It has been very cold here, of late. Not so bad as some parts of the country but when the weekend's nighttime low temperature is zero (F) and the wind is racing at >30 MPH, it's C-O-L-D. The electric heat pump can't keep up so we've had to resort to space heaters to keep the chill off. Running the oven for holiday baking also helped. At night Tasha has returned to sleeping on my pillow, next to or wrapped around my head; the arrangement is mutually beneficial to the feline and me. We did some running around by car on Sunday, chiefly because the clouds parted for the day and we wanted to be out and at least see the outside world, if not walk about in it very much.
When She Who Must Be Obeyed saw the "Ice Globe" photo in this blog (below) she said it should be our Christmas card this year. Hearing and obeying (most of the time) is my primary job. So, Sunday night I uploaded the high-resolution image file to Dodd Camera –an area photographic institution– and picked up the prints Monday evening on my way home from the office. Last night, as She toiled mightily at holiday preparations in the kitchen, I worked at assembling the cards:
- Adhere individual photo prints (four sticky tabs per card) to the faces of pre-made card stock
- Selected an appropriate quotation (in consultation with SWMBO) and
- Printed the approved citation on labels for fastest turnaround.
- Created photo caption labels for the back of each card
- Applied caption and quotation/sentiment labels to each card
- Applied address labels and return address labels to each envelope
- Signed each card for the two of us, sealed, and finally,
- Got to bed at about 1:00 AM. {Whew!}
On the way in to the job, I stopped at the Post Office and bought stamps, applied them in the lobby, and immediately mailed the cards. Andy in Japan: You're included. Despite all that, most will likely be received the day after Christmas. Still, I like to think of these cards as a sort of gift unto themselves and hate to skip a year. Late receipt is better than not at all.
My usual choice for digital picture printing was Cord Camera in North Olmsted. Not too far from my office, that store was also Cord's Cleveland area "super store." I discovered, to my dismay, that I couldn't upload for printing at North Olmsted because that store had been closed! Cord's Web site blamed the slow economy for the store's closure and, as I explored their site, I noted several other of their stores were also shuttered. Too bad they couldn't have held on at least though the holiday shopping season — the Dodd shopping center store was very busy when I visited to pick up my pix. I'll miss the Cord store in North Olmsted; it was well stocked with all kinds of gear and the photo printing service had some very nice features and good quality output. Dodd's upload system was quick but didn't offer online cropping. The folks at the store, however, were very helpful and, over the phone, honored my request for cropping on my card picture to fit best on a 4 X 6 format. I'm sure we'll see more changes due to the screwed-up economy but you just hate to see your favorite places and services disappear.
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