mail

I love mail. I get really excited to check the mailbox every day even though I almost never have any reason to be expecting anything. When something does come, besides a coupon for a store I never shop at, it's really wonderful. But I also love the other half of mail, which is making it for all of my lovely friends.

About six months ago, I started documenting the things I sent out, because I tend to spend a long time on them and then sometimes (hardly ever) they get lost, which is terrible. I also thought it would be fun (and useful) to keep track of what I sent to people, so I would know if sending more Garfield cartoons would be an annoyance or a delight. A lot of times I get too excited while making the mail and I seal up the envelope (usually I make the envelopes out of magazine pages for added fanciness) before I take a picture of the contents. Sometimes I even mail it without taking a picture of the envelope, so I sometimes get a message from someone saying "thanks for sending that thing" or "I'm such a bad friend, I totally owe you mail" and I've forgotten that I sent them anything at all. Not a perfect system, but at least now I remember SOME things I send out.

So I thought I would share a few pictures from my mail documentation project, to encourage you to send me something. (Just kidding. Sort of.) You can click on the photos to enlarge.






The tiny envelopes got put inside of a pinata with a bunch of other letters for a birthday present. In case any of you are wondering, my birthday is September 22nd. 

I wish you non-seasonal happiness

We didn't go out for New Year's Eve. I have a somewhat irrational hatred for this "holiday" as it is so terribly arbitrary. Maybe it's just because I'm constantly making resolutions that aren't year-based. Or because I think it's just an excuse to get drunk, and if you want to get drunk why do you have to wait until December 31st anyway? Or maybe it's just that my heart is three sizes too small.

But I love Christmas. See:


Yesterday we sent 31 variously-sized pieces of mail, including some New Years Cards which I felt it necessary to make instead of printing more Christmas cards after Christmas was over. I'll post a photo after the packages start to arrive. There was a terrible line after us when we left the Post Office. Channing said "that was really fun, but it would be more fun if someone mailed us back." Which some people sometimes do, and it is indeed very fun.

One of the packages was this tiny baby hat, which is not completed in this photo:

It's for a tiny baby, so it didn't fit on my head once it was done. But I think I may have made it far too big, so it might not fit her until she's five or something. I've never made a hat for a human before, so it would have been easier if I'd had her to try it on instead of using an approximately baby-head-sized mixing bowl.

I stuffed my giraffe.


And I had this amusing holiday dream, but it's taking 1000 hours to upload, so you can just look at my youtube channel in a while if you want to hear me talking about Jimmy Durante kittens. (Update: it finished! )

Maybe we will paint the living room sometime in the next four days. We are finishing up the "small" home improvement projects now, so maybe we'll have leftover energy for moving on to the main project. Maybe tomorrow would be better.