Sorry this mail call is a few days late, and that I haven’t posted “Dear November” either. With a new year around the corner, I think Sincerely Kate may need a new plan of attack. For now, though…
November 15th: The last mail call ended with a postcard from Russia, and this one is starting with another.
November 17th: After many –too many– days without Manolo Love, I finally got a letter from Jody.
November 18th: Pablo had another postcard for me, this time from a postcrosser in Germany.
November 19th: I got a letter from my newest pen pal, Amber.
November 23rd: I didn’t just get one postcard from Krista, but four of the things, hehe.
November 25th: Two more postcards were acquired thanks to Pablo.
November 28th: The Christmas gift Gabe ordered for the Loganator arrived today.
November 29th: I heard from Jody yet again.
November 30th: I heard from Kristy next, and Logan got a package from his Papa Halvorson.
December 1st: This month started with a Christmas card (how timely!), two postcards, and the last ever batch of Little Cards.
December 3rd: If getting a letter from Amber along with a Christmas (post)card weren’t cool enough, I/we also got a letter from the school saying Logan is basically one of their Students of the Month, hehe.
December 4th: Last but not least, my order of Christmasy stamps arrived.
Though blogging about happy mail seems to have taken a backseat as of late, I’m excited to get it all the same. When you pen pal, it’s almost like you get presents all year long, hehe. Hope your holidays will be happy ones, by the way!
November 3rd: Many mail calls have started with a letter from Jody, and this one is no exception.
From here this mail call becomes a bit anticlimactic…
November 4th: Kayla once sent me a letter that we thought got lost so she sent me a new one… Well, the “lost” letter arrived today.
November 5th: Logan got a postcard from his Papa Halvorson.
November 10th: And I got a postcard from a postcrosser in Russia.
With any luck the rest of November will have more happy mail in store for me (and the Loganator!), but I’m thankful for everything we’ve gotten all the same.
October 15th: My dad sent the Loganator a John Deere encyclopedia of sorts (and the little farmer has been having us read to him about tractors in lieu of reading him bedtime stories ever since, haha).
October 17th: Logan got a postcard next, but it was from his teacher ( ❤ ).
October 18th: Thanks to my mom, I also received books this month. I also got some reading material in the form of a letter from Jody.
October 18th: Pablo hooked me up with the last batch of Little Cards from the Other Worlds theme and the first letter from a new pen pal named Amber.
October 23rd: After a few days without any happy mail, a few postcards from Krista arrived.
October 24th: I got a letter from Sarah as well as her batch of Little Cards per the final theme, Tim Burton movies.
October 26th: Another letter from Jody arrived.
October 27th: Pablo had three postcards via postcrossing waiting for me.
October 28th: I got two more postcards from Krista, a thank you card from the hospital (lol), a letter from Kayla, and my latest stamp order– not a bad way to start the week, eh?
October 31st: October ended with a letter from Heng-Yu in my P.O. box.
I’m pleased to report that though there were a couple days following my surgery (on the 25th) I didn’t do much writing, I have since been staying on top of my reply pile which makes me happy. The surgery, by the way, went well and my recovery has been going pretty well, too– the worst is definitely behind me, thank goodness!
In other news, Logan made out pretty well for Halloween despite not trick-or-treating for very long. Looking forward to seeing how we’ll make out in the happy mail department in November! Cheers.
Hello and Happy Sweetest Day! I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to meet with me here as if we are having coffee. Thanks to fall harvest Gabe and I won’t be doing anything all that sweet until tomorrow, but the more the farm does now, the more likely I’ll have my husband back by this time next month, right? I’m still getting some Gabe-fixes in the meantime– just the other day I rode along with him while they harvested soy beans.
Following our time in the field we were off to the school for parent/teacher conferences where we, unsurprisingly, heard that Logan’s teacher has no concerns about his academic performance. Logan, by the way, still says that Ms. Rousseau is the nicest teacher he has ever met, though whenever I ask him what his favorite part about school was his answer is always recess and never about her class, haha.
Oh! Earlier this month Logan had yet another Spirit Week and also went to the Homecoming game with his grandparents. Though I don’t have any pictures from the latter, what I can show you is what Logan and Bridget wore in honor of Viking/ Green and White Day:
Like I told you the last time we “met for coffee,” when the boys aren’t around I have been doing transcription work, reading, and watching some TV. Though the Wizard of Oz novels I’ve been reading this month haven’t lived up to my expectations, most of the shows I’ve been waiting for all summer long have not had me waiting in vain. The shows I’m loving the most right now are Ink Master, Hell’s Kitchen, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, You, and Superstore.
The book You is based off, by the way, is next on my to-read list along with its sequel, Hidden Bodies. My mom just ordered them for me since we figure I’ll be lounging a lot following my cholecystectomy and tubal ligation this Thursday. If you’re the praying sort or will at least sent good vibes my way, I’d appreciate the well wishes. Sure, I’m excited now, but I’m sure as the 25th gets closer, the more nervous I will get.
With any luck, I’ll be better by the 31st since Halloween’s getting pretty close, too! Logan is planning to put his firefighter uniform to use again, both at his class party and via trick-or-treating. I’m not sure if we’ll do anything else in honor of the occasion (for the same reason we’re not really celebrating Sweetest Day today), but either way I think our Halloween will still be a pretty happy one. I’ll fill you in on that as well as my surgery when we meet for coffee next, okay? Okay!
Take care and enjoy the rest of your day!
Sincerely, Kate ~!~
October 1st: October started with the first of two letters from Jody.
October 5th: Thanks to Pablo, two more letters arrived along with a batch of Little Cards.
October 6th: Not only did I get a letter from Othella, I got a plush gallbladder to “replace” the one I’m getting removed soon. Meet Celeste!
October 9th: Last week started with the second letter from Jody.
October 13th: The Loganator received a postcard from his Papa Halvorson.
October 14th: And now thanks to Pablo, two more postcards arrived.
As you can imagine, I’m looking forward to seeing what else the mailboxes will have for me/us as the month progresses (and I’m looking forward to getting that pesky gallbladder out, too 😉 ). All the best!
Before I tell you what the mailboxes have had for me in October on the 15th, I have a bit of catching up to do as I haven’t “hailed the snail” since the middle of August. Without further ado…
August 15th: When Logan came home from his first day of second grade, he found a little box from his Papa Halvorson, the last part of our Target order, and a book via Kids Read Now. I, on the other hand, found a letter and a batch of Little Cards in my P.O. box.
August 18th: When I came home from an overnight trip with my mom, letters from Ashley and Kayla were waiting for me.
August 20th: Joining my reply pile was a letter from Allison.
August 22nd: Sarah sent a little note along with her Autumn batch of Little Cards.
August 23rd: While I got a letter from Jody, Logan got two more books via Kids Read Now and a postcard from my dad.
August 24th: A few more books arrived for the Loganator, this time from my mom.
August 25th: Today was the day I finally got the last of the Little Cards from JUNE.
August 30th: Speaking of finally, thanks to Jody I got my first letter in a week, and I also got something highly anticipated from my dad.
September 6th: Manolo hooked me and Logan up with some happy mail from Sarah, while Pablo hooked me up with four postcards and a batch of Little Cards.
September 9th: Another letter from Jody arrived.
September 10th: Logan got a postcard from his great Aunt Ruth, while, thanks to Ashley, I got an unbirthday card that Alice (not pictured) and the Mad Hatter signed at Disney World!
September 11th: Much like the last time I saw Pablo, I got a couple postcards and a batch of Little Cards.
September 15th: I got yet another letter from Jody, and Logan got the postcard Ashley sent him from Disney.
September 17th: I also got a Disney postcard from Ashley along with A) a postcard from India and B) the last of the Little Cards per August’s Autumn theme.
September 20th: Kayla’s letter arrived today.
September 21st: Othella’s letter arrived next along with my latest stamp order.
September 23rd: This was my first postcard (and happy mail in general) I received this fall:
September 25th: Logan got his first postcard of the season thanks to my dad.
September 27th: The month ended with Sarah’s letter for me and a Halloween costume for Bridget.
And that’s all, folks! Tune in on Monday to see what the month of October has started out with.
Thanks for meeting me as if we were having coffee– my apologies for needing a raincheck until now. Not only did Logan have minor (and successful!) dental surgery done the day we were supposed to meet, I had not one but two consultation appointments regarding my own upcoming surgery that week, too.
Allow me to elaborate. For over a year now there has been many a night where I’d get this horrible pain in my right side that would wake me up and then keep me up for several hours until it began to subside. When I went to the ER in August for what turned out to be a ruptured ovarian cyst, there were multiple tests done, and at my follow-up appointment I found out thanks to one of those tests I had gallstones. I have since been referred to a surgeon (consultation #1) who will in fact be removing my gallbladder, but she then referred me to a gynecologist (consultation #2). Why a gynecologist? Because of the recent ruptured cyst I mentioned, the surgeon thought it’d be in my best interest to get my ovaries and tubes checked out while they were exposed. But wait; there’s more! Between the gynecologist already being there and him being able to use the same incisions, I’ll be getting my tubes tied at the same time as it’s something I have wanted done for years now. This will all happen on October 25th.
But back to September! We had quite a few fun weekends starting with the Labor Day one. Certain traditions were continued like getting an elephant ear and winning a stuffed animal at the Michigan Bean Festival, and eating at Marilyn and Jennifer’s daily, hehe. The following weekend Logan and I went to my mom’s for the night before we saw his cousin Jack (who just turned 3!) but after we saw my grandpa (who also was a birthday boy). Then the weekend after that the boys and I went to the Firemen’s Memorial Festival in Roscommon. Logan said his favorite part was the swing ride, Gabe said the parade, and I liked all the vendors the best. Our weekends since then have not been as exciting, but they’ve still been good. Between Logan being in school and Gabe being busy with fall harvest, I’m grateful for whatever time with them I can get.
Pre-Parade Selfie
On the flip side of that, though, I’m also grateful to get a bunch of time home alone. I have been doing transcription work fairly regularly again and have time leftover to watch my shows that have been returning now that fall is here. Also, I have finished reading The Gallery of Unfinished Girls and the To All the Boys I Loved Before series since we last met for coffee.
I think that catches you up on last month– I’ll save talking about this month until we meet on the 20th. Cheers, bleaders!
I knew I didn’t post for kicks and giggles on the 5th, and then I knew my post on the 15th would be delayed because #lifehappens. What I didn’t realize, however, is that not only did I not post Hail the Snail #17 on Saturday, I never posted Hail the Snail #16 at the beginning of September either. My apologies for letting Sincerely Kate slide so much this month!
I won’t lie, though, it’s probably for the best. Though I wouldn’t say I have been stressing over finding time to write “Dear September” in time to post it this Thursday, it would certainly be one less thing to have to deal with on top of everything else that’s happening right now.
This all said, I’m going to take the rest of September off from blogging, and start fresh on October 1st, catching you up on what’s been going on (and what’s been in the mail, of course) my first few days back. I appreciate your patience!
The Card Catalog is a place here on Sincerely Kate where I take a once-a-month break from talking about pen pal related things and instead talk about another hobby of mine, making and sharing Artist Trading Cards– ATCs for short. If you’ve been following SK for a while, you know that the two breeds I specifically like talking about are Little Cards and Change Cards. To steal what I said last time, “Little Cards are the ATCs I swap based on monthly themes via a FB group I run; Change Cards are the ones I leave as random acts of kindness on behalf of ATC the Change.”
Speaking of last time, when I talked about these aforementioned kinds of ATCs, I did not have June or July’s Little Cards to share with you yet, so allow me to do so now!
JUNE
What was said about June’s theme, School Spirit, when it was first announced:
In a few weeks, my Little Viking will be all done with the first grade, and he’s hardly the only one either moving on to the next grade, if not graduating. It’s because it’s graduation season that I thought School Spirit would be a fun theme for this month. You could use the mascots from your school, do something with your school colors, etc., etc. It can be grade school or college; we’re not too concerned with those specifics!
Just three of us participated in this theme, and here are the three ATCs I personally acquired from this swap:
JULY
The following theme was Under the Sea, and this is what I had to say about it:
The theme the last couple Julys has been “Summer Blockbusters,” but with a nudge from Allegrae, I decided to borrow from another movie entirely, lol. For the record, if you choose to participate in this theme, you are not obligated to go The Little Mermaid route, but instead can create ATCs featuring whatever you may find under the sea like fish, coral, and even shipwrecks. The world is your oyster 😉
Six of us participated in July’s theme, and these six Little Cards joined my collection of ATCs:
AUGUST
I do not have my collection of Little Cards from this month’s Autumn theme yet, but something I can share with you is what I’ve done per ATC the Change this month!
I left a total of 14 ATCs since the last card catalog; over half of them were when Mother Dearest and I last went to Troy, MI. It was because of that trip of ours that I made a baker’s dozen of the things, including these Alice in Wonderland-friendly ATCs left when mom and I went to Mad Hatter Bistro:
Bonus: I had nothing to do with abandoning the ATC on the left someone found and then shared, but it was me who made it, hehe.
I’m not sure how many more Change Cards I’ll make between now and this time next month, but hopefully I’ll have plenty of opportunities to leave plenty more.
Again, if you have any suggestions for the Card Catalog between now and then, don’t hesitate to share them with me since I’m still trying to figure out the best way to combine these two endeavors of mine into one monthly post. Hope you enjoyed this one, by the way!
As I think about all of the things I have to share since the last time “we had coffee,” I’m reminded of a certain moment from Alice in Wonderland where the March Hare and Mad Hatter say the following to Alice:
So let’s pick up where we left off— my dad’s visit. Like many visits that came before this one, festivities included meals at Tony’s and Big Boy, some clothes shopping at JCPenney, and grabbing some Faygo beverages at the gas station with the best selection. On our last day together, dad and I also had a bit of a Mad Tea Party, putting to use the Egglettes we found and wearing these Wonderland-friendly hats:
The next day dad started his trek for Alberta, Canada, and soon after the boys and I started ours for the U.P.! We mainly went up north because Logan had his heart set on seeing waterfalls, and the Tahquamenon Falls wound up being everything he hoped they would be. Going to the Falls, though, was hardly the only thing we did that he/we loved! Other things that made our trip worthwhile include, in order, the Soo Locks Boat Tour, The Antlers restaurant, Lake Superior (or rather the tide pool beside it), pizza delivery, the hotel pool, mini golf, and Fort Mackinac. We had a great time up in the U.P., so much so it may become something we do annually with a few modifications such as fewer museums. Here are a few pictures in case they got too buried among all of our Facebook updates:
We weren’t home for long before Logan left on another trip– his grandparents wanted to take him camping one more time before he went back to school. It’s because of this camping trip he missed seeing a handful of people on my side of the family, but the silver lining is Gabe and I still got to! Gabe and my brother Doug kept each other incredibly entertained while I got a lot of one-on-one time with my brother Tom’s son, Jack, since I didn’t have to share him with Logan, hehe.
Oh! Something else happened while Logan was gone that was rather exciting. The lease for the Equinox we had was going to be up come November, so we went to the dealership in the hopes of there being something in our price range we could eventually buy. It turns out there was, and we actually wound up leaving with our new-to-us Silverado that very day. We couldn’t wait to pick Logan up because we knew he was going to be one ecstatic kid. We wound up going on not one, but two joy rides the afternoon we got him 😀
Naturally since life was going pretty damn well, we then had a few wrenches thrown at us. Gabe went to the ER on the 5th, and then I went on the 12th. The good news is Gabe was and is fine; he had heat exhaustion/ dehydration after being on a fire scene which, thankfully, is an easy fix. My worse-than-labor abdominal pain, on the other hand, was much more complicated. It took multiple tests and a consultation with an OB/GYN before they were able to determine I had a cyst on my ovary that had ruptured, causing fluid to go where it shouldn’t have been. Between the antibiotics I was given at the hospital and the prescription for pain pills I have, each day gets better than the last. I have a follow-up appointment this Wednesday (along with my annual exam) so we’ll see if any further treatment is needed then.
Anyway, it was this past Wednesday that the Loganator started second grade. So far Logan seems to really like it, and he has told me on more than one occasion that his teacher is the nicest one he has ever met. Hopefully they’ll continue to have a great year together! Since this is his first full week of school, my plans are to go back to transcribing files regularly again once we part ways here, and reading at least one chapter each day, too. For the record, my dent in The Gallery of Unfinished Girls remains rather small, but in my defense I took a break from it to devour Lies You Never Told Me by Jennifer Donaldson.
This brings us to this past weekend, but it wasn’t just any weekend because it was spent in Troy, MI with Mother Dearest! In the past we have just done our overnights there closer to my March 1st birthday, but since it’s something we enjoy doing so much, we decided not to limit ourselves to a once-a-year trip. At this point it goes without saying stops at Mad Hatter Bistro (times two) and Build-a-Bear Workshop are musts for me, and they’ll continue to be. I enjoyed all of my food at Mad Hatter’s as much as Bridget enjoys her new stuffy and bunny slippers, as shown below, hehe:
Other stops we made included Barnes and Noble, the fabric store mom loved last time, and our first-ever visit to a Books-a-Million. I found some Alice in Wonderland merchandise at the latter, so that was like a chocolate-covered cherry on a sundae of a trip, hehe.
Just like with Alice after her adventures, it’s now time for me to return to reality. Hope the rest of August treats you well, and that you’ll meet with me here again next month. Cheers!
Bonus: I had nothing to do with abandoning the ATC on the left someone found and then shared, but it was me who made it, hehe.
Sincerely Kate 