Moving soon, etsy store soon on hiatus

In mid-August I'll be moving to lovely New Hampshire. I can't wait! I love New England and I'm so excited to be back up there again... but I really dislike the actual moving part, especially long-distance moves. (But really, does anyone ENJOY moving?)

It's time to pack all my stuff. Ugh. Packing stationery is not so hard, it's not fragile and it lays nice and flat in a box. Packing fountain pen inks, not so fun. Anyhoo, I'm going to leave my Etsy shop open a while longer, but eventually I will have to close the etsy store briefly while items are packed and being moved.

If you've had a yen to pick up any of my writing themed goods from Missive Maven on etsy, now is the time. I don't know the exact date I'll close the shop yet, but it will be sometime in early August... depends on how the packing goes.

My etsy shop isn't closing for good, of course: I'll re-open once everything is settled and unpacked in our new location.

Wish me luck packing!

Coming full circle: a transition back to music

I hinted in a previous post that there were changes afoot, and now is the time to share some personal information. I've held back from sharing professional information on my blog, because this is a hobby blog and I have felt strongly that it's important to keep that part of my life separate. I still feel that way to some degree, but I have some big changes coming and I would like to share them.

When I began this blog in 2008, I was, professionally, a musician and music teacher. I'm not going to bog this post down with too many details, but for a variety of reasons, when we moved to Washington, DC in 2013, I had to give that up for a while and work a non-music, non-teaching office job. It was more challenging than I had imagined, and I think that was a big part of why I had such a hard time with DC. I am sure that my distaste for Our Nation's Capital is in many ways my transferring my dissatisfaction with my life here to a dislike for the city itself. Regardless, I have been unhappy in DC, and DC will soon be in my past. I'm thrilled to be able to be returning to music in the fall, when I will return to my alma mater, the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, for graduate school. We're moving back up to New England in a couple of months (HOORAY!) and I will be a full-time grad student. I hope to return to performing and teaching in the future, once I am a Master of Music. (What a strange term, but I'll play with those words.)

I am a classically-trained improvisational singer, and I explore many styles including jazz. If you are interested in taking a look and a listen, here are a couple of links from two of my favorite performances in the past couple of years:

• "I Like the Sunrise" by Duke Ellington: piano/vocal arrangement from May 2013 performance
• "Throw it Away" by Abbey Lincoln: a cappella vocal arrangement from May 2015 performance (apologies for the very poor video quality!)

Both of the arrangements are my own, as are all the performances in each of those video playlists. In the future I hope to have a professional website to share, with more recordings and videos.

The next few months are going to be a big time of transition for me, as we do a long-distance move and I switch from working in an office full-time to being a music grad student full-time. I am looking forward to this change more than I can possibly put into words, so I won't even try to articulate it. I do hope to continue with this blog and all my mail habits as best I can, though I may be exploring the possibility of ads on this blog. I will apologize again for posting less than I had hoped throughout the past year - auditioning for grad school took up a lot of time and energy, and I kept that under my hat for a long time! - and I thank all my blog readers, both longtime and newcomers, for staying with me through the journey.

In the meantime, I'll keep writing letters and postcards, and I promise - the next post will be back on track and mail-related!

How did it get to be July?!?

Wow, July snuck up on me! June was a whirlwind with moving and starting a new life in a new city, but I'm feeling settled now. My apologies to all my lovely blog readers -- I confess I've been neglecting this blog. I've been out doing moving-in stuff, exploring DC, and, yes, I've been writing letters! In the difficult calculus of free time, I've opted to write letters instead of blog about writing letters. I've gotten some fun mail recently, though, so I do hope to blog about that soon... and maybe show my new writing desk setup.

I hope everyone is out there having a great summer, and enjoying many good mail days!

I'm all moved!

Greetings from Washington, DC! We are all safely moved, and if not completely settled, we are happily settling in. My stationery is (mostly) unpacked, and my writing desk is nearly set up, and my etsy shop is once again open for business.

There are a lot of things to do and to learn with a move - where is the best grocery store? Gotta get that new driver's license, etc - so I'm still pretty busy, but I hope to be more of a presence and back into more regular blogging (and letter-writing!) soon. If anyone has any recommendations for interesting activities for letter-writers in Washington, DC, do let me know!

In other news, I just had my 1000th Postcrossing postcard registered - it was US-2259464 to Germany - so I'm pretty excited about that big milestone, too.

Missive Maven on etsy is moving, too

Pictured: Zesty French Postman notecards

Along with my move to a new city, my etsy shop inventory must move, too. From June 1 to somewhere in the middle of June - June 15, let's hope? - MissiveMaven.etsy.com will go on vacation. All my wares currently in the shop will reappear once I'm resettled in DC (if I don't sell out beforehand, that is!), but if there's anything you're wanting, do make that purchase before June 1, or it will need to wait until later in June when I am unpacked and can re-open the shop.

Packing... ugh. I'd rather be writing letters.

Moving is not conducive to letter-writing (or blogging)

Hello, dears - I am still here... sort of, anyway. I am now deep in moving hell. Lots of cardboard boxes. I move to Washington, DC in less than a month. Things are progressing as nicely as can be expected, really -- I have an apartment and a job, hooray! -- but it is just as busy as busy can be around my humble (increasingly boxed) abode. The cats are nervous, I am stressed, and... well, you know how it goes.

The priority is getting everything ready for the move, and of course finishing out the job I have now... so I haven't had much time to do mail, and even less time to blog about it. Apologies for disappearing. I hope to give a more detailed update soon, but I was just fairly aghast when I looked at my blog for the first time in over a week, and realized it had been weeks since I posted, hence this brief update.

Now, back to packing...

Missive Movin'...

I have exciting news. (It is actually terrifying and exciting all at the same time, but I'm focusing on the exciting part.) This has been brewing for a while, and if you've noticed that I've been blogging a little less, my apologies... I've been busy in a whole new way.



Sometime soon, most likely in June, I will be moving.



I am tantalizing you with photos of my new location-to-be.



Have you figured it out yet?



Washington, DC -- here I come!

We spent most of the week there last week, checking out the scene and specifically looking at apartments. We need to find a place to live, and oh yes, a little detail - I need to find a job. Any DC folks with tips, I'd love to hear them! We are familiar with the city but it's still a big incredible exciting ($$$EXPENSIVE$$$) move.

Though I'm still in Newport for a while yet, I definitely feel like I'm already in transition. It's a fluttery, strange feeling. I've done cross-country moves before, but never to a city this big.

So a few notes as relate to this blog and my correspondence:

I don't know my new address yet. I won't for a while. I'm trying to be patient. I've gotta find a place to live first. I will keep my Newport address well after the move, and I will use mail forwarding from the U.S. Postal Service as well as a backup option from my UPS Store mailbox service. Never fear, I am hoping the mail transition will be a fairly smooth one.

Space is going to be at a premium. I live in a fairly spacious house right now (that I don't own, so no worries about selling it - whew!) with incredible amounts of storage. I am going to move to a tiny apartment, which will be half the size of my house if I'm lucky. I am doing a lot of downsizing. I will be listing a lot of items in my etsy store. I will be putting a lot in storage, and divesting myself of some other possessions in various ways. For all of my blog readers and lovely pen pals who send me surprises, I love them, but please don't send me stuff now. Everything I look at is regarded as more expensive pounds to move or to store, and I am trying to get rid of stuff in a major way.

I am going to be on a much tighter budget. (WAY poorer until I find a job!) Right now I'm pretty comfortable, I don't make all that much money but my housing and utilities are provided by my employer, so my expenses are nearly nil. This will not be the case come June. DC is a very expensive city, the process of moving alone will be costly, and money worries are starting to set in already. I have run this blog for the past four years as a labor of love, and I've kept it ad-free because I can. I am considering a change to allowing ads on this blog. I welcome feedback as always.

You'll be hearing plenty more from me in the future about moving plans, and I'm curious to see how my letter-writing life will transition to my new home. One of the most exciting things about Washington, DC is all the culture and museums, though, and sometime soon you'll be seeing my blog post about my first, fantastic visit to the National Postal Museum!

Moved!

Here is a happy Soda, showing how well she is settling into our new home. (Pizza is a moving ritual for us, and Soda likes to get up close and personal when she is unsure.)

There are still a few boxes around, but we're nearly there. My stationery is halfway unpacked, and I believe I shall complete that unpacking (along with a slight reorganization, of course) this afternoon.

I don't know yet where outgoing letters will sit - we don't have that fun staircase like we had in our old apartment, but I'll figure something out soon. I also don't yet know where my prime letter-writing space will be... we'll just have to live here a while to find the best domestic patterns for this new space.

Thanks for everyone's kind moving comments and good wishes, and I hope to be back in the groove of regular mail posts soon.

Meanwhile, Happy August!

Almost moved!

Well, I've not been writing much mail in the past few days, because my move is in high gear now. We have access to the new place and I can start to move things in today - no way am I packing all my bottles of fountain pen ink, those get a hand carry, thank you very much! - and the moving van comes on Monday morning.

The cats are all very much upset, of course, and this photo was taken a while ago... now there aren't enough unused boxes left to make a perch for Soda (who is nervously cleaning herself next to me on the couch right now). Just a few more days of real limbo, and hopefully we'll all be feeling at home in the new place before too long.

I finally bit the bullet yesterday and packed my stationery. Eeek! No postcards for me going out now, though I do have a hand-carry bag of some stationery essentials, and of course my fountain pens in their case get a hand-carry, too.

And I think I'd better quit blogging now, and start some transporting of the aforementioned items. If you want to send any good thoughts, please send them to my 3 cats, who will just not get over their nervousness for a while, no matter what we do. Moving is harder on cats than people, for sure.

Time to pack!

I have avoided mentioning this for fear of having to explain, incessantly, that MY MAILING ADDRESS WILL NOT CHANGE, but --
I will be moving soon.

(Dollars to donuts, someone is going to ask for my new address anyway. I don't have a new address. It's the same as ever, because I don't get my mail where I live. It's a rented box. Creepy stalkers can find my mailbox but not where I live. And my mailbox is guarded by scary creatures all the time. So don't even think about it, creepy stalkers.)

This will cause yet still more backups in staying on top of letters, which is why I'm trying to churn out so many now. Plus there's a vacation in the middle of July, I'll be away for a week, and then will move verrry shortly after I return from vacation.



But anyway. I just thought I'd show these cute photos of Soda "helping" me pack. Needless to say, the cats are NOT enthused. They know what the boxes mean - we've moved numerous times in their lives. Blah. We've promised them fun new cat furniture at the new place...

I am putting off packing my stationery and writing supplies until the VERY last minute, though!

One more time: please don't ask me what my new address will be - it doesn't change. My pen pals can write at the same address as always.