MishMash tutorial

 

Back in September Marilyn left this comment on the Amy Fox envelope - which was a lot like this one: 

I just think this envelope is delightful & wish I had the artistic talent to replicate it!

I thought it would be fun to run a tutorial for Marilyn and anyone else who wants to write like this. It is not hard at all. The only thing you need is time. Amy's was done with wavy lines. I did this one with straight lines. At first I thought straight lines were as good as wavy - but - I think wavy is a tiny bit better. 

As you may recall, Rachael called it MishMash - so that's the name we are going to use.

Marilyn had another question: She wondered why I would want a postal vehicle. It's probably the emotional connection I have to mail. Growing up, there were weekly letters between my grandmother and mom. Sometimes I would exchange letters with my grandma. I also had an early fascination with the realization of how many people it took to get the mail where it was going and how there were actually people who were willing to walk around every city and town or drive through rural areas - to deliver mail. It made me feel like we were all connected and that connection was not like radio or TV - it was more personal. 

I knew a couple in college who purchased one of the big mail trucks - a step van. They were required to paint it so that it no longer looked like a mail truck. They painted the red stripe yellow. Then they turned it into a camper. When they were driving through campgrounds, people would come running with postcards, thinking that the truck was a mail truck. 

The LLVs just seem like a fun little vehicle. Most of the time the only driving I do is in my neighborhood - so I don't need much of a vehicle. My son drove one of them for a few months - and he said they are fun to drive. So, I'd share the vehicle with him.

Well this is way off track. I will post more tomorrow. Marilyn, if you are reading this - feel free to drop me an email so I know who you are. :-) PTEnvelopes-at-aol-dot-com - Or if you prefer to remain anonymous, that's fine with me.

Here is what we will cover tomorrow. Half the job is deciding which version of the letters to use. It's like arranging flowers - somewhat.

Here is the original envelope from Rachael that launched my whole *thing* with MishMash. You can see that most of the time - my thicks are not thick enough.

Bonus post - Christmas card video

 Scroll down to see today's blog - and sign-up for the Dec exchange.

I am seldom interested in anything from the Victorian era - but this video turned out to have some charmingly odd examples of Victorian Christmas cards. It includes the very first Christmas card and a little history about how they caught on. 

My clear favorite is this one --- charming and odd, don't you agree? 

They say it is a brief history - it's 14 minutes -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdULP-VYuXk

From Grace in Sept - Dec sign-up

Grace had a nice note in this envelope alluding to the fun - as well as challenge - to come up with ideas for the exchange envelopes. She does a ton of traditional work - and uses the exchange as a way to burst forth with something different. I love this one -- and am grateful that the USPS didn't have time to scribble on it. The choice of blue ink pads and green ink or paint looks good with the postage stamps. This makes me want to get out the paint.....

Time to sign up for the December exchange:

Sign-up is Dec 1 thru Dec 4 and I email the lists on the 5th.

Please send your info in this format to me at: PTEnvelopes-at-aol-dot-com. -- and include (BIRTHDAY) if you have an Nov birthday and/or (2 LISTS) if you are interested in being on two lists - which happens when I need to make the lists come out even.

Jane Doe

123 Oak Street

Ames, IA 50110 USA

Jane.doe@gmail.com

(BIRTHDAY) (2 lists)

If you are new to the exchange - there is additional information here:

http://pushingtheenvelopes.blogspot.com/p/rules-of-exchangement.html

***

I'll bury this down here - because I bet a lot of readers skip over the first of each month when there's not much to say - except for the sign-up for the exchange.

I refrain from getting caught up in thinking of things to buy for people because all the people I know already have more than what they actually need. But this is cute. None of us need it - but it's clever. Lego people that look like whomever you want them to look like.

I did not see any grannies at the website - but I was restraining myself from spending too much time. They offer custom for the whole thing - or a custom head on a stock body.

https://mycustombrickheadz.com

From Cathy in Oct - Legacy - part 3

Cathy let me know - and I will share with you - that her envelope was inspired by the work of Chiara Riva. Oh.My.Gosh. Thank you Cathy for the heads up on that account -- sooooo many ideas.

https://www.instagram.com/chiar.riva/

***

Art majors often contemplate the possibility (goal) of turning art-making into a livelihood. I branched off into graphic design for a while and then got married and had kids. Then Cheryl Adams just passed her career off to me. It's doubtful that I would have ever been interested in anything more than being a hobbyist.

Twenty-five years went by in a flash - and then - having the conversation that inspired this 3-day muse-fest - made me realize that what I accomplished was better than mastery of anything.

The amount of work I put into the jobs and teaching provided enough *what?* - I can't find the word - I guess it's satisfaction. I'm very satisfied (or gratified) with how things turned out. The connections with like-minded people was way better than churning out a lot of work and then figuring out how to sell it. I appreciated churning out a lot of work that was commissioned. I would not have thought of that aspect way back at the beginning.

I didn't have any clear goals or destinations - but, I ended up in the right place.

From Mia in Oct - Legacy - part 2

 

We can assume that Mia had some fun spattering on sheets of paper and then folding them into self-mailers. I think that is what we call things that fold up and perform the same service as an envelope. It went through the mail just fine. This needs to go in a folder that I will not lose - because I have a finite number of envelopes and will run out eventually. There will still be plenty of paper - so I will be doing things like this....eventually. 

Part 2 of the legacy conversation.

After explaining that I had only pipe dreamed about mastering any particular style because mid 40s is not a good time to take up something like calligraphy when you have to maintain order in a house with teenagers and a spouse that was gone most of the time maintaining the steady flow of income to provide  housing, nachos, orthodontics, skates, ice skates, roller blades, speed skates, etc. 

It did not sadden me to know that I would never have the time required to be a master. I busied myself with maintaining an adequate level of skill. It was a stroke of luck (or fate) that Cheryl Adams (my calligraphy teacher) decided to retire from her calligraphy career and home school her offspring - which nudged me into teaching and in so many ways - I felt like my contribution to the community was worth a lot more than honing my own skills just for my own satisfaction.

Still too long - one more day to make my point.

From Rachael in Oct - Legacy?

 

As I write this on Nov 1st, I am thinking about using (stealing) this leafy design on the Nov envelopes that are not done yet. And I need to keep that greeting on the card below where I will find it next year. I love the way Rachael looped the an around to make the t and curled it into the g. How long did it take her to figure that out? I love the lettering - and imagine I will be doing more with it after I get through my riff on Rachael's MishMash that is coming up.

By the way - that is poison ivy - I did steal the idea - and my version will come up down the road.

***

I'm not sure legacy is the right word - so feel free to send me a better one. A month ago I was having an email conversation with an exchanger and mentioned that I had never *mastered* any particular style - and that I considered it a pipe dream - to be a master of anything. 

She responded with a question - wondering what had killed my dream. I clarified that the dream was a pipe dream from the very beginning. There was never a time when I envisioned myself mastering anything - except getting through each day with teenagers.

My calligraphic studies did not begin until I was in my early 40s - and my oldest was hitting her teen years. Then I had at least one teenager for the next 14 years - plus the last one was still a quasi-teenager for another 5 years - not that I am complaining - being *slow* is not a crime. He did become the postal worker which makes his mamma very happy.

So - this is too long. I will finish tomorrow. If any of you are experiencing teenagers, you have my deepest sympathy. 

***

Real time add-on. I need to thank the teen-agers for all the wonderful things I learned from them. Mostly patience. Tolerance. Acceptance. All valuable lessons - and none of them came the easy way.

Skateboards to Kristine and Clover - Handmade items

Kristine and Clover each sent me a fun and interesting article. They are not regular exchangers - but I had that stack of orange envelopes - and figured I would send a snail mail thank you. I luv-luv-luv how Kristine's turned out. It just screams skateboard and graffiti. Sadly - that was the last stamp in that color. Clover's is disappointing - it needs some black on her name - but then it would be too bold for the stamp. I wish I had done her address in white -- that would have been perfect. Or maybe it just needed some bolder white on the name - but where? Grrrr

*** 

As promised, I am not going to keep jabbering about the glyphs - instead we will return to one of my favorite surfing topics - how things are made. And the more tedious and complicated, the better.

This fairly long video features 5 things, made by master-makers - in Japan. The first one is a briefcase and it did not hold my attention - I skipped to the end and it was lovely. I think I lost interest because it hurt my fingers just to watch the process. 

The second item is a tiny little cloisonné vase. I watched the whole thing because I took metal smithing in college and watched more advanced students doing cloisonné and it looked crazy-difficult. Further clicking revealed how many hours it took to make the vase - 600-700 - something like that....

The third item is a calligraphy brush - and I'm warning you -- it is the most tedious process - and the only thing that kept me watching it was that after a certain point - I was curious. I was sure that at some point he would stop with the combing and flipping. But no -- it just kept going --- the link to buy a brush was through Spotify - and I couldn't make it work - but did a search to see how much the best calligraphy brushes cost - $1,000.

The fourth item, a bow, was of no interest whatsoever. And the fifth was a little silver cup - which I enjoyed - because I had seen the same process while in college and it stuck with me that there is a level of patience that I cannot even comprehend. 

The cost for these items - in the thousands - seems high - until you divide it by the number of hours it takes to make the items - and then it seems incredible that they cost so little. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0itxeMKC3Uc

$3,000 bamboo briefcase.

From JeanR in Oct - *Old* Italic

JeanR had a lot of patience to adapt the image on the stamp to the name. Very pretty - and Jean does quite a few cards. I know she has told me how many she does each month - seems like it is more than 30 - maybe more than 40? It's a lot. And I think she does a lot with gel plates - which might be a good way to get an assembly line going.

I need to steal the greeting on the inside of the card.

 ***

Did anyone look at any of the writing systems at the link I posted yesterday? In case it did not look like an interesting link, I am going to post an example of what you might find if you decide to do some surfing.

I looked at the chronological listing - and chose *old italic* to see how it compared to what seems like *italic* to me.

There are so many additional glyphs - and why are so many of them mirror images? Imagine the people who have devoted their lives to deciphering and understanding things like this. Don't worry. This is as far as I am going to go -- down this particular rabbit hole.

From Janet in Oct - Writing systems.

 

This is Janet's October envelope - a lovely stamp - and so much white space. I need to pester the other people on her list and get images of her other October envelopes. I approve of the USPS friendly address.

Here is another one from Janet that went to Chuck - 

***

Here is a deep dive into other forms of writing. It was surprising to learn how many different systems there are. From time to time, I have pondered how to invent my own *letter* to add to the Latin alphabet - and I never come up with anything that pleases my eye. I'm not sure I am going to go through the entire list - one by one - to find characters/letters that please my eye -- but I'll be bookmarking this in my folder of *worthwhile* surfing.

You may click on each system to see all of the glyphs. I should have used the word glyph instead of letter or character - but I have no idea if glyph is a word that we all use.

https://www.worldswritingsystems.org/index.html

This four colour silkscreen poster presents one typographic reference glyph for all 293 known writing systems in the world, living or historical.

Monsters from Smash (and to grandkids) - Loose ends project

In case you missed it - the 2024 stamp designs have been announced - lots of good ones to come:

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2023/1023-usps-reveals-stamps-for-2024.htm

This envelope from Smash arrived in October. It reminds me of the previous robot series that she started. You can do a search on the blog for [robots] and see all kinds of fun stuff. I have been sending weekly envelopes to my grandkids and I knew that I would be stealing this idea. I had been sending them each an envelope, but found out that the two envelopes, mailed on the same day, seldom came on the same day. The second one of a set would arrive up to 3 days later. My solution is to put one envelope inside another - and save a stamp. Each kid will get to open something. 

Here's the one I sent, inspired by Smash's. I happened to be walking through an apartment building when the mailman was filling the bank of mail boxes. I handed him the envelope and asked him if I could trust him to get it to its destination. Without missing a beat, he said, "Sure. I'll drive it over there right now." I love postal workers.

My grandkids are not keeping any of their mail - so I put very little time into them -- I like this idea enough that I might redo it - and approximate Smash's work a little better.

***

Here is a heartwarming IG account - where people volunteer to finish a project for a family where the person who started the project has passed away.

https://www.instagram.com/thelooseendsproject/

You will have to scroll back to see the story about this man. There will be new heartwarming stories that have been added.

Sept from Rachael - flower power

The minute this one showed up - I was very quick to steal the idea. Chuck was on the list with Rachael and when his arrived, he sent a photo of it to me because he liked it - but he thought it was printed. Nope - it's all by hand - and colored in beautifully with alcohol markers that do not leave layering marks. I had a whole conversation with Rachael and Chuck - through email - discussing brands of alcohol markers and various papers. We can all agree that Copics are good as well as expensive. Rachael tried the Dick Blick alcohol markers (I think that's what she used on this envelope) and said they cover beautifully - but the tips were getting a little mushy. We need to hear from Chuck about the brand he's been using - Ohuhu? I think that was the name. Somewhere I read a review of a brand that was cheaper than Copics - but they ran out of ink really fast. 

Here is the one I did -- as you can see - I ran out of steam on drawing and coloring in flowers. This is the first of about 30 envelopes that I did for the postal workers at my son's station. I did not block out the address because it is a post office - but I did block out last names.

 

BONUS Post

 Scroll down for today's regular post - 

I have not done this yet - just found an email from the USPS inviting me to post a video thank you to the postal workers --

Here is the link - it needs to be done promptly - I'll look into this and post more tomorrow

https://apwu.org/send-postal-workers-holiday-message-during-2023-peak-season?step=2&source=email-peakallies1&link_id=2&can_id=fbbff83c6620b76f312120947c7ef261&email_referrer=email_2121314&email_subject=firstname-commonize-default-apwu-member-are-you-thankful-for-postal-workers

Sept from Mia and Jessica - inspiration

Well, rats, I am in Chicago so I can't dig through my stacks to remind myself what Mia said about the inspiration for her design. It's possible that I can edit this post - when I get home - but - it's a solid 50-50 on whether or not that will happen. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't.

Below, Jessica was inspired by the shapes of the plants on the stamp. It would be fun to know how many times during these 5,885 posts I have suggested using the stamps for inspiration. I'm going to pass along another example of someone who is recognized as a creative force - Martin Scorsese - who appropriates ideas. I saw a video where he was talking about his 1 minute film for Chanel perfume. In the olden days we called them commercials - but apparently we don't do that anymore.

He started out by saying that it was harder to shoot a fabulous 1 minute film than to shoot a feature length film. I'm not going to even comment on that --- I sorta know what he saying - but - IMHO it's apples and oranges.

He went on to say that he was going to use a very specific film as his inspiration. Of course I have forgotten which film it was. It might have been an obscure Felini short - it doesn't matter - the point is that he boldly announces that he's going to do his own version of a very specific film. (And he might have specified two films - I don't have time to rewatch and get that detail correct.)

Once again - if people like Martin Scorsese are comfortable telling us where they get their ideas - then we should be just fine with snagging ideas from wherever we please. 

Sept from Cathy - metalsmithing

 I love ferns. Actual ferns will go nicely with the evergreen garden of my dreams. And I like this style of lettering - perfect with the very pretty stamps - I wonder if my stamp guy is still in town - or if he has headed south for the winter. I'll have to check.

There are only two more blogs to fill with my jabbering while I am on the trip to Chicago in October.

When I get home there will be a stack of mail from the exchange. It's always fun opening a whole stack.... I guess I'll be posting my Oct mail in December - or should I should save it for Oct of 2024....

***

Real time comment:  Saving mail for later causes endless confusion - so there has been a decree - all mail will be posted in the order in which it arrives. No exceptions. And this time I mean it.

***

This just in: We seldom if ever talk about current events - I think the last current event we mentioned was the pandemic. But yesterday I was scanning an article about the chaos surrounding AI and the firing of some head of some company - and this line jumped out at me. In case Rachael, who brought this phrase to our little band of envelopers, missed this - and for anyone who gets a kick out of how often we have the shared experience -- 

OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who led the board's anti-Altman rebellion, now says he "deeply regrets" his actions

Sept from Patty - sock game

How many of us are going to be stealing this idea? I have only used a couple of my stamps off this sheet. And I love the quilty design on the card. The clear address on the envelope is a good idea. Patty and Mary and I had an email conversation about why the PO is having trouble delivering to Patty. We have no idea - but, I said I would mention - once again - make your addresses clear and readable by a scanner - or be prepared for late delivery.

 

I'm almost done with the posts - that I am writing while I am on one of my mercy missions in Chicago. A mercy mission is when I just get all the daily chores done so that my daughter can get to some of the things on her *never-gets-done-list.* During the school year, the schedule is full so I don't get time to do any of the things someone like me would do in Chicago. If I'm going to have fun, I need to think up new games at the house - and the older the kids get the harder it is.

I saw a game for toddlers on Instagram that I lured these older kids into doing - and it was a big hit. If you have grandkids, I highly recommend this. You'll need someone about 7 or younger to get it started. Then an older one might want to join in.

You need a doorway in the middle of a fairly long hallway - or it could be a doorway off of a great room- towards the middle. My daughter has a pantry that opens onto a stretch of kitchen/great room/dining room - that gave the kids a good 30+ feet to run on either side of the doorway. 

Nanna gets a big pile of socks that are *balled up* and sits on the floor in the pantry. The kids run back and forth - and Nanna tries to throw the sock-balls and hit them as they run past the doorway. Nanna can hear them coming - but her aim is not very good - so she misses about 90% of the time. After all the socks have been thrown - the kids have to collect all the socks and return them for round two.

So - picture this game with a toddler -- they tend to last a lot longer at some of these silly games - but - I was pretty happy with how long the 7 yr old lasted. The 10 year old was upstairs and heard all the running and noise that comes with any kind of target based game. She thought that little brother had a rowdy friend over. When she came down and discovered that it was just Nanna and a pile of socks - she wanted to join. Having two of them was pretty good. The 10 year old didn't last very long. 

Sept from Kate - socks

This is a lovely (steal worthy) idea - to put a little caption under the stamps. I have no idea how hard it would be to come up with captions. This caption is really nice with the stamps. I had to look it up - and it is by Steven Sondheim from Sweeney Todd. 

*** 

If it sounded strange that two kids from a fairly normal/average/generic family would both feel like they had not ended up with their true parents - maybe it will help to give an illustration.

Apologies to anyone who remembers that I have told this story before. Hopefully this is only the second time. <pause> A quick search indicates that I reduced it to a single sentence in January of 2022 - so maybe I have not told the full story. 

When I was 4 or 5 my mom made me a dress with a red and navy plaid skirt and navy top. I had a pair of double strap Mary Janes that were dark red. She bought navy blue anklets for me to wear with the dress. Even though I could see the red and blue in the plaid - the solid blue socks with the red shoes looked horrific to me. I'm not sure how intense my tantrums were - and even though my mom and I used to talk (and laugh) about the whole debacle - she did understand that it was clearly foreshadowing of my artistic leanings.

At the time it seemed impossible that I was related to someone who would put navy blue socks with red shoes. I am curious if any readers had similar experiences when they were youngsters. 

Happily, my mom and I mended the fences and she was a good comrade during my child rearing years because she could appreciate that I had not been nearly as difficult as the kids I hatched. I had one that was a biter -- and he bit her one time -- so that made me look pretty civilized.

Sept from Amy - storks

I did not get any of these stamps and wonder if it is too late. It's a darling idea - and there was a bonus inside - a fun piñata with a virtual explosion. My grandkids would love this -- maybe I will make a second one so that they each get one in the mail. 

IMHO, my theory that our kids are often times not the types of people we were expecting is not all that uncommon. Although, I do not have any tips for how to cope with getting blind sided by those curious strangers who show up when you thought you were hatching a nice *chip off the old block.* My only bit of insight is this: the kids are just as blindsided. A lot of them were not expecting the parents that they found when they were dropped down the chimney. 

My brother and I discovered - when we were in our 20s - that as kids, we had been skeptical that the stork had dropped us down the correct chimney. Not that we were unhappy with our parents - it just didn't seem like we had that much in common with them. Of course, we were both polite and kept that to ourselves. 

It is safe to say that I never met an alternative to my own parents who I thought would have been perfect. 

 

Sept from Maggie - Bill Kemp

 PPM, PointedPenMaggie - did a lovely side-bar on her envelope and some fan-brush-flowers.  Inside is her botanical illustration of lavender on a card that came in a dreamy little envelope. She noted that she took a Kemp Script class from Bill Kemp. Bill is a past president of IAMPETH. I met him at the very first conference I attended. We had so much fun. I still have the *Killer O* that he wrote for me.

You may see more of his work here - LINK to Bill's website

He lists the classes he teaches. His script is more relaxed than traditional copperplate - so - it's a fun one if you are not in a regimented mode.

That *more to come* I mentioned yesterday will pop up tomorrow.

Sept from Sharon

So cute - Sharon, too, must have the book - or maybe we can find images from the book online. I love the design on the crafty-colored paper - the white really pops. I love the French roundhand.  Love it - love it - love it.

And Sharon saw my peacock series - way back in 2015 and did a fun peacock themed card for the inside. For some reason - the peacocks playing poker did not come up. I'll need to do some searching because I know I posted it. <pause> Well, that was easy - you just search *peacocks playing poker* in the search feature on my blog. 

My envelope even pops up on a regular Google search, too. I'm always impressed when Google has me high on any hit list - or maybe that's not a good thing.

***

So - which is harder - children or adult children? 

Whichever one you have currently.

Or maybe it's the other way around.

I have no idea what it would have been like to have a kid that was on my wavelength. I don't think there is anything wrong with picturing a kid that has familiar traits as well as traits that resemble the other parent - Maybe a 33/33/33 split - with 33% of the offspring being unique - leaving the parents wondering a bit -- but - here's where the storks get involved. They appear to have dropped all the eggs and broken them - and then when they put the yolks and whites back into the replacement shells - you may or may not get kids that you even recognize.

And there's more---
 

Sept from Christy

 This is a nice set of three images. Playing with scale is one of my favorite ways to come up with designs. The idea to add a tree works very nicely. Cover up the apple - and the stamp and the tree together are fine - but the big apple adds so much. and then cover up the tree and picture just the stamp and the big apple. That would have been fine - but the tree adds a lot. And then take the stamp away - and have a tree and a big apple - and that doesn't make much sense. I guess you could put the apple in the foreground and slide the tree behind it - to have them relate -- but - IMHO - the three together are better than any combination of just two.

***

Where are we on our 10 day rant? Seems like yesterday we got into the whole thing about how some people like consistency and others like variety - and that certainly brings us back to the challenges of family members trying to grow up in peace and harmony. Of all the things I had to wrap my head around when the stork started dropping babies down my chimney - is that storks have no idea what they are doing. 

Those babies are so random. And I've observed families where everyone appears to be on the same wavelength - but, IMHO, it does not happen all that often. I think I forgot to answer the question - which is harder - children or adult children? Answer coming up tomorrow.

To Sam, Amy, Maggie, Mia - in Oct

OK - we might be getting to the end of the Oct exchange envelopes. These two were my favorites. Mostly - it's because of the size of the letters. I could have done a lot of other names (first names) at this size - but I was already done with the Oct envelopes. I also like that I loosened up a bit. That only happens when I do at least 7 or maybe 10-12 envelopes in the same style. Apologies for saying this thing that I say over and over and over. If you want to get loose - or relaxed - you just have to do a lot of the same thing.....

I like the way I did the rainbow shading inside of Amy's.

Of course - right after I put in the time to loosen up and do something I like - I take it too far - and end up doing something that's not as good as the one that I was finally happy with. So why, once I have something I like - do I keep going? 

Because that's how it works. 

For me.

I'm not saying any of this makes sense for anyone else. There are a lot of people that want to look at one thing and work to get to that point and then be very satisfied with getting there. And then stay there. But - some of us are not content to get to a point and stay there. We have some little demon that keeps asking for variation. So - that's what we do - we seek variety.

***

It is now *real time* and Mia's envelope was hiding at the bottom - so it didn't have any words to go with it - and I do not recall what I would have said about it. I do not recall doing it - or whose idea I was appropriating at the time. I like that triple dot on the I's. 

Oct to Abigail + Alex and Ben

This is some more of that alphabet that I can't find - although there are actually 3 halloween alphabets that I can't find. This was the outer envelope to the Quiroz ladies - and rather than nest three inside of this - I did the other 3 names on one envelope - and then forgot to take a  photo.

Below are envelopes I sent to my grandkids. The envelopes were stamped and addressed envelopes from the Save the Dates that I sent out 12 years ago for the wedding of their parents. There were mistakes that I did not discover until after I had put the stamps on. I have some sticker paper that is opaque - so I just covered up the addresses and did new ones.

The lettering reminds me of PicklePie -- which you may find through the search box on the blog. Is it too wacky to use for an exchange envelope? Maybe I can think of something to add to it to make it exchange-worthy. 

Oct to Jan

 Jan is Smash's husband - and she put his name on the exchange list. I have had this page of stamps for quite a while - and while they seemed like a good idea when I bought them, they sometimes strike me as a little depressing. Once I found that marker - I was pretty happy with how it came together. There is a smear on the j - which is why there are too many dots over there. I probably could have gotten away with people not noticing - if I had not mentioned it - but, I outed myself for those of you who looked at it and wondered why it was a little overboard on dots around the j.

I'm not going to let myself drone on and on about raising kids and age related challenges. It is Oct 16th as I write this and historically, Oct is a month of adjusting to the cold and So.Much.Decay. All that work to get things to grow - and it's all becoming mulch and compost. It just dawned on me that it would make more sense to plant evergreens everywhere. Does anyone do that? <pause to research> 

Yup. That's a thing. Why the heck did I not come up with this brilliant idea 44 years ago? The bigger question is - will I be able to convince my son to switch to evergreens? Oops - we're back to child rearing. Topic for tomorrow - which is harder - children or adult children?

Oct to Mary

 This is an appropriation of an idea from Ruth - note to self - check in with Ruth. I always have a heck of a time getting it to fit. One would think that I'd pencil it first - since I am perpetually mentioning that penciling is the most obvious way to avoid fitting problems - and then - like the ding-dong that I am, I don't do it. <sigh>

I'm hopeless. So I'll just go ahead with the serial whining posts that started out with child-rearing and then quickly morphed into the true dilemma - *things* change - which keeps us all at various stages of cluelessness. Boomers were pretty good at jumping on the internet bandwagon - but that was the tip of the iceberg. Then we had to figure out PayPal. 

Somewhere along the line I signed up for Zelle - but only used it once - and then came Venmo. And even in sleepy little Des Moines - there are places that are no longer dealing in cash - so I have to wrap my head around that. 

Oct to Lynne and Kate

Lynne's was done with the white ink that never dries - although hers did get a lot better after I left it on my desk for a while. I had done Kate's - same ink - same day - and it did not get better - so I layered it with some non-stick paper and put it in a second envelope. As I recall - there is also a Mary Engelbreit greeting card inside. I'm not doing very well at getting my stash of cards out the door.

***

Chapter 2 of my whining about child rearing. 

It occurs to me that it has nothing to do with kids - it's all about the incremental shift in everything that we learn when we are kids. By the time we are adults and raising kids - all the things we learned have changed. OK - that's an overstatement. A few things are the same - but not enough for us to have any idea what's going on. 

During a conversation with my grandson - something came up about chalk - and I asked him if they even used chalkboards at school. He said he knew that the white boards and smart boards were covering up the old chalk boards. Smart boards? I can only imagine what they are. Sounds like Big Brother to me....from the book 1984 - I wonder if anyone reads that book any more. Maybe they should reissue it with a new title: 2084.