All posts tagged gifts

That season where you fall slower

There is something about fall that makes me move slower, and appreciate the cooler weather and changing colors. Fall may just be my favorite season, though spring and fall may be tied together for favorites. I don’t know what is better, the flowers coming to life after winters slumber or the changing of the leaves on all the trees. Fall is also my signal to start buying gifts for Christmas since I always like to get a head start on that.

Yet, this season I’m not buying any gifts. I haven’t even gotten anything for my husband and completed a bunch of gifts of him for Christmas by now. It’s a combination of factors, we will be staying in for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. While we would be splitting holidays between my family and his, this year it seems like the family in our mix is ourselves.

With me not having a job, and my husband having a real hard job for traveling and vacations it just seems like we won’t be doing our yearly trip for the holidays. Honestly, it just feels really weird and strange. Combine this with the fact I won’t be getting gifts for my coworkers this year since I don’t have any coworkers, and my friends are miles away. So, the holidays for me and my husband will be quiet and I’m guessing just us and our baby bunny.

It’s kind of hard for me not to have a ton of gifts already bought and to know I’m not doing much for the holidays. I’m not exactly a big Christmas person but I always loved buying gifts for the people who mattered for me. My husband doesn’t seem to want anything for gifts so we will make the best of our holidays together.

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by soulfulsarah on October 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in life, Love, marriage, news, relationships, Uncategorized
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Posted by soulfulsarah on October 19, 2012

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/that-season-where-you-fall-slower/

What to do with premature purchasing

I have a problem, though I do think that it isn’t too terrible of a problem to have. I like to buy things far in advance, and when it comes to birthdays and Christmas presents I can sometimes do it six months away from the holiday or event.

I especially seem to do this with my brother, because besides my husband, who is impossible to buy for, my brother is my favorite person to buy for. He also can be the most frustrating since that if he doesn’t like something he won’t hesitate to tell you straight to your face that you were dumb for getting it. I once got him this gift card for Christmas, I was very excited, asked him if he might be interested, and then 10 minutes after I bought it he asked for something else instead of what I got him.

Hmmm, well, no, you are out of luck and so am I. You can’t return gift cards and I was so furious that basically I gave some “uh huhs” and quickly hung up. He later apologized in his own way for what he did but I went from being super excited at finding a neat gift card idea to kicking myself in the butt for being so happy when he changed his mind after I had bought it.

This year I’ve really out done myself, except that I gave him all of his gifts way before Christmas and his birthday.

I couldn’t play the excuse of us being separated by miles with not getting him something, I don’t know if I will see my brother, or my family, or my husband’s family for Christmas so everything is up in the air. I want my brother to have his fabulous gifts and for once in my entire career of getting him stuff I didn’t get him one gift card. And you know what? He loved all of my gifts I gave him and it meant even more because what I got him took a lot of thought, time, and effort on my part. Also, it kind of helps when the gift isn’t just a piece of plastic but something tangible he can use or have for many years.

Now though Christmas and birthday shopping is done and the holiday season hasn’t even come around. While my brother’s gifts are completed, I don’t have a clue what to get my husband, or my mom, for Christmas. My mother is the most difficult person to buy stuff for because one second she will tell you she doesn’t want anything, and the next second she’s asking you why you didn’t get her anything more. While my husband is difficult since he buys everything he might want which means you can’t really get him that much.

I also don’t have my co-workers to buy Christmas gifts for and I’m not going to lie, that does make me sad. Buying my co-workers gifts for Christmas and making Christmas cards for the people I worked with was some of my favorite stuff to do for the season. Especially since I don’t like Christmas that much anyways because my family’s biggest fights, and tragedies, always seemed to happen around the holidays.

I think that my premature purchasing is helpful to avoid the holiday rush and to stay ahead of the game.

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by soulfulsarah on September 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in family, life, Love, news, random, Uncategorized
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Posted by soulfulsarah on September 8, 2012

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/what-to-do-with-premature-purchasing/

Needy families need the gift of giving

So, my work is generally all about us doing stuff for the environment, or helping out with things, or giving donations, we are pretty good about that. But, this year was the first year that we adopted a needy family. Well, the one family was quickly snatched up with our giving tree so we had another one which is also all gone too with the little mini trees with what they need.

It was one of the cutest things that one of my co-workers did. She grabbed several trees with needs on them and one of them was for a little girl who wanted a Barbie. So, she not only got her a Barbie, but she got her a Barbie who does her profession. A hairstylist Barbie, which I thought was so nice and neat and she kept on exclaiming, “It really works! The shampoo bowl works and everything! Plus, they can color hair and all that.”

So, I went up to the posted trees and grabbed my own tree. It was for a grocery store and I just recently, like yesterday, got the gift card for the person I never met and got the cutest little gift card, it was an adorable little penguin. I gave my gift card to my manager today so she can give it to the place that will give our gifts to the needy families. We are also doing a canned food drive as well for a pantry.

My Christmas shopping is pretty much all done. I know what you’re thinking… “She’s a freak! She got all her shopping done? Before Thanksgiving?! No way!” Well, I hate dealing with the crowds went it starts getting close to Christmas and being trampled by animals-tic shoppers looking for the perfect deal. I’ve always been an early shopper, the key to it is just being done with it after you get everything for everyone, instead of buying more and more gifts on top of what you’ve already finished with. My brother’s birthday is coming up very soon too and I’m all finished for his birthday. And I think that I’m done for Christmas with his shopping.

Tomorrow is going to be mine and my fiancée’s two-year anniversary since we first met. It seems like we’ve been together for so much longer than that and I don’t know how I haven’t had him always in my life. He’s my rock when I need someone to lean on, and he helps me to calm down and feel at peace when he’s around. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my life than to spend it with him. I knew he was the one for me since the moment I saw him and it’s been history ever since then.

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by soulfulsarah on November 21, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in happiness, life, news, random, where the heart is, Work
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Posted by soulfulsarah on November 21, 2011

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/needy-families-need-the-gift-of-giving/

Santa ate the Thanksgiving turkey

I know that the man is over-killed with stuff at work, buried with what he does, and is absolutely overworked when one of his favorite holidays is put on the back burner. He’d normally have my gifts, his gifts he got for my mom, and his family, pretty much done by now. Instead, he hasn’t gotten anything done. Our evenings together are spent with him taking work home with him and doing it while we watch T.V. I came home to an empty apartment tonight… he’s off to another job interview and is on an airplane right now. I will be lucky if he gets back tomorrow, I hope he does.

Seems like every year Thanksgiving is skipped over to start the whole Christmas thing. I don’t mind Thanksgiving and it’s one of the least stressful holidays we have, though still stressful. It’s also the one my whole family has off, since both me and my mom work weekends and every weekend seems to be the time Christmas is. Every time pretty much, while I don’t know how that works year in and year out.

I’ve already gotten pretty much all of his presents for Christmas already. I still need to get a few more things for my brother, and a couple of things for my girls at work, and maybe a little something for his Mom too, and I will be all set.

Our roles have reversed, Mr. Crazy-about-Christmas has been beaten out by, yours truly, the Grinch for getting gifts. I’m not a fan of Christmas, never have been since I was a kid, but I want to try to like it more since the man loves it so much. He’s so passionate about it, and like a little kid in a candy store whenever Christmas comes around. While I generally can’t wait for it to be done with and for whatever family holiday fight will happen that year to be over with.

My mother has been saying lately, “What Christmas? How can we have Christmas when everyone is going to be gone? I could care less about it, blah, blah…” because not only will I probably be gone this year for Christmas Day, but my brother is going to be visiting his Uncle through Christmas Day this year. She is all bummed out because we both are going to be gone, yet that doesn’t mean I’m still not going to get gifts for Christmas for my brother. My mom is just going to be re-wrapping stuff she gave him last year that he didn’t want and didn’t take home with him. She was also talking about different ways to annoy him, like wrapping his own clothes he left at their place and giving it back to him.

This is why I end up getting my brother everything on ‘the Christmas list’ he ends up giving me. I know my mother will re-gift every little thing he didn’t like and give it back to him. It’s pretty funny, but they both are so stubborn that it keeps on going year after year.

2 Comments
by soulfulsarah on November 10, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in family, life, Love, news, random, stress
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Posted by soulfulsarah on November 10, 2011

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/santa-ate-the-thanksgiving-turkey/

Splurge

I’ve already started to get my Christmas presents for my family and the man… is this bad? Should I be faulted for a false start for starting it even before the end of Halloween? For someone who isn’t the biggest fan of Christmas I tend to start my shopping very, very early. So early, in fact, that by the time December rolls around I tend to have all my gifts in a basket and I’m ready.

My brother will be doing what I normally do for Christmas… going somewhere else for it. He will be traveling from December 21st through actual Christmas day. The man wants me to get time off the day after Christmas so we can go down to see his family. I know he really wants me to try, but I’ve already got that time off in December to go down to Las Vegas with my mom.

They were already to spit fire at me for that, they might actually chase me around screaming, “NO!” for asking for another day off in our time where we prep for it months in advance. Holiday season is big stuff where I’m at, and that time, and the time afterwards, is our “busy season.”

And you know what my Achilles’s heel is and we got the form in for that too. Our product order form is in and I’m adding, subtracting, adding, taking it away, for the products I want and it’s even more stress because we still don’t know about his interview for the move-away job. I’m needing to get more stuff than usual and before it’s run out since I need a big supply with it if… well, you know, the move actually happens.

Tis’ the season to splurge but I’m still fighting it.

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by soulfulsarah on October 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in goofiness, life, Money, random
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Posted by soulfulsarah on October 30, 2011

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/splurge/

The List of “I want this… now!”

Restaurants are a must for the list!

Every Christmas, like clockwork, my brother makes his needs wants well-known for what me and my mom should get him… which ends up mostly being me. I feel somewhat bad for him because his birthday is right around when Christmas is. Oh, and the man’s birthday is very near to Christmas too, what a coincidence, huh? I swear, my brother and the man have more qualities similar than they’d like to admit. Part of those qualities is being very difficult to buy for.

My brother gives me the list of gift cards to buy for him. This includes a grocery store gift card, a fast food chain gift card, and last year I got him a nice restaurant gift card that could be used at multiple locations.

He then used that gift card I got him on his other sister. I feel a bit of a burn from that, but will still end up getting him a ton of stuff any ways.

This year I already got one item from the list. He wanted a Queen, black, plain sheet for his bed. He keeps asking for this sheet but I refuse to give this to him until his birthday. My mother already gave away her furry Alpaca feeling blanket she got for him, I will not cave in beforehand. He won’t die without it and that means one less thing to get on his ‘List.’ If you try to get anything that is not on the list he will stick his nose up at it and you will regret spending your money on the object. And, most likely, you will stupidly take off the tags so now there’s no way of getting that money back.

The man doesn’t give me a list, but there’s an unseen ‘list’ to adhere to for him too. Pretty things, but they have to be his style, and he told me a few electronic things like a steamer which I’m not exactly feeling. I did find something cute for our anniversary and I’m thinking of going someplace for it too. The question is, where to go?

And, I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about my brother and the man. I’m not the best to get gifts for anyways. The problem with me is that I don’t ask for anything, and I don’t really want/need anything. I hate asking for things even if it is a gift and I think that anything the man comes up with is perfect, my brother takes my not asking for anything as a loophole in the system. He has to be told some kind of gift card he can get for me or else then he ends up getting nothing because he can’t think up of anything. Or, well, I’ll give him that excuse.

The last gift I got my brother that he was super excited about was this face cleanser from my work. He immediately hopped in the shower, used the products, and came up saying, “My face feels all tingly.” Well, I don’t think it’s supposed to tingle, but he was pretty dang excited about it that I let him say what he wanted.

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by soulfulsarah on October 17, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in crazy, family, goofiness, Humour, life, Love, Money, relationships, Uncategorized
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Posted by soulfulsarah on October 17, 2011

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/the-list-of-i-want-this-now/

My gift wrapping is as flawed as I am

You watch me wrap a gift, and I struggle with it, and add more than enough scotch tape to try to fix my mistakes and this can be a good metaphor for myself. I’m flawed, and sometimes I can’t do things perfectly, but I sure will put a hell of a lot of scotch tape on the situation to try to mend it. It won’t be as good as if I did everything with perfection in my touch, yet I think it’ll hold together.

Key word here is: I think it’s going to hold together.

My mother wraps like she’s a professional at it. The man wraps gifts with a mischievous air that shows through when you start to unwrap it. He hides the gifts inside of paper inside of a box that has another box with it. He places scotch tape directly on the present itself so even after you’ve detached the tons of gift wrap you still are picking off the tape with your nail.

Or, in my case, my lack of nail. My little nub nails, I can’t grow them out because of my career. The first time I spent Christmas with him I couldn’t believe the scheming he went through with each gift. You had to basically tear apart the wrapping paper with your teeth and he seemed to use tougher tape that didn’t give up the fight that easily.

You had to sort of ‘win’ your gift through persistence and a whole lot of swearing. As he gleefully watched you and couldn’t keep his laughing at bay when you start screaming out, “Really? Seriously?? What were you thinking gift wrapping this?!” And now I know what he was thinking, he was thinking about my classic reaction to it as I refused help (a.k.a.- a knife or scissors) and used my hands/teeth to get into it. Don’t worry, I’ve gotten back at his mischievous wrapping by getting clever about my own presents.

My mother has actually tried to fix my gift wrapping. I never do it right, and this gift I wrapped would be no different that she’d go, “No, no, no, that’s not right! Let me fix it…” But, with my moving out, she won’t be around to make sure they are extra perfect. They will just have to be imperfect, like me. And I will just put a ton of scotch paper on it to make it ‘work’ even though I’m making it worse.

Since it’s not a gift for the fiancée, I won’t try to make it extra difficult with putting it inside of another thing and putting the scotch tape on the object itself. Though, I still think my gifts aren’t as easy to get into as they should be.

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by soulfulsarah on September 26, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in life, Love, news, Profession, random, relationships, Spa, stress, Uncategorized
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Posted by soulfulsarah on September 26, 2011

https://rubhub.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/my-gift-wrapping-is-as-flawed-as-i-am/