friendship, and we've probably exchanged holiday greetings of some sort already. If we're not, and you don't have time to include a brief note, then how much can you really care? And this year I got a card from someone who signed it only with a first name, and I don't have a clue who she is. I do feel bad about that one, because she included the hand-written 'hope you're having a happy holiday'.

Hubby and I have our annual physicals today. We're in pretty good physical shape (at least that's what I'm assuming), but we're at the point where everything is followed by, "for someone your age." At least our doctor says, "for someone our age, as our kids were in high school together. Let's just hope all the paperwork is processed in a timely fashion, because one of our surprises last month was that hubby's retirement insurance plan no longer offers the company we're with. This comes after having to switch last year. We'll end up back where we were a year ago, but at double the cost, which had already jumped over 400% the year before. But, looking on the bright side, at least we have health insurance. And no telling what plan we'll be with when we move, and the retirement options vary depending on what state we live in. Suddenly "our age" doesn't look so terrible, as hubby is only a year away from Medicare.

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