To Sam - Colored Pencil

This one is not spectacular but the process was very therapeutic. During the chaotic part of Dec when I needed to crank things out quickly, many orphan, vintage stamps were hustled out the door. At the end of the exchange list, I had to dip into current Forevers.

The state fair stamps are so pretty, but they really need to go on colored envelopes. Sam prefers a minimum of empty space so I started with a big name in the lightest tint of marker. Then I outlined and drop shadowed.

Colored pencils are always a lot of fun and I pulled general shapes and colors off the stamp. It's fairly abstract. The placement of the denim pants is not the best - but at least it arrived on time. I did have to send some *sorry-yours-will-be-late* emails to some of the exchangers.

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Jan 23 -- and I still have two to go

Postal news. December might be the worst month, but January is a very close second. Bad weather caused them to stop early last Friday and take undelivered mail back to the station. Then, any Monday holiday (MLK Day) causes additional pile up. So the combination has turned into a crazy backlog. We did not get mail on the Tues or Wed after MLK Day - and it has not come today (Thur) -- so, I'm thinking I might go over to the station and see what's going on. My little postman says he can't see any way to catch up as there is a new pile of mail and parcels that arrives every day. They *mandate* people to come in on their day off - but some of those people just ignore the mandate. I think they must be people who have been there a long time and figure that there is no way they will get fired because why would you fire someone who actually has experience. I'm starting to feel really guilty about this whole *mail-for-fun* thing. That's pretty alarming, isn't it. I trust all y'all will talk some sense into me.