Recent Outgoing

 the above clipping of the girl in the dress has been in my hodgepodge of papers since I don't know when! I'm glad I finally used it. It feels very spring like!

 frog bag from a restaurant we went to near the Chicago airport 
I gave him a pink tie to jazz things up a bit

and a fun green glass envelope for Mandy. I love the Althea Gibson stamp.

Outgoing

More recent outgoing: 

from a magazine clipping that I've had forever, because I thought the dress was so pretty

an envelope that Dana made for me, sent back to her with a sparkly castle sticker! I think it makes it look like you're inside a little aquarium

frogs with clothes pins on their faces? What could be better for a belated birthday card?

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie : Book Review

Thanks to Mary R., another participant in the postal reading challenge, I found another book to read!  After Mary commented on my book review post of To the Letter, I went to her blog and browsed around for awhile. I've never read a book blog and I found it really interesting. She participates in a lot of challenges which I thought was really cool. It makes reading seem almost like a scavenger hunt!  

Anyway, I came across a book that sounded really cool, and you'll see why it caught my eye. The title is : The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

I clicked on the link and then I saw the cover...

Yup that's a dead bird with a postage stamp stuck on it's beak! Pie and stamps? I knew I had to get this book.

I got it out from the university library and read it all the same day!
I really enjoyed it. It's a mystery novel and the sleuth is an 11 year old girl named Flavia de Luce. She loves chemistry and poisons and her father is a philatelist!

The action really begins when a dead bird shows up on the doorstep with a stamp stuck on its beak. 

The plot revolves around the story of a very rare stamp, an orange printing of the penny black.  I've searched online and from what I can tell, the story of the stamp is fictional.

My favorite part of the book: Flavia de Luce. She's a really great character, definitely a genius. Some of the reviews I've read say that it's unbelievable that a child of 11 could do these things, but geniuses do exist, and she's also very much a child. For instance she frequently starts singing little bits of song or shouts out things when she's alone, riding her bike or something. That reminds me very much of myself when I was a child.

My least favorite part of the book: This is not to say that this is a bad part, just that... well it's when you realize that she's really learned too much and that she's in grave danger, but she hasn't realized it yet! Oooh, that feeling in your heart when you kind of clench up! It was really quite scary at the end!

So far there are 6 books published in the Flavia de Luce series and I am definitely interested in reading the next one!

Hubble Hump Day!

 

Sometimes Hubble gets "stuck" under the curtains after looking out the window. I think he likes it because he doesn't really try to get away, he just sits there for a while moving his head a little bit. Clay thinks he looks like a Jedi.

Outgoing

Recent outgoing: 

from an old calendar that Clay had

repurposing USPS mail!

from a zebra bag from a zoo!

sparkles and Boba Fett go together like WHOA

To The Letter : Book Review

At the beginning of this year I saw this blog post by The Indextrious Reader about a postal reading challenge. Perfect for me since I love books and mail!

I had the perfect book to start with too! For Christmas I had received To the Letter by Simon Garfield. It's a non-fiction book and a very pleasant and interesting read. It did take me a really long time to finish it though.

Some chapters were definitely more interesting than others. I really enjoyed learning about how one addressed people of higher social status than you (and equal, and lower). It has to do with where you write their name and your name on the sheet. It was a little difficult to understand at first and I think there should have been a photograph or model showing it. I already knew some of the history of the Penny Black, the first postage stamp, but To the Letter went into it in much greater detail than what I knew. I also really enjoyed how many ideas I got for more books to read! In almost every chapter he talks about collections of letters that sound really interesting.

My favorite thing about the book: seeing a photo of a letter by Magritte written in french with a little drawing of a hot air balloon and being able to read some of it!! 
"Je rentre d'un séjour d'une semaine à la mer ... (can't make it out) et je trouve ton appel en rentrant- C'est cruel comme coïncidence, mais ni toi ni moi n'en sommes responsables."
"I return from a weeklong trip to the sea... and on returning I find your call - It's a cruel coincidence, but neither you nor I are responsible."
Here's a photo of the letter. 

My least favorite thing about the book:  Between the chapters there's a series of letters from WWII  from a couple: Chris Barker and Bessie Moore. Because of the nature of the war, Chris had to destroy a lot of Bessie's letters because he couldn't take them with him. This results in a very one sided conversation for most of our reading. It's a love story... they fall in love with one another through the mail. I just didn't really like Chris very much at all. He seemed kind of domineering... but it's hard to tell with just one side of the story. 
But who knows? Maybe the letters will be your favorite part! In fact here's a review from the Guardian that calls their letters the "most compelling part of his book". This review strangely uses the verb "pinging" a lot.

All told, I really enjoyed this book!

Recent Incoming

 I think I got these two colorful envelopes on the same day! It was a happy mailbox!

I love this Harry Pottery envelope! 

Lots of great mail from wonderful people!