Label me techno-inept

I took a few days off to get ready for the holidays. One of my goals was to get all my holiday cards out. Our old computer had a printing program that I typed our whole address book into. All I had to do was call up the list and hit print. Ta-da! Envelopes labeled and stamped in no time at all. I loved it, and with all there is to do at the holidays, not having to write out 50 or so envelopes is a welcome break. But .... New computer. Old one's long gone. So I picked up some new printing software. I followed all the directions. I typed in, one by one, all our addresses, knowing it would be so much easier from here on out.

When I went to print it out, it didn't work. "Help" told me that when I hit "print" I'd get the "print labels" menu. I didn't. I spent two hours troubleshooting, trying to find help on the company's Web site. Finally, I tried to e-mail the software maker, but it wouldn't let me access its tech support because I couldn't figure out how to determine exactly how much RAM was on my computer, or something like that, and what video card I have, or something like that.

I then decided to borrow my parents' print software. I loaded it up and spent another hour trying to figure out how to make individual labels instead of pages of a single label. Finally, at 11 at night, I gave up. I had our return address on labels, but stayed up for the next hour and a half addressing the envelopes. My other goal -- to wrap presents while the kids were in school -- will probably be done about 11 at night Christmas Eve. Again.