the wedding gift

So, I've got a wedding to go to in the afternoon. Sometime beforehand I need to get them a card and gift. Don't get me wrong - It's not like I've only just started to think about this now, I have been brainstorming for a while.

I hate buying presents in general. It was easy to buy your mates a decent present as a young kid - there are a million things a kid wants, and you can guarantee they can't afford to buy them all. Even if you couldn't decide, a $10 or $20 dollar note slipped into the birthday card was always more than enough to please.

Once you grow up, you get to the stage where people get jobs (ie. a decent income) and don't exactly want most of the toys found in the latest Toyworld catalogue. The few things that they really want are usually too expensive for them too afford (and hence is also the case for you too). When you get to this point in life, you have to start being creative to find some kind of gift that has some kind of sentimental value. Or you just go get them a photo frame or jewellery (for a female anyway)...

Anyway, back to my current problem - if I had group of closeish friends who also knew this soon-to-be-wed couple, I'd talk them into throwing a bit of cash in each and getting a group present, which would most probably be selected by the females in this so-called group. Unfortunately this isn't the case, so I'm on my own. I've decided that there's no point buying them some random gift that they'll most probably never use. Pretty sure they've already got a toaster too.

That leaves me with two options:
(a) cash; or
(b) a gift card.

At the moment I'm leaning towards option (b) - purely because that way, I feel as if I've gone to at least some effort. Having said that, I've never been a fan of gift cards - why give someone money that can only be used at a certain store, when you can just give them cash that they can spend anywhere?

After writing that last paragraph, I am now leaning towards (a). Putting cash into an envelope just seems a bit lazy, you know... Not that I'm complaining, I love to take the lazy option, just feels like I haven't put any thought into their special day, that's all.

The problem with both (a) and (b) is that the couple will know exactly how much I'm spending on them, as opposed to a gift of unknown value (assuming you remember to peel the price sticker off before wrapping it). Having said that, they both know that I entered the unemployed ranks recently and aren't the type of people who would judge me on how much I spend on them anyway.

Argh this is too hard, I'm going to bed and will work it out when I wake up. Damn my indecision...

bludging

Wow. What a shocker - only one post last month. I must really be getting lazy.

You haven't really missed much. Not too much happening these days. Taking life easy. Got bits of tutoring work to do at uni a few times a week, but besides that I'm just chilling out. Quite a bit of assignment marking to do coming up in the next few weeks, but hopefully nothing too stressful.

Using all this spare time to do lots of sleeping in. Started running again. Not often enough, but still a start. Also begun swimming in the uni pool. A lot of other things I want to do (regularly blogging, for example) aren't getting done though, something to do with my laziness I think.

It is kinda like being a uni student again without all the stress. Jealous much? At least you probably have a decent income, but you can't have everything I guess.