No Rest for the Wicked or the Cheap (Broke)

Boy, you no sooner get through Christmas and trying to find ways to get the gifts your kids and/or grandchildren would like but what you get hit again!

I'm not referring here to Valentine's Day though as I personally dislike that particular holiday. Probably because I'm basically alone and have no special person to share that day with but that's a whole different worm ya know. One that I prefer to steer very clear of too, I might add.

Nope. For me it means three days before Valentine's Day, I need to have some kind of nice gift lined up to give to my younger daughter, Mandy, cause February 11th -well that's a big day for her as it's her birthday!

Now my kids will tell you that I tend to overlook birthday gifts. And that's true a lot of the time. Not that I don't know how old they are or when they get to add another year behind their name, but I just tend to put things on a very slow track and then, poof -I've gone and forgotten about it.

I would like to get Mandy something nice this year though. Something that she would really appreciate and I was thinking along the lines of some type of personalized gifts for her. At this point in time, I don't have anything specific that I'm thinking about but I'm hoping I can find some little thing that would mean something a bit more to her -a "remembrance" type of gift item, maybe would be the ticket there.

She's had a really rough go the past year and things were looking up towards the end of 2010 until the first Monday of the new year when she was told her services were no longer needed at the last place where she was employed.

Having been through job losses myself over the years, I know -all too well -how demoralizing it can be when you get the axe at the old slave camp! So this year, I'm thinking I have to keep myself on track, remembering to look for some little thing that will give her a little bit of an uplift that she really needs.

She's a strong kid. A darned good worker. And a terrific mother to her children as well as being a very loving and quite protective daughter to her old mother here as well. So I think this year especially, she really does deserve something bright and pretty and also, a bit on the whimsical side too because, she is a bit whimsical a lot of the time, you see.

Any suggestions? Feel free to let 'em fly but keep in mind, this also has to be a bit on the inexpensive side too cause Mom's not really cheap. Just broke, most of the time!