Gift Cards/Certificates

Am I the only one that feels uncomfortable using a gift certificate at a restaurant or coffee house or car wash, etc.?

Advice For Gift Card Recipients
I know I'm probably weird in this way, but I always feel strange whipping out a gift card or gift certificate to pay for some services or product I've just consumed or purchased.

I shouldn't.  The person that gave it to me paid good money to the establishment to purchase the gift card, and when businesses sell gift cards, they are well aware that people will cash them in.  And we always tip at restaurants on the full amount of the bill.  Still yet, I feel uncomfortable using them.

Thaddeus has come up with a way of presenting gift cards to businesses in a way that makes me feel much better about using them.  As soon as we walk into the business and are greeted by an employee, he says something like "Thanks...a good friend of ours gave us a $50 gift certificate, so we were excited to try your restaurant/coffee house/car wash, etc."

I don't know why, but presenting it this way, as thought it's been a successful way of promoting their business and at the same time telling them right up front we'll be using a gift card, seems to make it a lot less uncomfortable for me.

Current Knitting/Crocheting/Spinning
Yes, it's been a while, and in that time I've done all three of the above.

Knitting:
I've been able to finish the neck cowl using the three colors of Possum/Merino yarn.

I used two different edgings...the blue edging is a picot hemmed edge, and the green edging is a plain hemmed edging.

I got to use it this morning on my 11 block walk from the hotel to work in 25 degree weather.

All in all, it kept me quite toasty, and it was nice to know I could pull it up over my nose/mouth when it gets even colder up here in Canada.

Crocheting:
xx - content deleted - xx

Spinning:
Finally, there is an end in sight to the Optim Merino top I've been spinning.

A couple more weekends of spinning and I should have a boatload of merino yarn to play with.  I'll keep you updated.