Piles

This is my pile of unanswered mail.

I sat down today to take stock of the situation and determined that I have failed to respond to 49 people.

FORTY NINE!

Sheesh.

What's with me?

Do you recognize anything you send me in that pile?

You have not been forgotten.

I'm going to write back to you today.

The thing is, before I can sit down to tackle that pile, I feel compelled to tackle this pile:

 Those two baskets are where I put all the little paper bits I collect during the week, and half-finished projects, and all the papers my lovely mail art friends send me.

As you can see, it's out of control, and I can no longer even see what's in there, let alone use it in my art. And it's so big I can hardly walk around the art table.

So before I answer my mail, I'm going to sort it into categories and file it.

So that's done, and the sun is a lot lower in the sky, but

NOW I can sit back and tackle the correspondence.

Except I notice the yellow collage postcard from Angie on the top of the pile, which reminds me I haven't completed my own yellow collage for that same swap, and it needs to be out in the mail early next week.  So instead of working on your postcard, I'm going to start scavenging for all sorts of yellow things and put them in a pile.

  See that nice amber beer in the background?  While I was scavenging, the sun went over the yardarm and I decided this cold dark night called for a glass of stout. Down to the garage beer fridge I go, but when I get there I notice the bottle of hefeweizen with the nice yellow label, and HEY, I'm working on a yellow collage, I should pour the beer in a glass and soak the bottle in the sink so I can pull off the label for my postcard.

(there goes another 20 minutes of not writing to you)

Meanwhile I'm still digging through my boxes of ephemera for yellow, and it reminds me of the "big fat ephemera swap" I signed up for.  I only have ten more days to pull that package together.  I'd better start now.

Another pile is born:

This particular ephemera hunt leads me to the basement, where I see my newly acquired sewing machine (inherited for FREE and picked up earlier today).

A glorious Singer from the 50's in excellent working order.

I should try it out.

Only I can't for the life of me figure out how to wind the bobbin, so I spend a good hour reading the manual, searching for thread, figuring out the machine, and finally testing it.

Success!

I rather like the pieces of paper I stitched together - I think I will make a collage out of them.  Right now.

On my way back up to the studio, I pass my other newly acquired free antique:

this old royal typewriter.

My mom scored it for me right before Christmas and I haven't been able to use it because the ribbon had gotten all wonky in transport.  I decide there is no time like the present, and I sit down to fix it.  Only I can't figure it out, so I'm searching you tube videos for tips on changing the ribbon in a Royal typewriter.  Another half hour slips by, but I've finally got it working.

I look back around the house at the trail of piles I've made and feel like I'm living in the book "If you give a mouse a cookie"

(which gives me an idea....)

I hammer out a few words of text on the Royal and add them to my stitched paper:

One postcard down, forty eight to go.