Garden news, or, How is July almost over?

The summer is flying by! I have definitely been writing lots of mail, but admittedly I have been spending more time in my garden. I can only garden in the summer, so I try to live it up and maximize my outdoor gardening time during every available moment.



The weather has been truly gorgeous, and I have had many available moments to have my hands in the dirt! Since I haven't posted in a while (again), I wanted to share with you photos of where and how I've been spending most of my time.



I am a sucker for color, and I'm all about the flowers! (Alex does the veggies, and I do the flowers. Though he does a few flowers here and there, and I do no veggies. But we have a nice little team thing going.)

I've also been posting to instagram a lot lately, so if you want to have a look at my photos there, have a look at my MissiveMaven instagram pix.



I've been writing a lot more mail but not photographing much of it, but here's a nice picture I arranged earlier in the summer.

How is your summer going? Are you having a good mail summer?

A good mail weekend

I've had a lot of other stuff going on in my life lately, and I haven't been spending as much time on mail as I'd like... but this weekend, especially Sunday, I got back into it and wrote a bunch of letters and postcards. It felt wonderful to immerse myself in mail all day long again!

There are changes afoot, and I will share the news in due time... but for now, I will say I am thankful for the wonderful world of mail as a longtime hobby and passion that has sustained me through many circumstances and changes.

Happy mailing, everyone!

Writing, not blogging

Settling into a new life is busy, yes, but I've been taking time to write instead of to blog. My apologies to blog readers for neglecting my beloved blog, but here are some photos of the fruits of all my letter-writing last weekend. My beloved and I were both feeling a little under the weather, so we just hunkered down at home and I wrote mail for much of the day on Saturday and Sunday. It was lovely. And now this week I've had a lot more mail to show for it!



I always like to add photos with blog posts whenever possible, but I have to confess that after having been a loyal and devoted Flickr user since 2005, I utterly loathe what Flickr has become with this latest redesign. I've been avoiding it because it leaves an icky taste in my mouth now. So that makes me want to avoid blogging with photos, which is no good, either. I am seriously considering leaving Flickr, even though I have thousands upon thousands of photos there. Are there any other Flickr users who have felt compelled to do so, and have found a decent photo site alternative?

Outgoing February 4: a prolific mail weekend

I am at the end of a special long weekend - I actually had 4 days off from work in a row!! This, during my busiest season, is particularly exciting. On Sunday, I went on a big mail extravaganza, and finally not only had a nice pile of outgoing mail to photograph, but actually remembered to photograph it, too. In here are personal letters, personal postcards, Postcrossing postcards - even my dreaded "tourist" postcards (but a lot of Postcrossers love 'em, so I keep 'em on hand).



I was pretty decorative with stamp choice along with stickers - and you can see that I FINALLY received my new Global Forever stamps, too. Yay.

To everyone, a good mail day!

Where outgoing letters await their journey, part 2

I always love to see where people stack their letters before they hit the mail. You know, the product of a day's or evening's letter-writing, where all the proud mail pieces sit until they begin their postal journey. A while back I posted about how I lined them up on the staircase, a sort of natural resting spot near the front door in my old apartment, but no such architecture presented itself naturally in this new place.



My husband insisted I should have something special (he is a good egg, that one), and I searched and searched for something just right. I came up with this metal item because it is both mail-evocative, with the envelope design, and because the front flap is a great place to secure/hang something whose glue, glitter or adhesive is still drying, to keep it separate from the other mail piled up in the back. And I can still get a good view of what's in there, and when it's full.



If you don't read my blog all that closely or regularly, you may think the bat is just Halloween decor, but no... my love of bats keeps that little purse-item hanging there year-round. It serves as not only decor but also a catcher for overflow mail, on days when I've been particularly productive.



I know someone will ask, so I'll just share that I found this Umbra Lettro Brushed Aluminum Letter Organizer very reasonably priced on Amazon.

Where do your letters await their journey?