Yes this post is about random stuff and I am really stretching the alliteration…

Correspondence

During my late teens and into my twenties I had regular pen pals. These pen pals including a friend who was studying in India and she would send me wonderful letters from India; and a friend who was studying abroad in Europe – Italy and the UK. I would get awesome long letters on a regular basis. It was the 1980s and 1990s and e-mailing was not yet a thing (public access to the internet wasn’t even a thing).

Then during the later 1990s into the 2000s and beyond, with e-mail and eventually texting and social media expanding, “snail mail”/postal mail correspondence evaporated from my life except for occasional cards/letters from my friend in Denmark and then Austria.

I missed writing and receiving physical correspondence with different people. It is so wonderful to hold a letter/card in your hand and read it instead of staring at a computer screen.

But over the past couple of years “snail mail” has resurfaced regularly in my life and I love it!

I’ve met a couple people through blogging that I correspond via postal mail with on a fairly regular basis as well as several friends around the US and the world that I’ve known in person. I’ve discovered a community of people who love sending and receiving letters.

I have a friend in Arkansas who is an excellent pen pal with exceptional penmanship (my handwriting is terrible and sometimes I just send typed letters inside a card) who is also very talented at decorating envelopes which makes the card or letter inside even more special.

Here is a recent envelope I received from her (and the dreamy card of reading a book on a train):

The sticker made me laugh – think I want to be a shenanigan enthusiast!:

Another fun envelope by the same friend (enclosed in another envelope with the postal address):

I have a California based pen pal who is an incredibly talented card maker. I’ve dabbled in card making but I am currently trying to use my large stash of purchased/thrifted cards.

Here is one of her amazing cards I was lucky to receive:

I keep correspondence in keepsake boxes and it’s fun to revisit cards and letters!

Charcuterie

I am obsessed with charcuterie boards and I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to charcuterie and I even bought the book The Art of the Board by Olivia Carney:

I’m still learning how to put together a good charcuterie board but I jump on any opportunity or excuse to make one. Recently I had a neighbor (who is a vegetarian) over to lunch and made with with my homemade hummus:

I know, I know, it’s not all on the same board and I am using little bowls which is probably cheating, but I am working on improving my “charcuterie-ing’ – ha! I’d like to get to the point of creating sunflower cheese boards like those pictured in the screen shot above of my Pinterest board.

Cute Roses

Ending this post of random stuff with an update from the July 12th post Agriculture Report: An Evolving Garden. Our roses in pots are now blooming big time. Here is an example of one of the pots which contains cute pink roses: