Grrr.  Now that December has arrived, I thought it was time to get my Christmas card list updated and ready.  Yes, I'm attempting to send cards for the second year in a row.  We bought the cards back around Hallowe'en, when the selection was still good.  The only problem with my cunning plan was that I could not find the 2012 Christmas card list.  I looked on all the home computers, even those on which it was extremely unlikely to be, like Alan's MacBooks (there is a collection).

Tangential anecdote:  I am blogging on Alan's 2nd newest MacBook (he uses his very newest) because he is away at college taking a math test, my Mac Mini reported that it wanted me to put new batteries in my wireless keyboard (also inherited from Alan) and I wasn't sure how to do that.  I could probably figure it out but a lot of the time with things like that, I cannot tell if I can't get the thing apart or the battery hatch undone because I'm not putting enough pressure on it, or if it's not supposed to come apart that way and I'm about to break it.  Plus, I spent a few hours last night giving myself a fresh manicure, with lovely royal blue polish and I didn't want to chip my nails.  Who needs that, honestly?

Anyway, disappearing Christmas list:  I also checked both work computers.  I wouldn't have done the list there, but it's entirely in character for me that after creating it at home, I'd have emailed it to work or taken it there on a USB drive in order to have a backup.  I'm CDO that way.  (That's like OCD, but in alphabetical order, as it should be.)  It is vexing me, less because of the work I'm having to put into recreating it, but because, damn it all, there WAS a 2012 list.  It existed.  There had to have been one.  I can barely go to Macy's to buy mascara without a checklist (Lancome! Definicils! Waterproof! Noir!) so there is no way in the multiverse that I sent out Christmas cards without a list.

I'm pretty sure it was an Excel spreadsheet with name, address, city, state and zip columns that began life as the guest list for our wedding, which I've updated over the years as people moved, which I then added to, deleted from and otherwise revised for Christmas card purposes.  So where the hell is it?!?  Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I'd probably break out in hives if I'd simply wandered about the house for several days sending Christmas cards at random as people occurred to me.  There HAD to be a 2012 list.

I've managed to mostly re-create it; I had a lot of addresses from the aforementioned wedding guest list (saved on 2 computers and a USB drive, thank you very much) and a whole bunch in my gmail.  However, this year's list is significantly smaller than 2012, which I base upon the number of boxes of cards and number of sheets of stamps purchased last year.  Alan and I both have pored over the 2013 list and can't think of any significant omissions - in fact, I think we added some to 2013 that weren't on 2012 - so the smaller number, while boding well for my handwriting, worries me.  Who am I forgetting?  And more importantly, WHERE THE HELL is my 2012 Christmas card spreadsheet????