When it comes to sending presents to people, I am the queen of procrastination. It’s not that I procrastinate in actually getting the present, it’s that I’ll get the present, and then it will sit in my house for weeks while I try to remember to get it to a post office so I can actually *send* it. My older sister lives only an hour or so away, so she usually ends up lucky enough to get her present right around her birthday, simply because I’m likely to see her more often. My younger sister, unfortunately, lives in Washington. This means that sometimes her presents may be weeks and weeks late. I don’t mean to let this sort of thing slide; it just somehow happens. Heck, we just recently delivered Beth and Sabs’ Christmas present to them, so it’s not like I reserve this sort of behavior for just family.

I’m even worse when it comes to sending cards. Most of my friends and family are lucky if I ever manage to get a birthday card into the mail (or attached to the gift). While my mom and older sister send off cards for Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day, etc., the only holiday card I can be relied on to send out are for Christmas (which may or may not include a letter, depending on whether I type it, hand-write it, or just give up and sign our names to the bottom). I used to be really good at all this sort of thing, but somewhere along the way I got busy and then the habit just slipped away.

So yesterday, I not only wrapped my younger sister’s birthday presents, but I actually got them in the mail (via Richard, who was sent with address and presents in tow to the post office), and with a birthday card too. Granted, the package may not arrive by her actual birthday (which is tomorrow), but the point isthat it was mailed *before* the event, and not after (and did I mention there was a card included?). Heck, it was even mailed in the same month as her birthday. We are talking turning over a new leaf in a big way.

I sent her an email, letting her know of this momentous occasion, primarily so that she wouldn’t keel over in shock when it arrived the actual week of her birthday. Her tongue-in-cheek reply (“Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? Radical shifts in behavior scare us counselor types.”) was probably just what I deserved.