Missing Birthdays

I try to send birthday cards to the kids in my life, including my (former) step-daughters 3 sons, and the children of my nieces.  I have reminders set on the computer, early enough to get cards out to the birthday child by their birthday.

The regular reader will remember I was without computer access for a while, which lead to me missing a birthday.  Well, today, I realized I missed another, a sibling of the first missed birthday.  Neither is good, especially because I have been remembering other birthdays in the family, but at least now it has happened twice, so hopefully, neither child will feel left out.

Can you imagine how it is to be a child, and see everyone else remembered and you are not.  That lost, lonely, abandoned, sinking feeling that you are not loved, remembered or valued as a person.  I do not want to do that to any child.  

I may have to develop a different plan for remembering birthdays. 

Hallmark Reminder Service

For years, I have relied on the Hallmark reminder service http://www.hallmark.com/ to remind me about birthdays, anniversaries, and other events.  Today, at work, during a meeting, I realized that I was not reminded about a co-worker's birthday. I had a suitable card at work, and collected signatures, but was confused about what had happened.

Tonight, in my emails, I received a notification from Hallmark that they have discontinued their reminder service, but I could download my events, which I did. What was distressing to me is that they discontinued their reminder service as of October 12, 2015.  And they are just now informing their customers. 

I can understand that Hallmark discontinued the service.  I suspect that many people like myself used the reminder service, but did not buy products from Hallmark to commemorate the event.

The email also said the events in our calendars could be downloaded to other calendars, including Microsoft Outlook, which would be my calendar of choice.  When I tried to do that, I was forced into accepting an option of downloading my calendar entries to a Microsoft Excel program.  I did so, and will manually load the entries onto my Microsoft Outlook Calendar.

This is just an example of corporate America ditching services that are helpful but not profitable.  I suppose I should have expected it sooner than later. 

Check Something

When I am at work, I often think about things that I want to do at home, and will send myself an email.  I started to do that today, and entitled an email "Check."  But, I was interrupted, so when I went back to the email, I could not remember what I wanted to check. So, I sent myself an email that said "Check Something."  When I got home, I had a receipt for my house taxes in the mail. That reminded me that that was what I wanted to check.  I had sent in my payment early in the month.  It took the appraisal district a long time to send me  receipt.  But they did.

Isn't it terrible that I could get that distracted that I forgot what I wanted to check?  Oh well.  I think it is a sign of aging.