Different Names For The Same Thing

Today my friend Manneh came for a brief visit then he and his dad gave me a lift to Mayfield where I went visit my brother and his wife and little Rosie. I got to play with Rose for ages and even though she was teething and grumpy she gave me a few gorgeous crooked smiles. I'm glad that seeing my niece once a fortnight totally satisfies my baby-love-quota and I feel no need to get one of my own any time soon. Later my brother gave me enough change for the bus fare home and I got off near my friend Doug's house and went to deliver him a birthday postcard that read 'Today is the perfect day for you to thank me for remembering your birthday' (his birthday is in fact tomorrow). We hung out there for a bit and I ate lots of Doug's junk food while he showed me pictures from Awkward Family Photos that he'd photoshopped the heads of his friends onto. Our friend Zoe came over and we all went out to the mall and wandered around, I forgot how anxious and claustrophobic being at the mall on a Thursday night can make you feel. I finally found the Kikki-K store, though I have a total of $1.32 in my bank account so I didn't bring anything awesome home. So many amazing over-priced items! Eventually I got home and commanded that C ride to the shops to buy the ingredients to make an awesome pumpkin and feta pie which he is now cooking. Mmm. Then we're going to have pancakes with chocolate and then we're going to watch Breaking Bad season 2, and that's been my super interesting day!

Mmmmail;

^ This sweet package came from the ever generous mail mistress Lauren. The book is awesome and I can't wait to get some junk mail so I can try some out! :P Thanks so much Lauren!

^ A lovely letter from a lovely lady - Carly from A Girl and Her Blog. She included a pack of two awesome pads that I'm hopefully going to write lots of 'good' and 'crazy' ideas on correspondingly.

^ A very pretty green floral package from Malu in the Philippines that included three awesome smiley themed lettersets. I can't wait to try them out - such a lovely little gift!

^ A great sunny Floridian postcard from Lauren.

^ Beautiful glow worm cave postcard from Rebecca.

^ A pretty postcard with an added Tweety sticker from Malu. This girl has the loveliest font-like handwriting, I'll have to show you sometime.

When I cleaned my desk up yesterday I decided I needed a better system for storing letters that have been replied to, other than the very overflowing folder they were formerly kept in, so I unearthed a big plastic storage box from in the shed (emptied some of C's semi-important miscellanea out of it first) and filled it up with letters. I didn't count how many were in there but I'd guess at least a hundred, maybe two, from the past six months, and I just thought it was amazing; all of these letters from all over the world, from different people from different walks of life, all with different stories, different handwriting, different decorations, different stamps, different postmarks. Lately I've been feeling really overwhelmed by the amount of mail I have sitting around needing replies and worrying about how much time I'll have to devote to it soon (I'd love to know how Missive Maven does it!), but it's just such a beautiful art form, I don't know that I'll ever be able to stop! I hope that mail artists and letter writing aficionados can ensure that post refuses to die out. Sometimes I just find it amazing that someone on the other side of the world can put my name on an envelope, attach a stamp, put it in a box and a few days later it arrives at my house. I love it! :D

I spotted these today on Paper Tastebuds and they are totally my kind of kitchen ware! From the Memo collection by Fishs Eddy. Their other dinnerware sets are pretty cute too;