Yes Mary, you are reading right. There are several softwares that allow you to download free or purchased designs from the internet to your computer. Then you transfer from computer to the 'cardwriting box/card' for using in your machine. The most popular is the Brother PED Basic that I mentioned above. It only writes .pes format, which is what the 270 uses, and can be bought...sometimes used, from ebay. Normally, you can find new there, as well as Walmart on line, Allbrands.com, and other sites. You may pay from $50to $100+. Then you can download a free software to change other design formats to .pes for your machine to use. There are many many free designs available and a good place to start is to join Sewforum.com. It is a forum for embroiderers, where you can ask questions, request someone create a design for you free or for fee. It is not very active now as the site is also on Facebook, but still, there are thousands of free designs still there. I hope I have explained-helped you. Good luck!

My mother just died on Thanksgiving night. Most of the cards we got arrived within the first 2 weeks. That's the time you want your friends and family letting you know you're in their thoughts. Once you get past the funeral, and are starting to try to move on, getting a card kind of throws you back into that period of high grief, and while you appreciate it, it sort of pulls you down and depress you all over again. I've always sent sympathy cards within the week of the death--assuming I find out about it right away. The only way I think you would send a card much later would be if you didn't learn of the death until much later.

Curious. The responses more so. Where do you all live? You saw her often..so you are a pretty tight family. I would think the family would be rallying and a card/flowers seems rather impersonal to me. I have always thought those sort of things come from people outside the inner circle to the family grieving. It has never been my experience that the inner circle would gift each other with sympathy cards/flowers. Not saying it is wrong--this is just very curious to think about.

I want to keep people employed, I just prefer buying from actual companies that make the products and will ship their products out to me directly, not Amazon if possible. My husband worked for Amazon briefly, and another friend earlier on. I know all about what kind of company they are. Helping employees is not on their radar, long or short term. You are more expendable than a robot to them, they care not for any physical toll working there takes on you, so if you go into it with that in mind, you should be fine with the conditions. Let's be realistic about their business model, they are the world's largest warehouse and their genius disruption of the markets came from leveraging the Internet and creating search engines and the idea of customer reviews instead of interacting with a store clerk. They are not the only ones like this in the modern era though. I was just impressed with the actual online chat I had with a real person service representative at the Current card company. i used to be able to go to a brick and mortar store in my home town to buy Current cards, but such days are long gone sadly. I had also forgotten about Blue Mountain, I used to get their cards a lot. If I'm going to migrate to online, I want to deal online with the actual companies that operate similarly to a brick an mortar store, with knowledgeable employees focused on selling a high quality product and serving their customers so they will be loyal. It seemed odd that there was an entire aisle almost of thank you notes in boxes at Walgreens, but little in the way of note cards to write a sympathy note on. I used to have many, have downsized my stock because I got tired of moving and unpacking it. But I am reclaiming my writing desk and so far it has stayed in one place for more than two years . . .