To my fellow couponers: A big heads up on some extra savings.

When you're out and about grocery shopping this week, be on the look out for what has become increasingly rare: wine tags and beer rebates.

While prepping for Super Doubles at Lowes Foods and Harris Teeter, I spotted several.

With more and more folks replacing letters and cards with email and e-greetings, the American Greetings company has come up with a pretty cool promotion just in time for Valentine's Day.

American Greetings is offering you the chance to design your own paper card for 99 cents AND the company will pay the postage to mail it.

It's a bargain for you. And a smart move on American Greetings' part to try to keep the paper card tradition alive.

I got a call today from Gene Britt of Princeton. He'd read our story about census participation and wanted to know how he could get a form. Though many of his neighbors get home mail delivery, he gets his through a post-office box and because of that, he didn't get his form in the mail.

"I would like to fill one out, but I don't know how to get one," Britt said.

It's difficult to tell how many folks in Johnston County are in Britt's position, but the U.S. Census Bureau wants to make sure he's counted. Their Web site asks anyone who didn't get a form by Monday (April 12) to pick up and fill out a "Be Counted" form.

Here are some of the places where those forms are available:

Smithfield:

-Johnston-Lee-Harnett Community Action, 101 N. Fourth St. Forms are available from 8 a.m. till 3 p.m. Monday through Friday; someone's there to help people fill out forms from 2 till 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

-Johnston County Board of Elections, 205 S. Second St. Forms are available from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

-Johnston County Mental Health, 521 N. Bright Leaf Blvd. Forms are available from 8 a.m till 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays. Someone's there to help people fill out forms from 8 a.m. till 1 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays.

Benson:
-Benson Chamber of Commerce, 303 E. Church St. Forms are available from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; someone’s there to help fill out forms from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Wilson’s Mills:
-Wilson’s Mills Town Hall, 101 Railroad St. Forms are available from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. till 3 p.m. on Fridays. Someone’s there to help from 11:30 a.m. till 2:30 p.m. weekdays.

Princeton:
-Princeton Town Hall, 503 Dr. Donnie H. Jones Jr. Blvd. Forms are available from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. weekdays with help available from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m.

Four Oaks:
-Four Oaks Town Hall, 304 N. Main St. Forms are available from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. weekdays.

Selma:
-Partnership for Children of Johnston County, 1406-A S. Pollock St. Forms are available from 1 p.m. till 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The Census Bureau site doesn't list any Clayton locations.

Steve Padgett, the former mail carrier from Raleigh recently convicted of delaying and destroying U. S. mail, is in the news again. The lawbreaker, known as "Mailman Steve" to his fans, has received a nice check from donations by people all over the country who saw him as a hero, sparing the people he serviced from having to deal with piles of unsolicited "junk" mail.

Padgett made sure the people on his Apex mail route got their bills, personal letters and packages, but postal inspectors found bags of third class mail--advertising circulars and the like--in his garage and buried in his yard. The story, the most popular on newsobserver.com last month, struck a nerve.

The people who depend on third class mail to advertise their services are not amused. Neither is the U.S. Postal Service, which likes to point out that first class postal rates are relatively low compared to the rest of the world, in part, because of its success in keeping those advertisers using snail mail.

Linda Williams