a new babe

Today I was on the Sunshine Coast visiting friends and I mailed a postcard to some other friends who recently had a baby, to congratulate them and welcome the little dude.

a quick funny

To my friend Matt, who I call Pants.  He is a good friend and I thought he would like this comic that refers to pants.

The card has a photo on it that I took of an Italian motorcycle with my reflection in it.  I love reflections.

catching up

Today I mailed a letter to my friend Laura, in Victoria.  Laura is a mom of a friend of Aylah’s and last summer her and her family moved to Victoria.  I have to say my drop-offs and pick-ups to Aylah’s school have been fairly anti-climactic since she moved.

Have you ever met someone and got to know them slowly and because of circumstance (like you see them at your kid’s school almost every day), you never make time to hang out with them other than when you run into them?  And when you do run into them, you have great conversations and feel a real connection and then that situation changes (like that person moves away) and you feel like you lost someone, a good friend, even though you only ever saw them at your kid’s school, or that store you go to, or the library or something?  Well, those are my feelings around Laura.  I wish she was still here and I would make time to hang out with her outside of our great interactions at our kids’ school and we would be good friends.  I just know it.  But instead I have a friend who lives in Victoria and today I filled her in a bit on life since she left and asked her to write me back with her stories.

And Aylah (who has been pining for a pen pal ever since she saw the movie Mary & Max) wrote a letter to her daughter Jill.  Jill is awesome and hilarious and we miss her a lot too.

thanks for a job well done

Today I picked up a framing I had done at Wendy Berry Custom Framing. She did such a stellar job, I thought she deserved a thanks.

a slip

Ack!  I forgot to do my blog post yesterday!!  I made the mail, photographed the mail and sent the mail but forgot to post about the mail!  So here it is:

I mailed a mixed cd that I made for my friend Kari, one of the only people who commented on how great the mixed cd was that Stefano and I made for our wedding last year.  She must have told me 6 times how much she loved the cd and how much she listened to it and I told her at the time that I would make her another one and it only took me 6 months to do it.

I also enclosed a photo of our bad dog Rae as Kari has dog-sat for us in the past and she claims she loves Rae even though he can be very, very bad.

Time to get going on today’s mail now!

 

the best grilled cheese ever

Today I wrote to the fine establishment that is the Commercial Street cafe.   I went there after walking the dog with 3 fighting kids in tow and working in the community garden, lifting sod with 3 fighting kids in tow.  I was starving and their grilled cheese (something I would never usually order) saved my life.  I feel like I earned and received a gold medal today that was in the form of a grilled cheese sandwich.  You should try it.

give and receive

Today I mailed a card and some gifts to my friend and business partner (one of two), Esther.

I also sent her a print out I found on-line of a hot water bottle cozy made out of an old turtle neck sweater that I asked if she could make for me.  She is a brilliant craftswoman and much more confident with fabric than I, so I figured I would ask and see if she could make it.  I guess it would have been better if I sent her a sweater to work with too, but maybe she has one lingering in the back of her closet, just waiting to be given a new life as a hot water bottle cozy.  I hope so.

And the fob is hard at work today too.

for my mother-in-law

I mailed a card and some seeds to my mother-in-law today.  She lives here in Vancouver, but I don’t see her that often, so mail it is.

The seeds I mailed are an artichoke variety called cardoon that she was talking about last year.  At the time I really didn’t think anything of it, but then I saw cardoon in a still life at the Rembrandt exhibit (not by Rembrandt, but another artist who used incredible light and had the cardoon and a dead pheasant portrayed) and saw it mentioned in something I read recently so I looked it up.  Turns out our own West Coast Seeds carries it so I thought I would buy one for me and one for her.  It’s a perennial, grows up to 4 feet tall and you eat the leaves, not the flower.

Apparently the leaves are kind of thistle-like and so it is hazardous to clean them, but once you do and you chop them up and steam them, they taste very much like artichokes.  With way less hassle I think.  I started mine indoors today.  Yum!

Irises for Iris

Today I sent a short note to my aunt Iris with some information I found in a magazine about irises.  I know she knows a lot about them (she has quite a collection in her garden from what I can remember), but there was one (see the bottom right in the photo) called “Starship Enterprise” that I think she should have, her being a Trekkie and all.

 

catch up

Well, I was away in Cawston visiting Rowan from Wednesday to today and while I sent mail, the internet there was terrible so I could not blog about the mail I sent.  Here it is in a nutshell:

On Wednesday, a birthday card to Robert, a good friend from a past life.  Him and his wife Kathryn are like a surrogate aunt and uncle to me.  Kathryn is a Capricorn like me and Robert a Pisces like Aylah.  Recently we lost touch for close to a year and then Robert phoned and we caught up.  It turns out he was saving comics for me for that whole time which was amazing to receive.  Any of you who receive a comic in the mail have Robert to thank.

On Thursday, a postcard to my friend Sam who is supposed to be coming here with her husband and daughter this summer for a couple of weeks.  I wanted to check in with them and this postcard looks good and travel-like which will hopefully encourage them to pack their bags!

And today a thank you to Kevin and Anna Marie Klippenstein for letting us hang out on their farm so we could visit Rowan and learn from some of the best farmers around.

Phew!  All caught up.